As the commitment to atomic weaponry increased after World War II, the issue of civil defense received considerable attention, as national politicians and scientific and military authorities debated the extent to which the United States should prepare for the immediate protection of civilian lives and property in case of a nuclear attack.
Influenced by German attacks on the English home-front during World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD) on May 20, 1941. The OCD’s efforts to mobilize air raid warning systems, wardens, bomb shelters, rescue workers, and firefighting units, however, produced only victory gardens and physical-fitness programs, as the likelihood of an air attack on the U. S. homefront diminished. On June 30, 1945, President Harry S. Truman abolished the OCD. Although Truman resisted significant funding for civil defense, preferring to save money for weapons, the Korean War and the Soviet Union’s development of an atomic bomb provided the impetus for the return of civil defense in 1950. The development of civil defense during the postwar period was erratic, as leaders continued debating its very necessity. The military community questioned its role in civil defense, the American public resisted spending too much money on questionable shelters, and high government officials failed to agree on the direction and form that civil defense should take.
In 1950, the Truman administration set up the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) as an independent agency responsible for administering a national civil defense program. During this period of American civil defense history, funding was the most debated issue, as Congress continually cut FCDA funding requests by at least half. Much civil defense actually consisted of a propaganda campaign that produced a series of booklets, films, television shows, and media stories aimed at convincing Americans that they could survive a nuclear attack with only the most basic preparations. It was during this time that atomic air-raid drills became common practice in public schools where children were instructed to “duck and cover” by dropping to their knees, covering their heads, and so protecting themselves from an atomic attack.
During the presidency of DwiGHT D. Eisenhower, civil defense changed. Because blast shelters were expensive, the nation began to consider evacuation. The interstate highway act of 1965 was justified on the grounds that it could offer a means of escape after a nuclear attack. With the discovery of fallout, the radioactive matter left in the atmosphere after an atomic blast, fallout shelters became popular. The FCDA distributed free literature on building such structures, usually in basements. The building of fallout shelters flourished during the Eisenhower years, particularly after the American public became increasingly aware of atomic capability as the government conducted regular tests and eventually developed the hydrogen bomb. These developments, however, instilled gradually in the American public a belief that civil defense was useless against the effects of weapons that might wipe out entire cities. Eisenhower understood that only a catastrophic result could come from an exchange of nuclear weapons with the Soviets. In 1958, ignoring calls for a greater, more expensive civil defense program from the FCDA’s director, Eisenhower cut civil defense funding and shut down the FCDA. The FCDA, together with the Office of Defense Mobilization, was merged into the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization. The Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization was placed under the Executive Office of the president in order to centralize nonmilitary defense functions in a single agency responsible directly to the president.
Presidential support for a civil defense program peaked in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy. In 1960, a thorough review of the civil defense program prompted Kennedy to reorganize it in 1961 by setting up a new Office of Civil Defense (OCD) under the secretary of defense, who was given the task of implementing a system of fallout shelters and emergency communications, as well as assisting state and local communities in establishing their own systems for maintaining order and safety after an attack.
During the debate over the fate of Berlin between Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Kennedy asked Congress to increase its defense effort as well as allocate an additional $207.6 million for an expanded shelter program. After the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 prohibited atmospheric testing, however, civil defense fell dormant and was not resurrected again until the late 1970s. In 1964, the OCD was transferred to the Office of the Secretary of the Army. After the establishment of the OCD, the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization became the Office of Emergency Planning, coordinating emergency activities such as the use of manpower and materials and the provision of disaster assistance to states, counties, and local communities.
Further reading: Thomas J. Kerr, Civil Defense in the U. S.: Bandaid for a Holocaust? (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1983); Kenneth Rose, One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2001); Allan M. Winkler, Life under a Cloud: American Anxiety about the Atom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
—Jason Reed
World History
