Quote:
Originally Posted by John Farson
To be sure, even a US where someone in the line of succession became president after the nuclear strike and the government and military remained united would not be "almost untouched".
There's an excellent timeline at the alternatehistory.com site called " The Cuban Missile War Timeline" where, as the name implies, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 goes nuclear. To make a long story short, the US utterly curb-stomps the Soviets due to the vast disparity in the number of nuclear weapons between the two. Even so, the US also suffers heavy losses, as well as disruption in communications and transportation, with mass rioting and unrest that is only quelled with martial law and thousands being summarily shot. |
Given that the Civil Rights Movement was really starting to gear up to take on the South at that time, I can only imagine. If ever the states were able to stand up to the federal government (since the first Civil War), I suppose the wake of a nuclear attack would be a golden opportunity.
I shudder to think what the country would look like now, socially, politically, and economically, if that had actually happened. The level of social unrest and repression would likely be shocking.