Ohio History Journal

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ANDREW McILROY

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).