For those of you who wonder what life was like in the 1950’s (as regards the fear of nuclear war), I highly recommend this flick! It is a compilation of film clips, Civil Defense films ,etc., and gives you a real feel for what our parents went through!
Having said this, I am amazed by how much crap the US governemnt sent out regarding fallout shelters and the chances of surviving a nuclear attack. I mean, the government was making films showing how easy it was for a family of four to build a fallout shelter on odd afternoons. Ther’s Dad (in shirt and tie) mixing he cement! Mother is putting all of the dehydrated food into glass jars, so the family will have enough to eat. Sis is reading a civil defense manual about how to use a geiger counter!
My question, President Eisenhower (as a former army general) know that these shelters were mostly worthless (he had seen the damage wrought by conventional bombs in Europe)-so why did he go along with this? Anybody in the Air Force (from Gen. LeMay on down)knew that an all-out nuclear war would kill off most of the population. I just found it amazing that so many smart people thought such a war was winnable.
Oh, and Senator Benson made a cameo appearance, as did Sen. Lyndon Johnson! The clip of Richard Nixon examining the famous “pumpkin papers” was also funny.
I wonder how much this country spent on civil defense in the 50’s…it had to be a huge amount!
Basically to give the public something to do. Even if it might not really work. Part public relations, part foreign relations (showing the USSR we’d be ready etc.)
And to be fair, bomb shelters with stored food & water weren’t completely pointless. This was the fifties not the sixties, i.e. still the era of the nuclear bomber not the ICBM. Instead of 15 minutes warning there could have been several hours. And even though those shelters weren’t going to survive a nuclear blast, russkie bombers would have been slow & inaccurate. And even crude shelters would be better than nothing on the outskirts of a nuclear blast.
Watching The Atomic Cafe is very high on my list of Things Not To Do When You’re Tripping.
LSD and seeing footage of children who have had their eyes burned out by a nuclear blast having their eye sockets measured with calipes is a very bad combination.
Do not do this.
I speak from experience.
Actually, though, what sickened me most about the movie was the interview of the pilot of the plane that dropped the bomb on “Nackeysackey” yes, he actually pronouced it Nackeysackey- “When I saw the bomb blow up, pretty as a picture, that was the biggest thrill!”
And he was smiling when he said it.
This was his reaction to having just killed tens of thousands of people.
Fallout shelters etc. were (and are) most definitely not bad ideas.
Following up on Hail Ants post: Even with MRVed ICBMs and all, the main targets were still military. Yeah, some were saved for bigger cities, but the overwhelming majority of the US population could actually ride out the first few days of a nuclear attack in shelters quite nicely. (The fact the once the food ran out, a whole lot of people were going to die was another matter, Mormons excluded.) But that assumes a worst case scenario of everything being sent off. If only a fraction of the USSR’s arsenal was launched (more likely), the US could more easily recover if most people had stocked shelters. You have to run the numbers and think in terms of percentages.
While it might seem naive and pointless to you, even “duck and cover” type techiniques would actually save lives. I don’t see what’s so bad about that
I don’t get it. Mormons excluded?
It’s a tenet of the Mormon faith that a family should have a year’s worth of food stored in the basement.
You last longer that way when the supermarket shelves have been picked clean.
WHAT? I have never heard such a thing! And I know a LOT of Mormons. I’ve even done the discussions (lessons with the missionaries). Not to mention have been to a number of Mormon families’ houses. Can we have a cite? And the logic? Mormonism isn’t an apocalyptic faith, as far as I know.
As far as cites go, I’m search engine impaired. If I typed something like “Mormon beliefs food storage” into Google, I’d probably get several hundred articles on tobacco farming in the early 20th century. OK, I’m exaggerating, but anytime I try to do a search on anything, I end up with links to information that is only tangentally related to what I’m looking for.
But I actually got my information direct from Mormon missionaries. My family had the “discussions” too- I wanted to be baptized when I was fourteen, but my parents wouldn’t allow it. Anyhoo, it was mentioned in one of the films they showed us about the Mormon Way of Living.
It’s not an apocalyptic thing, anyway. It’s more of a practical thing. The idea is that a person/family should be prepared for things like drought, locust plagues, and, in more modern times, job loss by the primary breadwinner in the household.
Well, I’ll be darned. I googled and you’re right.
I learned something new today, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time to get out of bed this morning.
I have both Atomic Cafe and Trinity and Beyond. They’re both fascinating films.
If you want to see a bunch of similar civil defense and atomic-related movies on your computer for free (no copyright violation involved), go here.
Another question: the US govt. had banks, libraries, public buildings put up those 3-triangle “fallout shelter” signs…you can still see them (faded and old) in any city. When I was an undergrad, my university library had civil defense water drums stored in the basement! Also drums fukll of moldy (i’m sure) crakers. Is anybody doing anything with all of this crap that’s been stockpiled for the last 50 years? Imagine…sitting in the dark and eating buiscuits baked when Eisenhower was president!