1960

February 13
France explodes its first atomic bomb in the Sahara desert. It has a yield of 60-70 kilotons.

May 3
Mass protest against the civil defense drill Operation Alert takes place in City Hall Park of New York city.

June
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pledges support for "wars of national liberation" in an address to the United Nations.

October 5
A radar malfunction causes the central war room of NORAD to receive a top priority warning from the Thule, Greenland Ballistic Missile Early Warning System station, indicating a massive missile attack has been launched against North America.

December
The Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff complete SIOP 62. This war plan calls for the launch of more than 3,000 nuclear weapons--including hundreds of hydrogen bombs--to attack in the first few hours of conflict 1,000 separate targets in the Communist bloc.