02-12-2003, 10:26 PM
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its from england, and the end of it is funny
its from england, and the end of it is funny
Quote:How they stayed alive in the 1950s
In the 1950s, Operation Alert sought to persuade Americans that diving under a park bench with a newspaper on your head would be ample protection in an all-out thermonuclear war launched by the Soviet Union (James Doran writes).
It was one of many futile orders issued by the US federal Government as the first wave of civil defence mania since the end of the Second World War swept the nation.
Ordinary Americans, gripped by the dual fears of political oppression and obliteration by new super-weapons, took their orders seriously.
The White House believed, as it does today, that the population had to be ready for an attack, even though it also knew that the only protection would be to hide away in an underground shelter, many miles from the blast centre of the bomb.
But that did not stop men and women all over the nation digging shallow A-bomb shelters, which had more in common with the old corrugated iron shelters common in Britain during the Second World War.
In the 1980s, as the final battles of the Cold War were played out, the little booklets with peculiar instructions about saving drinking water, tinned food and candles were issued once more. This time people were advised to duck under their desks.