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One Nation Under Ground Civil Defense in the U.S.

One Nation Under Ground Civil Defense in the U.S. Meet Bert the Turtle from a 1950 civil defense film. Civil Defense in the Atomic Age. Merging of Cold War military ethics with the cult of domesticity. Allows us to see larger currents of American history

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One Nation Under Ground Civil Defense in the U.S.

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  1. One Nation Under GroundCivil Defense in the U.S. Meet Bert the Turtle from a 1950 civil defense film lecture 20/21 - 2005

  2. Civil Defense in the Atomic Age • Merging of Cold War military ethics with the cult of domesticity. • Allows us to see larger currents of American history • Ex: should the gov’t encourage public shelters (“communistic”) or private ones (American- style)? • What was the proper amount of militarization of civilian society? • Consider this all in light of gov’t response to 9/11 lecture 20/21 - 2005

  3. Civil Defense Institutionalized • Prior to 1950 – little attention to civil defense. This changed with Joe-1 and Korea. • January 1951 – Truman creates the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA). • Motto: “Survive, Recover, and Win” • Role: Education and training; raise America’s “bomb consciousness” with practical matters of implementation left to state and city level (shades of 9/11?) lecture 20/21 - 2005

  4. Question of civil defense touched on many other issues in American history • Civilian vs. military control and creation of a garrison state. • The proper role of government and citizen entitlements. Whose responsibility was civil defense? • Active (bomb, missiles = male) vs. passive (comfort, aid = female) • Civil defense should reflect the “American Way of Life” lecture 20/21 - 2005

  5. Civil defense debate, in other words, reflected larger political agenda and issues of the day. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  6. Preaching the Gospel of ‘Self-Help • Cold War militarization turned into individual citizen’s responsibility. • Sec. of Def. Robert McNamara (1961) • “…certainly the Federal Government, the State, and the local governments all have parts to play, but most importantly, it’s the responsibility of each individual to prepare himself and his family for that [thermonuclear] strike.” lecture 20/21 - 2005

  7. Why “self-help”? • FCDA had a limited vision of the assistance it would provide to citizens and for how long. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  8. One citizen’s indignant response to DIY: • The legislators “have passed the buck to the individual citizen. They have in effect said: every American family for itself and the devil take the hindmost.” lecture 20/21 - 2005

  9. “A is for Atom, B is for Bomb” – School Children and Civil Defense • Civil defense as antidote to atomic panic and anxiety. • Panic was a major concern; press mentioned ‘panic’ 13 times more in 1953 than in 1948. • Educational material sanitized – words like “atomic warfare” replaced by “major emergency”. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  10. Two major efforts aimed at kids • Air raid drills • Identification efforts. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  11. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  12. Duck and cover drill; 1951 lecture 20/21 - 2005

  13. Changes to School Architecture • “Double duty” philosophy as administrators justified changes in school design to reasons not associated with civil defense. • Ex: The “Wall of Light” design done away with...fewer windows better for AV purposes and also was safer. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  14. Domesticating the Bomb • Civil defense integrated into safety education and home economics classes. Attempts to “tame” the Bomb and make the unthinkable ordinary. • Ex: decorating and stocking a shelter • Spokeswoman for National Education Association: “…[nuclear] attack as another potential hazard of modern living” • Air raid drills compared to fire drills lecture 20/21 - 2005

  15. Educating the Public • Selling civil defense one of FCDA’s major tasks. • Enlists the help of Madison Avenue advertising experts. • Stressed idea that civil defense was a moral defense; self-help praised and dependency stigmatized. • These efforts also tended to put a happy face on the Bomb lecture 20/21 - 2005

  16. 1951 pamphlet “Survival Under Atomic Attack” • “Atom splitting is just another way of causing an explosion” • “Should you happen to be one of the unlucky people right under the bomb, there is practically no hope of living through it…Beyond 2 miles, the explosion will cause practically no death at all.” lecture 20/21 - 2005

  17. “Facts About Fallout” – a government publication from 1955. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  18. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  19. Civil Defense as Representative of American Culture • “4 Wheels to Survival” lecture 20/21 - 2005

  20. Alerting the Public • Creation of a civil defense infrastructure • Air raid sirens, interstate highway system • CONELRAD – National alerting system establish by Truman in 1951 lecture 20/21 - 2005

  21. The Iconography of Civil Defense lecture 20/21 - 2005

  22. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  23. Civil Defense Barbie and Ken?? lecture 20/21 - 2005

  24. Civil Defense eye candy… lecture 20/21 - 2005

  25. Civil Defense…real candy. 700 calories a day…yum. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  26. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  27. And…of course, the inevitable pit toilet. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  28. Civil Defense: Class and Race • Self-help and privatization of shelter was predicated on suburbanization and home/car ownership. • What about the rest of us? • Labor – how would industrial production be organized after an atomic war? Workers’ rights? • Policy of industrial decentralization pursued – therefore, suburban industrial parks. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  29. Civil defense for minorities and poor • Jim Crow and Civil Defense • Idea of class competition for shelters and thus survival. • Racial fears in white America • NAACP used civil defense to bring racial inequality to the fore – fusion of civil rights and civil defense lecture 20/21 - 2005

  30. Part Two:From “Duck and Cover” to “Run Like Hell” • Civil defense in the era of the hydrogen bomb and the ICBM. • Operation Cue (1955) • Mass Evacuation Plans – “Operation Alert” (1954-1961) and the Interstate Highway System • The Shelter Movement lecture 20/21 - 2005

  31. Operation Cue • 1955; depiction of an atomic attack on a typical American town. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  32. Operation Cue test shot lecture 20/21 - 2005

  33. One of the buildings that survived the atomic bomb at Operation Cue. This building was on display at the Nebraska State Fair in 1955. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  34. Nuclear “Family” lecture 20/21 - 2005

  35. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  36. One of the houses of “Doom Town” lit by light from atomic explosion lecture 20/21 - 2005

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  39. “Before” and “After” pictures show survival as a morality play and public relations effort. • Helped define who and what would survive a nuclear attack. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  40. Operation Alert • Series of civil defense drills from 1954-1961. • Took places simultaneously in dozens of U.S. cities; citizens were told they were in target areas and were required to take cover. • National “socio-drama” lecture 20/21 - 2005

  41. Evacuation and shelter techniques practiced. • 1955 – Even the federal government (including Eisenhower) were evacuated. • The day after a drill, newspapers would publish statistics with numbers of “casualties” and so forth. • Operation Alert also became focus of numerous peace protests by people (especially mothers) who refused to run for cover. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  42. New Yorkers scurry for shelter during Operation Alert. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  43. Civil Defense for Congress • Door to secret fallout shelter for Congress in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  44. Despite the drills, Eisenhower remained deeply pessimistic about success of evacuation. • “You can’t have that kind of war…There just aren’t enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies of the streets.” lecture 20/21 - 2005

  45. Planners, however, maintained the fiction that a mass evacuation under nuclear attack was more akin to an evening rush hour commute….i.e. escape to the suburbs! lecture 20/21 - 2005

  46. Popular Joke in the Soviet Union in the 1960s • Q: What should you do in case of a nuclear attack. • Get a shovel and a sheet and walk slowly…to the nearest cemetery. • Why slowly? • You mustn’t start a panic. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  47. The Shelter Movement lecture 20/21 - 2005

  48. Early Shelter Debate During Truman Era • Public shelters vs. private shelters? • Early plans for public shelters were also used by urban planners to achieve other goals • New Deal fears • Dislike of “Soviet-style” public shelters • Cost (estimated $32 billion in 1956) lecture 20/21 - 2005

  49. Renewed Interest During Eisenhower Era • Evacuation combined with personal shelters. • More of “You’re on your own” • Little to no tax incentive to build personal shelters. • Civil defense still competed with Pentagon requests to build more bombs and missiles. lecture 20/21 - 2005

  50. Symbolism of the personal shelter • Shelters seen as representing basic American values lecture 20/21 - 2005

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