As a child in elementary school in the fifties, the air raid drills made a very deep impression on me.  Some of my parents' friends had bomb shelters stocked with provisions in case the USSR attacked our country.  In conjunction with this, I remember hearing discussed the ultimate and well-publicized goal of the USSR: to destroy the fabric of our democracy from within.  That bombs would fall was uncertain, but that our country was under threat of a takeover by the Soviets was a fact.  Nothing's changed!