Civil Defense in the Cold War: The Forgotten History
On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union managed to test its first nuclear weapon. During the next year and a half, US President Harry S. Truman has resuscitated the Civil Defense Office (which had been abolished at the end of the Second World War) and signed the Federal Civil Defense Law of 1950, which mobilized government agencies to plan the follow -up of a world nuclear war. With the current Cold War, this act launched an effort of several decades to ensure that at least some Americans survived Nuclear Armageddon.
As the largest civil civil agency in the presence throughout the country, the Department of US post offices was in a unique position to monitor local radiation levels and residents of the shelter. At the end of 1964, around 1,500 postal buildings had been designated as shelters, offering emergency spaces and supplies for 1.3 million people. The occupants had to stay in the shelters until the radioactivity outside was deemed safe. In 1968, around 6,000 postal employees had been trained to use radiological equipment, such as the CD V-700 illustrated at the top, to monitor beta and gamma radiation. And a group of postal employees has organized a voluntary HAM radio network to help communication if regular networks are falling.
What was civil defense during the Cold War?
The basic premise of civil defense was that many people would immediately die in cities directly targeted by nuclear attacks. (Consult Alex Wellerstein’s interactive nukemap for an estimate of the victims and the impact if your hometown – or any location of your choice – Be struck.) These are the residents of other cities, suburbs and rural communities outside the explosion area which would benefit most from the civil defense preparations. With enough warning, they could take shelter in an armored site and wait for the worst fallout to decompose. In a day or two to a few weeks after the attack, they could emerge and help survivors in more difficult areas.
In 1957, a Defense Mobilization Office Committee wrote the report Deterrence and survival in the nuclear era,, For President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Better known as the Gaither’s report, he called for the creation of a national rebate shelter to protect civilians. Government publications such as The shelter of family benefits Encouraged the Americans who had space, the resources and the desire to build shelters for their homes. The city dwellers of apartment buildings only guarantee half a booklet, with the suggestion to go to the basement and to cooperate with other residents.
This 1960 model of model fees was designed for four to six people. Bettmann / Getty images
In the end, very few owners have in fact built a refuge for fallout. But Rod Serling, creator of the television series “The Twilight Zone”, saw an opportunity for pointed social comment. Friends in the fall of 1961, the episode “The Shelter” showed at what speed the civilization (embodied by a family of the middle class of suburbs and their friends) broke for decisions concerning who would be saved and who would not.
Meanwhile, President John F. Kennedy had started to move the national strategy of individual shelters to community shelters. At its instructions, the US Army Corps of Engineers began to monitor existing buildings adapted to public shelters. Post offices, especially those with basements capable of accommodating at least 50 people, were a natural adjustment.
Each general post office has been appointed as responsible for the local refuge and granted complete authority to exploit the refuge, in particular by determining which would be admitted or excluded. THE Manual for the management of fallout shelters gave advice for everything, sleep arrangements to sanitation standards. The shelters were filled with food and water, drugs and, of course, radiological lifting instruments.
What to do in the event of a nuclear attack
These community impact shelters received a standard kit for the detection of radiation. The kit came to a cardboard box containing two radiation monitors, the CD V-700 (a Geiger counter, illustrated at the top) and the CD V-715 (a single ion chamber investigation counter); Two CD V-742 dosimeters the size of a cigar, to measure the total exposure of a person while wearing the device; and a charger for dosimeters. Was also included Manual for radiological monitorswhich provided instructions on how to use the equipment and report the results.
The rebate shelters from the post office received standard kits to measure radioactivity after a nuclear attack.National Postal Museum / Smithsonian Institution
The refuge radiation kit included two radiation monitors, two cigar -size dosimeters and a charger for dosimters. Photoquet / Getty images
In the event of an attack, the operator would take readings with the CD V-715 in places selected in the refuge. Then, within three minutes of the end of the interior measurements, he went out and took a reading at least 25 feet (7.6 meters) of the building. If the level of radiation outside was high, there were decontamination procedures when they return to the refuge. The “protective factor” of the shelter was calculated by dividing external reading by interior reading. (Today, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, recommends a PF of at least 40 for a fallout shelter.) The operators were responsible for resuming the measurements and recalculating the protective factor at least once every 24 hours, or more frequently if the radiation levels have changed rapidly.
The CD V-700 was intended to detect beta and gamma radiation during cleaning and decontamination operations, as well as to detect any radioactive contamination of food, water and staff.
Each station would bring its dose prices to a regional control center, so that the civil defense organization can determine when people could leave their shelter, where they could go, the routes to take and the installations necessary for decontamination. But if you have experienced a natural or artificial disaster, you will know that as a result, communications do not always work as well. Indeed, the Manual for radiological monitors admitted that a nuclear attack could disrupt communications. Fortunately, the American post office service had a backup plan.
In May 1958, the Post Office Arthur E. Summerfield called on all postal employees who were to be approved amateur radio operators, to form an informal network that would provide emergency communications in the event of collapse of telephone and telegraphs and commercial broadcasting. The result was post office net (Pon), a voluntary group of amateur radio operators; In 1962, around 1,500 postal employees in 43 states had signed. That year, Pon was opened to non-employees who had the necessary license.
Although Pon has never been activated due to a nuclear threat, he has transmitted messages for other emergencies. For example, in January 1967, after an epic blizzard covered Illinois and Michigan with heavy snow, Michigan Pon has entered action, setting up connections with the county weather services and relaying emergency requests, such as the rescue of people blocked in vehicles on the interstate 94.
A 1954 civil defense fair presented an exhibition of amateur radios. The American post office has recruited around 1,500 employees to operate an amateur radio network in the event that regular communications have dropped. National archives
The post office removed the network on June 30, 1974 as part of its evolution of the preparation of the Civil Defense. (A civil emergency radio network-civil response is still a radio network, under the auspices of the American Radio Relay League.) And in 1977, laboratory tests indicated that most of the food and medicine stored in post basements were no longer suitable for human consumption. In 1972, the Civil Defense Office was replaced by the civil defense preparation of the preparation agency, which was finally withdrawn in Fema. And with the end of the Cold War, the civil defense program officially ended in 1994, fortunately without ever being necessary for a nuclear attack.
Do we still need civil defense?
The idea of this chronicle came to me last fall, when I was doing research at Linda Hall Library, in Kansas City, MO., and I continued to find articles on civil defense in magazines and magazines from the 1950s and 60s. I knew that the National Postal Museum of Smithsonian, Washington, DC, had several artifacts (including CD V-700 and a big album of public service advertisements “in Time of Emergency”).
As a child at the end of the Cold War, I remember being worried by the prospect of a nuclear war. But then the Cold War ended, just like my fears. I imagined the chronicle of this month capturing the intriguing history of civil defense and the serious preparations of the time. This chapter in history, I suppose, has been closed.
I did not imagine that when I started writing this, the prospect of a nuclear attack, if not a total war, would suddenly become much more real. These days, I understand much better the complexities and nuances of nuclear weapons than when I was a child. But I am just as concerned about an imminent nuclear conflict. Hoping that history repeats itself, and it does not succeed.
Part of a Continuous series Looking at historical artefacts that embrace the unlimited potential of technology.
An abbreviated version of this article appears in the printing issue of August 2025.
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