The Cold War, By Someone Lived Through It

My first memory of the Cold War was back in 1957 when watching  the CBS Evening News With Douglas Edwards on our new B&W television with its rather blurred image.
The scene was in Moscow, where Soviet missile launchers were parading all around Red Square to to the applause and cheers of thousands of Muscovites,
"Are we going to war?" I turned to my Daddy, a proud veteran of World War II and its Pacific Theater, and demanded,
"Don't you just worry about it, boy," he replied. "We whipped the Germans, we whipped the Japanese and if we have to, we'll whip the Russians."
Now, jump forward to 1969, when I was sitting in Mr. Page's 12th Grade Problems of Democracy class.
In it, he taught me  that a Communist cannot be trusted, and that from the time that they enter school, they are indoctrinated with Atheism and the belief that Communism will eventually take total control of this planet.
He lectured us that when Stalin invaded Eastern Europe, the first thing that the Red Army did was to round up all the national leaders, provincial governors, mayors and police chiefs, and shoot them in the backs of their heads. Everyone else of importance was promptly thrown into prison. 
One account that Mr. Page often told me how the Communists deceived young school children into believing that God does not exist.  
As I understood it, the children were instructed to bow down their heads on their desks, close their eyes and pray to God as hard as they possibly could for candy.  After a time, the children were told to raise their heads and they found no candy. “You see,” the teacher chastised them. “God does not exist.”
She again told them to bow their heads down on their desks, close their eyes and pray to “Papa Joe” (Stalin) as hard as they possibly could for the same candy.  After a moment, the children were told “to again raise their heads and they found a modest measure of candy. “You see,” the teacher encouraged them. “Papa Joe himself does exist and he looks after each of you.”
He also lectured us that during the Purges of the 1930's, that “Papa Joe” murdered 30,000,000 of his own people, followers of his former political opponent, Leon Trotsky, Soviet citizens who refused allegiance to him.  As for Trotsky himself, Mr. Page reported that KGB agents were dispatched by Stalin to murder him as he fled across the globe in terror. 
Stalin’s men finally caught up with Trotsky in 1940, outside the gates of the American Embassy in Mexico City. United States Marines watched indifferently as he begged for mercy while KGB agents repeatedly stabbed him to death.
During the Vietnam Era, he made no pretense of the fact that he was a staunch conservative and was fully supportive to the bravery and courage of our fighting men. Regarding the many collegiate, antiwar protestors dominating our television screens, he often said, “When one of my children goes off to college and I see her on TV carrying a war protest sign, then she will be coming back home quicker than she left.
Mr. Page lived twenty-one years past the eventual collapse of Communism. In our Problems of Democracy class, he often insisted that once a country fell under Communist domination, it could never come back out.  With all of Europe free, he later happily told me that he had been in error.
In retrospective, I am must state that Mr. Page did his own part in winning the Cold War by teaching his students about the evils of Communism.
Therefore, the author wishes to respectfully dedicate this publication to his friend, Masonic brother and political mentor, the late Mr. B(edford) J(ackson) Page of Caswell County, NC.
As said in a previous publication, it was he who taught me what it meant to be an American.

The introductory media, “Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech,” is courtesy of the National Archives and Research Administration.
The video, Announcing The Killing Of Osama Bin Laden is courtesy of CBS News.
Some photographs are courtesy of the National Archives and Research Administration, others are courtesy of. Yahoo. 
All were reproduced with their kind permission for inclusion in this publication.