8/19/2023 0 Comments History of fallout shelter signsAn influential article in Time magazine in August 1961 titled “Gun Thy Neighbor” examined the ethical question of private family shelters, citing a trend of secretive, armed shelter owners and quoting a “Chicago suburbanite” who stated, “When I get my shelter finished, I’m going to mount a machine gun at the hatch to keep the neighbors out if the bomb falls… If the stupid American public will not do what they have to to save themselves, I’m not going to run the risk of not being able to use the shelter I’ve taken the trouble to provide my own family.” The article quoted a number of clergymen who weighed in on the moral implications of private shelter ownership, demonstrating the civic conundrum that would result when survival became the responsibility of individual citizens who would have to decide whether to include others at the expense of their own family’s survival. In the popular press and academic journals, intellectuals, scientists, clergy members, and liberal (and some conservative) editorialists denounced Kennedy’s call for private fallout shelter construction. The September 1961 issue of Life Magazine featured a cover story titled “You Can Protect Yourself from Nuclear Attack” containing a letter from President Kennedy that encouraged family shelter construction, and optimistically projecting that fallout shelters would allow 97% of the US population to survive a nuclear attack. Family fallout shelters also received a flurry of media attention. Public interest in family shelters surged, and businesses-frequently, repurposed building-supply retailers or construction contractors-sprang up, offering kits and prefabricated shelters and displaying models in shopping centers nationwide. He reiterated his commitment to a fallout shelter program, pledging to “let every citizen know what steps he can take without delay to protect his family in case of attack.” In October Kennedy called for “fallout protection for every American as rapidly as possible.” At the same time Kennedy was encouraging private shelter construction he asked for a $207 million appropriation from Congress for the first (and only) large-scale public shelter program proposed at the federal level, for the identification, labelling, and stocking of shelters in existing buildings. In his July 25 radio and television address about the Berlin Crisis, Kennedy presented the standoff as a national emergency and implied that nuclear war was a real possibility. In the following month, the confrontation between the US and USSR over Allied occupation of Berlin led to the highest state of tension to date between the two powers and brought the question of civil defense to the national forefront. Because his popular rival was so closely identified with civil defense, it has been suggested, Kennedy could not afford to appear weak on the issue. Kennedy’s receptivity to Rockefeller’s agenda is believed to have arisen from the threat Rockefeller posed as the presumptive Republican nominee in the upcoming 1964 presidential election. Two weeks later, Kennedy addressed a joint session of Congress, noting the “apathy, indifference, and skepticism” surrounding civil defense policy and asking for appropriations for “a much strengthened Federal-State civil defense program” that would include both public and private fallout shelter construction. In May 1961, as Chair of the Civil Defense Committee of the Conference of Governors, Nelson Rockefeller met with President Kennedy to advocate for a national fallout shelter program.
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