Ian Bell delivers a timely reminder of the absurdity of reliance on nuclear weapons for the defence of the realm (Welcome to the weird world of Dr Strangelove: where pushing the button is a badge of honour, Comment, October 4). The release of Kubrick's film, a masterpiece of satire, came a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which brought the world to the verge of a nuclear war, and as Ian Bell suggests, "you had to be around to remember the fear".

At the time, I was a 13-year-old Fife schoolgirl with an interest in ballet dancing and the new American "pop" music, only occasionally worried about getting the Latin homework in on time. After assembly one day, the girls in my class were given a talk by a smartly uniformed lady who was a member of the Women's Royal Voluntary Service. She proceeded in a calm, serious, matter-of-fact manner to explain how best to prepare and protect "the home" in the event of a nuclear strike. Then we returned to our classrooms and the school day continued as if nothing had happened. No other adults spoke to us about it, knowing their own impotence.

The brave survivors of the Second world War could not explain to their children why they had allowed such collective insanity to prevail.

Future generations must not be condemned to continue this life in the shadow of the bomb.

Joan S Laverie

Edinburgh

Ian Bell’s prescient column, asking whose finger would push the Trident button, does indeed "make for a sombre moment", as according to US Defence Nuclear Agency calculations, the detonation of one Trident warhead on Moscow would result in the deaths of 153,000 innocent civilians within 12 weeks of detonation. Each Trident submarine carries 48 warheads, the deployment of which would result in the deaths of three million people, 750,000 of whom would be children.

However, the effects of the explosion would go beyond the immediate human casualties. Past experience shows that schools, hospitals and churches would all be destroyed, and according to US General Butler would “render Moscow uninhabitable for generations.”

The overall effect of the total destruction of property, physical injuries, radiation exposure and psychological damage are beyond comprehension. To those politicians who agree that we spend £100bn on Trident renewal, I ask this simple question.

Which city or country would be your party’s likeliest or preferred target?

David McCann

Alloa