On 29 August 1949, the Soviet Union efficiently examined its first nuclear weapon. Over the subsequent 12 months and a half, U.S. President Harry S. Truman resurrected the Workplace of Civilian Protection (which had been abolished on the finish of World Struggle II) and signed into legislation the Federal Civil Protection Act of 1950, which mobilized authorities companies to plan for the aftermath of a worldwide nuclear conflict. With the Chilly Struggle underway, that act kicked off a decades-long effort to make sure that a minimum of some People survived nuclear armageddon.
As the biggest civilian federal company with a presence all through the nation, the U.S. Submit Workplace Division was in a novel place 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 area and emergency provides for 1.3 million folks. 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 educated to make use of radiological tools, such because the CD V-700 pictured at high, to watch beta and gamma radiation. And a bunch 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 Struggle?
The fundamental premise of civil protection was that many individuals would die instantly in cities immediately 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 might 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 a couple weeks after the assault, they may emerge and assist any survivors within the harder-hit areas.
In 1957, a committee of the Workplace of Protection Mobilization drafted the report Deterrence and Survival within the Nuclear Age, for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Higher often known as the Gaither Report, it known as for the creation of a nationwide community of fallout shelters to guard civilians. Authorities publications resembling The Household Fallout Shelter inspired People who had the area, the assets, and the desire to assemble shelters for his or her properties. Metropolis dwellers in residence 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 folks. Bettmann/Getty Photos
Finally, only a few householders really constructed a fallout shelter. However Rod Serling, creator of the tv collection “The Twilight Zone,” noticed a possibility 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 buddies) broke down over selections about who could 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 neighborhood shelters. At his instruction, the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers started surveying current buildings appropriate for public shelters. Submit workplaces, particularly ones with basements able to housing a minimum of 50 folks, 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 could be admitted or excluded. The Handbook for Fallout Shelter Administration gave steerage for the whole lot from sleeping preparations to sanitation requirements. Shelters had been stocked with meals and water, medication, and, in fact, radiological survey devices.
What to do in case of a nuclear assault
These neighborhood fallout shelters had been issued a normal equipment for radiation detection. The equipment 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 system; and a charger for the dosimeters. Additionally included was the Handbook for Radiological Displays, which supplied directions on how you can use the tools and report the outcomes.
Submit workplace fallout shelters had been issued normal kits for measuring radioactivity after a nuclear assault.Nationwide Postal Museum/Smithsonian Establishment
The shelter radiation equipment included two radiation displays, two cigar-size dosimeters, and a charger for the dosimeters. Photoquest/Getty Photos
Within the occasion of an assault, the operator would take readings with the CD V-715 at chosen places within the shelter. Then, inside three minutes of ending the indoor measurements, he would go exterior and take a studying a minimum of 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 surface studying by the within studying. (Right now the Federal Emergency Administration Company, FEMA, recommends a PF of a minimum of 40 for a fallout shelter.) Operators had been directed to retake the measurements and recalculate the protecting issue a minimum of as soon as each 24 hours, or extra regularly 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 heart, in order that the civil protection group might decide when folks might depart their shelter, the place they may go, what routes to take, and what amenities wanted decontamination. However when you’ve lived by means of a pure or artifical catastrophe, you’ll know that within the quick aftermath, communications don’t at all times work so nicely. Certainly, the Handbook for Radiological Displays acknowledged {that a} nuclear assault would possibly disrupt communications. Fortunately, the U.S. Submit Workplace Division had a backup plan.
In Might 1958, Postmaster Normal Arthur E. Summerfield made an attraction to all postal workers who occurred to be licensed newbie radio operators, to kind an off-the-cuff community that would offer emergency communications within the occasion of the collapse of phone and telegraph networks and industrial broadcasting. The end result was Submit Workplace Web (PON), a voluntary group of ham radio operators; by 1962, about 1,500 postal workers in 43 states had signed on. That 12 months, PON was opened as much as nonemployees who had the required license.
Though PON was by no means activated as a result of 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, organising liaisons with county climate providers and relaying emergency requests, resembling rescuing folks stranded in automobiles on Interstate 94.
A 1954 civil protection honest featured a show of newbie radios. The U.S. Submit 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 community nonetheless exists, below the auspices of the American Radio Relay League.) And by 1977, laboratory exams indicated that many of the meals and medication stockpiled in put up workplace basements was now not safe to eat. In 1972 the Workplace of Civil Protection was changed by the Protection Civil Preparedness Company, which was ultimately folded into FEMA. And with the top of the Chilly Struggle, the civil protection program formally resulted in 1994, thankfully with out ever being wanted for a nuclear assault.
Can we nonetheless want civil protection?
The concept for this column got here to me final fall, after I was doing analysis on the Linda Corridor Library, in Kansas Metropolis, Mo., and I saved coming throughout articles about civil protection in magazines and journals from the Fifties and ’60s. I knew that the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Postal Museum, in Washington, D.C., had a number of civil protection artifacts (together with the CD V-700 and an amazing “In Time of Emergency” public service announcement report album).
As a baby of the late Chilly Struggle, I keep in mind being concerned by the prospect of nuclear conflict. However then the Chilly Struggle 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 conflict, would immediately change into rather more actual. Nowadays, 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 persevering with collection taking a look at historic artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of know-how.
An abridged model of this text seems within the August 2025 print concern.
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