In April 1961, the philosopher Bertrand Russell told a meeting of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament that if the great powers did not change their policies, “it is in the highest degree improbable that any of you here present will be alive 10 years hence”.

At the same meeting, Russell quoted an article by C.P. Snow in which the writer and scientist was similarly gloomy about humankind seeing out the decade: “Within at the most 10 years, some of these bombs are going off. I am saying this as responsibly as I can. That is a certainty.”