By 1960, the uk and France had nuclear weapons and china was developing its own.American schools regularly had ‘duck-and-cover‘ rehearsals too.
The USA had more nuclear capacities than the USSR in 1960except for medium range ballistic missiles.
Soviet tsar bomb a detonated in 1961: 100x more powerful than the japenese bomb, weighed 27 tons and created a fireball five meters in diameter
State of arms race at this point? (2)
The USA had bases with nuclear weapons in the uk (1958) and Italy and turkey (1961) which could have been used to fire nuclear weapons at soviet cities
The USA had2,260 long-range bombers able to carry nuclear weapons. Whilst the USSR did have 1,600 long-range nuclear bombers, a lack bases close to the usa was a distinct problem.
pin 1957, soviet scientists launched sputnik 1, the world‘s first man-made satellite. By 1960, soviets had also landed a robotic spacecraft on the moon
