This Is Only Test How Washington Prepared for Nuclear War (38 page)

2 The Promise and Politics of Dispersal

1. For more on the attractions of dispersal as protection, see Tom Vanderbilt,
   Survival City: Adventures among the Ruins of Atomic America
   (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 73–81; Kathleen A. Tobin, “The Reduction of Urban Vulnerability: Revisiting 1950s American Suburbanization as Civil Defense,”
   Cold War History
   2, no.2 (January 2002): 1–32.
   
2. Michael Quinn Dudley, “Sprawl as Strategy: City Planners Face the Bomb,”
   Journal of Planning Education and Resear
   ch
   21, no. 1 (Fall 2001): 54–5. For more on the perceived social and community benefits of dispersal, see Timothy Mennel, “Victor Gruen and the Construction of Cold War Utopias,”
   Journal of Planning History
   3, no. 2 (May 2004): 116–50.
   
3. Dudley, “Sprawl,” 56–7; Robert Wojtowicz, “Building Communities in the Twentieth Century,”
   Journal of Urban History
   28, no. 6 (September 2002): 813–4 (the Stein quote is on 813); Richard Walker and Robert D. Lewis, “Beyond the Crabgrass Frontier: Industry and the Spread of North American Cities, 1850–1950,”
   Journal of Historical Geography
   27, no. 1 (January 2001): 3–9.
   
4. John H. Kyle
   ,
   The Building of TVA: An Illustrated History
   (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1958), 15–21; Joseph L. Arnold,
   The New Deal in the Suburbs: A History of the Greenbelt Town Program, 1935–1954
   (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1971), 47–9; Tracy B. Augur, “The Dispersal of Cities as a Defense Measure,”
   BAS
   4, no. 5 (May 1948): 131.
   
5. “Planning Cities for the Atomic Age: Mere Survival Is Not Enough,”
   American City
   (August 1946): 75–6.
   
6. Augur, “Dispersal of Cities,” 131–4.
   
7. Eric Arnesen
   ,
   Black Protest and the Great Migration: A Brief History with Documents
   (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003), 36.
   
8. Stephen Grant Meyer,
   As Long as They Don’t Move Next Door: Segregation and Racial Conflict in American Neighborhoods
   (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 79–97; Thomas J. Sugrue,
   The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit
   (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 23, 211–8; Heather Ann Thompson, “Rethinking the Politics of White Flight in the Postwar City,”
   Journal of Urban History
   25, no. 2 (January 1999): 163 ff. (the quote is from Thompson, note 38).
   
9. Robert B. Fairbanks and Zane L. Miller, “The Martial Metropolis: Housing, Planning, and Race in Cincinnati, 1940–55,” in Roger W. Lotchin, ed.,
   The Martial Metropolis: U.S. Cities in War and Peace
   (New York: Praeger, 1984), 191–222 (the quote is on 206).
   
10. Augur, “Dispersal of Cities,” 131.
    
1. Kermit Parsons, “Shaping the Regional City: 1950–1990: The Plans of Tracy Augur and Clarence Stein for Dispersing Federal Workers from Washington, D.C.,”
   Proceedings of the Third National Conference on American Planning
   
2. History
   (Hilliard, Ohio: The Society for American City and Regional Planning
   History, 1990), 656–8.
   
11. NSRB, “A Recommendation to the President by the National Security Resources Board on Security for the Nation’s Capital” (NSRB-R-13), October 27, 1948, box 48, folder “545–15–85 ‘Security for the Nation’s Capital,’ ” RG 328, Planning Files.
    
12. “Notes on Population Growth of D.C. Area,” August 1948, box 6, folder “Security—D.C. Dispersal,” RG 304, Office File of I.D. Brent (hereafter Brent File).
    
13. I.D. Brent to Reginald Miller, January 19, 1949; NSRB, “A Recommendation to the President by the National Security Resources Board on Security for the Nation’s Capital—Emergency Plan,” November 23, 1948, box 5, folder “Security for the Nation’s Capital,” RG 304, Office File of Gayle Arnold (hereafter Arnold File).
    
14. Michael J. Hogan,
    A Cross of Iron: Harr
    y S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954
    (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 217–8; Ken Hechler,
    Working with Truman: A Personal Memoir of the White House Years
    (New York: G.P. Putnam’s, 1982; reprint, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996), 45–9.
    
15. Steelman to James Webb, January 5, 1949, box 11, folder “Chronological File, January 1949,” RG 304, Reading File of John R. Steelman.
    
16. Kenneth D. Johnson to Reginald Gillmor, January 10, 1949; William Gill to Gillmor, January 6, 1949; I.D. Brent to Gillmor, January 19, 1949, box 5, folder “Security for the Nation’s Capital,” RG 304, Arnold File.
    
17. Pamela Scott and Antoinette J. Lee
    ,
    Buildings of the District of Columbia
    (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 58.
    
18. Augur to J.W. Follin, July 14, 1949, box 6, folder “Security for the Nation’s Capital,” RG 304, Brent File.
    
19. Arnold,
    New Deal
    , 24–142 (the Augur quote is on 92); Cathy D. Knepper,
    Greenbelt, Maryland: A Living Legacy of the New Deal
    (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 13–39.
    
20. Arnold,
    New Deal
    , 234–6.
    
21. Steelman to Philip Fleming, May 31, 1949, box 3, folder “Greenbelt Project,” RG 304, Arnold File.
    
22. Augur et al. to Brent, June 21, 1949, box 6, folder “Security for the Nation’s Capital,” RG 304, Brent File.
    
23. Augur to Follin, July 14, 1949.
    
24. This description is adapted from information and the map provided in “Security for the Nation’s Capital—Short-Term Emergency Plan,” November 17, 1949, box 6, RG 304, Brent File.
    
25. Ibid., 2.
    
26. Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan
    ,
    Atomic Shield, 1947/1952
    , vol. II,
    A History of the United States Atomic Ener
    gy Commission
    (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1969), 362–6.
    
27. David McCullough,
    Tr
    uman
    (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 748; Paul Boyer,
    By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age
    (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), 336.
    
28. The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 designates the order of succession if both the presidency and vice presidency are vacant: the Speaker of the House; the president pro tempore of the Senate; and cabinet secretaries, in the order their departments (or predecessors) were created. In 1949, the ranking of the
    

secretaries was State, Treasury, Defense, the Attorney General, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor.

1. Kennedy to Truman, October 8, 1949, box 1, folder “C.D., General,” RG 304, Records Relating to Civil Defense, 1949–1953 (hereafter Civil Defense Records); “Kennedy Complains to Truman on Lack of Civil Defense Plan,”
   Washington Times-Herald
   , October 10, 1949, p. 31. Hale’s bill (H. Res. 385), Trimble’s bill (H.J. Res. 48), and Patman’s bill (H. Res. 358) were all introduced during the 81st Cong., 1st sess. See, respectively,
   CR
   , October 10 and 17, 1949, vol. 95, part 11, 14131–2, 14170; part 16, A6372; and from the 81st Cong., 2nd sess., January 18, 1950, vol. 96, part 13, A381-3. For McMahon’s announcement, see “McMahon Inquiry Seeks Facts in Civilian Atomic Defense,”
   WS
   , October 19, 1949; for Wiley’s suggestion, see “Senator Warns on Bomb,”
   WP
   , November 20, 1949.
   
2. AEC, “The City of Washington and an Atomic Bomb Attack,” November 1949, box 1, folder “Civilian Defense Program,” RG 304, Office File of Arthur M. Hill and John Steelman.
   
3. WP
   , November 17, 1949, p. 1; “The President’s News Conference of November 17, 1949,”
   PPP: Harr
   y S. Truman, 1949
   , 569.
   
4. Donald R. Whitnah, editor-in-chief
   ,
   Government Agencies
   , The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Institutions (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983), 407–9; Hechler,
   Working with Truman
   , 158–61.
   
5. Grant to Hill, April 2, 1948, box 32, folder “381-Security for the Nation’s Capital—Emergency Plan,” RG 304.
   
6. Hill to Grant III, May 18, 1948; Grant III to Hill, August 5, 1948; Grant III to Arnold, February 8, 1949, box 32, folder “381-Security for the Nation’s Capital—Emergency Plan,” RG 304.
   
7. Grant III to Arnold, March 15, April 11, and April 29, 1949, box 6, folder “Security for the Nation’s Capital,” RG 304, Brent File.
   
8. Augur to Follin, November 15, 1949, box 6, folder “Security for the Nation’s Capital,” RG 304, Brent File.
   
9. Steelman to Louis Johnson, June 3, 1949; Steelman to Johnson, July 1949; Steelman to Johnson, December 19, 1949, box 12, “Chronological File” folders for June, July, and December 1949, RG 304, Reading File of John R. Steelman; Johnson to Steelman, August 1, 1949, box 9, folder “NSRB Doc. 112— Background,” RG 304, Board Documents.
   
10. Brent to Gill, December 20, 1949, box 6, folder “Security for the Nation’s Capital,” RG 304, Brent File.
    
11. National Capital Park and Planning Commission
    ,
    Washington Present and Future: A General Summary of the Comprehensive Plan for the National Capital and Its Environs
    , monograph no. 1 (Washington, D.C.: National Capital Park and Planning Commission, April 1950), 5.
    
12. This description is adapted from the General Services Administration, “Basic Principles and Assumptions Governing Preparation of the Long-Range Plan for the Security of the Nation’s Capital,” June 1950, box 48, folder “545-15-85 ‘Security for the Nation’s Capital,’ ” RG 328, Planning Files.
    
13. Ibid., 13.
    
14. Ibid., 19–21.
    
15. Ibid., 10–2, 16–9.
    
16. Augur to Nolen, January 24, 1950, box 48, folder “545-15-85 Security for the Nation’s Capital,” RG 328, Planning Files; Steelman to Wurster, February 7 and
    

March 2, 1950, box 1, folder “Chronological File, January 1950–July 1950,” RG 304, Brent File.

1. Washington Present and Future
   , 5–10.
   
2. Augur to Follin, March 31, 1950, box 6, folder “Security for the Nation’s Capital,” RG 304, Brent File.
   

3 The District Defends Itself

1. “The President’s News Conference of October 13, 1949,
   ”
   PPP: Harry S. Truman, 1949
   , 511–2.
   
2. “Gen. Young Uses Army Training to Streamline His District Domain,”
   Washington Times-Herald
   , January 5, 1950, p. 21.
   
3. Gordon Russell Young to the Commissioners, February 10, 1950; Young state
   ment, March 3, 1950, John Nolen, Jr., Papers, HSW.
   
4. Truman to John Steelman, March 3, 1949, box 2, folder “Civilian Mobilization,” RG 304, Office File of Arthur M. Hill and John R. Steelman (hereafter Hill File).
   
5. T.J. Hayes to G.R. Young, February 6, 1950, box 2, folder “Civil Defense— District of Columbia,” RG 304, Office File of I.D. Brent (hereafter Brent File), 4; “NSRB to Control D.C. Civil Defense,”
   Washington Times-Herald
   , March 9, 1950, p. 1.
   
6. “Civil Defense Policy Adopted for District by Commissioners,”
   WS
   , February 14, 1950, sec. A, p. 1; “Police Official Due to Head Civil Defense Setup at Start,”
   WP
   , March 2, 1950, p. 1.
   
7. “D.C. Nominees Sought to Take Atom Courses,”
   WS
   , February 14, 1950, sec. B; “Specialists to Get Study on A-Bomb,”
   WP
   , March 26, 1950, sec. M, p. 9.
   
8. Harold Sandbank to Albert Shire, June 1, 1950, box 4, folder “General Services Administration,” RG 304, Letters Sent to Government Agencies.
   
9. “Defense of Washington,”
   WP
   , May 25, 1950.
   
10. “Model Atom Defense Plan Set for D.C.,”
    WP
    , May 23, 1950, sec. A, p. 1.
    
11. “Hypothetical Narrative,” unsigned, May 19, 1950, box 2, folder “District Civil Defense—Work File,” RG 304, Brent File.
    
12. “U.S. Is Still in Planning Stage on What to Do if A-Bomb Hits,”
    WS
    , August 14, 1950.
    
13. “Report Shows Many States Study Civilian Defense, Defer Action,”
    WS
    , March 9, 1950, sec. A, p. 15.
    

1. Dean Acheson
   ,
   Present at the Creation; My Years in the State Department
   (New York: W.W. Norton, 1969), 402.
   
2. Clay Blair,
   The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950–1953
   (New York: Times Books, 1987), 58–9; Joseph C. Goulden,
   Korea: The Untold Story of the War
   (New York: Times Books, 1982), 43.
   

16. Goulden,
Korea
, 47 (“settled down” quote); Robert W. Merry,
Taking on the World: Joseph and Stewart Alsop—Guardians of the American Century
(New York: Viking, 1996), 193–4 (“border incident” quote).