On 29 August 1949, the Soviet Union efficiently examined its first nuclear weapon. Over the following yr and a half, U.S. President Harry S. Truman resurrected the Workplace of Civilian Protection (which had been abolished on the finish of World Conflict II) and signed into regulation the Federal Civil Protection Act of 1950, which mobilized authorities businesses to plan for the aftermath of a worldwide nuclear struggle. With the Cold War underway, that act kicked off a decades-long effort to make sure that no less than some Individuals survived nuclear armageddon.
As the biggest civilian federal company with a presence all through the nation, the U.S. Publish Workplace Division was in a unique position to watch native radiation ranges and shelter residents. By the top of 1964, roughly 1,500 postal buildings had been designated as fallout shelters, offering house and emergency provides for 1.3 million individuals. Occupants had been anticipated to stay within the shelters till the radioactivity exterior was deemed protected. By 1968, about 6,000 postal workers had been skilled to make use of radiological tools, such because the CD V-700 pictured at high, to watch beta and gamma radiation. And a gaggle of postal workers organized a volunteer ham radio community to assist with communications ought to the common networks go down.
What was civil protection within the Chilly Conflict?
The fundamental premise of civil protection was that many individuals would die instantly in cities instantly focused by nuclear assaults. (Try Alex Wellerstein’s interactive Nukemap for an estimate of casualties and affect ought to your hometown—or any location of your selecting—be hit.) It was the residents of different cities, suburbs, and rural communities exterior the blast space that will most profit from civil protection preparations. With sufficient warning, they may shelter in a shielded web site and watch for the worst of the fallout to decay. Wherever from a day or two to some weeks after the assault, they may emerge and help any survivors within the harder-hit areas.
In 1957, a committee of the Workplace of Protection Mobilization drafted the report Deterrence and Survival in the Nuclear Age, for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Higher referred to as the Gaither Report, it known as for the creation of a nationwide community of fallout shelters to guard civilians. Authorities publications similar to The Family Fallout Shelter inspired Individuals who had the house, the assets, and the need to assemble shelters for his or her properties. Metropolis dwellers in condo buildings warranted solely half a web page within the booklet, with the suggestion to go to the basement and cooperate with different residents.
This mannequin fallout shelter from 1960 was designed for 4 to 6 individuals. Bettmann/Getty Pictures
In the end, only a few owners truly constructed a fallout shelter. However Rod Serling, creator of the tv sequence “The Twilight Zone,” noticed a chance for pointed social commentary. Aired within the fall of 1961, the episode “The Shelter” confirmed how rapidly civilization (epitomized by a suburban middle-class household and their mates) broke down over choices about who can be saved and who wouldn’t.
In the meantime, President John F. Kennedy had began to shift the nationwide technique from particular person shelters to group shelters. At his instruction, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started surveying current buildings appropriate for public shelters. Publish workplaces, particularly ones with basements able to housing no less than 50 individuals, had been a pure match.
Every postmaster common was designated because the native shelter supervisor and granted full authority to function the shelter, together with figuring out who can be admitted or excluded. The Handbook for Fallout Shelter Management gave steerage for every little thing from sleeping preparations to sanitation requirements. Shelters had been stocked with meals and water, drugs, and, in fact, radiological survey devices.
What to do in case of a nuclear assault
These group fallout shelters had been issued a standard kit for radiation detection. The package got here in a cardboard field that contained two radiation displays, the CD V-700 (a Geiger counter, pictured at high) and the CD V-715 (a easy ion chamber survey meter); two cigar-size CD V-742 dosimeters, to measure an individual’s whole publicity whereas carrying the gadget; and a charger for the dosimeters. Additionally included was the Handbook for Radiological Monitors, which supplied directions on easy methods to use the tools and report the outcomes.
Publish workplace fallout shelters had been issued commonplace kits for measuring radioactivity after a nuclear assault.Nationwide Postal Museum/Smithsonian Establishment
The shelter radiation package included two radiation displays, two cigar-size dosimeters, and a charger for the dosimeters. Photoquest/Getty Pictures
Within the occasion of an assault, the operator would take readings with the CD V-715 at chosen areas within the shelter. Then, inside three minutes of ending the indoor measurements, he would go exterior and take a studying no less than 25 ft (7.6 meters) from the constructing. If the radiation stage exterior was excessive, there have been procedures for decontamination upon returning to the shelter. The “safety issue” of the shelter was calculated by dividing the skin studying by the within studying. (Right this moment the Federal Emergency Administration Company, FEMA, recommends a PF of no less than 40 for a fallout shelter.) Operators had been directed to retake the measurements and recalculate the protecting issue no less than as soon as each 24 hours, or extra ceaselessly if the radiation ranges modified quickly.
The CD V-700 was supposed for detecting beta and gamma radiation throughout cleanup and decontamination operations, and likewise for detecting any radioactive contamination of meals, water, and personnel.
Every station would report their dose charges to a regional management middle, in order that the civil protection group might decide when individuals might depart their shelter, the place they may go, what routes to take, and what services wanted decontamination. However in the event you’ve lived by way of a pure or artifical catastrophe, you’ll know that within the fast aftermath, communications don’t at all times work so nicely. Certainly, the Handbook for Radiological Displays acknowledged {that a} nuclear assault may disrupt communications. Fortunately, the U.S. Publish Workplace Division had a backup plan.
In Might 1958, Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield made an enchantment to all postal workers who occurred to be licensed novice radio operators, to kind a casual community that would offer emergency communications within the occasion of the collapse of phone and telegraph networks and industrial broadcasting. The end result was Publish Workplace Internet (PON), a voluntary group of ham radio operators; by 1962, about 1,500 postal workers in 43 states had signed on. That yr, PON was opened as much as nonemployees who had the required license.
Though PON was by no means activated attributable to a nuclear risk, it did transmit messages throughout different emergencies. For instance, in January 1967, after an epic blizzard blanketed Illinois and Michigan with heavy snow, the Michigan PON went into motion, establishing liaisons with county climate companies and relaying emergency requests, similar to rescuing individuals stranded in autos on Interstate 94.
A 1954 civil protection honest featured a show of novice radios. The U.S. Publish Workplace recruited about 1,500 workers to function a ham radio community within the occasion that common communications went down. Nationwide Archives
The put up workplace retired the community on 30 June 1974 as a part of its shift away from civil protection preparedness. (A volunteer civil emergency-response ham radio network nonetheless exists, underneath the auspices of the American Radio Relay League.) And by 1977, laboratory exams indicated that many of the meals and drugs stockpiled in put up workplace basements was now not fit to be eaten. In 1972 the Workplace of Civil Protection was changed by the Protection Civil Preparedness Company, which was finally folded into FEMA. And with the top of the Chilly Conflict, the civil protection program formally led to 1994, luckily with out ever being wanted for a nuclear assault.
Will we nonetheless want civil protection?
The thought for this column got here to me final fall, after I was doing analysis on the Linda Hall Library, in Kansas Metropolis, Mo., and I stored coming throughout articles about civil protection in magazines and journals from the Fifties and ’60s. I knew that the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, in Washington, D.C., had a number of civil protection artifacts (together with the CD V-700 and an excellent “In Time of Emergency” public service announcement report album).
As a baby of the late Chilly Conflict, I keep in mind worrying by the prospect of nuclear struggle. However then the Chilly Conflict ended, and so did my fears. I envisioned this month’s column capturing the intriguing historical past of civil protection and the earnest preparations of the period. That chapter of historical past, I assumed, was closed.
Little did I think about that by the point I started to write down this, the prospect of a nuclear assault, if not an all-out struggle, would abruptly change into rather more actual. Lately, I perceive the complexities and nuances of nuclear weapons significantly better than after I was a baby. However I’m simply as involved {that a} nuclear battle is imminent. Right here’s hoping that historical past repeats itself, and it doesn’t come to that.
A part of a continuing series historic artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of expertise.
An abridged model of this text seems within the August 2025 print subject.
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