Well, I lived through that time to. And there was much about not just civilization, but all of humanity, being extinguished (eg, the novels On the Beach and Level 7). However, though I recall as a teenager thinking that nuclear war was quite likely, and that it would be catastrophic, I did not think (like many did/do) that every last human would die in a nuclear war. That was too obviously contrary to physical intuition.
So, there was a lot of `extinguish all civilization’ narrative. But nevertheless, I don’t think it was the official line—that was about retaliating by nuking all the Russian military installations. And I think it’s quite believable that that really was the policy. If US bases and/or cities have been nuked, it makes sense to try to make sure the Russians don’t follow up with an occupying army. It doesn’t make sense to also try to kill vast numbers of Russian civilians (though many would die anyway, of course).
Well, I lived through that time to. And there was much about not just civilization, but all of humanity, being extinguished (eg, the novels On the Beach and Level 7). However, though I recall as a teenager thinking that nuclear war was quite likely, and that it would be catastrophic, I did not think (like many did/do) that every last human would die in a nuclear war. That was too obviously contrary to physical intuition.
So, there was a lot of `extinguish all civilization’ narrative. But nevertheless, I don’t think it was the official line—that was about retaliating by nuking all the Russian military installations. And I think it’s quite believable that that really was the policy. If US bases and/or cities have been nuked, it makes sense to try to make sure the Russians don’t follow up with an occupying army. It doesn’t make sense to also try to kill vast numbers of Russian civilians (though many would die anyway, of course).