This Is Only Test How Washington Prepared for Nuclear War (40 page)

1. Dean Acheson
   ,
   Present at the Creation; My Years in the State Department
   (New York: W.W. Norton, 1969), 140–1.
   
2. Department of Defense Directive 200.05-1TS, November 10, 1951; John J. McLaughlin to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, May 18, 1951, box 37, folder “Disaster Planning,” RG 330.
   
3. MDW, “Air Raid Precaution Organization—The Pentagon,” November 9, 1951, in
   Wartime Readiness Plans Book
   .
   
4. Defense Directive, November 10, 1951.
   
5. CR
   , 81st Cong., 2nd sess., December 14, 1950, vol. 96, part 12, 16564.
   
6. The description is based upon a drawing in 1/8 inch scale by Lorenzo Winslow, September 14, 1950, box 7, folder “White House East Wing—Alterations Project 49-100-9,” RG 121, REM. Other details are from Winslow to Allan S. Thorn, August 18, 1950, box 7, folder “White House East Wing—Alterations Project 49-100-9”; Thorn to Supervising Engineer, March 11, 1952, box 3, folder “Specifications: Alternations and Additions to East Terrace, 1/11/51,” RG 121, REM.
   
7. Naval Aide to the President, May 16, 1945, box 131, folder “Naval Aide to the President,” HST Papers, PSF, General File.
   

1. William Seale,
   The President’s House: A Histor
   y
   vol. II (Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association, 1986), 980–4; L.C. Chamberlin to Thorn, December 21, 1950, box 7, folder “White House East Wing Alterations Project 49-100-9”; W.E. Reynolds to Dennison, January 25, 1951, box 4, folder “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect,” RG 121, REM.
   
2. Seale,
   President’s House
   , 1039; Commission on the Renovation of the Executive Mansion (hereafter Commission), Minutes of the 26th Meeting, August 16, 1950, box 1, folder 2, RG 121, REM, 3.
   
3. Seale,
   President’s House
   , 1025–31; Bess Furman,
   White House Profile; A Social History of the White House, Its Occupants and Its Festivities
   (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1951), 334; U.S., Commission on Renovation of the Executive Mansion,
   Report, Compiled Under Direction of the Commission by Edwin Bateman Morris
   (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1952), 35–42; James Webb to Truman, December 27, 1948, box 150, folder “Budget Misc. 1945–53 (folder 1),” HST Papers, PSF, Subject File.
   
4. Seale
   ,
   President’s House
   , 1031; William B. Bushong, “Lorenzo Simmons Winslow: Architect of the White House, 1933–1952,”
   White House History
   5 (Spring 1999): 23–32; William J. Moyer, “The Man behind the White House Remodeling,”
   WS Sunday Magazine
   , December 16, 1951, 14–5.
   
5. In July 1949, a pit was dug in the White House garden to test soil conditions for the foundation. Borings struck bedrock at 70 feet. See Memorandum for the President, July 27, 1949, box 301, folder “Commission on the Renovation of the Executive Mansion Correspondence (folder 1),” HST Papers, PSF, White House File. Details of the July 26, 1950 meeting come from Thorn memorandum, July 27, 1950, box 7, folder “White House East Wing Alterations Project 49
   100-9,” RG 121, REM.
   
6. Thorn memorandum, August 17, 1950, box 8, folder “A.S. Thorn Supervising Architect Misc. Pending,” RG 121, REM.
   
7. Office of the Chief of Engineers to Winslow, October 5, 1950, box 7, folder 2, RG 121, REM.
   
8. Thorn, July 27, 1950; Winslow to Thorn, August 18, 1950; Thorn memoran
   dum, December 21, 1950, box 4, folder “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect,” RG 121, REM. The East Wing shelter was four levels below the executive mansion’s first or state floor, according to Michael R. Beschloss,
   The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963
   (New York: Edward Burlingame, 1991), 476.
   
9. Commission, Minutes of the 26th Meeting; Winslow to W.E. Reynolds, August 8, 1950; Thorn memoranda, August 17 and 31, 1950, box 7, folder “White House East Wing Alterations Project 49-100-9,” RG 121, REM.
   
10. Seale,
    President’s House
    , 663, 978–83.
    
11. Winslow to Thorn, August 18, 1950.
    
12. For details of the foundation work on the White House, see Richard Doughtery, “The White House Made Safe,”
    Civil Engineering
    (July 1952): 46–52, reprinted in Commission,
    Report
    , 97–100.
    
13. Commission, Minutes of the 26th Meeting; Thorn memorandum, July 27, 1950; Thorn to Winslow, July 28, 1950, box 4, folder “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect”; Thorn to Supervising Engineer, December 13, 1951, box 3, folder “Specifications: Alterations and Additions to East Terrace 1/11/51,” RG 121, REM.
    
14. GSA, “Emergency Improvements,” attached to Thorn memorandum, June 22, 1951; Charles Barber to Thorn, September 1, 1950, box 7, folder “White House East Wing Alterations Project 49-100-9,” RG 121, REM.
    
15. Thorn, July 27, 1950.
    
16. “Estimate Revisions to Shelter in East Wing,” July 10, 1950; W.E. Reynolds to David Stowe, December 7, 1950; Thorn to Winslow, December 14, 1950; Thorn directive, January 2, 1951; Thorn to Dennison, September 14, 1951, box 4, folder “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect”; Winslow to Dennison, August 27, 1951, box 7, folder “White House East Wing Alterations Project 49-100-9,” RG 121, REM.
    
17. Thorn memorandum, August 8, 1950; Reynolds to Dennison, December 14, 1950, box 4, folder “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect”; Office of the Chief of Engineers to Winslow, October 5, 1950; Commission, Minutes of the 31st, 33rd, and 38th Meetings, box 1, folders 2 and 3, RG 121, REM.
    
18. H.L. Bowman to Winslow, December 19, 1950, box 7, folder “White House East Wing Alterations Project 49-100-9”; Thorn memorandum, December 21, 1950; Thorn to Bowman, December 28, 1950, box 4, folder “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect,” RG 121, REM.
    
19. These figures are taken, respectively, from “Estimate Revisions to Shelter in East Wing”; “White House Alterations East Wing,” July 18, 1950, box 8, folder “A.S. Thorn Supervising Architect Misc. Pending”; Design and Construction Division to Thorn, September 15, 1950, box 4, folder “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect,” RG 121, REM.
    
20. Thorn memorandum, June 22, 1951; Thorn to Lawton, June 26, 1951, box 7, folder “White House East Wing Alterations Project 49-100-9”; Thorn memo
    randum, May 29, 1951, box 4, “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect,” RG 121, REM.
    
21. Thorn memorandum, January 15, 1951; Reynolds to Dennison, January 25, 1951; Thorn to Dennison, February 20, 1951, box 4, “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect”; Winslow to Thorn, January 15, 1951, box 7, folder “White House East Wing Alterations Project 49-100-9”; Minutes of the 36th Meeting, January 26, 1951, box 1, folder 3; Design and Construction Division to Captain George Miller, August 7, 1952, box 7, folder 2, RG 121, REM.
    
22. Acting Supervising Architect memorandum, June 6, 1952; Thorn memorandum, August 11, 1952, box 7, folder 2; Colonel Gillette inspection report, March 28, 1952; Thorn to Winslow, April 10, 1952; Thorn memorandum, December 20, 1950; Thorn to Dennison, May 2, 1951, box 4, folder “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect.”
    
1. Commission, Minutes of the 50th Meeting, September 6, 1951, box 1, folder 4;
   
2. W.M.
   Russell to Thorn, June 14, 1951, box 4, folder “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect”; Thorn to J. Paul Hauck, September 12, 1951, box 4, folder “Extra Copies of Memorandums”; Thorn memorandum, January 17, 1952, box 7, folder “White House East Wing Alterations Project 49-100-9”; Thorn, Change Notice 15, February 27, 1952, box 3, folder “Specifications, Alterations, and Additions to East Terrace, 1/11/51,” RG 121, REM.
   
23. Gillette inspection report, March 28, 1952; Thorn to Winslow, April 10, 1952, box 4, folder “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect”; Chief of Mechanical-Electrical Section to Thorn, April 24, 1952, box 7, folder “White House East Wing Alterations Project 49-100-9,” RG 121, REM.
    
24. “The Presidency—Guided Tour,”
    Time
    LIX, no. 7 (February 18, 1952): 17–8; “A 7-Million-Dollar Home: What It’s Like to Live in New White House,”
    U.S. News & World Report
    32, no. 12 (March 21, 1952): 19–22; Rex W. Scouten, “President Truman’s Televised Tour,”
    White House History
    no. 5 (Spring 1999): 46–50; Seale,
    President’s House
    , 1050–1.
    
25. Acting Supervising Architect to R.O. Jennings, June 4, 1952, box 4, folder “Confidential Reading File of the Supervising Architect”; Acting Supervising Architect memorandum, June 6, 1952; Design and Construction Division to Captain George Miller, August 7, 1952; Thorn memorandum, August 11, 1952; Acting Chief, U.S. Chemical Corps Protective Division to Thorn, September 26, 1952, box 7, folder 2, RG 121, REM.
    
26. “Revised List of Furnishings,” April 14, 1953, box 7, folder 2; Design and Construction Division memorandum, April 16, 1953; J.B. Harrison to Thorn, May 11, 1953, box 7, folder “White House East Wing Alterations Project 49
    100-9,” RG 121, REM.
    
27. David Miller,
    The Cold War: A Military History
    (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 72.
    
28. Robert J. Lewis, “Architect Says Kennedys Will Find White House Cozy,”
    WS
    , January 22, 1961, sec. F, p. 8.
    
29. Oral history interview with Admiral Robert L. Dennison by Jerry N. Hess, October 6, 1971, Washington, D.C., HSTL, 98.
    

5 Apathy and the Atom

1. “The Civil Defense Alert America Convoy,” HST Papers, Official File, box 1743, folder “2965 (1952–53)”; “Personal and Otherwise,”
   Harper’s Magazine
   211, no. 1265 (October 1955).
   
2. Fondahl to the Commissioners, “Progress Report,” October 31, 1951; DCD, Information Bulletin, December 17, 1951, Office of Civil Defense Memoranda Orders, Washingtoniana; DCD, “In Case of an A-Bomb Attack What Should You Do?,” January 1951, Vertical Files, folder “Defense 1951,” Washingtoniana; “Civil Defense Far From Ready to Cope with Attack,”
   WS
   , April 6, 1951; Senate Committee on Government Operations,
   Civil Defense in the District of Columbia, Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations
   , 86th Cong., 1st sess., April 27, 1959, 76.
   
3. “The Alert America Convoy Comes to Washington!,” packet of newspaper clippings and publicity material in box 2, folder 17, Student Research File (B File), HSTL.
   
4. FCDA, “Alert America Campaign Progress Report,” October 15, 1951, box 1, folder 6, Student Research File (B File), Civil Defense, HSTL.
   
5. For more on the Freedom Train, see Richard M. Fried
   ,
   The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!: Pageantry and Patriotism in Cold-War America
   (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 29–49.
   
6. “Civil Defense Alert America Convoy.”
   
7. “The Alert America Convoy!”; Frank Wilson to Helen Crabtree, January 15, 1952, box 5, folder “Civil Defense Campaign Correspondence,” HST Papers, Files of Spencer R. Quick, HSTL (hereafter Quick Files).
   
8. “Civil Defense Alert America Convoy.”
   
9. “Alert America Convoy Comes to Washington!”
   
1. Ibid. For more on the FCDA’s use of Alert America to manipulate public response and action, see Andrew D. Grossman,
   Neither Dead nor Red: Civilian Defense and American Political Development during the Early Cold War
   
2. (London: Routledge, 2001), 69–105.
   
10. “Alert America Convoy Comes to Washington!”
    
11. Laura McEnaney,
    Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday
    Life in the Fifties
    (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 3–10, 123–46 (the quote is on 123).
    

1. Guy Oakes,
   The Imaginary War: Civil Defense and American Cold War Culture
   (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 3–9.
   
2. Fried,
   Russians
   , 45–6; “Alert America Convoy Comes to Washington!”
   
3. Minutes of the January 5, 1952 meeting, box 1, folder 25, FCA; Meeting Notes, January 7, 1952, box 1, folder 30, DCCA; Notes for the Military and Naval Affairs Committee, February 15, 1952, box 106, folder “Military and Naval Affairs 1951–52,” WBOT; “Civil Defense Raid Shelter Survey to Start,”
   WP
   , February 22, 1952, p. 19; Notes of the Executive Board Meeting, February 25, 1952, box 4, folder 23, District of Columbia Federation of Women’s Clubs Records, HSW; William Cawley, “Injury of Mrs. Julie McConnaughy,” March 26, 1952, box 28, folder “Civil Defense Training,” RG 56, Central Files.
   
4. “400 CD Volunteers Attend First of Three Indoctrination Talks,”
   WS
   , March 5, 1952.
   
5. “Adv. Council Joins GOC Recruit Drive” and “ADC Deputy for Operations Explains Air Defense System,”
   The Aircraft Flash
   1, no. 1 (October 1952): 3, 6–7; Directorate of Requirements, “General Operational Requirement for an Aircraft Control and Warning System for Air Defense, 1952–1958,” December 27, 1951, box 1, folder “R&D 1–4SOR3(GOR-3),” RG 341, 2–3; Kenneth Schaffel,
   The Emerging Shield: The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense 1945–1960
   (Washington, D.C.: USAF, Office of Air Force History, 1991), 156–60.
   
6. Air Defense Command, “Organization—Air Bases and Units,” October 12, 1951, box 7, folder “Ground Observer Corps—General Folder 2,” Quick Files; “ ‘Operation Skywatch’ Proves Valuable to Air Defense System in First 11 Weeks,”
   The Aircraft Flash
   , 5; William G. Key, “Air Defense of the United States,”
   Pegasus
   (November 1952): 1–6, box 6, folder “Ground Observer Corps-General Folder 1,” Quick Files.
   
7. “Plane Spotters Observe 125 in D.C. Test,”
   WP
   , June 24, 1951;
   The Aircraft Flash
   , 4.
   
8. DCD, August 8, 1951, Office of Civil Defense Memoranda Orders, Washingtoniana; “These Ground Observers, Taking Nothing for Granted, Prepare for Any Emergency, Including an Atomic Bomb Attack,”
   Pittsburgh Courier
   , Washington ed., September 1, 1951.
   
9. On the segregation of Washington, see Constance McLaughlin Green
   ,
   The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital
   (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 274–312; “Segregation in the District of Columbia,”
   WS
   , October 19, 1952, reprinted in
   The Negro History Bulletin
   16, no. 4 (January 1953): 79–85. For details on theater “spotters,” see Shirlee Taylor Haizlip,
   The Sweeter the Juice
   (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 64.
   
10. William D. Cawley to McDonald, January 7, 1952, box 28, folder “Civil Defense Ground Observer Corps,” RG 56, Central Files.