I also watched the Cold War series on BBC and found out something very scary.

In the 60s, I think it was after the Cuba crisis, US was prepared, and were minutes away from doing so, to launch a pre-emptive strike on the Soviet Union from bases here in England. They never informed the UK government and we had no control over their bases here. It worked out that we would be wiped out but the US would come out winners with hardly any damage.

Nice allies