Fallout Shelters

Subterranean constructions designed to protect people from the effects of radioactive fallout. Proponents of fallout shelters believed they would serve as a deterrent to a Soviet first strike if or when World War III began.

Origins and History

Fallout shelters, bomb shelters designed to protect people from radioactive fallout in the event of a nuclear war, were advocated by the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) in the 1950s. The Korean War (1950–53) and the Hungarian Revolt (1956) spurred fears of imminent war between the United States and the Soviet Union, both of which possessed nuclear weapons. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published a steadily ticking “doomsday clock,” and many popular films and works of fiction focused on the possible effects of nuclear war. Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb, argued that the US government should spend billions of dollars on shelters because he believed they might save 90 percent of the population. Nevertheless, only fifteen hundred shelters had been built by 1960.

John F. Kennedy had advocated civil defense when he was a congressman and senator, and his presidential campaign in 1960 warned of a so-called missile gap between the United States and the Soviet Union. Tensions between the superpowers had mounted in 1960 because of the shooting down of a U.S. U-2 spy plane over Soviet territory in May, Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev’s blustery United Nations speech in October, and lingering questions regarding the status of Berlin. Kennedy’s first year in the White House (1961) was fraught with similar crises: the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April and Khrushchev’s continuing threat of conflict over Berlin.

In a May, 1961, meeting with the president, governors from all over the United States expressed their desire that the federal government fund a national shelter construction program. On July 25, Kennedy addressed the nation on radio and television, saying that in the event of a nuclear attack, the lives of people who were not hit by the blast and fire could be saved if they sought refuge in a fallout shelter. After the speech, the FCDA was deluged with more requests for information in a week than it normally received in a month.

Hundreds of shelter construction firms appeared, and thousands of shelters were built, mainly in the suburbs. “Survival stores” opened, selling air-filtering devices, chemical toilets, first-aid kits, dried food products, and canned water. Government agencies and large corporations in the cities took steps to create large group shelters. Many of the individual shelters did not meet FCDA standards. Some unscrupulous companies simply dug holes and then departed. That fall, fears lingered over construction of the Berlin Wall and the resumption of nuclear tests by the Soviets. In September, a Life magazine cover story, “How You Can Survive Fallout,” depicted a man in a fallout suit and stated that “ninety-seven out of one hundred people can be saved.” The boom in shelter construction, however, subsided until the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. For thirteen days, panic spread in varying degrees in several cities, and a fearful public hoarded food and shovels. After the resolution of the crisis, the desire for shelter construction subsided considerably. Relatively few shelters were built thereafter, as Americans’ attitudes toward the Cold War changed.

Impact

During the height of the shelter frenzy in 1961, many feared that the number of shelters was inadequate, especially in the cities. Some suburban shelter owners stated that they would kill trespassers. Economist John Galbraith, in a letter to President Kennedy, wrote that the idea of building individual shelters was a “design for saving Republicans and sacrificing Democrats.” Some clergymen chastised shelter owners, warning against the sin of selfishness during a time of national crisis. Rod Serling’s science-fiction television show, The Twilight Zone, ran an episode in 1961 entitled “Shelter,” depicting a scenario of panic and selfishness during an imagined nuclear attack. When the siren sounded, signifying that it had only been a drill, the bewildered people were dumbfounded by their uncivilized behavior. By 1962, the government realized that panic might actually sweep the nation, and it began downplaying the importance of individual family fallout shelters.

Subsequent Events

Few events spurred shelter construction after 1962, as détente replaced confrontation in superpower relations. A few people built shelters in the early 1980’s when fear of war between the superpowers was revived by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979); the KAL 007 incident (1983), when the Soviets shot down a Korean airplane with Americans on board; and the US invasion of Grenada (1983). In 1994, however, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the Smithsonian Institution placed a fallout shelter on exhibit as an artifact of a bygone era.

Bibliography

Boyer, Paul. By the Bomb’s Early Light. U of North Carolina P, 1998.

Federation of American Scientists. “Civil Defense Shelter Statement.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 18, no. 2, 1962, pp. 25–28. Science Reference Center, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sch&AN=21403771&site=eds-live. Accessed 30 Nov. 2016.

Monteyne, David. Fallout Shleter: Designing for Civil Defense in the Cold War. U of Minnesota P, 2011. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=376617&site=ehost-live. Accessed 30 Nov. 2016.

Rose, Kenneth D. One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture. NYUP, 2001. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=100427&site=ehost-live. Accessed 30 Nov. 2016.

Weart, Spencer. Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Harvard UP, 1988.