ANDREW McILROY
No Interest, No Time, No Money:
Civil
Defense in Cleveland in the Cold
War
In recent years historians have shown
that fear of the atomic bomb per-
vaded all aspects of American life in
the early cold war era. Paul Boyer ar-
gued that "the ever-present reality
of the bomb" was so great that it was
"built into the very structure of
our minds, giving shape and meaning to all
our perceptions." Magazines such as Life, Time, and Newsweek
offered
evidence through a wealth of articles
that the atomic bomb remained central
to the national consciousness. Fear of
nuclear destruction spurred interest in
civil defense as a means to increase
odds of survival in the event of war.
Although the federal government and
atomic scientists proclaimed that civil
defense could save a substantial number
of lives, this case study of the city of
Cleveland and Cuyahoga County suburbs
reveals that the people of north-
eastern Ohio lacked interest in civil
defense preparations, even though the
area was a primary target for nuclear
attack.1
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, county
civil defense officials encouraged
public involvement in preparations for a
nuclear attack by organizing air raid
drills, recruiting volunteers to help
with disaster relief, and planning for sur-
Andrew Mcllroy is a M.S. candidate at
the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and
Management, Carnegie Mellon University.
This paper was written while he was a masters stu-
dent in American History at the
University of Akron, where he worked closely with Dr. Walter
Hixson and Dr. Jerome Mushkat.
1. Paul Boyer, By tle Bomb's Early
Light: American Thought and Culture (at the Dawn of the
Atomic Age (New York, 1985), xv, xviii, 15; Robert Karl Manoff,
"The Media: Nuclear
Security vs. Democracy," Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists (hereafter BAS), 40 (January, 1984),
26-29. For more information on the
culture of cold war America, and its relationship to the
bomb, see: Elaine Tyler May, Homeward
Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New
York, 1988), especially chp. 4,
"Explosive Issues: Sex, Women, and the Bomb," 92-113;
William L. O'Neill American High: The
Years of Confidence, 1945-1960, (New York, 1986).
The film by The Archives Project, The
Atomic Cafe, 1982 Thorn Emi
Video, provides an enter-
taining depiction of civil defense
efforts and the cultural impact of the bomb. Spencer R. Weart,
Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge, Mass., 1988) might also prove interesting.
The federal offices responsible for civil
defense and academics issued a multitude of pamphlets
explaining the need for civil defense
and offering practical ways for everyone, from architects to
housewives, to get involved. A brief
survey of books on the subject includes: Pat Frank, How to
Survive the H-Bomb, and Why (Philadelphia, 1962); Herman Kahn, Thinking About the
Unthinkable (New York, 1962); Thomas L Martin and Donald C. Latham,
Strategy for Survival
(Tucson, 1963); Colonel Mel Mawrence
with John Clark Kimball, You Can Survive the Bomb
(Chicago, 1961); Augustin M. Prentiss, Civil
Defense in Modern War (New York, 1951); Eugene
P. Wigner, Survival and the Bomb;
Methods of Civil Defense (Bloomington, 1969).
60 OHIO
HISTORY
vival through evacuation and shelters.
Except for a few brief periods of
heightened international tensions,
however, Cleveland failed to build a viable,
sustained civil defense program,
primarily because of public apathy and bu-
reaucratic ineptitude. While America
remained in the shadow of the bomb
throughout this period, the people of
northeastern Ohio refused to prepare for
the possibility of nuclear war through
civil defense. The multitude of other
activities which consumed their
interest, as well as a vague sense that despite
what government administrators told
them, there was nothing they could do
to prepare for or prevent an atomic
disaster, undermined plans for civil de-
fense. The emphasis of this study is on
the public reaction as recorded in two
local newspapers, the Cleveland Plain
Dealer and the Cleveland Press, which
both shaped and reflected public
opinion. The bureaucratic disputes and
contentious political debate that
hampered civil defense efforts in Cuyahoga
County may have been unique to
Cleveland, but the general lack of public re-
sponse to civil defense appears to have
been common across the country.2
Calls for civil defense began soon after
President Harry S. Truman an-
nounced on September 23, 1949, the
explosion of the first Soviet atomic
weapon which prompted people to call for
the development of a national plan
of civil defense. Cries for a comprehensive
civil defense effort increased fol-
lowing the outbreak of the Korean War on
June 24, 1950, which some feared
might be a prelude to a broader Soviet
offensive. As the war in Korea turned
against the United States in late 1950,
Congress quickly passed the Federal
Civil Defense Act of 1950, establishing
the Federal Civil Defense
Administration (FCDA). The FCDA did not
manage local civil defense ef-
forts or develop plans for defense of
specific civilian populations, but rather
provided general supervision and
inspiration.3
FCDA officials declared that Cuyahoga
County was "perhaps the most crit-
ical area of the United States." As
a major population and manufacturing
center, Cuyahoga County presented a
primary target area for Russian attack.
2. Other local studies of civil defense
include: Pamela A. Brown, "Constructing the Cultural
Curtain: The Meaning of Cold War in
York, Pennsylvania Daily Newspapers, 1947-1962"
(Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1983);
James Marten, "Coping with the Cold War: Civil
Defense in Austin, Texas, 1961-61,"
East Texas Historical Journal, 26 (no. 1, 1988), 3-13;
Costia Nikitiuk, "Emergency and
Organizational Legitimacy: The Dilemma of Emergency
Planning in British Columbia," BC
Studies, 38 (Summer, 1978), 47-64; Marijan Salopek,
"Western Canadians and Civil
Defense: The Korean War Years, 1950-1953," Prairie Forum, 14
(Spring, 1989), 75-88. All these studies
describe grandiose plans for civil defense that produced
few substantive results. Gallup national
surveys from throughout the period also indicate that
most of the population took few concrete
steps to protect themselves or join a civil defense or-
ganization. See George Gallup, ed. The
Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1953-1971, 3 vols.
(New
York, 1972), vol. II, 1162, 1230-1231,
1671, 1732, 1741, 1745.
3. Boyce Wayne Blanchard, "American
Civil Defense 1945-1975: The Evolution of Programs
and Policies" (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Virginia, 1980), 36, 47-49; JoAnne Brown, "A is for
Atom, B is for Bomb; Civil Defense in
American Public Education, 1948-1963," Journal of
American History, 75 (June, 1988), 69; Blanchard, "American Civil
Defense," 48, 49.
Civil Defense in Cleveland 61
Much of the nation's manufacturing
depended on Cleveland, including jet
plane output, forgings of half the
nation's output of magnesium and alu-
minum, and production of important
submarine parts, as well as a third of all
auto and truck components. In addition,
Cleveland was the world's largest
gray iron casting center and contained
seventy-one "critical plants" for mili-
tary production. "Without the
machine tools and other products of Cleveland
industry," the FCDA warned,
"our entire capacity to wage modern war would
be crippled." Preparation was
essential, for as the FCDA cautioned, a
Russian attack could come without
warning.4
As the Korean War continued, political
leaders in Cuyahoga County
worked to establish a civil defense
organization. In December 1950,
Cleveland Mayor Thomas A. Burke and the
county commissioners appointed
Ellsworth H. Augustus, a local
businessman and civic leader, as the
Cuyahoga County Coordinator of Civil
Defense. Although Augustus and his
staff had little experience with civil
defense and limited guidance from the
federal government, the civil defense
organization soon developed organiza-
tional plans for a county-wide program
that called for "tens of thousands of
volunteers" to be "the
county's defense troops." Augustus hoped to train one
member from each family in Cuyahoga
County, or 375,000 people, in first
aid. Further volunteer opportunities
included 30,000 to 40,000 air raid war-
dens, 5,000 police auxiliary officers,
and 3,000 auxiliary firemen. Local
schools also participated in the civil
defense program. In February 1951,
Cleveland school officials sent a letter
to all parents describing the civil de-
fense efforts in schools. Some schools
taught their students how to protect
themselves by ducking under their desks
and covering their heads.5
On March 29, 1951, the city of Cleveland
made its first major attempt to
recruit volunteers for the civil defense
program. The registration day re-
ceived extensive coverage from the Plain
Dealer and the Press, emphasizing
the insurance theme. The leaders wanted
to enroll over 70,000 people, in-
cluding 40,000 air raid wardens, 15,000
auxiliary police, and 15,000 auxiliary
firemen, as well as volunteers in
thirteen other categories such as fire watch-
ers, messengers, communications workers,
drivers corps, demolition clear-
4. Cleveland Plain Dealer, February
12, 1951; "Table Showing Percentage Shares By
Subdivisions of Costs Allocated 50% by
Population and 50% by Tax Duplicate in Cuyahoga
County," January 4, 1952, Civil
Defense collection, Cuyahoga County Archives, Cleveland,
Ohio (hereafter Civil Defense
collection); Cleveland Civil Defense Digest, July 1952, Cleveland
Documents Microfilm Project, reel 78,
Cleveland Public Administration Library, Cleveland City
Hall, Cleveland, Ohio; Cleveland
Press, Jan. 13, 1953.
5. Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 24, February 12, 1951. There seems to be little
continuity
to the estimates given by civil defense
leaders in Cleveland, and across the nation, on the number
of volunteers needed or the potential
number of people that could be saved by an effective civil
defense program. This is undoubtedly due
to the lack of a factual basis for defense and recovery
planning, and the relatively unknown
destructive power of many atomic weapons on large civil-
ian populations, despite testing and the
studies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In addition, support-
ers or opponents of civil defense tended
to cite whatever statistics supported their argument.
62 OHIO HISTORY
ance crews, and decontamination squads.
Administrators predicted volun-
teers would one day number 375,000
people in Cuyahoga County. With the
aid of these volunteers, 100,000 people
might be saved if an atomic bomb
dropped on Cleveland. In the first live
united broadcast by all the Cleveland
radio and television stations,
Cleveland's Mayor Burke encouraged all
Clevelanders to register for civil defense.
The Press urged people to register
for the "preservation of our
families, our homes, and our way of life," re-
minding them that while "other
Americans are dying in Korea for the same
high goals, it is not too much to ask
volunteers on the home front."6
Despite the intense press coverage and
the pleas of Mayor Burke, Civil
Defense Day in Cleveland registered only
10,000 people. Augustus blamed
the "cloudy skies, general public
apathy, and the turn of events in Korea in
our favor" for the low turnout.
Some locations did not have enough volun-
teers, with applicants reporting only
two of the four designated registrations
sites in Ward 17 open, while Ward 27's
two locations had only one volunteer
each. The Press editors suggested
it was hard to create interest in something
people "would rather not think
about." But the Press urged Mayor Burke and
Augustus not to get discouraged, for
this was "one job that not even apathy or
indifference at its worst can justify setting
aside."7
Although the suburbs were a little ahead
of Cleveland in the organizing
process, the suburban volunteer response
was equally disappointing. The
suburb of Brooklyn estimated it required
over 700 volunteers, but by March
1951, only thirty-five signed up and
only ten remained faithful. The first aid
class which started with twenty dwindled
to two people. The mayor, John M.
Coyne, bemoaned public apathy,
complaining that "nobody cared" about the
weekly Thursday night civil defense
movie and lecture, although the town
mailed nine circulars to all residents.
The community of Lakewood reported
similar disappointing results. Lakewood
issued a call for 3,000 volunteers,
but only 300 responded. Of the fifty
that started Lakewood's air raid warden
class, twenty dropped the class before
the end. The Cleveland Heights Civil
Defense Director tried to convince the
people that civil defense was "here to
stay like death and taxes," but
everyone ignored him. Webb Jennings,
Director of Civil Defense for Rocky
River, commented, "a lot of people are
giving lip service to civil defense, but
few are willing to work and take on re-
sponsibilities." Jennings
identified the central problem that plagued national
as well as local civil defense efforts
through the 1950s and 1960s.8
After only five months as county
director, Augustus was prompted by the
the disappointing results to call for a
new civil defense structure. Under the
6. Cleveland Plain Dealer, March
25, 1951; Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 29, 1951;
Cleveland Press, March 26, 28, 1951.
7. Ibid., March 30, 1951; Cleveland
Press, March 30, 1951; Cleveland Plain Dealer, March
30, 1951.
8. Cleveland Press, March 12, 1951.
Civil Defense in Cleveland 63
plan established in 1950. Augustus
served as the coordinator for civil defense
plans in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County,
including all the suburban munici-
palities. By April 1951, however, only
five municipalities certified ordi-
nances to join the county-wide civil
defense structure, thus retarding the de-
velopment of Cleveland's plan. Augustus
warned "Cleveland could not wait.
It must get ready. What if a bomb were
to drop next week? There is nobody
actually in authority yet." He
recommended Cleveland abandon the county-
wide structure to form its own
independent organization, under the direction
of a single, paid, full-time commander,
with "lifelong experience in military
tactics and an unimpeachable record of
achievement in the armed service of
the country." For Augustus, the
imminent danger made it unwise for the city
to wait for the suburbs to join the
civil defense program.9
On May 8, 1951, the City Council
established a new office of civil defense
for the city of Cleveland. Because the
United States "was not in an all-out
war," Mayor Burke declared,
"civil defense is something which we may have
to provide for years. It may become a
part of our way of life, and if this hap-
pens you have got to make it a function
of governmental service." The mayor
speculated civil defense could go on
indefinitely and would thus require full-
time, paid personnel. The Plain
Dealer believed Cleveland was the first city
to make civil defense a governmental
function.l0
To head this new organization, Mayor
Burke appointed a social worker
with little military experience, John J.
Pokorny, as the first paid, full-time
Director of Civil Defense. Despite his
apparent lack of suitable preparation,
he launched into improving Cleveland's
civil defense plan. He recognized
the challenges ahead with the admission
that directors across the country all
reported general apathy. Pokorny's
honeymoon as director lasted a relatively
short period before he fell under sharp
media criticism for failing to accom-
plish anything. In November 1951, the Press
headline declared: "city civil
defense moving at a crawl." The Press
warned, "with the Korean conflict in
its 18th month and the international situation
more taunt than ever, Cleveland
still lacks a really effective civil
defense organization." Pokorny acknowl-
edged the program was "so far
behind that it was still largely a matter of pa-
per planning." His office offered
only a few basic first aid classes and none
in other areas. Only 7,000 Clevelanders
were trained in first aid, of the esti-
mated 300,000 people who would be needed
in the event of a nuclear attack.
The need for preparation was clear,
because the Russian attack could come at
any minute according to the Press. Despite
this danger, the public seemed
uninterested and the Cleveland Civil
Defense Office unprepared.11
9. Cleveland Plain Dealer, April
8, 1951; Cleveland Press, April 10, 1951,
10. Cleveland Plain Dealer, April
13, 25, May 2, 8, 195.
11. [bid., November 29, 1951; Cleveland Press, June
9, 1951; Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 3,
1951; Cleveland Press, August 5,
November 25, 28, 29, 1951.
64 OHIO HISTORY
Not only did Pokorny face public apathy,
bureaucratic infighting also ham-
pered his progress. As a result of the
"balkanized political character of
Cuyahoga County," he remained
unsure of the territorial and political limits
of his power. The county lacked a
unified civil defense organization, but the
state and federal governments assumed
Cleveland held responsibility for the
whole county. Cleveland's office
received the area's entire allotment of civil
defense material which "issued
forth in profusion from state and federal
sources." The FCDA expected Pokorny
to distribute this material as well as
coordinate matching grants, since it did
not want to deal with more than fifty-
seven separate municipalities. The
"hodge-podge of plans and multiple au-
thority" also hampered the
Cleveland Academy of Medicine, charged with
coordinating the county plan for medical
services in the event of an attack.
The Ohio law, which prevented a
"single top authority over the entire
county," created intolerable
"bottlenecks," thus delaying the installation of
important emergency hospitals and first
aid stations in the surrounding sub-
urbs. 12
The squabbling, recalcitrant suburbs
refused to take full responsibility for
civil defense or work with the city to
build an effective system. "These fool-
ish suburbs," the chairman of the
Medicine Academy's disaster and relief
committee grumbled, "feel they can
isolate themselves from the rest of the
county in atom bomb defense. They are
preparing on the basis of their own
boundary lines and feel secure they have
done a good job." Some suburbs
"were indifferent to the broader
aspects of atom bomb defense, failing to rec-
ognize the interdependence of
communities in an atom bomb disaster."
Suburban leaders felt no pressure from
their constituents to respond with
vigor to civil defense. 13
The dearth of volunteers compounded the
problems created by the lack of
county-wide coordination. Pokorny
proudly pointed to the "voluminous mass
of planning done by the Cleveland civil
defense organization," but conceded
these efforts would do little good in
the event of a disaster without a cadre of
properly trained volunteers. The 2,200
people signed up to be auxiliary po-
lice officers seemed a positive sign,
but only 400 completed the training pro-
gram. The list of auxiliary firemen
included 200 names, but the city needed
5,000. Cleveland would require a total
of approximately 93,000 volunteers to
assist the police, firemen, and utility
and transportation workers. Pokorny
predicted that civil defense would be
with Cleveland for a long time, but the
Press noted the absence of any sense of urgency. Colonel Mack
Garr,
Director of Training for Cleveland Civil
Defense, described the central prob-
lem: "People aren't badly scared
enough to volunteer. And a lot of those
12. Ibid., November 29,
1951; Cleveland News, November 28, 1951.
13. Ibid., November 28, 1951.
Civil Defense in Cleveland 65
who do volunteer back out when they're
asked to give it some time."14
As 1951 drew to a close, the confusion
created by the competing civil de-
fense organizations of each community
became increasing apparent. In
December, the Press editors
decried the suburb's efforts "to protect their own
interests," which prevented any
form of county-wide coordination. Cuyahoga
was the only county in Ohio in 1951 that
did not have a county civil defense
director. In the event of a real
disaster, the conflicting plans of each commu-
nity would create a "tragic
snarl." In December county leaders finally met to
develop plans for a new civil defense
organization that would coordinate ef-
forts for the entire county, led by a
county civil defense coordinator who
would command resources throughout the
county and also develop plans for
joint programs, such as stockpiling
medical supplies and building a county-
wide warning system.15
To its creators, the new structure
represented a vast improvement over the
old disjointed system of civil defense.
Each community paid an assessment
based upon its population and tax base
to support the new county organiza-
tion, but many suburbs balked at
contributing their share. Some towns, like
Bay Village, hesitated to sign the
accord because they feared they would have
no control over how their money was
spent. Other cities, such as Parma, ob-
jected because they had no money to pay
for more important things, let alone
civil defense. By February 1952,
however, the county commissioners for-
mally established the Cuyahoga County
Office of Civil Defense when
Cleveland and thirty-two other
municipalities, out of a total of fifty-seven,
signed agreements for mutual civil
defense. The new members complained
that those communities that did not pay
got "a free ride," enjoying all the
benefits of the county program such as
air raid sirens, while paying none of
the costs. Evidently, the other
communities saw little need for civil defense.
Pokorny, appointed county coordinator
while retaining his position as
Director of Civil Defense for Cleveland,
developed new county-wide plans
quickly, announcing by the end of March
1952 that the program was "really
rolling," and now "they were
ready to concentrate on rounding up man
power." 16
Pokorny made some progress in his new
position as county coordinator, as
the Press editorialized at the
end of May 1952: "quietly, slowly, perhaps,
Greater Cleveland is making some
important gains in building its civil de-
fense organization." The Press applauded
the active core organization in the
five civil defense zones; the disaster
plans worked out by the utilities; the
14. Cleveland Press, November 29, 1951.
15. Ibid.,
December 7, 11, 1951; Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 6, 11, 17, 22,
1951:
Cleveland Press, December
6, 15, 1951.
16. Ibid., February 9, 1952; Cleveland
Plain Dealer, February 17, 1952; "Year End Report,"
Cleveland and Cuyahoga County Civil
Defense Digest [1952]; Cleveland
Press, February, 22,
1952; Cleveland Plain Dealer, March
30, 1952.
66 OHIO HISTORY
training programs being developed; the
efforts to dog-tag 250,000 school
children (to help with identification
after a bomb blast); and the final ar-
rangements for purchasing air raid
warning sirens. But the program still
lacked the volunteers needed to
implement many of the plans. All the
progress was at the executive level. 17
Recognizing the need for civilian
participation, Pokorny assigned ten po-
licemen to recruit volunteers in the
summer of 1952. As the officers strug-
gled to find people willing to join the
effort, they discovered "potential air
raid wardens prefer watering their
gardens, mowing their lawns, or playing
with their children . . . to sitting in
a stuffy hall learning about first aid."
Some people seemed interested in their
presentations on the need for civil de-
fense, but they tended to forget
everything when they went home. According
to the policemen, the publicity about
the destruction caused by the atomic
bombs dropped on Japan led Clevelanders
to assume there was nothing they
could do to protect themselves from a
nuclear attack. Others questioned how
real the threat could be if the
government allowed a steel strike, which threat-
ened defense production, to continue.18
Other recruiters for civil defense
programs also found it hard to attract vol-
unteers. In December 1952 an American
bomber made several mock attacks
on Cleveland without attracting
attention. The mock bombardment even es-
caped the notice of the Skywatch
program, a civilian aerial alert group which
lacked enough members to staff its
lookout posts. In fact, none of the eight
lookout posts in Cuyahoga County
operated around the clock, as the Air
Force requested, and two were completely
inoperative. Even this low state of
preparedness marked a decline in public
participation from the summer
months when two posts operated on a
twenty-four hour schedule.19
Obviously discouraged by the lack of
public interest, the county office
abandoned its fruitless efforts to
recruit a corps of independent disaster relief
volunteers. On February 26, 1953,
Pokorny announced that the Red Cross
would assume responsibility for feeding,
housing, clothing, and evacuating
the people of Cuyahoga Country in the
event of a disaster. The Press praised
this as a "sensible new approach to
a problem that has been hopelessly mired
in a bog of public apathy and
administrative red tape." Although the civil de-
fense leaders failed to attract many
recruits, they hoped the Red Cross, which
had a history of working with
volunteers, might do better.20
Even a dramatic demonstration of atomic
power such as the widely publi-
cized atomic bomb test in Nevada in
March 1953, specifically intended to
"blast away public apathy,"
failed to generate any new concern. The test in-
17. Cleveland Press, May 26,
1952.
18. Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 2, 1952.
19. Cleveland Press, December 15,
1952; "Year End Report," Cleveland and Cuyahoga
Country Civil Defense Digest [1952].
20. Cleveland Press, February 26,
1953.
Civil Defense in Cleveland 67 |
eluded an elaborately constructed model house complete with lifelike dum- mies to demonstrate the destructive effects of an atomic blast while proving that humans could survive by taking protective measures. Moreover, FCDA officials at the test site pointed to Cleveland as an example of the need for ef- fective civil defense and the benefits it would bring. According to FCDA es- timates, a surprise attack with an atomic bomb would kill 100,000 people, and wound 100,000 more in Cleveland, but a "reasonably adequate civil de- fense organization could reduce that number by half." The extensive televi- sion coverage notwithstanding, few Clevelanders volunteered for civil de- fense activities. Civil defense officials found "no change in the public atti- tude." The county office reported only six new volunteers registered in the three days since the atomic test, a normal number of volunteers compared with the past month. In the Cuyahoga County Civil Defense Digest, a newsletter distributed occasionally by the county civil defense office, one woman said, "It was a wonderful thing to see, but on television it looked so |
68 OHIO
HISTORY
far away." Pokorny questioned
"just what would it take to awaken the pub-
lic? We hope they never have to be
awakened by an actual attack because if
they are, they will find themselves
totally unprepared to save even their own
lives, much less those of their families
and neighbors." His assessment
seemed quite accurate.21
Civil defense in Cleveland appeared to
gain a measure of respect after the
summer tornadoes in June 1953 proved
"that a sound civil defense program is
just as essential in peacetime as in
war." While the auxiliary police and other
members of the civil defense team
responded quickly and provided valuable
assistance, the lack of coordination
between city and suburban units revealed
ongoing problems. Pundits predicted it
would take a disaster before people
cared about civil defense, but few
people volunteered to help after the
tornado swept through the area. Pokorny
sadly reported "only 200 persons
have volunteered to join the CD
organization since last week's tornado." The
lack of public interest was not unique
to Cleveland; a Gallup poll, taken in
July, 1953, reported that only four
percent of people surveyed nationally were
doing any work in a civil defense
program.22
The editors of the Press praised
the county's civil defense efforts in its
1953 year-end editorial, drawing
attention to the fact that they had "made
some headway, despite
frustrations." The editors commended the organiza-
tion for its progress to date, pointing
out the response to the tornado as one
example. But they also reminded
Cleveland of the program's central prob-
lem: civil defense had "never
aroused much popular enthusiasm and recruit-
ing the thousands of folks that must be
trained has long been a prime frustra-
tion."23
The lack of support from the suburbs
also compelled Cleveland's mayor,
Anthony J. Celebreze, to lash out
against those who refused to recognize the
danger of a possible attack. "It is
extremely unfair of some of these munici-
palities to keep out of the civil
defense program. ... If they do not show in-
terest in the program, how can they
expect the rest of the county to,"
Celebreze declared. Twenty-five of
fifty-seven suburbs refused to pay their
portion of the county civil defense
costs or join the coordinating agreement,
attesting to public disinterest in civil
defense.24
A dramatic shift in civil defense
program emerged in 1954 as America be-
21. Ibid., March 18, 20, 1953; Cuyahoga
Civil Defense Digest, [March 1953 ?]. For the rela-
tionship between television, the cold
war, and the bomb, see Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of
the Cold War, (Baltimore, 1991), especially chapter 7,
"Boxed-in: Television and the Press," p.
153-78. Whitfield suggests the army
encouraged television broadcasts to "reassure viewers of
American nuclear superiority" (p.
154).
22. Cuyahoga County Civil Defense
Digest [June 1953 ?]; Cleveland Press, June 16, 1953;
George Gallup, ed. The Gallup Poll:
Public Opinion, 1935-1971, 3 vols. (New York, 1972), vol.
II, 1162.
23. Cleveland Press, December 21,
1953.
24. Cleveland Plain Dealer, December
9, 1953.
Civil Defense in Cleveland 69
came aware of the destructive power of
the new hydrogen bomb. On March
31, 1954, Lewis Strauss, the chairman of
the Atomic Energy Commission,
shocked the nation when he announced
that the hydrogen bomb could be
made "large enough ... to destroy a
city," even the metropolitan area of New
York. Due to the "recent disclosure
of the tremendous wallop of the new H-
bomb" and the danger of fallout, Pokorny
announced a change in Cleveland's
defense plans to a new emphasis on
individual preparedness. Pokorny en-
couraged each family to stock canned
goods and medical supplies, take
courses in first aid, and learn how to
assist their neighbor in the event of a
disaster. He hoped that "the
lifting of the secrecy veil which previously
shrouded H-bomb details would result in
increased interest and participation
in the civil defense program."
Cleveland's office broadened its educational
program in an effort to warn more people
of the increased danger.
Emphasizing speed and self protection,
the staff distributed "thousands of
pieces of literature, talked to
countless civic and social groups, and appeared
on radio and TV." The success of
all plans depended on volunteers to fight
fires, direct traffic, help with first
aid, and begin the rebuilding process. But
even the vastly increased threat
generated only a small portion of the volun-
teers civil defense officials estimated
it would take to save Cuyahoga
County.25
The increased power of the H-bomb
multiplied the planning difficulties for
civil defense. While an atomic bomb
might damage a limited area of three to
four miles, a hydrogen bomb blast area
would cover a twenty-two mile ra-
dius. According to new estimates, if the
Soviets dropped an H-bomb on
downtown Cleveland, it would kill
639,100 and wound 255,700 more. These
figures compared with 136,850 deaths and
78,650 wounded from an atomic
bomb attack. Thus, with the advent of
the hydrogen bomb, civil defense
planners needed to prepare for more than
three times as many homeless peo-
ple and casualties. The FCDA estimated
Cuyahoga County needed 203,980
trained workers to ensure the county's
survival. Pokorny estimated the
county had only 88,000 people prepared
to help, and this included 60,000
"involuntary volunteers," such
as police officers, firemen, and utility workers,
who were considered part of the civil
defense plan as part of their occupa-
tions. Only a few volunteers were
trained and ready to meet the needs of a
possible attack: 61,995 air raid wardens
required, 1,700 actually trained;
8,973 auxiliary police needed, 2,600
actually trained; 6,509 auxiliary firemen
needed, 500 actually trained. The new
requirements for volunteers contrasted
to the actual number of people
registered reveals the high degree of public
apathy in Cleveland. A graphic
demonstration of the power of the hydrogen
25. Robert A. Divine, Blowing on the
Wind: The Nuclear Test Ban Debate, 1954-1960 (New
York, 1978), 8, 13; Allan Winkler,
"A 40-Year History of Civil Defense," BAS (June-July,
1984), 16, 18; Cleveland Press, April
2, 1954; Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 7, 1954.
70 OHIO HISTORY
bomb carried on television in June 1954
generated many phone calls to the
civil defense headquarters, but few new
recruits. After four years of fum-
bling Cleveland still lacked an adequate
civil defense organization.26
The destructiveness of the hydrogen bomb
demanded Cuyahoga County
expand its disaster plans. With the
hydrogen bomb "the alternatives are to
dig, die, or get out; and certainly we
don't want to die," as Val Peterson, the
Federal Civil Defense Administrator,
declared. Digging seemed far too ex-
pensive, so the FCDA recommended
evacuation. In early March 1955 the
state director of civil defense ordered
county defense leaders to develop plans
for total evacuation. Previously,
officials planned only for residents in the
limited target area to withdraw to the
nearby suburbs. But the power of the
hydrogen bomb made it necessary that
everyone in a twenty-mile radius from
downtown, almost 1,500,000 people, flee
the area as quickly as possible.27
In the mid-1950s, the county office
began to prepare the complex plans for
county-wide evacuation. But these plans
remained only paper suggestions.
Even with the increased danger of the
hydrogen bomb, civil defense never
generated the public enthusiasm needed
to make these plans feasible.
Pokorny could not gain the endorsement
of political leaders to stage a full-
scale practice run of his defense plans.
One study of public attitudes toward
nuclear issues suggests the declining
interest in nuclear concerns, after the
initial dismay over the hydrogen bomb,
can be attributed to the slight thaw in
the cold war in response to the
"Spirit of Geneva," the hopeful atmosphere
that followed President Dwight
Eisenhower's conference with Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev in July 1955. In
addition, lack of public interest might
also be tied to Eisenhower's "Atoms
for Peace" plan, offered at the UN on
December 8, 1954. Although rejected by
the Russians, Eisenhower's
"Atoms for Peace" and
"Open Skies" proposals functioned as effective pubic
relations measures, generating
"widespread praise," thereby possibly assuag-
ing the fears of the public and the
perceived need for civil defense, while
creating the image that the United
States was working for peace.28
Preparations for the third national
civil defense exercise scheduled for June
15, 1955, revealed the public, as well
as civic leaders, remained disinterested
in civil defense. The FCDA recommended
that this exercise emphasize com-
plete evacuation. But leaders in
Cleveland immediately ruled out a full-scale
evacuation, instead considering only a
plan that asked residents to prepare to
evacuate, but not actually go anyplace.
Pokorny initially proposed that
26. Cleveland Press, May 3, 1954;
Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 7, 1954.
27. Herb Roback, "Civil Defense and
National Defense," in Who Speaks for Civil Defense?,
ed. Eugene P. Wigner (New York, 1968),
89; Cleveland Press, March 3, 1955.
28. Rob Paarlberg, "Forgetting
About the Unthinkable," Foreign Policy, 10 (Spring, 1973),
134; Divine, Blowing on the Wind, 62-63;
James E. Dougherty and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr.,
American Foreign Policy: FDR to
Reagan, (New York, 1986), 103; Divine Blowing
on the
Wind, 25-26.
Civil Defense in Cleveland 71
housewives load their cars and gather
the children, while industry and office
workers would file into parking lots to
prepare to flee to the countryside. On
May 25, however, Pokorny canceled all
requests for public participation, cit-
ing the lack of a full-scale evacuation
plan and the mass confusion that would
result from even a limited evacuation
trial. Pokorny appeared unwilling to
take the painful step of forcing the
public to make a conscious physical com-
mitment to civil defense by staging a
full-scale evacuation, the only way he
could gain the knowledge needed to test
his evacuation plan.29
The national air raid drill occurred as
scheduled on June 15, 1955, with
Eisenhower setting an example by moving
to a secret location outside
Washington. But Cleveland marked the
test with only a short siren call
which "hardly disturbed the city's
life," while the civil defense staff carried
out another complex paper test.
Following the lead of the county's mayors,
the public ignored the warning. Pokorny
admitted that the preliminary evac-
uation plan was essentially a
meaningless paper proposal. The plan could
only recommend that everyone run away.
It could not tell them where they
would go, who would help them, or how
they would be fed, clothed, and
housed. Ironically, at the end of the
national exercise, Pokorny called for a
"realistic evacuation drill as soon
as possible."30
Pokorny blamed the FCDA for its failure
to provide direction to the local
civil defense organizations. The current
advice the government offered
amounted to, in Pokorny's words,
"run away if you want to survive." The
FCDA and other bureaucrats in Washington
confused the public with con-
flicting statements on the danger of the
H-bomb while calling for military
budget cuts. This was one of the prime
reasons for public apathy, according
to Pokorny, who encouraged the FCDA to
"take a definite stand on Civil
Defense if it expects the public to take
defense seriously."31
While Pokorny was undoubtedly correct
about the need for more specific
guidance, he seemed unwilling to take
even small steps to address this prob-
lem. Val Peterson, the FCDA Director,
noted that Cleveland's largest evacu-
ation attempt moved only 1,500 people.
If flight was the only way to save the
population, then Cleveland "should
at least start somewhere," Peterson sug-
gested. Other cities mounted large
evacuation drills, such as Philadelphia,
which moved 30,000 people from the
downtown area in less than twenty
29. Cleveland Plain Dealer, April
3, 7, 1955; Cleveland Press, May 14, 1955: Cleveland
Plain Dealer, May
25, 1955.
30. "Civil Defense: So Much to Be
Done," Newsweek 45 (June
27, 1955), 21; Winkler, "40-
Year History of Civil Defense," 18;
Cleveland Press, June 15, 16, 1955. The June 27, 1955,
Newsweek article also notes that other cities failed to generate
any public enthusiasm for the ex-
ercise. A civil defense official in
Peoria, Illinois, stated: "I just can't see a lot of people running
around with armbands on." A
Washington, D.C., civil defense worker declared the whole civil
defense test "a fiasco . . . so inadequate it couldn't cope with a brush
fire threatening a doghouse
in the backyard." Newsweek reported he
was fired from his civil defense job.
31. Cleveland Press, May, 25,
1955; Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 25, 1955.
72 OHIO HISTORY
minutes, so there was no reason for
Cleveland not to try. But Pokorny made
no such attempts.32
The county continued its disaster
planning through the second half of the
1950s with a series of programs designed
to train volunteers and alert the
public to the continued need for civil
defense. Arrows along designated
highways indicated the direction traffic
should flow in an emergency.
"Operation Big Feed"
demonstrated how the civil defense office intended to
feed up to 5,000 people in an emergency,
complete with baked beans flown in
from Boston. Housewives learned how to
decontaminate fruit and vegetables
by washing and peeling them and then
testing them with a Geiger counter.
The county staged a parade through
downtown and the suburbs to generate
public excitement.33
Despite the continued activities and
visibility of the civil defense organiza-
tion, administrators remained
disappointed with volunteer participation. The
county leaders scheduled a
"semi-surprise test mobilization of all Civil
Defense personnel" on January 29,
1956, to "determine how many Civil
Defense volunteers and others, charged
with the responsibility of the safety of
the public, could be mobilized, without
prior notice as to the exact day and
time of the test." Upon completion, Pokorny labeled the
exercise a
"remarkable demonstration,"
but sadly noted that only about half of the vol-
unteers registered to assist in a disaster
arrived to help. Approximately
19,364 volunteers responded, but about
half of this number included police,
fire, utility and medical workers
already on duty, Pokorny also expressed
disappointment that only twenty-eight
suburbs participated in the exercise.34
For the 1957 national civil defense
drill, Operation Alert '57, Pokorny and
his staff asked county residents to
prepare to evacuate the city. During the
thirty-minute test, all businesses were
to suspend operations while employees
"went through the motions of
preparing to escape" by sitting in their cars.
Downtown office workers would stand on
the street for half an hour, while
housewives in the suburbs would gather
the children and load the car to de-
part. If the husband had the only car,
then women should plan a way out of
town on public transportation or with a
friend. The plan did not call for any-
one to actually leave the city, Planners
asked only a token number of fami-
lies, 100, to evacuate completely.
Evidently, civil defense workers were still
unprepared for anything more drastic.
Schools apparently did not participate
in this drill, although they did stage
their own escape exercise in September
when more than 200,000 children marched
into the streets and playgrounds in
32. News, March 10, 1955.
33. Cleveland Press, October 26,
1955; May 30, 1956; March 7, 1956; September 12, 13,
1957; Cleveland Plain Dealer, September
16, 1957.
34. Cuyahoga County Civil Defense
Digest, [January 1956?]; Cleveland Press, January 17, 22,
30, 1956; Cleveland Plain Dealer, January
30, 1956; "Mayors Advisory Committee on Civil
Defense, minutes from January 20,
1956," Civil Defense collection
Civil Defense in Cleveland 73
preparation for transportation outside
the danger area.35
The public showed little interest in
even this minimal level of participation.
Only a few days before the test, fewer
than one percent of the county's popu-
lation indicated they planned to take
part. The Building Owners and
Managers Association, representing most
of the large office buildings, ad-
vised their members to take only five
minutes after the alarm sounded to ac-
quaint tenants with their disaster
plans. Only a few buildings actually
planned to evacuate. Pokorny's 1,700
letters asking companies to participate
in the exercise generated less than 100
responses. Of all the major industries
in the area, only the Aluminum Company
of America planned to cooperate
fully in the test. Although the rest of
the city could not give up half an hour
to learn how to save themselves,
government workers apparently had plenty
of time to spare, as they "joshed
and joked" on their way out of the building.
Most people walking on the downtown
streets greeted the sirens with a "ho
hum" and went about their business
as usual. In the suburbs, some mothers
called to complain that the sirens woke
their babies.36
Pokorny did not suffer the embarrassment
of public apathy again in the
1958 Operation Alert, as he had in the
1957 exercise. Ohio held its primary
election the day of the national drill,
so he did not ask for public participation.
The civil defense staff, however,
faithfully simulated an attack by interconti-
nental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and
then proceeded to solve all the prob-
lems-on paper of course. According to Pokorny's official report,
"evacuation of Cuyahoga County
proceeded according to plan without any
major simulated difficulties,"
which saved an estimated 1,000,000 people, al-
though an estimated 185,000 simulated
people refused to evacuate, thus
adding to the death toll of 32,000. The
evaluation noted that "sufficient num-
ber of trained personnel were not
available for most services." The national
hysteria which resulted from the Soviet
launch of Sputnik in October 1957
added no sense of urgency to Cuyahoga's
civil defense program. Nor is there
any indication that the advent of
ICBMs, with an increased destructive poten-
tial and a high degree of inaccuracy
which placed the entire county at risk,
created any feeling of exigency.37
Cuyahoga County held its own county-wide
exercise on December 5, 1958,
as part of Operation Alert, Ohio, 1958.
The majority of participants were
Cleveland city schoolchildren, who were
directed to prepare for evacuation,
but only if the weather was nice. If the
weather was poor, they should pro-
ceed to shelter areas. Disaster plans
still were not advanced far enough to
35. Cleveland Press, June 18, 19,
1957; Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 30, 1957; Cleveland
Press, September 19, 1957.
36. Cleveland
Press, Ibid., July 8, 10, 12, 1957; Cleveland Plain Dealer, July
13, 1957.
37. Cleveland Press, May 5, 1958;
"OPAL '58," Cuyahoga County Civil Defense Digest; See
also Divine, Blowing on the Wind, 169-71, for a detailed description of American reaction to
Sputnik on the federal level; Cleveland Plain Dealer, January
12, 1957.
74 OHIO HISTORY
arrange transportation for the children.
Other than the schoolchildren, few
people joined the activities. Only about
10 percent of the industries and
stores encouraged to participate
bothered to respond to the invitation. The
Press reported "few people paid particular
attention" as the "wail of air raid
warning sirens today briefly reminded
Christmas shopping crowds that this is
an age of atomic peril." Although
1958 witnessed an increase in the cold war
tension level, with American Marines
landing in Lebanon, renewed shelling
of the Chinese Nationalist islands of
Quemoy and Matsu in August, and
Khrushchev's November ultimatum to force
concessions on the Berlin ques-
tion, holiday shoppers seemed to pay
little regard to the atomic clouds which
hung over their heads.38
By the end of the 1950s civil defense
leaders apparently resigned them-
selves to public apathy. They only took
part in a limited manner in national
civil defense exercises, and did not ask
for any public participation in subse-
quent civil defense drills. On April 12,
1959, Cleveland limited its participa-
tion in the national civil defense drill
to a test of the Conelrad alert system, a
national civil defense warning network
utilizing local radio stations. The
general public, it appears, remained
content to continue its daily life with lit-
tle notice of the civil defense
activities planned to save their lives.39
By the end of the 1950s, Political
leaders also seemed ready to dismiss civil
defense as a useless effort. Anthony Pecyk, an independent minded
Democrat on Cleveland City Council, led
the charge against civil defense in
Cuyahoga County. In March 1959 he
proclaimed civil defense was "obsolete
and had outlived its usefulness. It
affords no real protection to the people,
and therefore no money should be spent
on it." When other council members
contended that at least civil defense
had some psychological value, Pecyk
replied:
I know shelters are out of the economic
reach of local government. But ... a shelter
in each ward would be far better
psychologically than the paper work we're getting
out of civil defense today.... I
certainly don't want to be around here when a bomb
drops-when an angry mob points a finger
at the politicians and says: 'You told me I
had protection which I didn't have.
Others from Cleveland shared Pecyk's
doubts about civil defense. Senator
Stephen Young, Cleveland Democrat,
attacked civil defense in the Senate.
The Press praised his efforts to
stop a "lethargic bureaucracy that is already
obsolete in its attitude toward, and
management of, our civil defense pre-
paredness." These popular
politicians undoubtedly spoke for at least some of
38. Cleveland Press, November 19,
December 2, 1958; Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 3,
1958; Cleveland Press, December
5, 1958; Divine, Blowing on the Wind, 241-42; Dougherty,
American Foreign Policy, 112, 122.
39. Cleveland Plain Dealer, April
18, 1959.
Civil Defense in Cleveland 75
their constituents when they expressed
doubts about the usefulness of civil
defense.40
The end of the 1950s marked one of the
lowest levels of public support for
civil defense efforts. While the public
never embraced civil defense in
Cuyahoga County, the local leaders could
always count on the newspapers to
share in the disappointment of meager
public response and encourage the
people to do better next time. But by
late 1959 even the Press criticized the
local organization. For several years,
Pokorny complained, the staff and vol-
unteers lacked appropriate attire for
civil defense exercises and natural disas-
ters. Only a few lucky people had
helmets, and no one had raincoats. After
much debate, the county finally decided
to purchase the appropriate equip-
ment. The Press mocked the
organization, implying that they had little ac-
tually to do:
It somehow deeply stirs the imagination
to learn that the county's Civil Defense offi-
cials have met, pondered, weighed,
considered and then bought themselves raincoats
and boots. It's not that the new
apparel, apparently what every CD chieftain should
sport, cost so much .... Total cost for
the 108 rigs was but a droplet as against the
county CD's splashy $250,000 yearly
budget. Now these raincoats can be closeted
with the CD officials' little flags that
go on their cars, and with the helmets that some
of them are fortunate enough to possess.
Possibly there will be enough left in the
budget at the end of the year to hold a
banquet at which the boys can sit around in
their new, colorful costumes. And then
they can go home and hang them in their
closets again.41
In December 1959, on the anniversary of
the bombing of Pearl Harbor, se-
lected to remind people of the danger of
unexpected attack, the nation ob-
served National Civil Defense Day '59.
The National Civil Defense Director,
Leo A. Hoegh, asked Cleveland and other
target cities to hold county-wide
drills, but the city marked the day with
a token test of the air raid sirens,
"only a toot on the tooter,"
as the Press called it. County officials decided the
people were in "no mood for such
silliness." The Press argued a full-scale
drill "would be utterly useless and
a waste of money. About all it would ac-
complish would be to emphasize again how
confusing and ineffective the
civil defense set-up actually is."42
In addition to general public apathy,
the civil defense program lacked a co-
herent plan. The national office,
believing ICBMs would allow no time for
evacuation and fearing the threat of
fallout, recommended that all families
build their own fallout shelters. For
National Civil Defense Day '59,
Pokorny announced the distribution of
brochures explaining how to build
personal shelters. But Pokorny admitted
he had no shelter at his home, and
40. Ibid., March 7, 1959; Cleveland
Press, July 11, 25, 1959.
41. Ibid., November 13, 1959.
42. Ibid., December 2, 1959.
76 OHIO HISTORY
no plans to build one. He reminded
people the official plan for civil defense
in Cleveland called for everyone to
evacuate. The editors of the Press con-
sidered the whole question moot,
believing there would be no time to run or
to hide. The only useful purpose civil
defense served was for organizing a
few volunteers to help in responding to
natural disasters, the Press pro-
nounced.43
While the public and the Cleveland
papers seemed to have no support for
civil defense, nuclear weapons remained
an important part of the public dis-
course because of the rising concern
over radioactive fallout. On the Beach, a
best selling book (1957) and later
movie, and a 1959 article in Consumer
Reports that warned of dangerous levels of radioactivity in
milk samples due
to fallout from atmospheric testing
helped create "a full-blown fallout scare"
by the end of the 1950s. Historian
Robert Divine argues that participation in
the test ban debate allowed Americans to
deal with the "horrors of the hydro-
gen bomb" in an oblique fashion
without confronting it directly. Instead of
trying to face the danger of all-out
nuclear war by preparing an extensive, ef-
fective civil defense system, the
population focused on the "less drastic but
still insidious threat of poisoned milk
and contaminated air."44
While most of the population probably
tried to avoid thinking about the de-
struction suggested by civil defense
preparations, international tensions occa-
sionally jolted Americans into the
reality of life in the nuclear age. Pokorny
reported a spurt of interest in May 1960
after the collapse of the superpower
summit when Russia shot down an American
U-2 spy plane. He estimated
his office received over 500 requests
for literature after the conference fell
apart. This brief burst of concern
notwithstanding, the general public and po-
litical leaders generally failed to
express any enduring enthusiasm for civil
defense. Councilman Pecyk continued to
criticize civil defense as a waste of
money. In January 1960 he made his third
attempt in three years to cut
Cleveland's support for the county civil
defense organization. Pecyk
lamented that the "waste, lack of
leadership, lack of direction, and lack of
planning by the Federal Civil Defense
organization has permeated the local
level." Local congressman Charles A. Vanik declared "the civil
defense
boondoggle, at a cost of over a billion dollars,
has gone far enough. The en-
tire program should be reviewed before
another dollar is spent." The lack of
public response suggested many people in
the general population agreed with
his opinion.45
In 1960, Cuyahoga County again declined
to join the National Civil
Defense exercise, Operation Alert '60.
The Ohio primary fell on the day of
43. [bid., December 1, 1959.
44. Nevil Shute, On the Beach (New
York, 1957); Divine, Blowing on the Wind, 161-63;
Consumer Reports, 24 (February, 1959), 102-11; Boyer, Bomb's Early
Light, 353; Divine,
Blowing on the Wind, 263-64, 323.
45. Cleveland Plain Dealer, May
22, 1960; Cleveland Press, January 29, November 30, 1960.
Civil Defense in Cleveland 77
the national test, so Pokorny did not
order any form of public participation,
but promised to blow the faithful air
raid sirens. The Press commented that
Cleveland's observation of "Op
Alert '60" seemed in keeping with "the local
organization's policy of attempting to
educate, but not irritate the public, so
there would be no particular pressure
for anyone to do more than ... listen to
the sirens."46
Pokorny's team also presented a new
civil defense plan to the community
schools in 1960, but the scheme met with
only a bit of amazed laughter. It
called for the schools to alert a fleet
of over 75,000 volunteer drivers, who
would then proceed quickly to the schools,
pick up the children in an orderly
fashion, and race away from the city.
School officials declared the plan
"fantastic,"
"impossible," "unworkable." Cleveland's superintendent
flatly
stated "the plan will not
work," although he was not without a sense of hu-
mor, suggesting "the smartest move
the Russians could make would be to fire
a missile at us, provoke a CD warning,
and then turn it back .... It would
take six months to unsnarl the
traffic." He defined a central problem of the
civil defense strategy: evacuation, even
if there was enough time, without
any practice or trained volunteers to
provide assistance, would inevitably turn
into a disaster.47
In March 1961 the Plain Dealer printed
a series of stories detailing the
poor condition of civil defense in
Cuyahoga County. Labeling efforts "a
flop," it stated citizens were
unfamiliar with the meaning of the warning
sirens and had no idea if they were to
seek shelter or flee. Local administra-
tors blamed their problems on lack of federal
leadership, claiming they failed
to convey a sense of urgency to the
population and establish a workable
blueprint for local civil defense. While
the federal government recommended
family bomb shelters as the best method
for protecting the family, a com-
pletely safe home shelter, designed to
withstand both blast and fallout, could
cost more than $2,000, plus an
additional $2,000 to stock it with two weeks
of food, water, and other needs. The Plain
Dealer concluded that such a
shelter would be beyond the financial
reach of most families, and labeled it
ridiculous, Pokorny only knew one man in
Cuyahoga County who built a
backyard shelter. The Plain Dealer's assessment
of civil defense made it
clear the area was grossly unprepared
for an attack, a fact that did not appear
to concern the general population or the
political leadership.48
Persevering despite the criticism and
disinterest, the civil defense office
agreed to take part in the April
Operation Alert '61. Again, civil defense di-
rectors did not ask for public
participation, staging only a paper exercise.
"There was little public interest
in the drill, despite its importance to every-
46. Cleveland Press, March
23, 26, May 2, 1960.
47. Ibid., September 16, 1960; Cleveland
Plain Dealer, September 15, 1960.
48. Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 2, 3,
4, 5, 1961.
78 OHIO HISTORY
one." Pokorny lamented. The test
did attract a group of protesters who gath-
ered at the Oberlin post office where
the staff set up temporary quarters to
manage a post-attack recovery. The
members of the Student Peace Union
called civil defense "silly
nonsense."49
The election of President John F.
Kennedy and the concurrent rise in cold
war tensions generated new interest in
civil defense. After his confrontation
with Khrushchev in Vienna in May 1961,
relations with the Soviets grew in-
creasingly strained during the summer of
1961 over the status of Berlin.
Many Americans sensed the world lurching
towards armed confrontation,
prompting renewed interest in civil
defense. In a televised speech on July 25,
1961, Kennedy emphasized the dangers of
nuclear war and asked Congress to
appropriate more money for civil
defense, especially community and family
shelters. Kennedy's warning
"brought new life" to the civil defense office;
people called and visited the office at
the rate of fifty an hour. Pokorny urged
citizens to "be prepared to take
the best shelter available if there is a sudden
nuclear attack." But at the same
time, he also warned people to "to take the
emergency food supply with you if an
order is given to evacuate the city."
His statement indicated the confusion
regarding the best means of protection
from nuclear attack-evacuation or
shelters. The Cleveland office, despite
the fact that the federal government
opposed evacuation as ineffective due to
ICBMs and hydrogen bombs, still planned
for and recommended evacuation,
although at the same time it also
encouraged personal shelters.50
Kennedy's enthusiasm for civil defense
created a national civil defense
craze. "At cocktail parties and
P.T.A. meetings and family dinners, on buses
and commuter trains and around office
watercoolers, talk turns to shelters,"
Time reported. Newsweek noted that "the
President's own eloquent state-
ments about the duties of every man to
provide for his family-plus
Khrushchev's truculence over Berlin-have
vaporized, as effectively as the
latest Soviet super bomb, the old foot
dragging indifference" for civil de-
fense. Life printed a message
from Kennedy reminding Americans "there is
much that you can do to protect
yourself--and in doing so strengthen your
nation." Life promised
readers they could be among the 97 percent to survive
if they followed its directions about
how to build shelters and what to do dur-
ing an attack. The federal government
prepared a new booklet, Fallout
Protection: What to Know and Do about
Nuclear Attack, describing different
kinds of shelters, how to stock them,
and how to escape fallout. Intended for
nationwide distribution to every home, Press
paperboys proudly delivered
them to all their customers.51
49. Cleveland Press, April 8,
1961; Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 29,
1961; Cleveland Press,
April 29, 1961.
50. Cleveland Press, July 26, 27,
1961.
51. "Civil Defense:
The Sheltered Life," Time,
78 (October 20, 1961), 21; Are Shelters the
Answer?" Newsweek, 58 (November 6,
1961), 19: John F. Kennedy, "A Message to You from
Civil Defense in Cleveland 79 |
|
Despite the increased level of anxiety in 1961, few people seemed actually willing to implement a civil defense program. In general, schools refused to cooperate, even though they formed an essential element of the county evac- uation plan. The city schools did not have the vehicles or the people needed to flee the city, while suburban schools had no interest in disaster planning. Pokorny wanted to stage a county-wide practice evacuation, but realized this was a futile desire. "We aren't even thinking of trying to hold one, because of all the squawks that would come from the businessmen and others," he bemoaned. "Nobody seems to be willing to lose a day's work participating in such an exercise."52 Both political leaders and the general public shared a confused and am- biguous attitude towards civil defense. Few people held any faith that shel- ters, or any other form of civil defense, could protect them from a nuclear at- tack. With the assistance of federal money, local civil defense promoters
the President," Life, 51 (September 15, 1961), 95; "Fallout Shelters," Life, 51 (September 15, 1961), Cover, 95; Cleveland Press, January 6, 1962. 52. Cleveland Press, September 20, 1961. |
80 OHIO HISTORY
constructed a model fallout shelter in a
Shaker Heights home in August 1961.
Still at the height of the Berlin
crisis, few people came to the open receptions
to see the new design, While opening the
model shelter, the mayor of Shaker
Heights admitted he had no plans to
build a shelter at his house. Shelters cost
too much money to build, even if people
did have faith in them. Evidently
the civil defense staff in Cuyahoga
County agreed, as none of the organiza-
tion's employees built shelters, either.
A spokesman for Republic Steel later
recalled that the corporation never sold
any of the shelters it built in the early
1960s.53
Evacuation, the alternative to shelters,
also offered little safety to
Clevelanders. Efforts to evaluate the
level of preparedness usually revealed
dangerous gaps in the comprehensive
evacuation plan. On September 28,
1961, Al Ostrow, a reporter for the Press,
and Pokorny followed one of the
escape routes going east, stopping at
several of the schools designated as re-
ception centers for people fleeing the
city. Most of the school principals to
whom they talked were unaware they might
be invaded by thousands of peo-
ple in the event of an atomic attack.
When told civil defense planned for
1,245 people to shelter at Auburn
Elementary School, the principal replied
"that's news to me. I'd better get
busy and work hard for world peace." The
principle of Troy Elementary also
expressed surprise to learn he would be re-
sponsible for 2,430 refugees. Pokorny
and Ostrow could not even locate one
school designated to host another 2,430
people.54
Despite the problems with the evacuation
plan, local civil defense directors
unanimously confirmed the official
policy of evacuation in October 1961,
choosing to ignore the state and federal
emphasis on shelters. Pokorny ex-
plained the group believed the enemy
would strike military targets first.
which would give Cleveland, now labeled
a non-military secondary target,
some time to evacuate. The local
emphasis on evacuation, while the federal
government recommended shelters,
probably only increased the level of pub-
lic confusion.
Possibly some residents agreed with Pokorny, who warned a
hydrogen bomb might destroy the entire
county, making evacuation the only
sensible plan. Why should they bother
spending money on a shelter, even
though the federal government said it
was the best means of protection, when
the local civil defense director counseled
against it? Citizens following
Pokorny's advice, to evacuate rather
than build shelters, could depend on the
53. Cleveland Press, August
2, 1961: Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 1,
1962; Cleveland
Press, September 18, 1961; Cleveland Plain Deealer, April 3, 1972; November 21, 1961. No
matter what plan civil defense officials
decided was best for Cleveland, two local department
stores stood by ready to help the people
of Cleveland. Both May's and Higbee's opened survival
departments in October 1961. They
offered canned water, emergency food and cooking equip-
ment as well as prefabricated
fallout shelters. The emergency food was suitable for use in a shel-
ter or when the family arrived at its
eventual destination after evacuation. (Cleveland Press,
September, 28, 1961.
54. Cleveland Press, September 28, 1961.
Civil Defense in Cleveland 81
county civil defense leaders to save
them.55
In April 1962, the Plain Dealer, under
the title "Push fizzles out, little is
achieved," aptly summarized civil
defense in the Cleveland area: "No inter-
est. No time. No money." Pokorny
noted whenever an international crisis
erupted, such as the tension over
Taiwan, the Marines landing in Lebanon, or
the 1961 Berlin crisis, interest in
civil defense briefly increased. The main
problem, he believed, was lack of
direction and encouragement from the fed-
eral government. Its failure to
demonstrate a need for civil defense left the
public apathetic. As Americans moved to
the suburbs, they wanted to live a
quiet domestic life without dwelling on
the possibility of nuclear destruction.
For many, "it seemed silly to worry
about something over which they had no
control." The Plain Dealer speculated
many residents hoped the Russians
would concentrate on military targets
and not waste a missile on Cleveland.
They also believed that fallout from
Detroit, Toledo, or Chicago could not
possibly reach Cleveland. Even people in
civic minded communities tended
to regard civil defense as illusory.56
Pokorny attributed some of the
shortcomings to the failure of suburban
politicians and civil defense directors
to encourage the effort. Pokorny met
monthly with all the local civil defense
directors, but usually only fifteen out
the fifty-eight came to the meeting.
Some municipalities did not even bother
to appoint a civil defense manager. Most
of the suburban communities did
not pay their civil defense leaders, so
they had little commitment and little
accountability. At least one suburb
found it barely had enough money for the
things it considered essential, which
did not include civil defense.57
Civil defense in Cleveland enjoyed
another brief period of public attention
during the Cuban missile crisis in
October 1962. People stood in lines out-
side the civil defense headquarters to
obtain information about what to do in
case of attack. Cleveland's mayor
demanded a report from Pokorny on cur-
rent defense preparations. The mayor
sent a telegram to President Kennedy
urging him to increase assistance for
local civil defense efforts. The Press
carried a prominent picture of the
"growing stockpile of basic supplies to sus-
tain life [which] testifies to the
gravity of the critical times." Yet Pokorny
could not estimate when shelters would
be designated for these supplies, or
when they would be distributed. While
the Cuban crisis stimulated aware-
ness in civil defense, it proved
short-lived when the world pulled back from
the brink of nuclear destruction with
the relatively quick resolution of the
confrontation. The tension over Cuba,
like other international traumas before
it, prompted no lasting level of general
public support for civil defense in
55. Ibid., October 27, 1961.
56. Cleveland Plain Dealer, April
1, 1962; August 5, 1963; April 1, 1962.
57. Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ibid.,
April 1, 1962.
82 OHIO HISTORY
Cuyahoga County.58
The early years of the Kennedy
administration marked the high point of
public consideration of civil defense in
Cuyahoga County. After approaching
the brink of war during the Cuban
missile crisis, the United States and the
Soviet Union concluded a test ban treaty
in June 1963 which improved rela-
tions between the superpowers. The
periodic pictures and reports of nuclear
tests which reminded people of the power
of atomic weapons also disap-
peared as these tests moved underground.
A year after the missile crisis,
Pokorny scheduled "Operation
Know-How 1963, Greater Cleveland's most
ambitious attempt at a simulated
disaster test." But again, as during previous
exercises, the attempt fell far short of
its goal. The planners hoped for 1,300
people, recruited primarily from the Boy
Scouts and Girl Scouts, to serve as
victims for practice by medical workers,
but only 825 people volunteered.59
By 1964 interest in civil defense
clearly was waning in all communities. In
this respect Cuyahoga County reflected
the rest of the nation where discus-
sion of nuclear issues declined
significantly after the test ban treaty and the
resolution of the Cuban missile crisis.
Cleveland slashed $40,000 from its
annual civil defense budget in 1964,
which received the hearty support of the
Press. The suburbs also reduced their aid for civil defense.
In March 1964,
Mentor, Lakewood, and Willowick all
ended their relationship with the
county organization. Mayor Nash of
Cleveland Heights stated "there isn't
anything about which there is more
apathy than Civil Defense." He encour-
aged the delinquent communities to
"think of this as insurance." Ironically
support for civil defense declined at
the same time that the potential for de-
struction escalated, as both the United
States and the Soviet Union increased
their nuclear arsenals and improved
their technology.60
Resignations by the suburbs from the
county civil defense pact continued
throughout the 1960s. Some communities
that did not withdraw formally
refused to pay their assessment; in 1967
only twenty-four out of forty-eight
member communities paid their share of
the budget. The withdrawals left
James Cowden, who replaced Pokorny as
the county civil defense director,
pleading for money to sustain the
organization. In his 1966 budget request,
Cowden complained that as recently as
1963 the county CD office employed
thirteen people, but at the present time
the office only had five employees,
with no clerical help. Cowden warned he
could not "prevent many elements
of the program from falling behind.
There has been a loss of public contact
58. Cleveland Press, October 23,
25, 26, 1962.
59. Winkler, "40-Year History of
Civil Defense," 21; Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 13,
1963.
60. "Minutes of the Mayor's
Advisory Committee on Civil Defense," January 10, 1964,
"Budget Report," October 14,
1964, Civil Defense collection: Cleveland Press, March 2, 3, 5,
1964; "Transcript of tape recorded
minutes of mayor's advisory committee meeting." June 3,
1964, Civil Defense collection.
Civil Defense in Cleveland 83
and a drastic limitation of direct
assistance to the communities, all of which
has resulted in a loss of interest and
concern for the responsibilities among
the community members." The demise
of civil defense became clear in May
1970, when Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes
expressed his desire to withdraw
from the county civil defense compact.
The county commissioners finally
voted to end the civil defense agreement
on April 15, 1971. When the inter-
national ban on atmospheric testing of
nuclear weapons kept nuclear explo-
sions out of the public's mind, and the
Vietnam war filled the national spot-
light, civil defense could not compete.61
Civil defense in Cuyahoga County lasted
for approximately twenty years,
but except for periodic international
crises, the general population and the
political leadership ignored the
program. At the height of cold war tensions
in the early 1960s, people in Cleveland,
as in the rest of the nation, expressed
much interest in bomb shelters and other
civil defense measures. But few
actually built bomb shelters,
volunteered as auxiliary policemen or air raid
wardens, or made any kind of commitment
to the civil defense program. This
is not to belittle the accomplishments
of the civil defense program, for indeed
there were several successes. Civil
defense attracted several thousand volun-
teers for a variety of positions, taught
a generation of schoolchildren to duck
and cover, created voluminous plans for
escape routes, and stocked 222,689
shelter spaces by 1965. But all these
accomplishments fell far below its
stated needs and plans: at least 375,000
volunteers, a comprehensive pro-
gram for school children acceptable to
the school administration, an escape
plan that would not lead to mass
confusion, and 1,926,000 shelter spaces. By
its own standards, civil defense in
Cuyahoga County failed.62
The reasons Cuyahoga County could not
sustain a viable civil defense pro-
gram are multiple. Recruiting and
training more than 375,000 volunteers, as
Augustus first proposed, was a complex
task. None of the leaders had any
experience in recruiting volunteers or
directing such a large organization.
Prominent national and local opponents
of civil defense revealed the prob-
lems of civil defense, criticizing
shelters and other measures as woefully in-
adequate, even futile, given the
destructive force of the hydrogen bomb. The
National Committee for a Sane Nuclear
Policy (SANE), formed in 1957 to
draw attention to the dangers of nuclear
war, argued civil defense was a dan-
gerous smokescreen to hide the threat of
nuclear destruction. The anti-nu-
61. "Civil Defense Balance,"
March 1967, "Remarks Section-Revised Budget Figures-Civil
Defense-1966," assorted letters
from Cowden to local mayors, "Summary of background of civil
defense," September 9, 1969, Civil
Defense collection; Cleveland Press, April 10, 15, 1971:
James Farrell, review of Unthinking
the Unthinkable: Nuclear Weapons and Western Culture,
by Jeff Smith, War Stars; The
Superweapon and the American Imagination, by H. Bruce
Franklin, Symbolic Defense: The Cultural Significance of the Strategic Defense
Initiative, by
Edward t. Linenthal, In American
Quarterly, 43 (March, 1991), 158.
62. "Federal Program Paper for
Local Civil Defense, Cuyahoga County, June 28, 1965," Civil
Defense Collection.
84 OHIO HISTORY
clear movement won support in
northeastern Ohio, as evidenced by the
protesters in Oberlin at the Operation
Alert '61 exercise. Senator Young,
who repeatedly criticized civil defense
as a useless boondoggle, undoubtedly
proved influential in reducing the level
of public commitment. A 1963 fed-
eral case study on the state of civil
defense in Cleveland noted that the nega-
tive "effects of this political
leadership on the community have been rein-
forced by the pronouncements of a
nationally respected doctor [Benjamin
Spock] associated with the leading
university of the city." The mayors of
Cleveland also declined to provide a
substantial level of political or public
backing. Soon after the Cuban missile
crisis, the mayor called civil defense
"a stepchild of the past."
Although the mayor of Cleveland chaired the
County Advisory Council on Civil
Defense, few mayors bothered to attend
regularly. None of the political or
civil defense leaders set an example for the
general public by making preparations
for a nuclear attack. During the shel-
ter craze of the early 1960s no civil
defense official or political leader built a
bomb shelter, although this was part of
the federal government's plan to safe-
guard the population.63
The roots of public apathy towards civil
defense may also be traced to
larger, national causes. In the 1950s
"America embraced the bomb," accord-
ing to historian Paul Boyer. One member
of the Federal Office of Civil
Defense explained in 1968 that Americans
believed in the power of the
United States military "to keep war
away from their homeland. Civil defense,
in fact, implied that the military might
fail in their task. This tended to create
an uncomfortable feeling among the
public and indignation among the
military." While Americans did fear
a possible nuclear attack, the United
States placed its faith in the threat of
American bombs to prevent any such at-
tack. Comforted by slogans such as
"peace through strength," Americans
trusted the power of technology. The
"well publicized and imposing posture
of the Strategic Air Command and its
long rang bombers," glorified in the
popular media, reassured the public
that American technological prowess
could keep the nation safe. The editor
of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
writing in October 1953, described the
attitude of many Americans that pre-
vailed throughout the period: "The
American tradition is to trust, in war as
well as in peace, in the superior
American capacity for rapid development of
new technological methods and devices.
Most Americans believe that in a
race of technological weapons with any
other nation, America is bound to
make the better showing and that
therefore we have no reason to be afraid of
such a race." The Nike missile
sites, established in Cuyahoga County in the
63. Winkler, "40-Year History of
Civil Defense," 21 for more information on SANE refer to
Divine, Blowing on the Wind, 165-69;
Andrew S. Bullis and Lawrence A.
Williams, Organizing
Municipal Governments for Civil
Defense, (Washington, D.C., 1963), 266; Cleveland Press, May
3. 1954; Bullis, Organizing Municipal Governments, 266.
Civil Defense in Cleveland 85
1950s to protect against a bomb attack,
gave Clevelanders tangible proof of
the technological prowess of the
American military. Sputnik, launched in
1957, shook the country's faith in the
superiority of its own technology, but
the public could still find some
encouragement in the number and power of
American weapons. American faith in the
power of technology to keep the
nation safe reached its zenith in the
doctrine of mutual assured destruction
(MAD). By making the results of nuclear
war much less disastrous for
America, an effective civil defense
system would have upset the strategic
balance of MAD, which depended on the
fear of total destruction to keep the
peace.64
Civil defense in the Cleveland area, and
across the county, also suffered
from the lack of federal leadership, as
Pokorny and others often complained.
All presidents, from Truman to Johnson,
used the post of FCDA director as a
political reward. Thus, the director was
unprepared to handle the complex is-
sue of defense against nuclear attack,
create a comprehensive plan, or provide
leadership to a large bureaucracy. While
all the presidents spoke about the
need for civil defense, none, except
Kennedy, invested any political capital to
push appropriations through Congress. In
1957, the Gaither committee rec-
ommended a military and civil defense
plan costing up to $48 billion, but
Eisenhower, a staunch fiscal
conservative, shelved the report.
Congress
honored Kennedy's 1961 plea for a
renewed commitment to civil defense, but
the shelter mania so disturbed him that
he declined to promote any more pro-
grams. Civil defense officials
continually hoped for clear presidential advo-
cacy and directives, as Edward
McDermott, of the Office of Civil and
Defense Mobilization, indicated in 1962:
"Presidential support, coupled with
Congressional support . . . will be the
spur needed to induce a change for the
better in the public attitude."65
Ultimately, however, the primary reason
for the apathetic response to civil
defense in Cuyahoga County must be found
in the people themselves. Secret
plans of communist expansion, the growing military
power of the Soviet
Union, and the possibility of atomic war
may well have concerned the popu-
lace. But the threat of an attack on the
United States, except for brief periods
of international anxiety, seemed all too
far away for most people.
64. Neal Fitzsimons, "A Brief
History of American Civil Defense," in Who Speaks for Civil
Defense?, ed. Eugene Wigner (New York, 1968), 29: Eugene
Rabinowitch, "The Narrowing
Way," BAS, 9 (October,
1953), 294; Robert Malcolmson, Beyond Nuclear Thinking (Montreal,
1990), 12, 36-37; Mike Epple, Missiles
on the Lake: Nike Missile Installations in Cleveland,
Ohio," (unpublished seminar paper,
University of Akron, 1990 (?).
65. William L. O'Neill, American High: The Years of Confidence, 1945-1960 (New York,
1986), 274-75; Winkler, "40-Year
History of Civil Defense," 19; Divine, Blowing on the Wind,
172; Blanchard, American Civil Defense, 465-93;
Edward A. McDermott, "Public Support of
Civil Emergency Planning," in Behavioral
Science And Civil Defense, ed.
George W. Baker and
Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr. (Washington
D.C., National Academy of Sciences--National Research
Council, 1962), 6.
86 OHIO
HISTORY
Clevelanders wanted "to tend the
garden, mow the lawn, work around the
house, but not think about the
possibility of nuclear destruction." With so
many other things to grab their
attention, few people wanted to make the
commitment to civil defense. Public
inattention may also indicate that the
residents of Cuyahoga County sought to
deny the destructive potential of the
bomb. Herman Kahn, a defense analyst for
the RAND Corporation and a
leading civil defense advocate,
testified before Congress in 1961:
most people . . . do not want to face
the reality of potential thermonuclear war as
something which might be fought. They
prefer deterring it, abolishing it, wishing it
away, thinking it away, ignoring it, or
in some other way denying its existence as a
problem worthy of consideration together
with other programs. An incredibly large
number of people believe that if you
build shelters you will have to use them.
Such an attitude should not seem
unusual, for Americans unwilling to con-
front nuclear reality merely followed
the teachings of Norman Vincent Peale,
who encouraged the country to
"develop the habit of not talking about our
anxieties and worries .... Get your
anxiety out of your general conversation,
and it will tend to drop out of your
mind."66
The cold war dominated American
consciousness during the 1950s and
1960s. It led to the growth of the
military industrial complex, an obsessive
fear of internal communist subversion,
and a policy of American intervention
throughout the world to contain
communism. The shadow of the atomic
bomb pervaded all aspects of American
culture. But fear of the bomb, while
logically suggesting some need for
personal insurance in the form of civil
defense, remained repressed beneath the
surface of everyday life for most
Americans, including the residents of
Cuyahoga County.
66. Cleveland Plain Dealer, April
1, 1962; Herman Kahn, "A Rational Basis for Decision
Making on Civil Defense Policy,"
Testimony given August 7, 9, 1961 before the Subcommittee
of the Committee on Government
Operations, House of Representatives (U.S., Congress, 1961),
in Baker, Behavioral Science and
Civil Defense, 35; Norman Vincent Peale and Smiley Blanton,
Faith is the Answer (New York, 1950), 71. Paul Boyer, in By the Bomb's
Early Light, 419-20,
note #11, suggests those interested in
subconscious nuclear fear refer to Robert Jay Lifton, Death
in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (New York, 1968); The Broken Connection: On Death
and the
Continuity of Life (New York, 1979), 337-87; and Boundaries:
Psychological Man in
Revolution (New York, 1971), 339-52.
ANDREW McILROY
No Interest, No Time, No Money:
Civil
Defense in Cleveland in the Cold
War
In recent years historians have shown
that fear of the atomic bomb per-
vaded all aspects of American life in
the early cold war era. Paul Boyer ar-
gued that "the ever-present reality
of the bomb" was so great that it was
"built into the very structure of
our minds, giving shape and meaning to all
our perceptions." Magazines such as Life, Time, and Newsweek
offered
evidence through a wealth of articles
that the atomic bomb remained central
to the national consciousness. Fear of
nuclear destruction spurred interest in
civil defense as a means to increase
odds of survival in the event of war.
Although the federal government and
atomic scientists proclaimed that civil
defense could save a substantial number
of lives, this case study of the city of
Cleveland and Cuyahoga County suburbs
reveals that the people of north-
eastern Ohio lacked interest in civil
defense preparations, even though the
area was a primary target for nuclear
attack.1
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, county
civil defense officials encouraged
public involvement in preparations for a
nuclear attack by organizing air raid
drills, recruiting volunteers to help
with disaster relief, and planning for sur-
Andrew Mcllroy is a M.S. candidate at
the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and
Management, Carnegie Mellon University.
This paper was written while he was a masters stu-
dent in American History at the
University of Akron, where he worked closely with Dr. Walter
Hixson and Dr. Jerome Mushkat.
1. Paul Boyer, By tle Bomb's Early
Light: American Thought and Culture (at the Dawn of the
Atomic Age (New York, 1985), xv, xviii, 15; Robert Karl Manoff,
"The Media: Nuclear
Security vs. Democracy," Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists (hereafter BAS), 40 (January, 1984),
26-29. For more information on the
culture of cold war America, and its relationship to the
bomb, see: Elaine Tyler May, Homeward
Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New
York, 1988), especially chp. 4,
"Explosive Issues: Sex, Women, and the Bomb," 92-113;
William L. O'Neill American High: The
Years of Confidence, 1945-1960, (New York, 1986).
The film by The Archives Project, The
Atomic Cafe, 1982 Thorn Emi
Video, provides an enter-
taining depiction of civil defense
efforts and the cultural impact of the bomb. Spencer R. Weart,
Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge, Mass., 1988) might also prove interesting.
The federal offices responsible for civil
defense and academics issued a multitude of pamphlets
explaining the need for civil defense
and offering practical ways for everyone, from architects to
housewives, to get involved. A brief
survey of books on the subject includes: Pat Frank, How to
Survive the H-Bomb, and Why (Philadelphia, 1962); Herman Kahn, Thinking About the
Unthinkable (New York, 1962); Thomas L Martin and Donald C. Latham,
Strategy for Survival
(Tucson, 1963); Colonel Mel Mawrence
with John Clark Kimball, You Can Survive the Bomb
(Chicago, 1961); Augustin M. Prentiss, Civil
Defense in Modern War (New York, 1951); Eugene
P. Wigner, Survival and the Bomb;
Methods of Civil Defense (Bloomington, 1969).