Crisis averted

People went about their lives - watching football, attending school, going to dances - as the United States approached war 40 years ago.

By JON WILSON, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 13, 2002

ST. PETERSBURG -- When the world lurched toward nuclear war 40 years ago, residents bought guns and cleared supermarket shelves to get ready for whatever the missile crisis in Cuba might offer.

One man even walked into a St. Petersburg sporting goods store and asked to buy a portable atomic bomb.

As catastrophe loomed, others went about routine October life, making preparations for Halloween and, as usual, becoming absorbed in football. Thousands packed Stewart Field at St. Petersburg High School to watch a game between two of the top prep teams in Florida.

But the military was on its highest alert ever.

"We knew we were just inches away from a thermonuclear war, and we were ready for it," said Robert S. Sumner, a retired Army colonel who was an assistant intelligence officer stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa in 1962.

On Tuesday, Sumner and three other former intelligence officers will visit the Florida International Museum, where a panel discussion will mark the 40th anniversary of the missile crisis.

Other panelists are John Guenther, a retired Marine officer who was a second lieutenant at Guantanamo Bay during the crisis; Dick Sherwood, a retired Army officer who was stationed with an airborne outfit at Fort Bragg, N.C.; and Antonio Suarez, a Cuban civilian who was a supervisor with the Cuban Treasury Department.

In mid-October 1962, aerial photos showed Soviet missile sites being built in Cuba. The revelation began a nerve-lashing two weeks that stamped lasting memories.

On Oct. 22, President Kennedy came on television to say he would use the Navy to blockade Cuba. A U.S. fleet would stop Russian ships en route, he said. Shoppers, most of them downtown at Central Plaza or along 22nd Street S, heard the president demand that Cuba take out all missile sites.

On Oct. 25, Adlai Stevenson, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, challenged the Soviet foreign minister to deny that his country had sent missiles.

In what became the veteran statesman's most famous comment, Stevenson said: "I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over."

Years later, people recall where they were during those few days of tension.

Kathy Oathout, director of the Florida International Museum, was a high school junior in Port Jervis, N.Y.

"I remember waiting on the school bus and wondering if there was a nuclear bomb hitting New York City, and would it reach our little city (80) miles away. I just remember being very nervous," Oathout said.

In St. Petersburg, Shore Acres and Snell Isle residents had front-row seats to watch fighters, bombers and reconnaissance planes streaming in and out of MacDill. An occasional sonic boom rattled windows -- and sometimes a few nerves. A newspaper photo showed Euclid Elementary School students in a duck-and-cover drill.

Pinellas County had about 62,000 students in school. Few stayed home throughout the crisis, school officials reported, although Shorecrest Day School let its students go early on the day U.S. ships were to intercept Soviet vessels.

Public school officials instructed parents to to tell their children a route to walk home in case school buses couldn't be used and to provide an "alternative adult to look to your child's safety in the event you are not available."

Highly visible convoys trucked troops and supplies into Florida. Military officials said little about the buildup, but it was plain to see what was happening.

"We brought armored divisions and infantry divisions into Florida. It was a wonder this peninsula did not sink," said Sumner, who lives in the same Tampa house he and his family lived in 1962.

"MacDill was crowded up to the fence line, with tents everywhere. There were fighter bombers on the taxiway ready to go, engines idling and somebody in the driver's seat." The worldwide tension sometimes passed over high school students, who often had other things on their minds.

"I don't remember being scared for a second," said Bill Powell, a senior at Dixie Hollins High School at the time.

He said he was more concerned about getting his car ready for a weekend date.

Powell's school played St. Petersburg High School in a Friday night football game that drew an estimated 7,500 people to Stewart Field. Both schools boasted state rankings, and sports pages had hyped the game all week.

Grid fever gripped adults, too. Dozens of prominent St. Petersburg men planned to make the Quarterback Club's annual football trip. They would take the train to New Haven, Conn., and New York City -- a likely target if war broke out -- to see the Yale-Colgate college game on Saturday and the Giants-Redskins NFL game on Sunday.

And a weekend charity dance at the St. Petersburg Coliseum was going on, regardless. It already had sold out.

"I hardly think ticket purchasers will sit home," the dance's spokeswoman told a newspaper.

In case of trouble, several St. Petersburg buildings were designated as shelters. Among them were the St. Petersburg Times buildings, the YMCA, Webb's City, the Vinoy and the Maas Brothers department store, which now houses the Florida International Museum.

An air raid siren atop the First Federal Savings and Loan Building, now the city Municipal Services Building, would curtail weekly tests, county civil defense officials said.

But they did say a three-minute warbling tone, or a series of short blasts, would convey an important message:

Take cover.

If you go

The discussion starts at 11 a.m. at the Florida International Museum, 100 Second St. N. Admission is $12 for adults, $11 for college students and people 65 and older, $6 for other students and free for children younger than 6.

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