Growing up in the Cold War, I never had to wonder who the enemy was. The Russians were coming, and we were scurrying under our wooden school desks during weekly duck-and-cover drills. Today, watching an American president court Vladimir Putin while our old allies wonder where they stand, I find myself missing the certainty, if not the air-raid drills.
In 1962, at least we knew whose face belonged on a Halloween mask.
That Halloween my mother sent her seven-year-old daughter out trick-or-treating as the despised Premier of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. My ten-year-old brother went as Cuba’s Fidel Castro.
It was three days after the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which had brought the world to the brink of nuclear destruction. Somehow my parents thought it a hoot to masquerade their children as the culprits of that catastrophe.
Nothing says funny like a pair of ruthless dictators.
From afternoon to evening on October 31, the concrete sidewalks of the newly built developments in my Long Island suburban neighborhood were as congested as rush-hour traffic. They morphed into a magical world of make-believe filled with devils, gypsies, and Indian chiefs marching en masse in pursuit of Milky Way dreams.
For most kids, when it came to Halloween costumes, the wizardry of Woolworth’s was unsurpassed. “Only a broomstick ride away,” the colorful five-and-dime store ads beckoned, and for a few dollars an ordinary suburban kid could easily be transformed into a black cat, a scary witch, or Bugs Bunny, with the help of some plastic and polyester courtesy of Ben Cooper, the king of costumes.
For Halloween 1962, however, my parents took our getups into their own hands. There would be no glittering fairy princess with a magic wand for me. No ghosts or goblins for my brother.
No, my parents had something more ghoulish in mind.
What better way to keep a Cold War chill in the air than to dress my brother and me as those two lovable Communist cut-ups? With the promise that these two true-to-life masks would elicit plenty of Cold War chuckles, my brother Andy and I agreed.
As the eldest, my brother had first dibs on choosing masks, and he immediately claimed the swashbuckling, bearded Castro as his own. Because the charismatic Cuban was always dressed in army fatigues, my brother’s choice entitled him to wear my father’s mothball-scented WWII army uniform and a White Owl cigar clenched between his teeth.
Though I was disappointed to be relegated to the balding, wrinkled Khrushchev, my parents gave me free rein in how to accessorize the pudgy Soviet premier. Best known for his off-the-rack suits, he was getting a new look. I decided to opt for the Cold War cowboy. Because I was still deep in my “gunslinger stage,” picking my official “Have Gun Will Travel” togs was an obvious choice. Strapping on the leatherette holster set with two cap guns was the final touch. Khrushchev wasn’t coy about his ample arsenal of ammunition, nor was I.
After a hurried dinner, I was raring to go trick-or-treating, so I quickly grabbed my paper shopping bag, not forgetting my UNICEF box. For one day of the year, schoolkids across the country could proudly show their latent philanthropic side. Carrying boxes lovingly handmade from wax milk cartons decorated with orange construction paper, we were pint-sized, door-to-door UN ambassadors, proudly shouting in unison, “Trick or Treat for UNICEF!”
With my brother illuminating the way with his plastic jack-o’-lantern, cleverly lit by an Eveready flashlight, we stepped out into the chilly fall night. Up and down the block, as far as the eye could see, the narrow sidewalks were filled with a spooky mass of taffeta, rayon, vinyl, and cheap flammable plastic. Most glowed eerily with “glitter glo,” the blue glitter glued to the front of the costumes to reflect the headlights of passing cars.
Excitedly, we joined the mass of cowboys and clowns, robots and princesses in all shapes and sizes, all of whom were far outnumbered by the ragged packs of hoboes. In the midst of postwar plenty, suburban kids delighted in dressing up as Depression-era tramps—those tragic transients who had fallen from the once-upon-a-time security of the middle class.
Vintage mask Ben Cooper
Even without a Ben Cooper-certified hobo costume, the look of a downtrodden vagabond was easily and authentically achieved simply by raiding fathers’ closets for oversized clothes, smudging dirt on Ivory-fresh faces, and carrying a handkerchief tied around the end of a stick.
In the midst of postwar plenty, suburban kids delighted in dressing up as Depression-era tramps—those tragic transients who had fallen from the once-upon-a-time security of the middle class. That children but one generation removed could now transform these icons of 1930s economic disaster into lovable begging imps was quite the trick.
The neighborhood homes were all lit up in anticipation of the crowds descending on their stoops, a single carved pumpkin the only holiday decoration save for a stray skeleton Scotch-taped to the front aluminum door. Holiday decorations were still best left to school bulletin boards.
At every house, suburban moms with Jackie Kennedy bouffants greeted my brother and me with bemused smiles. In this mid-century mélange, we were the only Cold Warriors in sight. After a long parade of repetitious, predictable princesses, witches, and creepy skeletons, a pair of suburban socialists begging for money for the UN caused gales of laughter.
As the housewives opened their front doors, wiping hands still damp from the dinner dishes on their flowery aprons, they tossed in fistfuls of Mary Janes and Tootsie Rolls.
Even unfamiliar, normally unfriendly neighbors winked at my brother and me, making sure to add a few extra shiny pennies for UNICEF. The more we drew laughter—me in my gun-slingin’ black-hatted Khrushchev disguise and my brother camouflaged as a cigar-chompin’, khaki Communist—the heavier my UNICEF box seemed to grow.
In this night of make-believe, I could almost believe in the UN’s hope for friendly relations with all nations. For a few hours on that frosty night in 1962, my brother and I were doing our part in defrosting the Cold War.
Post script
Sally Edelstein and a friend wearing the Khrushchev and Castro masks around 1969, about seven years after the Halloween described
