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Civilian Defense in a Nuclear Age

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Civilian Defense in a Nuclear Age Civilian Defense in a Nuclear Age Written by Susan Parsons KWW Specials- Fair Haven Village Ranch Style Home Richmond Ave.-4-bedroom, hardwood floors full basement with fallout shelter, 2-car detached garage and large corner lot. Asking $22,000 The Palladium-Times, (Oswego, NY), July 26, 1969 [KWW-King, Wallace, Wilkinson, Real Estate and Insurance Agency] This house is now the home of Holly and Steve Goolden and it, indeed has a fallout shelter. By 1939, physicists were aware of the possibility of using nuclear fission in weaponry. By 1945, near the end of World War II, the USA had created the first bombs using fission, known as atomic bombs. The Germans were creating a bomb as well; however, the Germans were forced to surrender unconditionally on May 8, 1945, ending the War in Europe as well as the German attempt to create a bomb. At this time the USA was still months away from completing a working bomb. On July 16, 1945, a test bomb was detonated in New Mexico. This bomb proved to be much more powerful than any weapon in human history. On August 6 a uranium-based device and on August 9, a plutonium- based weapon were used on Japan to end World War II. On August 29, 1949, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics exploded its first atom bomb and the nuclear race was on. Though some scientists argued against the development of fusion bombs, which they determined would be thousands of times more powerful than fission bombs, others feared that the Soviets would go ahead with such a project, weakening the power of the USA. This fear encouraged the nation to proceed with a fusion program. On November 1, 1952, the USA tested its first fusion weapon, also known as a hydrogen bomb or thermonuclear device, in the Marshall Islands. Its power was 450 times greater than the second atom bomb dropped in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. However, it was considered an undeliverable weapon since it was too large to be effectively useful; it was too massive to be dropped out of a plane. The USSR detonated its first hydrogen bomb barely nine months later, on August 12, 1953. This was a deliverable bomb. It was not until February 28, 1954, that the USA exploded its first deliverable fusion bomb. This device, detonated at Bikini Atoll, caused perhaps the greatest radiological disaster in history to date. 7000 square miles of the planet were contaminated. Nuclear fallout spread around the world. It caused the sickness and death of Japanese fishermen far away from the test area. To this date those contaminated islands are still unfit for humans to populate. Until this time fallout had not been perceived to be much of a problem. A new concern surfaced--the possibility of eradication of life by the use of the technology of nuclear weapons. Other concerns coexisted, such as the belief that the Soviets were out to dominate the world. The Cold War escalated, furthering an intensive and expensive arms race. In 1957, when the Russian space missile, Sputnik, was launched, it meant that the Soviets had the capability of delivering nuclear weapons onto the mainland of the USA. American fears of Soviet domination were renewed. The first time any civilian defense had been practiced in the USA was around the time of World War I. Since threats to the US mainland were minimal, the new Council of National Defense (1916) instead encouraged civilians to join the armed forces. They helped organize the draft, tried to maintain soldier morale and promoted Liberty Bond drives. After armistice, this Council was suspended. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor the organization was reactivated and expanded. After World War II, the USA did not suspend civil defense efforts as they had done after World War I, though the Office of Civilian Defense itself was terminated. Instead, their practices became the foundation of civilian defense during the Cold War. Known by various names over time, (for example, the Federal Civil Defense Administration, Office of Civil Defense, Defense Civil Preparedness, and FEMA), now civil defense is a part the Department of Homeland Security. Part of the various civilian defense programs was plane spotting. Fair Haven had its plane spotting building on Victory Street with several Fair Havenites taking their assigned turns manning the building to look for planes matching the posters on the wall. Another part of civil defense was air raids, where people had to be off the streets and take cover in buildings. Still another activity was the Duck and Cover program practiced in schools, such as Fair Haven Elementary School. A government documentary titled You Can Beat the A-Bomb showed a family surviving the bomb by closing windows and hiding under furniture. Covering windows with cardboard was suggested. Over time the government put out more sophisticated publicity. The City of New York spent a small fortune on student dog tags, bracelets that provided information about children lost or killed in the event of nuclear attack. The government also promoted the use of the fallout shelter. The idea of the bomb shelter was known in the 19th Century and a few were created during the Civil War. The use of nuclear weapons would create special complications. Fallout shelters protect only from fallout, but not the nuclear blast itself. Blast shelters’ purpose was to protect individuals from shock waves which would lead to internal and ear injuries, but blast shelters would require much sturdier and more expensive structures. It was believed that instead, fallout shelters were not beyond the financial reach of many citizens. The ideal fallout shelter would reduce exposure to various byproducts of fusion detonation. Concrete blocks, bricks, earth and sand are all heavy enough to provide some protection, though lead is best against gamma rays. The fallout shelter was to be an enclosed space. The government began to recommend fallout shelters be installed in homes, either to be placed in basements or buried in backyards. A hand-cranked blower was to be used to provide ventilation. Otherwise, heat would be created by the presence of human bodies that if not ventilated could cause heat exhaustion or suffocation. It was determined that in the event of nuclear attack, occupants were to stay put in the shelter for two weeks and then go outside for increasing amounts of time. From The Family Fallout Shelter, Department of Defense, 1961 The government created curricula for Home Economics classes so students could learn how to furnish fallout shelters. Government-provided booklets contained building plans and lists of supplies to stock such shelters. The government also warned that a poorly constructed shelter could “broil” its occupants “to a crisp” or squeeze them like “grapefruit.”• The New York Times reported on bomb shelters first in about 1951. Concern about creating such shelters subsided in less than a year only to return in times of increasing tension between the superpowers. Americans began to build fallout rooms to protect themselves. People constructed improvised shelters from concrete tubes, steel sheds, even septic tanks. Entrepreneurs became involved. Sellers sold safe houses ranging from a foxhole type shelter for $13.50 to a $5000 deluxe model that included a phone, beds, toilet and Geiger counter. Wall Street investors suggested that $20 billion could be generated by the bomb shelter business. An Alert America campaign reassured citizens that they could protect themselves with fairly simple procedures. Traveling exhibits and films also aided in the efforts to provide survival instructions and thwart panic. Fear among families arose that if neighbors and friends learned they had a well-stocked shelter those friends and neighbors might invade it instead of building their own. Sometimes shelters were constructed during the night and were kept secret. From Home Protection Exercises, Department of Defense 1960 General Mills and General Foods created dry package foods for supplying fallout shelters. People bought flashlights, first aid kits, water, fallout protection suits and air blowers. Newspapers carried daily radiation reports. Looking at our social history can provide clues about the changing attitudes toward “the bomb.” Before the Russian bomb was detonated, Americans tended to view “the bomb” and nuclear energy as rather benign. The government created a public affairs campaign that made atomic power seem safe and positive: “our friend, the atom.”• Within hours of the detonation of the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima in 1945, members of the Washington Press Club were enjoying their first “atomic cocktail.” “Atomic” soon came to mean anything new and powerful. Designers used “atomic style” which showed electrons rotating around an atom’s nucleus. These were seen on everything from clocks to business logos. High school sports teams were sometimes named “The Atoms” or “The Atomics.” Kix Cereal (General Mills) offered a bomb ring in their cereal After the Soviets exploded their first atom bomb in 1949, public fears about the bomb and about communism increased. Newsreels and televisions that were just arriving in people’s homes, often showed mushroom clouds. New words entered our cultural vocabulary. “Bikini,” the two-piece bathing suit, was named after the island where American atomic testing was done in 1954. A “doomsday clock” was created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences that was intended to demonstrate our closeness to self-destruction. Newspapers would report that we were “five minutes to midnight with the clock ticking.” Various bad movies were created, such as about giant mutated ants threatening Los Angeles or Godzilla, the mutated lizard that brought down Tokyo. In another movie an atomic test mutated a military man who became so gigantic his trousers would no longer fit.
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