Civil defense in the United States

Since ancient times, cities typically built walls and moats to protect from invasion and commissioned patrols and watches to keep an eye out for danger, but such activities have not traditionally been encompassed by the term "civil defense."

World War II, which the United States entered after the attack on Pearl Harbor, was characterized by a significantly greater use of civil defense.

[4] The OCD was originally headed by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and was charged with promoting protective measures and elevating national morale.

The Civil Defense Corps, run by the OCD, organized approximately 10 million volunteers who trained to fight fires, decontaminate after chemical weapon attacks, provide first aid, and other duties.

The sheer power of nuclear weapons and the perceived likelihood of such an attack on the United States precipitated a greater response than had yet been required of civil defense.

Civil defense, something previously considered an important and common-sense step, also became divisive and controversial in the charged atmosphere of the Cold War.

Indeed, the responsibilities were passed through a myriad of agencies, and specific programs were often boosted and scrapped in a similar manner to US ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems with which it was seen as complementary.

In declassified US war game analyses of the early 1960s, it was estimated that approximately 27 million US citizens would have been saved with civil defense education in the event of a Soviet pre-emptive strike.

The creators of the cartoon "were forced to pick their way delicately through overly glib depictions of nuclear war on one hand, and terrifying descriptions prescribing hysteria and panic on the other.

The film showed citizens how the whole family can get involved in final moments of preparation if they were to hear the warning sirens that alerted them of an incoming attack.

This included preparing a first aid kit, storing plenty of water and canned goods, stocking up on batteries for radios and flashlights, and equipping a fallout shelter that they could access easily and safely.

Created in December 1951, the "Alert America" program consisted of three convoys with ten thirty-two-foot trailer trucks that traveled 36,000 miles throughout the nation's 82 major cities and attracted 1.1 million people.

[12]: 24  While displaying products and information to educate people on the affects and preparedness associated with nuclear weapons, the "Alert America" program also showed federally supported films such as Duck and Cover, Survival Under Atomic Attack, and Our Cities Must Fight.

[15] Through this, women were encouraged to "make ready for the possibility of nuclear war" by warning them against "the possibility of damaged water systems, broken sewer lines, mounting heaps of garbage, and a lack of food and fresh water after an attack", all of which were duties that typically aligned with prescribed gender roles given to women during the postwar era.

[12]: 112  These lessons transferred to real life expectations, where even adults were continuously instructed on how to manage homes, perform gendered assigned roles, and prepare their families for the case of nuclear attacks.

Such examples were found in literature and educational films which taught women the values and skills of home nursing and first aid that would protect and save the lives of their family members.

[18] Women were also taught to be the ones to dominate kitchen work during the first few days within shelters if there was an emergency, only to be relieved by teenagers and young children who were only expected to volunteer when needed.

It argued that in the event of a nuclear war, people need to stay in cities to help repair the infrastructure and man the recovering industries.

Hospital patients were packed into semi-trucks, pedestrians were picked up by passing motorists, and the city's construction equipment and emergency vehicles were rushed out to "dispersal points."

The show, A Day Called 'X', produced "in co-operation with the Federal Civil Defense Administration," was shot in Portland, using city officials and ordinary citizens instead of professional actors.

[21] Such plans were plausible in the early days of the Cold War, when an attack would have come from strategic bombers, which would have allowed a warning of many hours, not to mention the high possibility of interception by anti-air systems and fighters.

The White House suggested that the $10 billion, five-year program could allow the evacuation of targeted urban centers to rural "host areas" and thus save 80% of the population.

The plan allowed up to three days for the evacuation to be completed, believing that a nuclear war would not come in a surprise attack but rather as the culmination of a crisis period of rising tensions.

[23] Because of these shortcomings, Stanford University physician and professor Herbert L. Abrams estimated that no more than 60 million people (25% of the population) would survive if the program was executed as designed.

The aim of the annual exercise was to evaluate emergency preparedness in the face of a nuclear attack, determine government continuation readiness, and identify problems that might occur during an alert.

[28] Operation Alert was actively protested by the Catholic Worker Movement, Ralph DiGia, Dorothy Day and others in New York City when held on June 15, 1955.

Before the creation of FEMA in 1979 the responsibility for civil defense in the United States was shared between a wide variety of short-lived and frequently changing departments, agencies, and organizations.