This Is Only Test How Washington Prepared for Nuclear War (42 page)

7 Practice Makes Perfect

1.
The scenario is based upon these sources. Soviet bombers and bases: Steven J. Zaloga,
The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945–2000
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002), 15–24; Christoph Bluth,
Soviet Strategic Arms Policy before SALT
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 5–7, 174–5. DEW, Pinetree, and CONAD: Kenneth Schaffel,
The Emerging Shield: The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense 1945–1960
(Washington, D.C.: USAF,

N


219

Office of Air Force History, 1991), 169–71, 209–17, 238–9. D.C. warning system: National Academy of Sciences’s Advisory Committee on Civil Defense, “The Attack Warning System of the Metropolitan Washington Area,” October 1, 1955, box 796, folder “Civil Defense,” RG 46, Records of the U.S. Senate, Committee on the District of Columbia, file SEN 84A-FS, National Archives, Washington, D.C., 1–9, 12–13. Background on Conelrad: FCC, “Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiation Pursuant to Executive Order No. 10312, Dated December 10, 1951,” box 699, folder “136-F CONELRAD,” HST Papers, WHCF, Official File. Four-mile evacuation: Fondahl memorandum, April 7, 1955, box 24, folder “Continental Defense—Continuity of Government (2),” Disaster File. President’s evacuation: “White House Emergency Plan,” August 3, 1955, box 19, folder “White House Emergency Plan—WHEP [1955–58],” NSC Briefing Notes, 1.

1. Brigadier General R.E. Koon to Edward Beach, May 31, 1955, box 1, folder “Emergency Procedures—Attack Warning 1955 (2),” EAS.
   
2. National Academy of Sciences, “Attack Warning System.”
   
1. “An Interview with Governor Val Peterson,”
   BAS
   9, no. 7 (September 1953):
   
2. 238.
   
3. Fondahl to Gordon Young, March 13, 1951; Young to the Commissioners, March 27, 1951, box 229, folder 4-116, RG 351, BOC.
   
4. NSC memorandum of discussion, March 4, 1955, box 6, folder “239th Meeting of NSC,” Whitman File, NSC Series, 5.
   
5. Author interview with Henry Rapalus, July 10, 2003, Rockville, Md.
   
6. Fondahl memorandum, April 7, 1955, 5–7.
   
7. Government of the District of Columbia, Order no. 49, January 12, 1954, box 231, folder 4-154, RG 351, BOC.
   
8. NSC memorandum, March 4, 1955, 8.
   
9. Beach to the NSC Special Committee, April 8, 1955, box 1, folder “Emergency Procedures—Attack Warning 1955(1),” EAS.
   
10. Bluth,
    Soviet Strategic
    , 7, 175 (the quote is on 175); Zaloga,
    Kremlin’s Nuclear
    , 17, 24, 31–5.
    
11. Donald P. Steury, ed.,
    Intentions and Capabilities: Estimates on Soviet Strategic Forces, 1950–1983
    (Washington, D.C.: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1996), 5–7, 26–30.
    
12. Carlton Savage, “Continental Defense,” February 10, 1953,
    FRUS, 1952–54
    , vol. II, part 1, 231. For more on continental defense policies between 1953 and 1955, see Richard M. Leighton,
    Strategy, Money, and the New Look, 1953–1956
    , vol. III,
    History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense
    , ed. Alfred Goldberg (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2001), 114–39.
    
13. GSA, “Air Raid Drill Fact Sheet,” December 10, 1952 and “Information for Use in Government-Wide Air Raid Drill,” December 12, 1952, box 28, folder “Civil Defense Air Raid Drills,” RG 56, Central Files; “Office of Civil Defense Organization,” attachment to DCD Order no. 8, July 6, 1953, box 228, folder 4-100, RG 351, BOC, 16.
    
14. GSA, “Information for Use,” attachment 1 and reports.
    
15. GSA, “Air Raid.”
    
16. DCD
    ,
    Basic Indoctrination Manual
    , January 15, 1953, Vertical File, folder “Civil Defense and Defense, Public Proclamations,” 50; DCD Order no. 3, September 14, 1953, Office of Civil Defense Memoranda Orders, Washingtoniana.
    
17. J.J. Hurley to Victor H. Anderson, November 5, 1953; Hurley, “Attendance List,” December 21, 1953, box 1, folder “U.S. Capitol-Senate Wing,” RG 396, Records Relating to the U.S. Capitol, Senate, and House Protection Plans, 1951–54 (hereafter Capitol Records); Press Release, October 24, 1951; William Jenner to David Lynn, July 7, 1953; Harold Goodwin to W.B. Bookwalter, November 24, 1953; Bookwalter to Lynn, November 25, 1953; Gordon F. Harrison to J. George Stewart, February 14, 1955, AOC.
    
18. Guy Oakes,
    The Imaginary War: Civil Defense and American Cold War Culture
    (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 84–104 (the first quote is on 96; the second, 98). For more on the elaborate nature of civil defense exercises, see Tracy C. Davis, “Between History and Event: Rehearsing Nuclear War Survival,”
    The Drama Review
    46, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 11–45.
    
19. “Summary of Meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on Armaments,” March 16, 1953; “Memorandum of Discussion at the 146th Meeting of the National Security Council, Wednesday, May 27, 1953,” May 30, 1953,
    FRUS, 1952–1954
    , vol. II, part 2, 1135–37, 1169–74.
    
20. “Mixup Mars Civil Defense Attack Test,”
    Washington T
    imes-Herald
    , July 20, 1953, clipping in box 4, folder 96, Samuel Spencer Papers, HSW.
    
21. “Confusion over Civil Defense Pointed up in District Survey,”
    WS
    , March 17, 1955.
    
22. DCD, “Briefing on CPX Phase of Operation Alert,” June 14, 1954, Office of Civil Defense Memoranda Orders, Washingtoniana.
    
23. Hornell Hart, “The Remedies
    versus
    the Menace,”
    BAS
    10, no. 6 (June 1954): 197–205.
    
24. Spencer to Eisenhower, March 16, 1954; Beach to Sherman Adams, April 16, 1954; Flemming to Beach, March 22, 1954, box 656, folder “133-B Civil Defense (1),” White House Central Files, Official File, DDEL.
    
25. “Vast D.C. Area ‘Obliterated’ in Mock Raid” and “Civil Defense Spotty in Nation-Wide Raid,”
    WP
    , June 15, 1954, sec. A, pp. 1, 10; “D.C. Ghost City as Thousands Go to Shelters,”
    WS
    , June 14, 1954, clipping in box 5, folder 104, Spencer Papers; Donald Menn to Mr. Kreer, June 15, 1954, box 4, folder “Vital Records Program 1953 & 1954,” RG 59; Norman Hartman to Ira Willard, June 17, 1954, folder “Continuation of Regular Meeting, July 13, 1954,” Alexandria Records.
    

1. Harry B. Yoshpe
   ,
   Our Missing Shield: The U.S. Civil Defense Program in Historical Perspective
   (Washington, D.C.: FEMA, 1981), 189–204.
   
2. Jeremy L. Korr, “History of the Capital Beltway in Montgomery County,”
   The Montgomery County Story
   43, no. 3 (August 2000): 140.
   
3. “Special Message to the Congress,” February 22, 1955
   ,
   PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1955
   , 276.
   
4. CDNS
   , part 3, March 1956, 644–5.
   
5. “5-4-3-2-1 and the Hydrogen Age Is upon Us,”
   Life
   36, no. 15 (April 12, 1954): 24–33.
   
6. As reported in DCD memorandum to Commissioners, March 11, 1955, Office of Civil Defense Memoranda Orders, Washingtoniana; Fondahl memorandum, April 7, 1955.
   
7. “Civil Defense Study Shifts to Dispersal,”
   WP
   , August 31, 1953; Fondahl mem
   orandum, April 7, 1955, 5; Minutes of the Takoma Park Civil Defense Committee, March 9, 1955, City of Takoma Park (Md). Records, Civil Defense Materials, 1954–59, Historic Takoma Park Archives, 2.
   

1. Board of Commissioners, “Statement of Basic Civil Defense Policy in the Event of Thermonuclear Attack on Metropolitan Washington,” April 28, 1955, box 229, folder 4-119, RG 351, BOC, 3.
   
2. John W. Finney, “Millions Seen in Peril, Lacking CD Program,”
   WP
   , May 20, 1955, sec. A, p. 3; “Teague Plans Reappraisal of CD Program,”
   WS
   , May 19, 1955, sec. A, p. 3, and “Civil Defense Chief Tangles with Teague on D.C. Exodus,”
   Washington Daily News
   , May 25, 1955, clippings in box 7, folder 112, Spencer Papers.
   
3. “Full City Evacuation Time Estimated at Two Hours,”
   WS
   , June 2, 1955; “4
   Hour D.C. Evacuation Difficult, House Told,”
   WS
   , June 7, 1955; “D.C. Citizens’ Evacuation Called Senseless,”
   WP
   , June 5, 1955; “3 to 4 Hours Set for City Evacuation in Air Raid,”
   WP
   , June 10, 1955, clippings in box 7, folder 112, Spencer Papers.
   
4. NSC memorandum of discussion, March 4, 1955, 7–10.
   
5. NSC memorandum of discussion, April 8, 1955, box 6, folder “244th Meeting of NSC,” Whitman File, NSC Series, 2–5; Fondahl memorandum, April 7, 1955.
   
6. Motion Picture, “Operation Alert, Pentagon, Washington, D.C., 6/15/1955,” RG 111.
   
7. “Report and Recommendations on Operation Alert, 1955,” July 5, 1955, box 5, folder “Cabinet Meeting of July 1, 1955,” Whitman File, Cabinet Series.
   
8. “Report on Operation Alert 1955,” January 4, 1956, box 2, folder “Operation Alert 1955 Standards,” RG 396, Operations and Exercise File, 1953–61.
   
9. “Atom Exodus . . . 15,000 to ‘Flee’ Washington in M-Day Test,
   ”
   Newsweek
   XLV, no. 24 (June 13, 1955): 28–9; Oakes,
   Imaginary War
   , 86–9; press statement, May 27, 1955, box 16, folder “Civil Defense (1),” CF.
   
10. White House Staff Briefing Sheet for box 3, folder “
    OPAL
    1955(4),” EAS; White House Locator List, June 15, 1955, box 16, folder “Civil Defense (1),” CF; “When Ike ‘Fled’ Washington,”
    U.S. News & World Report
    38, no. 25 (June 24, 1955): 66.
    
11. White House Staff Briefing Sheet; Goodpaster to Whitman, June 27, 1955, box 3, folder “
    OPAL
    1955(4)”; undated map of Camp David, box 3, folder “
    OPAL
    1955(1),” EAS.
    
12. For details of the Interim Assembly, see “Report and Recommendations,” Attachment D. For photographs of
    OPAL
    55, see “When Ike ‘Fled’ ”;
    Time
    LXV, no. 26 (June 27, 1955): 17; and Oakes,
    Imaginary War
    , 89–91.
    
13. Memorandum, June 17, 1955, box 10, folder “Operation Alert June 1955,” RG 396, Declassified P-95 Records, Accession 64A927.
    
14. “Ike Declares ‘Martial Law,’ ”
    Washington Daily News
    , June 16, 1955, clipping in box 7, folder 112, Spencer Papers; Oakes,
    Imaginary War
    , 88–9.
    
15. The “recourse” quote is from “The President’s News Conference of July 6, 1955,”
    PPP
    , 672. All other quotes are Maxwell Rabb’s rendering of the President’s words in the Minutes of the Interim Assembly, June 18, 1955, box 5, folder “Special ‘Cabinet’ Meeting of June 17, 1955,” Whitman File, Cabinet Series.
    
16. “Operation Alert Sidelights,” “15,000 Evacuate City In Mock H-Bombing,”
    WS
    , June 15, 1955; “Operation Alert Is Called Good Test of Real Thing,”
    WS
    , June 16, 1955, sec. A, p. 4; “Ike, 15,000 Quit Capital in Civil Defense Drill; 60 Cities Undergo Tests,”
    WP
    , June 16, 1955, sec. A, p. 1; “Instructions to RM Participants”; “Basic Information Concerning State Department Relocation Site for Operation Alert 1955,” box 3, folder “Operation Alert, 1955,” RG 59, 5.
    
1. “Operations [
   sic
   ] Alert—1955 Summary of Exercise Problems,” box 10, folder “Operation Alert June 1955”; George McConnaughey to Flemming, June 29,
   
2. 1955, box 10, folder “Relocation—Operation Alert—Report,” RG 396, Declassified P-95 Records, Accession 64A927.
   
17. “Report and Recommendations,” Attachments D and E.
    
18. “15,000 U.S. Workers Quit City Today in A-Raid Test,”
    WP
    , June 15, 1955, sec. A, p. 1; “Ike, 15,000”; “15,000 Evacuate City.”
    
19. “Operation Alert Sidelights”; “So 11th and F Was ‘Hit’ by an H-Bomb: Ho, Hum,”
    WS
    , June 16, 1955.
    
20. “Atom Exodus”; “Ike, 15,000”; “So 11th and F Was ‘Hit’ ”; “Mock Martial Law Ordered for Nation,”
    WS
    , June 16, 1955, clipping in box 7, folder 112, Spencer Papers.
    
21. “Report and Recommendations,” Attachments B, C, and E; Loeber to Alexander, June 28, 1955, box 10, folder “Operation Alert—Staff Comments,” RG 396, Declassified P-95 Records, Accession 64A927.
    
22. “Officials Call Alert Test a Success for Weak Points that It Revealed,”
    WP
    , June 26, 1955, clipping in box 7, folder 113, Spencer Papers.
    
23. Willard Bascom, “Operation Alert, June 15, 16, 1955: Criticisms and Recommendations for the Future,” box 259, folder “NAS—Civil Defense,” Papers of Merle A. Tuve, LOC, Manuscript Division.
    
24. “Fired CD Official Will Keep ‘Fighting,’ ”
    Washington Daily News
    , June 16, 1955; “District’s CD Deputy Fired after Criticism,”
    WS
    , June 16, 1955, clippings in box 7, folder 112, Spencer Papers; “Underhill Fired after Rapping Drill,”
    WP
    , June 16, 1955, sec. A, p. 1;
    Newsweek
    , “So Much to Be Done,” XLV, no. 26 (June 27, 1955): 21. The figures on the warden corps come from Henry Backenheimer to the Federation of Citizens Associations, January 1955, box 1, folder 4, DCCA.
    
25. Untitled report, circa July 1956, box 1, folder “Current Matters,” EAS.