![]() ![]() Both hydrogen bomb tests’ effects seemed to convince the public that it was not possible to survive a nuclear detonation, unless people were warned in advance of the attack. At the time, however, Congress and the Executive Branch did not directly support this initiative due to the prohibitive cost of creating a system of nuclear fallout shelters across the country.įollowing the Soviet Union’s test of the hydrogen bomb in 1953 and the release by the United States of the effects of its first thermonuclear bomb (“hydrogen bomb”) test, Mike, detonated in the Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1952, the Eisenhower administration determined that shelter programs were no longer effective and instituted evacuation plans instead. ![]() Each shelter was supposed to have at least two weeks of supplies, the recommended amount of time for staying in the shelter after an attack. Today, these films are seen as ill-informed, and even were used to make a 1982 satirical film, Atomic Cafe, about the misinformation the United States government gave to American soldiers and citizens in the early years of the Cold War.ĭuring the early 1950s, the FCDA also encouraged Americans to begin building at-home nuclear fallout shelters. These films included the famous Duck and Cover drill with Bert the Turtle, which portrayed students saving themselves from a nuclear attack by hiding underneath their school desks. In 1952, the FCDA - with the help of the Ad Council - created nine different short films about preparedness. As such, FCDA was largely responsible for the first nuclear shelters. In 1950, United States Congress created the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA), to guide states’ actions in regards to civil defense policy. Today, fallout shelter signs, such as the one below, represent remnants of the nuclear disaster preparedness plans that the United States government intermittently encouraged or funded during the Cold War, from the 1950s through the 1980s. Irwin Redlener, a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, explained: “the rogue state and the terrorist detonation remain a possibility and should be considered among the most serious disaster threats that the United States faces.” Despite the reality of such a nuclear attack, the United States remains largely unprepared. ![]() Perhaps the newest and most relevant is the higher probability of a nuclear weapon falling in the hands of a terrorist group or rogue state, such as Iran or North Korea, as opposed to a nuclear attack by another recognized nuclear weapons state. While the world has faced the Clock’s proximity to midnight before and lived to see the minute hand move backward, the world - and thus the Clock - is currently influenced by a number of different factors that did not exist in 1953. The Clock, designed in 1947 by artist Martyl Langsdorf and set by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, signifies how close the world is to a “nuclear apocalypse.” For the first time since 1953, the world is two minutes away from nuclear destruction. Ended nearly three decades ago, the Doomsday Clock was set to 17 minutes to midnight. ![]()
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