The rise and fall of the American fallout shelter

“4...3...2...1” “T-Zero!” This is the Operation Ivy nuclear test in 1952. And this is using a level to make some really nice masonry in your

fall

out

shelter

. It's about Walt building a family

shelter

against atomic weapons, from 1960. The idea was to decorate the basement to be safe when the bomb went off and this happened. "Well, this finishes my

fall

out shelter." Yes, Walt is smoking a pipe. The federal agency that made this film, and the agencies that preceded it, helped shape the domestic response to nuclear Armageddon in the 1950s and 1960s. Fallout shelters like these were an inescapable part of Cold War culture in the United States.

United and promised a place to hide from the radioactive

fallout

. Federal agencies promoted them, presidents defended them, and the effects still linger today. This is the garage of my urban apartment building in Washington DC. And it's a designated

fallout

shelter. That's the sign. Right here. How am I aiming? There were almost a thousand designated fallout shelters in Washington, DC, and they are a reminder of the

rise

of fallout shelters, both public fallout shelters like this one, and private ones where people gave a lot of tours, like this one. “Well friends, I'm glad you could come see my fallout shelter. “I just finished painting it last night.” Fallout culture wasn't just awkward, though it was. “Tell me, isn't it cute?” It raises some questions: where did this come from?

And were the duck-and-cover exercises, desk squatting, canned water, and fallout shelters worth the Cold War paranoia they helped fuel? How did this happen? "Fortunately, there are means to protect us." And would any of that really have worked? "Friends, here is a message from the Honorable Leo A. Hoegh, Director of the Office of Defense and Civil Mobilization." "You just saw how Walt built a family fallout shelter in his own house." “No home in America is modern without a family refuge from atomic weapons. “This is the nuclear age.” To understand how we arrived at this vision of a refugee modernity, it is necessary to understand the chronology of Civil Defense.

The '50s and early '60s weren't just one period: they were a few different eras that we mixed up because of the kitsch of the Cold War. Time matters. In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt created a prenuclear council that coordinated some emergency programs. As World War II intensified, Civil Defense grew and became the Civil Defense Planning Office. In 1949, civil defense became more urgent when the Soviet Union tested a nuclear bomb. The stakes were getting higher. So, after some more bureaucratic changes, Congress created the Federal Civil Defense Administration, whose goal was to help guide the states in internal defense.

And that’s the name you see at the beginning of “Duck and Cover” from 1951. “There was a turtle named Bert, and Bert the Turtle was very alert. When danger threatened him, he was never hurt, he knew exactly what to do. He ducked…and covered…he ducked…and covered…” As stupid as it sounds, a movie about a nuclear paranoid turtle named Bert wasn't that stupid. Ducking and covering would help provide some protection. At the time, the Soviet nuclear threat was terrifying, but their bomb had a relatively limited range and would be dropped from an airplane, which meant we would see them coming. “You might be playing in your schoolyard when the signal comes.” Running inside can make a difference.

Or even duck and cover. But that explosion at the beginning of this video? Actually, that came after "Duck and Cover." It comes from the hydrogen bomb test conducted by the United States in 1952, which was more powerful than any previous weapon. “Do you remember those last few seconds? "Five, four, three, two, one, t-zero." “This is the largest fireball ever produced. At its maximum limit it measures about three and a quarter miles in diameter...the fireball alone would engulf approximately a quarter of the island of Manhattan.” “Later figures put Mike's yield at ten megatons, or about 10,000 kilotons. This means that more energy was released in this shot, about 10 times more than in all previous atomic explosions combined, including probably those of Russian origin.

Or to put it another way, four times more power in this single shot than in all the high explosives dropped by the entire Anglo-American air force on Germany and the occupied countries during the last war. Then the Soviets claimed to have tested their own hydrogen bomb in 1953, and “Duck and Cover” became obsolete. The FCDA questioned its own relevance. Coupled with the Eisenhower administration's preference for evacuation and military deterrence, the head of the organization briefly considered eliminating him. But another hydrogen bomb test in 1954 revealed a greater threat. "The width of the fireball at that time, about three seconds after detonation, was four miles." But it was the consequences that Americans noticed. "It is now known that the fallout from Castle's largest shots covered areas of more than 5,000 square miles with radioactive material that would have been lethal to unprotected personnel." In the United States, this new awareness of the consequences forced Civil Defense to pivot. "You need to know about the consequences." “What are these consequences anyway?

Only fragments of radioactive matter fall from the mushroom cloud of the nuclear explosion and settle on the ground. The FCDA and subsequent civil defense offices recommended finding shelter. "The goal is adequate space in a fallout shelter for every man, woman and child." They began with recommendations to evacuate to public fallout shelters. But the Soviet development in 1957 of an intercontinental ballistic missile made even evacuation...obsolete. Unlike the age of airplanes, there would be little warning of an attack. There were great proposals for atomic shelters. But the Eisenhower administration resisted charts like this one from the 1957 Gaither Report.

The sweet spot for radiation protection, as seen here, would cost an unsustainable $25 billion. The government did not want to pay for that, but it could not do away with civil defense either. In 1958, Eisenhower's National Housing Policy was simple: do it yourself, because we don't want to bother. The result? Tell people to build their own fallout shelters, like in this 1960 movie. "We all have a responsibility to help." "Every member of the family should understand fallout and how to protect themselves from it." That was combined with those warm-up videos about the nuclear devastation of everything we know and love, like Walt's. "If we ever had a nuclear war, we could have strong consequences even if we were not close to the target area." But it took one last push to get here. “From the White House in Washington DC, we bring you a speech by the President of the United States, John F.

Kennedy.” "An attack on that city will be considered an attack on all of us." John F. Kennedy's 1961 speech on the Soviet blockade of West Berlin intensified the Cold War. Military growth was a goal, but the speech was also a platform to announce a change in civil defense policy. “Tomorrow I ask Congress for new funds for the following immediate objectives.” "Identify and mark spaces in existing structures, public and private, that could be used as fallout shelters in the event of an attack..." Kennedy called for an increase in the civil defense budget to about $207 million, far less than the $25 billion of dollars recommended in the Gaither Report.

But it did mark a change of emphasis. It was part preparation and part message to the Soviet Union that the United States could survive an attack. He reorganized the agency once again. The government had set up several public anti-atomic shelters, although the effort was dispersed. Some people had made their own homemade versions. "Then you can rest assured that no matter what the threat of consequences is in the future, you and your family will be prepared for it." So would any of this really have worked? Let's go up. In 1961, the Soviets tested Tsar Bomba, the largest bomb... ever created.

It was more than 50 megatons. Historian Alex Wellerstein created a tool called Nuke Map that allows you to simulate what historical nuclear bombs would look like if they had detonated in various cities. If we put Tsar Bomba and Washington DC, we will get this. The entire city would disappear, it would be destroyed. The initial explosion, the subsequent firestorm... forget about the radioactive fallout. That fallout shelter in my basement wouldn't exist. All those urban fallout shelters would probably collapse in a massive nuclear exchange. And beyond those cities? "More than 100 million people living far beyond the destructive reach of the explosions and heat could be subjected to dangerous or deadly amounts of radiation from radioactive fallout." Walt in the suburbs could survive in his fallout shelter.

But he would emerge in a country where all the major metropolitan areas were shells. This graph shows the decline in civil defense spending during the Johnson administration, due to both the assassination of JFK and the escalation of the war in Vietnam. Civil defense agencies were limping along and had enough money to survive and run programs, publish pamphlets and make some videos. But they made no meaningful commitment to a nation protected from nuclear radiation. The fallout shelter was a place to hide from the bomb and radioactivity. But it was also a place to hide from the truth that there was no good plan.

There were just different ways to wait. "This is the nuclear age." So if hanging out with Bert the turtle didn't get you too down, we made another video in which I watch "Drop and Cover" in its entirety, providing some additional research and a chance to laugh at those kids diving into the ground.