[CaptainCrunch]

Too be very honest the protestors had a small effect on any kind of military/governmental decision in the U.S's dealings with the Soviet Union. It did have a large effect on Vietnam, and later on dis-echanted citizen's in the Soviet Union caused the eventual withdrawl of troops in Afganistan. However and not to belittle the peace movement, but the media had a much larger effect since the parents of solidiers suddenly saw that thier children were in real danger, and war was no longer a glorious thing like it was during the first two World Wars.

After looking at some older papers, there were only three real dangerous periods where nuclear exchanges could come to bear.

The Cuban Missile Crisis - a extremely close situation, but in the end it was badly handled by the Kennedy's who gave the Politburo no room to save face and probably pushed Detente back by 30 years and lead to the eventual ascension of Yuri Antropov to the position of Politburo Chairman. A fact that just came to bear about 10 years ago was the fact that there were three Soviet Subs in Cuban Waters carrying Nuclear Tipped torpedo's designed to be used against American Carriers. The Commanders on the scene had actual asked the Politburo for position to fire on the American's, and due to a communication failure never received a response.

The Korean War - when the North Korean's saw early success in the war and threatened to push the UN forces into the ocean, the American Military approached the President with a request to use nuclear submunitions on North Korean armoured formations, bridges, and major road ways. Fortunately the plan for an amphibious assault was approved instead

The Korean War - When China became involved, it was deemed as a good opportunity to take care of the bigger threat of China and thier military. The American's felt that they couldn't beat the numerically superior Chinese and again wanted to Nuke ammunition dumps and staging areas, and threated Chinese cities.

The Soviets were an interesting question as far as even looking at a first strike concept. Due to massive losses in the Second World War, the first World War and the Napoleanic invasions, the Soviets had, and Russians still have an extreme paranoi about losing thier home lands and thier civilians to an aggressive invader to the West.

Its also noted that the Russians were terrified of Ronald Reagan and through that he was planning a first strike against him. the KGB was actively investigating this possibility when the first cracks appeared in the Soviet Union.

20th century history is interesting stuff, its probably the last time that we're ever going to see a world dominated by two Super Powers who were willing to manipulate thier client countries to gain advantage over thier enemies.