was the cold war as commonly portrayed basically over by 1963?

[freepcrusher]

I was talking with someone who's about 55 and says they never remember any of the "duck and cover" type bomb drills and hysterical videos (in reefer madness form) talking about the communists.

Although the soviets still existed in the 70s and we weren't exactly allies, the threat of nuclear annihilation was not really a threat and after the cuban missile crisis, seemed to take a back burner to other issues (vietnam, civil rights, crime control).

[Meursault]

Hell, it was done by 1961.

[dead0man]

I'm 41 and while I don't remember any silly anti-Commie videos, I certainly remember "duck and cover" drills.

[politicus]

1983 is the second most critical point in the Cold War in terms of being on the brink of a nuclear war, so no.

[Middle-aged Europe]

There were in essence two Cold Wars.

The first one lasted from 1947 to 1962. The second one from 1979 to 1985.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

No.

[TNF]

There were in essence two Cold Wars.

The first one lasted from 1947 to 1962. The second one from 1979 to 1985.

[TDAS04]

Nope.

[PiMp DaDdy FitzGerald]

While the cold war wasn't over, it did switch from a "battle of hearts and minds" into a more traditional great power conflict in the 60s. This did ironically happen when the Soviets discredited themselves with Prague and we lost much of our WWII goodwill in Vietnam.

[muon2]

I'm not sure where the 55 yo in the OP was going to school but I'm 56 and had Civil Defense drills through the mid to late 60's. After the late 60's they morphed into tornado drills but otherwise stayed much the same. Vietnam was very much viewed through the lens of the Cold War right up until its end in the 70's. It was always portrayed as an extension of the conflict against communism. There was some let up in the late 70's between the fall of Saigon and the outbreak of conflicts in 1979 (the year of deposed dictators). From '79 the Cold War was still on until the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

When I was going to school in the 70s, the only reminder of the Cold War I encountered was that the basement of my middle school was a designated fallout shelter.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There were in essence two Cold Wars.

The first one lasted from 1947 to 1962. The second one from 1979 to 1985.

So then US involvement in Vietnam wasn't part of the Cold War?

[Stranger in a strange land]

While Anti-Communist Hysteria in the U.S. abated considerably after the early 1960s, the World remained very much divided into two clearly-defined armed camps, and the Cold War didn't end in any sense until 1989.