The inevitable Soviet retaliation would hurt, but it wouldn't wreck the country. We hadn't even begun to seriously research nuclear winter at that point, so we

The inevitable Soviet retaliation would hurt, but it wouldn't wreck the country. We hadn't even begun to seriously research nuclear winter at that point, so we assumed we'd just wait for the fallout to clear and pick up the pieces. Recent research suggests that even a limited nuclear conflict would lead to a multi-year famine caused by ice-age temperatures and ozone depletion.