As an American born in the 1950s, I remember a "fear of the bomb" in the **early** stages of the Cold War. 

This was perhaps less immediately after World War II (1945-1950), and escalated during the 1950s after the [McCarthy "anti Communism" hearings,][1] and particularly after [Sputnik][2] in 1957, when the Soviet Union briefly moved head of the U.S. in space exploration. 

The purpose of the Nixon-Brezhnev detente of the 1970s was to diffuse this tension, but in the 1980s, President Reagan reversed this policy with ["Strategic Defense Initiative][3] "star wars," to try to "outbuild" the Soviet nuclear program into the ground. It was so successful that it brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union itself, not just its nuclear program.

[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
[2]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1
[3]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative