What was the scariest part of the Cold War?

The scariest part of the Cold War for most people was the constant threat of nuclear annihilation and the fact that the world could be destroyed in under an hour, a fear that reached its peak during several near-miss moments. The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 is often cited as the single most terrifying moment, when the US and Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war for 13 days after Soviet missiles were discovered in Cuba, with President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev exchanging tense letters while the world held its breath, and many families built fallout shelters. Other scary aspects included the nuclear arms race that created over 60,000 nuclear warheads by the 1980s, enough to destroy civilization many times over, and the development of hydrogen bombs that were 1000 times more powerful than Hiroshima. The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction meant any war would kill hundreds of millions. Everyday life was marked by duck and cover drills in schools, emergency broadcast tests, and propaganda about surviving nuclear attack. The scariest part was also the paranoia and secrecy, with events like Able Archer 83 in 1983 where NATO exercises were mistaken by Soviets as real attack preparations, and the 1983 Soviet false alarm when Stanislav Petrov correctly ignored a computer warning of US missiles, literally preventing nuclear war by one person's judgment. Living with invisible, instant death was psychologically terrifying.