December 9, 2025 • 39 mins
Picture this: it's just after World War II -- the world knows nuclear weapons can end civilization. So, how can a government help the public feel safe? In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max dive into the ridiculous history of that time Uncle Sam tried to make the public build cartoonishly bad fallout shelters.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show. A fellow Ridiculous Historians thinks again, as always,
so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our
super producer, Max Apocalypto Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Gonna be a Clason? Did they play Clackson's one.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Bit of a bit of a bit of a doom Bringer? Williams?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Oh, gosh, Clason is just it's just like an alarm, right,
classic class Clackson nixt.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I definitely a claxon in the soundhout library.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
We've got some weird end of the year energy, folks.
I am as always thrilled to introduce you yet again
to the one and only mister Nole Brown, mister nol
Copenhagen Brown. Yeah, hello, Ben.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
You know it's funny that you should say that I
did just return from the land of Christmas of Santa Claus.
I went to Denmark and venture Yes and d Lego
to see the band Radiohead, and I've had their song
Idiotech stuck in my head on a loop. In the
first lyrics to that song are Who's in a Bunker?
(01:29):
Who's in a Bunker? Women and children first and a
children first, and a children first, and sadly that song
in my head was all I was going to get
because they canceled the concert that I went there for
because old Tommy Yorke had a little bit of a
seasonal soretquoat, and the second and third of the run
of shows in Denmark were not canceled, but mine was.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
But it was still a lovely trip, lovely solo adventure,
wonderful to hear they called me ben Bowling, and folks,
we're glad to hear that is in recovery from his
sore throat.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I don't mean to be dismissed if it was categorized
as a severe throat infection, which if you're a singer,
anyone knows how terrifying and debilitating that must be. And
I know they didn't take it lightly rescheduling the date. Sadly,
I'm not going back to Copenhagen on the fourteenth, so
I'm just gonna flip my ticket. But they'll come to
the States, I know they.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Right, of course, and you'll see them again soon. Take heart.
Chin's up, folks, fellow ridiculous historians. We can all go
to a radio Head concert as long as there is
not a nuclear war.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Well, they're actually the perfect band to be listening to
in a nuclear fallow.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Who's in a bunker.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
We're listening to Idiotech kid A in our family bunker
with our nuclear family.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So the end of the Second World War brought about
a lot of good things. There's a lot of chaos, horror, atrocities,
literal genocide, and it also launched something we call the
Cold War, which we've talked about in our sister show Stuff.
They don't want you to know, we're talking about decades
of nuclear paranoia. The bombs may drop at any given moment.
(03:18):
It feels weird to make your bed, you know what
I mean. During the Cuban missile crisis, you're like, should
I make the bed? Or is today the day? Does
anything really matter? Yeah? Is it all futile and for nothing?
Is it all a big black nothing? Then? Is it
all a big black nothing? These questions we ask ourselves
in the dark nights of the soul.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
And that's all because of some very sillily named bombs
that dropped the fat Man and Little Boy that were
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki reverse respectively. Hiroshima was a
little boy Nagasaki was fat man. And not only did
this result in the unconditional surrender of the big bads
(04:00):
in that conflict, at least from where we stand, it
created this arms race and this just sense of paranoia
around a thing that was no longer just conceptual. It
was a thing that had happened, and boy, oh boy,
was it a thing that happened to some people. And
the fallouts pun intended, was utterly, you know, disastrous, And
(04:22):
we then all of a sudden, everyone starts to insert
themselves into that scenario.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
What if it happened here? What if it happened to me?
This is a question people around the world ask themselves
whenever a disaster of this magnitude occurs, and this launched
a very strange cultural moment in the United States, in particular,
Uncle Sam said, look, we're going to handle things happening
(04:49):
outside of the borders, and we'll do our best to
take care of the public and keep you safe. But
just in case, John and Jane blue jeans, just in
case we don't manage to stop all the bombs and
the missiles and the rockets, you should consider investing in
your own protection at home.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
And if you can't afford it, then just climb under
your bed and then get in the fetal position, right right,
Surely that's all it'll take. Right, So every time I
think about duck and cover Ben, I think about the
mummified like meducified figures of Pompeii.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Oh yeah, totally man. And I remember having to conduct
some of those drills in my younger years. It's very
strange to be a kid and be at a nuclear
drill where they say, okay, you know the this is
what you do if the bombs are going off, get
under your tiny wooden desk because that'll definitely do the trick. Right. Well,
(05:51):
what could go wrong?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
It is one of those things where it just you
realize how much it was just more of an extra
size in like wishful thinking than it was in actual preparedness.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Exactly. Yeah, it was almost propagandistic. So how do we
get here? As we mentioned, the atomic bombs are deployed
at only one period in human warfare, August sixth and ninth,
nineteen forty five. This was total war. Many civilians were killed.
If you were ever in the area in either Nagasaki
(06:27):
or Hiroshima, please do take the time to visit the
historical sites. It's worth it.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
And I think we've mentioned this before. Some excellent depictions,
and when I say excellent, I just mean really artistically
rendered and beautiful and tragic in pop culture, like The
Grave of the Fireflies or Barefoot Gin some of the
animated films that depict the horrors of nuclear war just
incredibly starkly.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
History is always closer than it looks in the rear
view mirror. What I was last in Hiroshima, I spent
some time, as you know, no, I spent some time
exploring the museum, the blast site, the history behind it,
and the city itself now is doing very well and
(07:15):
has preserved the legacy of these events. At the time.
Of course, this is still a touchy subject if you're
in Japan, But at the time, the Imperial Japanese government
was pretty nasty, pretty aggressive. If you want to learn
more about things like Unit seven thirty one check out stuff,
(07:36):
they don't want you to know, the rape of Nanking
and so on. What we're saying is in war there
often aren't really pure good guys. Everybody's got some sins
and some skeletons in the closet. But because of this,
like you were saying the bombs drop and the United
(07:58):
States is for a fairly brief amount of time, it
is the only guy in the game with nuclear weapons.
You know, I just watched the on the flight back
the Thunderbolts film. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I really liked
it a lot.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It's sad that it didn't really do well in the
box office because I would have loved to see them
take those characters further. But the New Avengers, and there's
a character in it who I believe is the President,
played by Elaine from Seinfeld, and she says something like,
it's not about being the good guy, it's about being
the less.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Worse guy, or something along those lines. Yeah, she is
a mover and shaker character who is manipulating the heroes.
I don't think she's the president.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
But they're talking about impeachment, so she must be like
a high ranking government official of some kind. But I
definitely didn't clock what her actual job title was.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
It's a great film. Check it out for it.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
I really enjoyed it, and it did it not to derail,
but I thought it did a really cool job of
characterizing addiction in a very interesting way. The main century
character was with the century, the sort of manipulated battie.
He's got a background in substance abuse and mental health issues.
And I thought they did a really thoughtful, tasteful job
(09:17):
of like talking about sort of the shadow self and
all of those things.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And the shadow self is something that the United States
is considering, both as a government and as the public.
They knew that it was only a matter of time
before this powerful, potentially world ending technology spread to other countries,
particularly the United States historical frenemie the Soviet Union, and
(09:44):
for the US at this time post World War two,
right still the only folks in town with the bomb.
They for the US because they were almost certain that
this technology would spread to other countries. They wanted to
flex the power while they had it, right, while they
(10:05):
were the only car with gas in the tank. However,
we also learned history would prove that the Soviet intelligence
apparatus had already well infiltrated the United States nuclear program,
at least to the point where they knew what it was,
and they were quickly figuring out how to build their
(10:26):
own toys. And this leads us to something weird and sticky,
which is whether or not the Cold War ended in
the West, people are going to tell you it ended
by nineteen ninety one, right, or by the fall of
the Soviet Union. But if you go too, especially Russian
(10:46):
officials and Daddy Vladdie, they'll tell you the Cold War
never ended. Beat me here, Max, They'll say, there is
not shit, sweet, and it's still it's still go time.
Thank you Max. Well, yeah, I mean, it's as long
as the technology.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Exists and no one's used it yet, and we know
that people who maybe are not like our best of
pals have it. You're always kind of in a perma standoff. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, And this is where we see a house yon
age peak nuclear paranoia. It's almost like a moral panic. Diy,
do it yourself home. Nuclear bunkers became a thing, and so,
as our research associate, our pal Dylan mentions here, this
was more than just a backdrop for the amazing Fallout
(11:37):
franchise and all the other science fiction works about living
in bunkers. We want to grab our official Fallout cookbooks
and start scheming a plan of interior design for our
own Fallout bunkers to house your perfect nuclear family. We're
going to learn more about American propaganda, which was fa
frankly ridiculous at the time. We're going to talk to
(11:59):
more about duck and cover drills, cartoon turtles, cartoon turtles.
We're also going to explore a little bit of history
along the way. So, as we said, everybody, it was
only a matter of time before there were other nuclear
powers on the planet. On August twenty ninth, nineteen forty nine,
Kazakhstein ends the nuclear monopoly. They test. The Soviet Union
(12:23):
goes there to test their own atomic bomb, affectionately nicknamed
Joe one. I'd never heard that one before, Ben, I
know it's called Joe one. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
And we've got Alex Wellerston writing for History of Science
and Nuclear Weapons, who is a professor at the Stevens
Institute of Technology. During this period, the United States is
suddenly having to really reckon with the fact that it
is not the only nuclear power out there anymore.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Now.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Instead of just seeing the bomb as this asset that
we could use or not use, it suddenly brought to
bear that this is something that could be used against us.
You can't put the badger back in the bag. Been
And it's like one of those things where once it's
out there, it's only a matter of time before someone
else figures out to harness fire, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
One hundred percent, Yeah, because everybody wants to be Prometheus.
This is something that the US government is not able
to suppress. The public knows that now the Red Bear
half a world away has its own nuclear capabilities, and
(13:31):
so how do we as the US government address this,
How do we get the public prepared for these terrifying possibilities. Well,
it starts on January twelfth, nineteen fifty one. Then US
President Truman creates something called the FICTA or Federal Civil
Defense Administration.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Right, this was a direct respondence to the Soviets nuclear
test of Joe one, an acknowledgment of this new reality,
this idea of a potential new clear armageddon that was
very very real and very very palpable, presenting this nightmare
scenario that the federal government was just frankly completely unprepared for, underfunded,
(14:14):
and just didn't really you know, have the infrastructure in
place to do anything about this because you know, sadly
that kind of I don't know what you might call
it arrogance that the US is historically presented that you know,
that facade was really slipping.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yeah, because it was confronted by facts. And here's one
of the ridiculous things that the FCDA does. They could
have if they had enough money, they could have allocated
federal funding to civil defense projects. But instead of doing that,
our friends at Civil Defense started putting out propaganda. And
(14:54):
their concept was, look, if we can motivate members of
the public to help do some of this work, that
we're going to save money and we'll have better defended nations.
So if we can, if we can get in people's
heads enough to motivate citizens at the state, local, or
even private level to pay for their own bunkers, pay
(15:16):
for their own defensive measures, then boom, we're we're starting
off on second base.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Gosh, Bennett reminds me a lot of like how the
initial push for recycling was its own propaganda to defer
or deflect some of the responsibility of pollution onto the
consumer and.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Say, actually, you should do something about this. This is
on you, exactly, Yeah, put it on put it on
the consumer, put it on the public. This is one
hundred percent very similar logic. So how do we know
this is propaganda? Well, we know it because if you
look at the old Civil Defense educational pamphlets that they
(15:55):
spread across the land. You'll see that they are very misleading,
or they downplay the severity of atomic radiation in nuclear fallout.
We don't know if this was because they actually didn't
know what happens when a nuclear blast occurs, Like maybe
they didn't know how the radiation, how long the radiation
(16:17):
would stick around, how far the fallout could spread, or
maybe and this is probably more likely, they did know,
but they were trying to keep everybody call, which is
just the most unhelpful thing if you're ever in an
emergency situation. I get it. I know we have to
say this kind of stuff when people are scared, But
(16:38):
I don't think anybody hears a recorded voice saying, calmly,
proceed to the nearest exit and then in fact proceeds
called That's true.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
There is something to be said of, like, you know,
lowering the temperature on this type of tension and this
type of paranoia. Like when I was getting off the
plane in Atlanta yesterday, there was a family that was
clearly very very very stressed about making their connecting flight,
and I wasn't lying to them, but I told them.
They said they had an hour, and I said, Oh,
(17:08):
you'll be fine, you can make it in an hour,
and I was, you know, and it's possible they missed
their flight. But honestly, is it is it better to
like be terrified and worrying about the worst possible outcome
or is there something too.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Just a little bit of wish fulfillment.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And also it's something you can't control, that's right, So
worrying about the things you cannot control, it's kind of
self defeating. But it's something a lot of people do.
And so the United States, which does have a good
understanding of large scale psychology, they say, we're going to
(17:43):
reassure the public in some way, right, and we're actually
and I'll use this word, we're actually going to trick
them into thinking simple stuff like a DIY fallout bunker
and duct a cover drills are going to keep you
safe in World War IIEA, yeah, let's let's let's make.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Some fun cartoons. The kiddies will like a cartoon turtle
telling them everything is going to be a okay. The
fc DA did focus heavily on initiatives that made it
to the classroom, where they were able to sort of
shape a new generation, you know, into thinking about this
stuff in a way that was perhaps helpful to the
(18:23):
overall narrative from their side, from the perspective of the government.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, exactly. It's the logic that Wu Tang would you
use later, You get the children right, and then they
get the adults. Toy companies have done this forever too, absolutely,
So they wanted to talk to kids, not about necessarily
terrifying stuff. They want to be all gloom and doom,
but they wanted to say, hate fellow kids. You know,
(18:49):
it's really cool gardening at home and canning and make
your dad pay for a bunker. I'm Bertha Turtle. I
was on board with how do we all of a
sudden get to bunker right right? And it would be
the whole family to be fair, not just that. Yeah,
that's true. So kids would practice these air raid drills,
(19:11):
primarily in cities that the US thought were likely targets
for the Soviet Union Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago,
a big metro areas, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Philadelphia, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And to jump in here real quick, kind of like
a side tangent.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
But back in the day, we had an episode about
how they tested chemical warfare on Saint Louis because it
was the most Soviet Union looking city.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, And I think I told you guys this one
at least off air.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
But I have a good friend, his name is Vick,
who grew up in Saint Louis, and I told him that,
and like the chemical wharf, the chemical testing, which it
wasn't hazardous, I don't think, but it was like that
that creeped him out. But he's also like the part
that bother room was was like, I don't like the
fact that they think Saint Louis is the most Soviet
Union looking city in this country.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
How much brutalist architecture does the city possess. They got
that arch it's pretty brutal. Yeah, And we also explore
that that case at length in our books. Stuff they
don't want you to know. As you said, Max, the
as far as we can tell, the stuff that they
were dispersing, it was targeting poorer neighborhoods, right, And it
(20:24):
was also according to the people who conducted the test,
it did not contain dangerous chemicals. Right.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
And when we say poorer neighborhoods, we're also referring largely
to black and brown people being targeted.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
One hundred percent. Yeah, people who probably wouldn't have the
legal means to fight back. So this sort of stuff
is old, is dirt, right, these tactics used against the
public for greater good. We also have to point out
that it's a real trip to watch these old nuclear
war PSAs and instructions for kids because as Bert the
(21:00):
turtle is always in a great mood despite the fact
that in his universe the end of the world has occurring.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
It is, it is on the horizon for sure, but
he has a real can do attitude. He is fully
convinced that ducking and covering, because he's a turtle by
the way, that's what he does. He pulls his head
and his legs inside of his shell. Makes sense, was
gonna be enough to protect our meat bodies from explosive radiation?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, and he also he also spent a lot of
time trying to normalize the concept of ducking and covering.
You've got to see this absolute banger duck and cover.
It comes about because in nineteen fifty one, Uncle Sam
hires an ad agency out of New York called Archer Productions.
They say, Okay, make this film for kids and tell
(21:47):
them how to, you know, feel like they're protecting themselves
from atomic war. So they come up with this guy Bert,
Like you said, Nola, I love that he's a turtle.
So he's got like a walking bunker already. And he said,
Burt would go on in this cartoon and he would say, look, kids,
ducking covery is no different from reacting to a fire,
(22:10):
or wearing a seatbelt, or making sure not to get sunburn.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Let's hear a little clip from the from the this
video that we're talking about. He's got a bow tie,
snow and of flowers, also wearing a military helmet.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Oh no, the monkey's dangling a piece of dynamite. I
love that. I love this idea of like the nuclear bomb.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Is this tantamount to a monkey dangling a single piece
of dynamite?
Speaker 4 (22:55):
Be sure remember what Bert the Turtle justed, friends, because
every one of us must remember to do the same thing.
That's what this film is all about. Duck and cover.
This is an official civil defense film produced in cooperation
with the Federal Civil Defense Administration and in consultation with
the Safety Commission of the National Education Association.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Produced by Archer Productions. What do we always say? About
seemingly innocuous organization names sketchy. That's a real sketchbook page.
But the point there is true. You can watch it.
It's exactly what we're describing. The Simian creature dangling a
stick of dynamite blows himself up and blows the tree
(23:40):
up that he's hanging from. But our hero Bert is
safe because he what ducked and covered. Right. It's right.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
And if you're watching the new IT series, welcome to
Darry No spoilers. But when Pennywise the clown finally appears,
the first thing he says to the kids is ducking
cover kiddos.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Oh wow? Is it the same? Is it the Scars Guard?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
It is?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, because he's back and he doesn't it's it's it's
it's Scott's issues.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
But I'm enjoying it. But it is the same exact
era that we're describing here. I like what I've seen,
but I haven't seen the latest episodes. I'm a big
fan of Stephen King, and I'm a big fan of
almost every part of the novel.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
It.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, you don't like the you don't like the part
where they I don't like that part.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
You don't like that part.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
You don't like that one part, not just look up
that one part and yeah, you don't.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Have to describe it, but we'll keep it. Peach through
Cocaine's a hell of a drum. That is honestly what
Stephen King probably said several times. So if we go
back to this, this is already kind of Stephen kingish
and creepy.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Right the million you know, he he he absolutely these
He would have grown up in this era with this
type of paranoia and fear and this idea of the
godlike power of destruction. Obviously the stand is about something
similar to this, and he is very much on the
man's mind, no question about.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, but look at it from a practical perspective, if
we separate the propaganda, just to be clear, if we
haven't been clear enough ducking and covering in the event
of a nuclear bomb on a school, it's not gonna save.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
You, ain't gonna do it, not gonna happen, Nope. So
but it's good to have, you know, things that you
think will will help. Again, it's all it was propagandistic
and that none of this was going to actually do
any good, but it kind of had a calming effect.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Potential. Sure, Yeah, who doesn't level a little ritual, a
little procedural placebo, that's what this becomes. And W. Gale Sterns,
who is the director of the Civil Defense Division of
Education and Training, came to educators and said, look, you
need to not just settle for Bert the Turtle or
(25:56):
breakout Star. You need to make sure that we're in
co operating civil defense in every daily function. It's way
more than just something a federal agency does. You, my
fellow Americans, need to make this your way of life.
And that's where the whole bunker industry comes in, which
is cool.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah, And as you mentioned earlier, been a lot of
this had to do with how unprepared we as a
country and as a government actually were. So this idea
of rather than maybe putting infrastructure in place, building these
things for you, having some sort of national preparedness plan,
it was almost like shifting the responsibility to the individuals.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Exactly one hundred percent, right. And I don't know, I
am sure that I've mentioned this to you some point
over the years, but I used to live in I
think there was a creepy stone castle essentially off a
street here called Morland Nice. I know Moreland. Yeah, like
the house on knee Bolt Street. It was built by
(27:06):
a very short man back in the twenties or thirties,
and it was not really up to modern code. But
one interesting thing this guy did, who was very paranoid,
he built a bomb shelter in his castle. There was
a room in the basement obviously you know windows, It
was four to five and it was creepy. We turned
(27:27):
it into a dark room for photography.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Bomb shelter, fallout, shelter, bunker, all of these things can
be synonymous, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so let's fast forward. It's nineteen
fifty eight. President Eisenhower has issued something called the National
Shelter Policy, and this is a public info campaign trying
to motivate citizens to build their own home defenses, primarily
do it yourself bunkers. So again, like you were saying, no,
(27:59):
this puts the responsibility of civil defense on the individual,
on the family. And there were there were equally propagandistic
things that people said, like the Civil Defense director at
the time, Leo A. Wo h O E g h.
He said every hole should be a fortress.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Right and almost like factoring it in or piggybacking this
into this.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Idea of the American dream.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
You know, like making it part of Like that's why
fall Out, the series and the video game is so
interesting because it does such a good job of like
the way they advertise these vault tech vaults.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
It's in that.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Same kind of like, you know, the modern household, the
modern family, all of the amenities and technologies that you
know kind of were part and parcel for what it
meant to be a great American living in the age
of you know, technology in the future.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
Yeah, and the jombing real quick, as you know, I'm
a big fall Out fanly, like all three of us.
It's like one of her things because it is kind
of an alternate universe where basically fifties culture just continues,
it doesn't change and progress sixties stuff like that. And
so yeah, it's just like watching all this stuff. I've
always found this is one of my favorite areas of studying.
(29:14):
But uh, and I think like Fallout just captures.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
It so well.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I mean, I love retro futurism, man, I'm super into it.
And they're also selling this dystopian thing. The argument is
from officials is not only is it your duty as
an American citizen to be prepared. It is also your
privilege and it should be your aspiration. We're not just
(29:40):
gonna make you build a bomb shelter. We want you
to be happy that you're doing it right. We want
you to feel good about it.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Yeah, this idyllic sort of quality of like, no, no,
this is just it's the same as like, you know,
having the latest appliances in your kitchen, you also need
a really dope bomb shelter.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, right, keep up with the Joneses. And this is
where we see things like the senator from Georgia at
the time, or a senator from Georgia at the time,
Richard Russell. He's the damn guy, right, Richard B. Russell.
Dam isn't that a thing?
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I think you're correct, man, that's a great reference. I
didn't put that together, but yes, you're absolutely right. And
this guy, Senator Russell, would say, look these shelters that
again you people have to build. They are absolutely mission
critical for the US to maintain global dominance as a superpower.
(30:38):
He said, quote, if we have to start over with
another Adam and Eve, I want them to be Americans
and not Russians and I want them on this continent
and not in Europe.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
However, the problem is, or the flip side of that
is the father of the higher gen bomb, doctor Edward
Teller said that without actual government subsidized preparedness and civil
defense infrastructure put in place like some of these, you know,
more nationalized bomb shelters, the United States.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Would quote cease to exist.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
So this was really kind of kicking the can down
the road because of a lack of preparedness, because they
just were a little too high on our own supply
and thought nobody else can be as big of a
big shot as we.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Are, right exactly, and historically that doesn't work out well
for empires. The tensions continue to rise throughout the Cold War.
Fast forward. It's July twenty fifth, nineteen sixty one. We've
got a different president now. His name is JFK and
he has to go to the public and say, look, yes,
(31:41):
tensions are escalating, we want peace, but these guys are crazy.
And as a result, oh, friends and neighbors, it is
a great time to be in the home shelter business.
They're selling like hotcakes, they're selling like fruitcakes.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Yeah, that's where the whole voltech you know it comes
from the Fallout universe. So this really starts to become
a boom time for the Family Fallout Shelter, which was
actually the name of a book that sold twenty two
million copies nineteen fifty nine. The Family Fallout Shelter was
really a pamphlet, I guess you could call it. It
was released by the Office of Civil Defense Mobilization, and
(32:19):
in it they detailed a step by step guide for
explaining to families how to build their own fallout shelters
as an extension of their like home garages or basements
or digging into the backyard.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And these instructions are well intentioned, but they did not
age well. It's very much leaning on those nuclear family
gender roles that we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Mom wearing an apron, dad smoking a pipe, you know,
all of that stuff. This is like what a great
father son activity, right, digging out a fallout shelter would.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Be, right, exactly. And we can back this up with
a state from historian Sarah A. Lichtmann who said, quote,
the desire to protect the imperiled home long a bulwark
of American frontierism and self defense, now translated to staving
off the physical and psychological devastations of nuclear attack.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Well, then the question becomes, would these you know, obviously
thankfully knock kong would we didn't have to put this
to the test, But would these as described in the
family fault outsheltered structures or extensions of the home. Would
they have worked? Would they have been a little bit
of a step beyond duck and cover?
Speaker 1 (33:34):
One might hope. Yeah, that's the million kiloton question, isn't it. No,
Because now we see again this ritual of doing something
to feel that you are protecting your family, to feel
that you are more empowered. But the materials that they
would use for construction had to be readily available, right,
(33:58):
so you had to go You're literally being told to
go to a hardware store and make a little room
that's a bit more fortified than the other rooms in
your house. And I think we all thought about this.
This is also the era of the like prefab homes
that Steers in Roebuck advertised in their catalogs. Steers in
(34:18):
Roebuck catalogs obviously a big propagandistic force in and of itself,
creating this.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Image of the the you know, the modern American family.
So think about it like that these are the kinds
of ad campaigns we'd be seeing, whether on the local
level or more national level, fire sale low price on
nuclear fallout shelters for a family of five, don't miss
this great opportunity to guarantee your future exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Yeah. And we're talking about stuff like concrete blocks, ready
mixed border, wooden, post board, sheeting, pounds of Dale's you
know again, stuff you could get at your local ACE
hardware store essentially, And we can then say in our
buddy research associated Dilien agrees with us, we can then
say that, no, the vast majority of these home shelters
(35:05):
probably would not have worked in the face of a
direct nuclear attack. Yeah, yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
It's not to mention, like, I mean, if it wasn't
a direct hit though, Ben, Yeah, and you were able
to wade out the like literal fallout and all of
the nuclear materials and you know, the stuff that would
you know, permeate the air, you know, surrounding the impact
(35:34):
zone of a nuclear blast.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
What would have been left exactly Yeah. I mean that's
the thing.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Too, like when you emerge, right, and that's also the
stuff of post apocalyptic fiction as well.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
What happens after right, and you usually, yeah, you get
to that question of whether or not you want to
continue living in the world that is left in the
smoking ruins of human civilization. Again, folks, check out our
episode on stuff they Don't Want you to know? Can
you survive a nuclear attack? That was a very sobering
(36:08):
one for us. The statistics are frightening. It's also kind
of frightening too. I'm not sure what to make of this,
because it's frightening to imagine that the US government knew
it was misleading people and continue to do so. They
were asking people to lobby for the US to directly
strike the Soviet Union.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
No, and again back to the hubris of it all,
I guess given you know, yeah, that was not great.
Knowing that the technology existed, perhaps it would have been
smart to have made some bigger picture, long game plans
for what might happen if this were to end up
in the hands of quote unquote the enemy. But given
the circumstances and all of that hubris, was this about
(36:53):
the best they could do given the timeline.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I think so, because they were at a crisis moment
and they were trying to thread the needle as best
they could, but it prevents all out panic, right, but
it absolutely did lead to ridiculous history. And this wasn't,
by the way, this wasn't a super successful initiative. By
around nineteen sixty, the real height of the Cold War,
(37:18):
as the West understands it, something like maybe three percent
of the American population had actually built a shelter.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Pretty rare to hear about, Like, oh, it's kind of
an oddity if you end up renting a home or
purchasing a home and no, there's a fallout shelter. Like,
it's definitely not something that there are an absolute heap of.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, you know what I mean. What they were aiming
for to be kind of like a normalized structure in
any given household, kind of the way that so many
homes in Finland have saunas, and it's normalized in like
an apartment complex. It's weird for there not to be
a sauna apparently. But this is where we have to
(38:00):
leave it. In the immortal words of our pal Bert
the Turtle, Duck and Cover, it's the best we got.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
It's the best we've got.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
We have the best audience in the history of podcasting.
That's you, specifically you. Thank you so much for tuning in, folks,
and big thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams, and.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Huge thanks to our research associated for this episode, Dylan
Wade Clark, excellent job on this brief.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Jeez, Chris Frasiotis and Eves Jeff Coates here in spirit. Oh,
totally yeah, Doctor Rachel Big Spinach, Lance aj Bahamas, Jacobs,
and famously the guy who wouldn't let other people into
his fallout shelter, Jonathan Strickland. Man, I'm sure you would
if we asked nicely. Let's text him. Okay, let's do it.
(38:47):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show. A fellow Ridiculous Historians thinks again, as always,
so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our
super producer, Max Apocalypto Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Gonna be a Clason? Did they play Clackson's one.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Bit of a bit of a bit of a doom Bringer? Williams?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Oh, gosh, Clason is just it's just like an alarm, right,
classic class Clackson nixt.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I definitely a claxon in the soundhout library.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
We've got some weird end of the year energy, folks.
I am as always thrilled to introduce you yet again
to the one and only mister Nole Brown, mister nol
Copenhagen Brown. Yeah, hello, Ben.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
You know it's funny that you should say that I
did just return from the land of Christmas of Santa Claus.
I went to Denmark and venture Yes and d Lego
to see the band Radiohead, and I've had their song
Idiotech stuck in my head on a loop. In the
first lyrics to that song are Who's in a Bunker?
(01:29):
Who's in a Bunker? Women and children first and a
children first, and a children first, and sadly that song
in my head was all I was going to get
because they canceled the concert that I went there for
because old Tommy Yorke had a little bit of a
seasonal soretquoat, and the second and third of the run
of shows in Denmark were not canceled, but mine was.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
But it was still a lovely trip, lovely solo adventure,
wonderful to hear they called me ben Bowling, and folks,
we're glad to hear that is in recovery from his
sore throat.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I don't mean to be dismissed if it was categorized
as a severe throat infection, which if you're a singer,
anyone knows how terrifying and debilitating that must be. And
I know they didn't take it lightly rescheduling the date. Sadly,
I'm not going back to Copenhagen on the fourteenth, so
I'm just gonna flip my ticket. But they'll come to
the States, I know they.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Right, of course, and you'll see them again soon. Take heart.
Chin's up, folks, fellow ridiculous historians. We can all go
to a radio Head concert as long as there is
not a nuclear war.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Well, they're actually the perfect band to be listening to
in a nuclear fallow.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Who's in a bunker.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
We're listening to Idiotech kid A in our family bunker
with our nuclear family.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So the end of the Second World War brought about
a lot of good things. There's a lot of chaos, horror, atrocities,
literal genocide, and it also launched something we call the
Cold War, which we've talked about in our sister show Stuff.
They don't want you to know, we're talking about decades
of nuclear paranoia. The bombs may drop at any given moment.
(03:18):
It feels weird to make your bed, you know what
I mean. During the Cuban missile crisis, you're like, should
I make the bed? Or is today the day? Does
anything really matter? Yeah? Is it all futile and for nothing?
Is it all a big black nothing? Then? Is it
all a big black nothing? These questions we ask ourselves
in the dark nights of the soul.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
And that's all because of some very sillily named bombs
that dropped the fat Man and Little Boy that were
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki reverse respectively. Hiroshima was a
little boy Nagasaki was fat man. And not only did
this result in the unconditional surrender of the big bads
(04:00):
in that conflict, at least from where we stand, it
created this arms race and this just sense of paranoia
around a thing that was no longer just conceptual. It
was a thing that had happened, and boy, oh boy,
was it a thing that happened to some people. And
the fallouts pun intended, was utterly, you know, disastrous, And
(04:22):
we then all of a sudden, everyone starts to insert
themselves into that scenario.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
What if it happened here? What if it happened to me?
This is a question people around the world ask themselves
whenever a disaster of this magnitude occurs, and this launched
a very strange cultural moment in the United States, in particular,
Uncle Sam said, look, we're going to handle things happening
(04:49):
outside of the borders, and we'll do our best to
take care of the public and keep you safe. But
just in case, John and Jane blue jeans, just in
case we don't manage to stop all the bombs and
the missiles and the rockets, you should consider investing in
your own protection at home.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
And if you can't afford it, then just climb under
your bed and then get in the fetal position, right right,
Surely that's all it'll take. Right, So every time I
think about duck and cover Ben, I think about the
mummified like meducified figures of Pompeii.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Oh yeah, totally man. And I remember having to conduct
some of those drills in my younger years. It's very
strange to be a kid and be at a nuclear
drill where they say, okay, you know the this is
what you do if the bombs are going off, get
under your tiny wooden desk because that'll definitely do the trick. Right. Well,
(05:51):
what could go wrong?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
It is one of those things where it just you
realize how much it was just more of an extra
size in like wishful thinking than it was in actual preparedness.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Exactly. Yeah, it was almost propagandistic. So how do we
get here? As we mentioned, the atomic bombs are deployed
at only one period in human warfare, August sixth and ninth,
nineteen forty five. This was total war. Many civilians were killed.
If you were ever in the area in either Nagasaki
(06:27):
or Hiroshima, please do take the time to visit the
historical sites. It's worth it.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
And I think we've mentioned this before. Some excellent depictions,
and when I say excellent, I just mean really artistically
rendered and beautiful and tragic in pop culture, like The
Grave of the Fireflies or Barefoot Gin some of the
animated films that depict the horrors of nuclear war just
incredibly starkly.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
History is always closer than it looks in the rear
view mirror. What I was last in Hiroshima, I spent
some time, as you know, no, I spent some time
exploring the museum, the blast site, the history behind it,
and the city itself now is doing very well and
(07:15):
has preserved the legacy of these events. At the time.
Of course, this is still a touchy subject if you're
in Japan, But at the time, the Imperial Japanese government
was pretty nasty, pretty aggressive. If you want to learn
more about things like Unit seven thirty one check out stuff,
(07:36):
they don't want you to know, the rape of Nanking
and so on. What we're saying is in war there
often aren't really pure good guys. Everybody's got some sins
and some skeletons in the closet. But because of this,
like you were saying the bombs drop and the United
(07:58):
States is for a fairly brief amount of time, it
is the only guy in the game with nuclear weapons.
You know, I just watched the on the flight back
the Thunderbolts film. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I really liked
it a lot.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It's sad that it didn't really do well in the
box office because I would have loved to see them
take those characters further. But the New Avengers, and there's
a character in it who I believe is the President,
played by Elaine from Seinfeld, and she says something like,
it's not about being the good guy, it's about being
the less.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Worse guy, or something along those lines. Yeah, she is
a mover and shaker character who is manipulating the heroes.
I don't think she's the president.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
But they're talking about impeachment, so she must be like
a high ranking government official of some kind. But I
definitely didn't clock what her actual job title was.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
It's a great film. Check it out for it.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
I really enjoyed it, and it did it not to derail,
but I thought it did a really cool job of
characterizing addiction in a very interesting way. The main century
character was with the century, the sort of manipulated battie.
He's got a background in substance abuse and mental health issues.
And I thought they did a really thoughtful, tasteful job
(09:17):
of like talking about sort of the shadow self and
all of those things.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And the shadow self is something that the United States
is considering, both as a government and as the public.
They knew that it was only a matter of time
before this powerful, potentially world ending technology spread to other countries,
particularly the United States historical frenemie the Soviet Union, and
(09:44):
for the US at this time post World War two,
right still the only folks in town with the bomb.
They for the US because they were almost certain that
this technology would spread to other countries. They wanted to
flex the power while they had it, right, while they
(10:05):
were the only car with gas in the tank. However,
we also learned history would prove that the Soviet intelligence
apparatus had already well infiltrated the United States nuclear program,
at least to the point where they knew what it was,
and they were quickly figuring out how to build their
(10:26):
own toys. And this leads us to something weird and sticky,
which is whether or not the Cold War ended in
the West, people are going to tell you it ended
by nineteen ninety one, right, or by the fall of
the Soviet Union. But if you go too, especially Russian
(10:46):
officials and Daddy Vladdie, they'll tell you the Cold War
never ended. Beat me here, Max, They'll say, there is
not shit, sweet, and it's still it's still go time.
Thank you Max. Well, yeah, I mean, it's as long
as the technology.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Exists and no one's used it yet, and we know
that people who maybe are not like our best of
pals have it. You're always kind of in a perma standoff. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, And this is where we see a house yon
age peak nuclear paranoia. It's almost like a moral panic. Diy,
do it yourself home. Nuclear bunkers became a thing, and so,
as our research associate, our pal Dylan mentions here, this
was more than just a backdrop for the amazing Fallout
(11:37):
franchise and all the other science fiction works about living
in bunkers. We want to grab our official Fallout cookbooks
and start scheming a plan of interior design for our
own Fallout bunkers to house your perfect nuclear family. We're
going to learn more about American propaganda, which was fa
frankly ridiculous at the time. We're going to talk to
(11:59):
more about duck and cover drills, cartoon turtles, cartoon turtles.
We're also going to explore a little bit of history
along the way. So, as we said, everybody, it was
only a matter of time before there were other nuclear
powers on the planet. On August twenty ninth, nineteen forty nine,
Kazakhstein ends the nuclear monopoly. They test. The Soviet Union
(12:23):
goes there to test their own atomic bomb, affectionately nicknamed
Joe one. I'd never heard that one before, Ben, I
know it's called Joe one. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
And we've got Alex Wellerston writing for History of Science
and Nuclear Weapons, who is a professor at the Stevens
Institute of Technology. During this period, the United States is
suddenly having to really reckon with the fact that it
is not the only nuclear power out there anymore.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Now.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Instead of just seeing the bomb as this asset that
we could use or not use, it suddenly brought to
bear that this is something that could be used against us.
You can't put the badger back in the bag. Been
And it's like one of those things where once it's
out there, it's only a matter of time before someone
else figures out to harness fire, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
One hundred percent, Yeah, because everybody wants to be Prometheus.
This is something that the US government is not able
to suppress. The public knows that now the Red Bear
half a world away has its own nuclear capabilities, and
(13:31):
so how do we as the US government address this,
How do we get the public prepared for these terrifying possibilities. Well,
it starts on January twelfth, nineteen fifty one. Then US
President Truman creates something called the FICTA or Federal Civil
Defense Administration.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Right, this was a direct respondence to the Soviets nuclear
test of Joe one, an acknowledgment of this new reality,
this idea of a potential new clear armageddon that was
very very real and very very palpable, presenting this nightmare
scenario that the federal government was just frankly completely unprepared for, underfunded,
(14:14):
and just didn't really you know, have the infrastructure in
place to do anything about this because you know, sadly
that kind of I don't know what you might call
it arrogance that the US is historically presented that you know,
that facade was really slipping.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yeah, because it was confronted by facts. And here's one
of the ridiculous things that the FCDA does. They could
have if they had enough money, they could have allocated
federal funding to civil defense projects. But instead of doing that,
our friends at Civil Defense started putting out propaganda. And
(14:54):
their concept was, look, if we can motivate members of
the public to help do some of this work, that
we're going to save money and we'll have better defended nations.
So if we can, if we can get in people's
heads enough to motivate citizens at the state, local, or
even private level to pay for their own bunkers, pay
(15:16):
for their own defensive measures, then boom, we're we're starting
off on second base.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Gosh, Bennett reminds me a lot of like how the
initial push for recycling was its own propaganda to defer
or deflect some of the responsibility of pollution onto the
consumer and.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Say, actually, you should do something about this. This is
on you, exactly, Yeah, put it on put it on
the consumer, put it on the public. This is one
hundred percent very similar logic. So how do we know
this is propaganda? Well, we know it because if you
look at the old Civil Defense educational pamphlets that they
(15:55):
spread across the land. You'll see that they are very misleading,
or they downplay the severity of atomic radiation in nuclear fallout.
We don't know if this was because they actually didn't
know what happens when a nuclear blast occurs, Like maybe
they didn't know how the radiation, how long the radiation
(16:17):
would stick around, how far the fallout could spread, or
maybe and this is probably more likely, they did know,
but they were trying to keep everybody call, which is
just the most unhelpful thing if you're ever in an
emergency situation. I get it. I know we have to
say this kind of stuff when people are scared, But
(16:38):
I don't think anybody hears a recorded voice saying, calmly,
proceed to the nearest exit and then in fact proceeds
called That's true.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
There is something to be said of, like, you know,
lowering the temperature on this type of tension and this
type of paranoia. Like when I was getting off the
plane in Atlanta yesterday, there was a family that was
clearly very very very stressed about making their connecting flight,
and I wasn't lying to them, but I told them.
They said they had an hour, and I said, Oh,
(17:08):
you'll be fine, you can make it in an hour,
and I was, you know, and it's possible they missed
their flight. But honestly, is it is it better to
like be terrified and worrying about the worst possible outcome
or is there something too.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Just a little bit of wish fulfillment.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And also it's something you can't control, that's right, So
worrying about the things you cannot control, it's kind of
self defeating. But it's something a lot of people do.
And so the United States, which does have a good
understanding of large scale psychology, they say, we're going to
(17:43):
reassure the public in some way, right, and we're actually
and I'll use this word, we're actually going to trick
them into thinking simple stuff like a DIY fallout bunker
and duct a cover drills are going to keep you
safe in World War IIEA, yeah, let's let's let's make.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Some fun cartoons. The kiddies will like a cartoon turtle
telling them everything is going to be a okay. The
fc DA did focus heavily on initiatives that made it
to the classroom, where they were able to sort of
shape a new generation, you know, into thinking about this
stuff in a way that was perhaps helpful to the
(18:23):
overall narrative from their side, from the perspective of the government.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, exactly. It's the logic that Wu Tang would you
use later, You get the children right, and then they
get the adults. Toy companies have done this forever too, absolutely,
So they wanted to talk to kids, not about necessarily
terrifying stuff. They want to be all gloom and doom,
but they wanted to say, hate fellow kids. You know,
(18:49):
it's really cool gardening at home and canning and make
your dad pay for a bunker. I'm Bertha Turtle. I
was on board with how do we all of a
sudden get to bunker right right? And it would be
the whole family to be fair, not just that. Yeah,
that's true. So kids would practice these air raid drills,
(19:11):
primarily in cities that the US thought were likely targets
for the Soviet Union Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago,
a big metro areas, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Philadelphia, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And to jump in here real quick, kind of like
a side tangent.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
But back in the day, we had an episode about
how they tested chemical warfare on Saint Louis because it
was the most Soviet Union looking city.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, And I think I told you guys this one
at least off air.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
But I have a good friend, his name is Vick,
who grew up in Saint Louis, and I told him that,
and like the chemical wharf, the chemical testing, which it
wasn't hazardous, I don't think, but it was like that
that creeped him out. But he's also like the part
that bother room was was like, I don't like the
fact that they think Saint Louis is the most Soviet
Union looking city in this country.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
How much brutalist architecture does the city possess. They got
that arch it's pretty brutal. Yeah, And we also explore
that that case at length in our books. Stuff they
don't want you to know. As you said, Max, the
as far as we can tell, the stuff that they
were dispersing, it was targeting poorer neighborhoods, right, And it
(20:24):
was also according to the people who conducted the test,
it did not contain dangerous chemicals. Right.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
And when we say poorer neighborhoods, we're also referring largely
to black and brown people being targeted.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
One hundred percent. Yeah, people who probably wouldn't have the
legal means to fight back. So this sort of stuff
is old, is dirt, right, these tactics used against the
public for greater good. We also have to point out
that it's a real trip to watch these old nuclear
war PSAs and instructions for kids because as Bert the
(21:00):
turtle is always in a great mood despite the fact
that in his universe the end of the world has occurring.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
It is, it is on the horizon for sure, but
he has a real can do attitude. He is fully
convinced that ducking and covering, because he's a turtle by
the way, that's what he does. He pulls his head
and his legs inside of his shell. Makes sense, was
gonna be enough to protect our meat bodies from explosive radiation?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, and he also he also spent a lot of
time trying to normalize the concept of ducking and covering.
You've got to see this absolute banger duck and cover.
It comes about because in nineteen fifty one, Uncle Sam
hires an ad agency out of New York called Archer Productions.
They say, Okay, make this film for kids and tell
(21:47):
them how to, you know, feel like they're protecting themselves
from atomic war. So they come up with this guy Bert,
Like you said, Nola, I love that he's a turtle.
So he's got like a walking bunker already. And he said,
Burt would go on in this cartoon and he would say, look, kids,
ducking covery is no different from reacting to a fire,
(22:10):
or wearing a seatbelt, or making sure not to get sunburn.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Let's hear a little clip from the from the this
video that we're talking about. He's got a bow tie,
snow and of flowers, also wearing a military helmet.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Oh no, the monkey's dangling a piece of dynamite. I
love that. I love this idea of like the nuclear bomb.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Is this tantamount to a monkey dangling a single piece
of dynamite?
Speaker 4 (22:55):
Be sure remember what Bert the Turtle justed, friends, because
every one of us must remember to do the same thing.
That's what this film is all about. Duck and cover.
This is an official civil defense film produced in cooperation
with the Federal Civil Defense Administration and in consultation with
the Safety Commission of the National Education Association.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Produced by Archer Productions. What do we always say? About
seemingly innocuous organization names sketchy. That's a real sketchbook page.
But the point there is true. You can watch it.
It's exactly what we're describing. The Simian creature dangling a
stick of dynamite blows himself up and blows the tree
(23:40):
up that he's hanging from. But our hero Bert is
safe because he what ducked and covered. Right. It's right.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
And if you're watching the new IT series, welcome to
Darry No spoilers. But when Pennywise the clown finally appears,
the first thing he says to the kids is ducking
cover kiddos.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Oh wow? Is it the same? Is it the Scars Guard?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
It is?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, because he's back and he doesn't it's it's it's
it's Scott's issues.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
But I'm enjoying it. But it is the same exact
era that we're describing here. I like what I've seen,
but I haven't seen the latest episodes. I'm a big
fan of Stephen King, and I'm a big fan of
almost every part of the novel.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
It.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, you don't like the you don't like the part
where they I don't like that part.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
You don't like that part.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
You don't like that one part, not just look up
that one part and yeah, you don't.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Have to describe it, but we'll keep it. Peach through
Cocaine's a hell of a drum. That is honestly what
Stephen King probably said several times. So if we go
back to this, this is already kind of Stephen kingish
and creepy.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Right the million you know, he he he absolutely these
He would have grown up in this era with this
type of paranoia and fear and this idea of the
godlike power of destruction. Obviously the stand is about something
similar to this, and he is very much on the
man's mind, no question about.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, but look at it from a practical perspective, if
we separate the propaganda, just to be clear, if we
haven't been clear enough ducking and covering in the event
of a nuclear bomb on a school, it's not gonna save.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
You, ain't gonna do it, not gonna happen, Nope. So
but it's good to have, you know, things that you
think will will help. Again, it's all it was propagandistic
and that none of this was going to actually do
any good, but it kind of had a calming effect.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Potential. Sure, Yeah, who doesn't level a little ritual, a
little procedural placebo, that's what this becomes. And W. Gale Sterns,
who is the director of the Civil Defense Division of
Education and Training, came to educators and said, look, you
need to not just settle for Bert the Turtle or
(25:56):
breakout Star. You need to make sure that we're in
co operating civil defense in every daily function. It's way
more than just something a federal agency does. You, my
fellow Americans, need to make this your way of life.
And that's where the whole bunker industry comes in, which
is cool.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah, And as you mentioned earlier, been a lot of
this had to do with how unprepared we as a
country and as a government actually were. So this idea
of rather than maybe putting infrastructure in place, building these
things for you, having some sort of national preparedness plan,
it was almost like shifting the responsibility to the individuals.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Exactly one hundred percent, right. And I don't know, I
am sure that I've mentioned this to you some point
over the years, but I used to live in I
think there was a creepy stone castle essentially off a
street here called Morland Nice. I know Moreland. Yeah, like
the house on knee Bolt Street. It was built by
(27:06):
a very short man back in the twenties or thirties,
and it was not really up to modern code. But
one interesting thing this guy did, who was very paranoid,
he built a bomb shelter in his castle. There was
a room in the basement obviously you know windows, It
was four to five and it was creepy. We turned
(27:27):
it into a dark room for photography.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Bomb shelter, fallout, shelter, bunker, all of these things can
be synonymous, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so let's fast forward. It's nineteen
fifty eight. President Eisenhower has issued something called the National
Shelter Policy, and this is a public info campaign trying
to motivate citizens to build their own home defenses, primarily
do it yourself bunkers. So again, like you were saying, no,
(27:59):
this puts the responsibility of civil defense on the individual,
on the family. And there were there were equally propagandistic
things that people said, like the Civil Defense director at
the time, Leo A. Wo h O E g h.
He said every hole should be a fortress.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Right and almost like factoring it in or piggybacking this
into this.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Idea of the American dream.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
You know, like making it part of Like that's why
fall Out, the series and the video game is so
interesting because it does such a good job of like
the way they advertise these vault tech vaults.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
It's in that.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Same kind of like, you know, the modern household, the
modern family, all of the amenities and technologies that you
know kind of were part and parcel for what it
meant to be a great American living in the age
of you know, technology in the future.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
Yeah, and the jombing real quick, as you know, I'm
a big fall Out fanly, like all three of us.
It's like one of her things because it is kind
of an alternate universe where basically fifties culture just continues,
it doesn't change and progress sixties stuff like that. And
so yeah, it's just like watching all this stuff. I've
always found this is one of my favorite areas of studying.
(29:14):
But uh, and I think like Fallout just captures.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
It so well.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I mean, I love retro futurism, man, I'm super into it.
And they're also selling this dystopian thing. The argument is
from officials is not only is it your duty as
an American citizen to be prepared. It is also your
privilege and it should be your aspiration. We're not just
(29:40):
gonna make you build a bomb shelter. We want you
to be happy that you're doing it right. We want
you to feel good about it.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Yeah, this idyllic sort of quality of like, no, no,
this is just it's the same as like, you know,
having the latest appliances in your kitchen, you also need
a really dope bomb shelter.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, right, keep up with the Joneses. And this is
where we see things like the senator from Georgia at
the time, or a senator from Georgia at the time,
Richard Russell. He's the damn guy, right, Richard B. Russell.
Dam isn't that a thing?
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I think you're correct, man, that's a great reference. I
didn't put that together, but yes, you're absolutely right. And
this guy, Senator Russell, would say, look these shelters that
again you people have to build. They are absolutely mission
critical for the US to maintain global dominance as a superpower.
(30:38):
He said, quote, if we have to start over with
another Adam and Eve, I want them to be Americans
and not Russians and I want them on this continent
and not in Europe.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
However, the problem is, or the flip side of that
is the father of the higher gen bomb, doctor Edward
Teller said that without actual government subsidized preparedness and civil
defense infrastructure put in place like some of these, you know,
more nationalized bomb shelters, the United States.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Would quote cease to exist.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
So this was really kind of kicking the can down
the road because of a lack of preparedness, because they
just were a little too high on our own supply
and thought nobody else can be as big of a
big shot as we.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Are, right exactly, and historically that doesn't work out well
for empires. The tensions continue to rise throughout the Cold War.
Fast forward. It's July twenty fifth, nineteen sixty one. We've
got a different president now. His name is JFK and
he has to go to the public and say, look, yes,
(31:41):
tensions are escalating, we want peace, but these guys are crazy.
And as a result, oh, friends and neighbors, it is
a great time to be in the home shelter business.
They're selling like hotcakes, they're selling like fruitcakes.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Yeah, that's where the whole voltech you know it comes
from the Fallout universe. So this really starts to become
a boom time for the Family Fallout Shelter, which was
actually the name of a book that sold twenty two
million copies nineteen fifty nine. The Family Fallout Shelter was
really a pamphlet, I guess you could call it. It
was released by the Office of Civil Defense Mobilization, and
(32:19):
in it they detailed a step by step guide for
explaining to families how to build their own fallout shelters
as an extension of their like home garages or basements
or digging into the backyard.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And these instructions are well intentioned, but they did not
age well. It's very much leaning on those nuclear family
gender roles that we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Mom wearing an apron, dad smoking a pipe, you know,
all of that stuff. This is like what a great
father son activity, right, digging out a fallout shelter would.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Be, right, exactly. And we can back this up with
a state from historian Sarah A. Lichtmann who said, quote,
the desire to protect the imperiled home long a bulwark
of American frontierism and self defense, now translated to staving
off the physical and psychological devastations of nuclear attack.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Well, then the question becomes, would these you know, obviously
thankfully knock kong would we didn't have to put this
to the test, But would these as described in the
family fault outsheltered structures or extensions of the home. Would
they have worked? Would they have been a little bit
of a step beyond duck and cover?
Speaker 1 (33:34):
One might hope. Yeah, that's the million kiloton question, isn't it. No,
Because now we see again this ritual of doing something
to feel that you are protecting your family, to feel
that you are more empowered. But the materials that they
would use for construction had to be readily available, right,
(33:58):
so you had to go You're literally being told to
go to a hardware store and make a little room
that's a bit more fortified than the other rooms in
your house. And I think we all thought about this.
This is also the era of the like prefab homes
that Steers in Roebuck advertised in their catalogs. Steers in
(34:18):
Roebuck catalogs obviously a big propagandistic force in and of itself,
creating this.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Image of the the you know, the modern American family.
So think about it like that these are the kinds
of ad campaigns we'd be seeing, whether on the local
level or more national level, fire sale low price on
nuclear fallout shelters for a family of five, don't miss
this great opportunity to guarantee your future exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Yeah. And we're talking about stuff like concrete blocks, ready
mixed border, wooden, post board, sheeting, pounds of Dale's you
know again, stuff you could get at your local ACE
hardware store essentially, And we can then say in our
buddy research associated Dilien agrees with us, we can then
say that, no, the vast majority of these home shelters
(35:05):
probably would not have worked in the face of a
direct nuclear attack. Yeah, yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
It's not to mention, like, I mean, if it wasn't
a direct hit though, Ben, Yeah, and you were able
to wade out the like literal fallout and all of
the nuclear materials and you know, the stuff that would
you know, permeate the air, you know, surrounding the impact
(35:34):
zone of a nuclear blast.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
What would have been left exactly Yeah. I mean that's
the thing.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Too, like when you emerge, right, and that's also the
stuff of post apocalyptic fiction as well.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
What happens after right, and you usually, yeah, you get
to that question of whether or not you want to
continue living in the world that is left in the
smoking ruins of human civilization. Again, folks, check out our
episode on stuff they Don't Want you to know? Can
you survive a nuclear attack? That was a very sobering
(36:08):
one for us. The statistics are frightening. It's also kind
of frightening too. I'm not sure what to make of this,
because it's frightening to imagine that the US government knew
it was misleading people and continue to do so. They
were asking people to lobby for the US to directly
strike the Soviet Union.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
No, and again back to the hubris of it all,
I guess given you know, yeah, that was not great.
Knowing that the technology existed, perhaps it would have been
smart to have made some bigger picture, long game plans
for what might happen if this were to end up
in the hands of quote unquote the enemy. But given
the circumstances and all of that hubris, was this about
(36:53):
the best they could do given the timeline.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I think so, because they were at a crisis moment
and they were trying to thread the needle as best
they could, but it prevents all out panic, right, but
it absolutely did lead to ridiculous history. And this wasn't,
by the way, this wasn't a super successful initiative. By
around nineteen sixty, the real height of the Cold War,
(37:18):
as the West understands it, something like maybe three percent
of the American population had actually built a shelter.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Pretty rare to hear about, Like, oh, it's kind of
an oddity if you end up renting a home or
purchasing a home and no, there's a fallout shelter. Like,
it's definitely not something that there are an absolute heap of.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, you know what I mean. What they were aiming
for to be kind of like a normalized structure in
any given household, kind of the way that so many
homes in Finland have saunas, and it's normalized in like
an apartment complex. It's weird for there not to be
a sauna apparently. But this is where we have to
(38:00):
leave it. In the immortal words of our pal Bert
the Turtle, Duck and Cover, it's the best we got.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
It's the best we've got.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
We have the best audience in the history of podcasting.
That's you, specifically you. Thank you so much for tuning in, folks,
and big thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams, and.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Huge thanks to our research associated for this episode, Dylan
Wade Clark, excellent job on this brief.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Jeez, Chris Frasiotis and Eves Jeff Coates here in spirit. Oh,
totally yeah, Doctor Rachel Big Spinach, Lance aj Bahamas, Jacobs,
and famously the guy who wouldn't let other people into
his fallout shelter, Jonathan Strickland. Man, I'm sure you would
if we asked nicely. Let's text him. Okay, let's do it.
(38:47):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
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