"Better Dead Than Red!"

People in my generation, the postwar Baby Boomers, remember the duck and cover drills in school, the scare talk: the Russians were coming, and if they couldn't take us peacefully by infiltration and stealth they'd drop bombs on us. Yow. As one person put it, "It wasn't if they were going to drop The Bomb on us, it was when." Yeah, like ducking under our desks and covering our heads with our hands would protect us from a thermonuclear device. Better to just bend over and kiss our butts goodbye.

I remember the Cold War, the Red scares, the paranoia...it was a great time to be alive! Well, it was when you read this fun book, "BETTER DEAD THAN RED!" which recalls that era. !

This is an excerpt, 22 pages from the book. If you get a chance to get this book go for it; it's full of pop culture references and the pathological fear of Communism that infused the 1950s.

Here's a great piece of Cold War propaganda from the original Hairy Green Eyeball blog.

"BETTER DEAD THAN RED!" By Michael Barson. Hyperion, Publisher.

Copyright © 1992 Michael Barson