Following the war, Peter Rathvon at RKO, who had seen Our Job in Japan during his own military service, decided to produce a commercial version of the film.

The film was given wide release in January 1948; a review in Daily Variety characterized it as "a documentary of fabulous proportions ... one of the most interesting screen presentations of the year".

[4] In his memoir, Elmo Williams maintains that he and Geisel created Design for Death nearly in its entirety, and that the credits for Fleischer and Warth were nominal ones.

[3] However, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sponsored a screening in October 2005,[5] and parts of the film were included in the documentary The Political Dr.

[6] Some materials related to Design for Death, including its script, are in an archive of Geisel's papers at the University of California, San Diego.