This Is Only Test How Washington Prepared for Nuclear War (43 page)

8 Capital Confusion

1. Quoted in Thomas J. Kerr,
   Civil Defense in the U.S.: Bandaid for a Holocaust?
   (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1983), 63.
   
2. Franz Kafka, “The Burrow,” in
   The Great Wall of China: Stories and Reflections
   , trans. Willa and Edwin Muir (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), 60.
   
3. Beach to Lambie, September 23, 1955, box 19, folder “Beach, Edward L. (Comdr.),” Papers of James M. Lambie, Jr., DDEL; Ewing to the President, September 23, 1955, box 656, folder “133-B Civil Defense (2),” White House Central Files, Official File, DDEL; Beach to the NSC Special Committee, September 15, 1955, box 1, folder “Emergency Procedures—Attack Warning 1955(4),” EAS.
   
4. Stephen E. Ambrose,
   Eisenhower: Soldier and President
   (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 394–405.
   
1. Beach to Flemming, May 18, 1955, box 1, folder “Emergency Procedures— Attack Warning 1955(1),” EAS; “Apathy Will Be to Blame if 96,000 Die in Attack,”
   WS
   , June 23, 1955, sec. A, p. 8; “White House Won’t Get Out Till
   
2. D.C.
   Gives the Word,”
   Washington Daily News
   , October 18, 1955, clipping in box 7, folder 116, Samuel Spencer Papers, HSW.
   
5. Staff Notes no. 4, August 1, 1956, box 24, White House Office, Staff Research Group Records, 1956–61, DDEL, 4; Directive S-3020.1, May 17, 1955, 8, and “Joint Emergency Evacuation Plan,” October 24, 1955, both in Department of Defense,
   Wartime Readiness Plans Book
   , box 36, folder “Wartime Readiness Plans Book,” RG 330.
   
6. 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., 23–4; DCD Bulletin no. 9, May 11, 1955, box 392, folder “Civil Defense Correspondence, Memos 1950–55,” WBOT, Series XVIII, 2.
   
7. DCD, “District of Columbia Interim Voluntary Evacuation Plan,” January 24, 1956, box 27, folder “Civil Defense 1953,” RG 56, Central Files; “Evacuation Plan Called Suicidal,”
   WS
   , June 27, 1956.
   
8. Department of Defense Instruction C-3020.9, January 12, 1956, box 2, folder “EP-Attack Warning 1956–1957(1),” EAS; ODM memorandum, December 20, 1955, quoted in USIA Announcement 56–40, February 1, 1956, box 5, folder “Vital Records Program, 1955 & 1956,” RG 59; National Security Agency, “Emergency Evacuation of the Washington Area,” June 25, 1956, personal papers of Henry Rapalus, Rockville, Md.
   
9. CDNS
   , part 2, March 6, 1956, 516–20; Haldore Hanson, “If the Enemy Did Attack . . .,”
   The New Republic
   134, no. 9 (February 27, 1956): 15; “We’re Sitting Ducks,”
   Washington Daily News
   , March 7, 1956, p. 3.
   
10. Bascom to Tuve, April 4 and 19, 1956, box 262, folder “Civil Defense”; Tuve to Holifield, January 17, 1956, box 259, folder “Civil Defense,” Papers of Merle A. Tuve, LOC, Manuscript Division.
    
11. Fondahl to Peterson, January 18, 1956; Harold Aitken to Fondahl, February 3, 1956, box 262, folder “Civil Defense,” Tuve Papers.
    
12. AP photograph, January 5, 1958, Washington Star Photograph Collection, Washingtoniana.
    
13. CDNS
    , part 4, April 17, 1956, 1179; memoranda of discussions at the 288th Meeting of the NSC, June 15, 1956 (written June 18) and 306th Meeting, December 20, 1956 (written Dec. 21),
    FRUS, 1955–1957
    XIX, 326, 379–83.
    
14. Memorandum of 288th Meeting, 326.
    
15. Kerr,
    Civil Defense
    , 95, 106–12 (the quote is on 108); David L. Snead,
    The Gaither Committee, Eisenhower, and the Cold War
    (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1999), 91.
    
16. NSC memorandum of discussion, August 18, 1956, box 8, folder “293rd & 294th Meeting of the NSC,” Whitman File, NSC Series, 7–8.
    
17. “Memorandum of a Conference with the President,” November 6, 1957,
    FRUS, 1955–1957
    , vol. XIX, 620–4; “The President’s News Conference of March 14, 1956,”
    PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1956
    , 309–10.
    
18. Laura McEnaney,
    Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties
    (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 58–62; Kerr,
    Civil Defense
    , 112–13.
    

N


223

1. Harry B. Yoshpe
   ,
   Our Missing Shield: The U.S. Civil Defense Program in Historical Perspective
   (Washington, D.C.: FEMA, 1981), 251.
   
2. Kerr,
   Civil Defense
   , 113–15.
   
3. “Course in Disaster Protection for S.E.,”
   The Courier S.E. Washington Weekly Newspaper
   , December 16, 1955; DCD Quarterly Report, April 16, 1956, box 229, folder 4-1056, RG 351, BOC; “There’s No Place to Hide If an H-Bomb Blasts D.C.,”
   WP
   , December 16, 1956; DCD, Annual Report for 1956, January 4, 1957, Vertical Files, Washingtoniana, 1.
   
4. DCD, Quarterly Reports, July 10 and October 7, 1957, box 229, folder 4-1056, RG 351, BOC.
   

1. DCD, Quarterly Report, October 7, 1957; “30 D.C. Skywatchers Honored by Civil Defense,”
   WP
   , December 12, 1957, sec. C, p. 20. Barbara Luchs and her husband Wallace also built the District’s first home fallout shelter. See chapter 10.
   
2. Eileen S. McGuckian,
   Rockville: Portrait of a City
   (Franklin, Tenn.: Hillsboro Press, 2001), 125–57.
   
3. George Q. Flynn,
   Lewis B. Hershey, Mr. Selective Service
   (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 304–9 (the quote is 309); oral history interview with Brigadier General Paul H. Griffith by Jerry N. Hess, March 9, 1971, Washington, D.C., HSTL; FCDA Press Release 267, undated, box 5, folder “Civil Defense Campaign—General folder 2,” HST Papers, Files of Spencer R. Quick, HSTL; Minutes of the Civil Defense Advisory Committee Meeting, January 5 and March 1, 1956, box 8, folder “Civil Defense,” Papers of Paul H. Griffith, HSTL.
   
4. “ ‘Get Acquainted’ with the New Program in Montgomery County’s Civil Defense,”
   Maryland News
   , undated clipping, MCHS.
   
5. FCDA, “The Staff College, Olney, Maryland,” box 28, folder “Civil Defense Training,” RG 56, Central Files.
   
6. Montgomery County Office of Civil Defense Press Release, April 30, 1956, box 8, folder “Civil Defense,” Griffith Papers.
   
7. “CD Movie Made in Olney,”
   Montgomery County Sentinel
   , January 19, 1956, clipping, MCHS; Charles H. Tower to Eisenhower, May 29, 1956, box 100, folder “3-C-14 Ground Observer Corps (2),” White House Central Files, Official File, DDEL; “Civil Defense Annual Report 1955,” attached to Minutes of the Civil Defense Advisory Committee Meeting, March 1, 1956, 3.
   
8. “Cabin John CD Squad Protects County Area,”
   Montgomery County Sentinel
   , March 15, 1956, clipping, MCHS.
   
9. Rapalus memorandum; “City of Rockville—Civil Defense Staff Members,” Rapalus papers; author interview with Henry Rapalus, July 10, 2003, Rockville, Md.
   
10. “National Civil Defense Program Initiated in Montgomery County,”
    Maryland News
    , September 7, 1956, clipping, MCHS; Montgomery County Office of Civil Defense Press Release, March 23, 1956;
    Your Survival Montgomery County Maryland
    ; G. Roy Hartwig to Paul Griffith, August 16, 1956, box 8, folder “Civil Defense,” Griffith Papers.
    
11. “Proposed Areas of Study for the Civil Defense Elements of the City of Rockville—1955–56,” box 1, folder “Civil Defense,” RG 17, Alexander Greene Papers, MCA.
    
12. Your Survival Montgomery County
    ; “Organization and Operation Plan for Rockville Civil Defense,” Rapalus papers.
    
13. DCD, Quarterly Reports dated October 7, 1957 and September 30, 1958, box 229, folder 4-1056, RG 351, BOC.
    
14. Montgomery County Civic Federation, “Suggestions for a More Effective Civil Defense Program in Montgomery County,” February 11, 1958, box 1, folder 9, Office of County Manager, Series I, Subject Files, MCA.
    
15. Worthington Thompson to the Montgomery County Council, June 2, 1959, box 1, folder 9, Office of County Manager, Series I, Subject Files, MCA.
    
16. Defense Mobilization Order I-19, January 9, 1956, box 91, folder “Space Vol. II,” RG 326; Flemming to Charles Wilson, January 18, 1956, box 7, folder “[Emergency Government Relocation Sites][1954–58],” NSC Briefing Notes.
    
17. Pamela Scott and Antoinette J. Lee
    ,
    Buildings of the District of Columbia
    (New York: Oxfor
    d University Press, 1993), 235–7; GSA, “Federal Buildings
    

Construction Program, Washington and Vicinity 1956–1965,” January 1956, box 29, folder “Current Public Building Program,” RG 328, Office Files of John F. Nolen, Jr.; GSA, “Federal Space Problem in Washington, D.C. and Its Solution,” August 1959, box 29, folder “Federal Buildings Construction Program,” John S. Bragdon Records as Special Assistant to the President, DDEL.

1. Goodpaster memorandum, April 9, 1958, box 21, folder “Office of Defense Mobilization (4),” SSAS.
   
2. NSC 5802/1, February 19, 1958 (revised May 15, 1958), box 23, folder “Continental Defense, 1957–61 (1),” Disaster File, 7.
   
3. Department of the Navy, Bureau of Yards and Docks, “Feasibility Study on Location of Department of Defense Buildings,” November 19, 1958; Bartholomew to Robert Merriam, December 11, 1958, box 6, folder “Government Buildings,” Robert E. Merriam Records, DDEL; Merriam to the President, May 26, 1959, box 41, folder “Staff Notes May 1959(2),” Whitman File, Diary Series.
   
4. Goodpaster memorandum, May 28, 1959, box 41, folder “Staff Notes May 1959 (1),” Whitman File, Diary Series.
   
5. AEC Announcement 363, September 21, 1955; Harbridge House, Inc., “Abstract of a Survey of Employee Disposition toward the Relocation of Headquarters of the Atomic Energy Commission,” April 3, 1957; “Notes on Germantown Headquarters Plans Briefing,” box 91, folder “Space Vol. II,” RG 326.
   
6. Astin to George T. Moore, July 14, 1955, box 1, folder “Reasons for Move to Gaithersburg”; James P. Collins, “The Decision to Move the National Bureau of Standards,” box 5, folder “Jim Collins M.S.,” RG 167.
   
7. Sinclair Weeks to Spessard Holland, May 29, 1956, box 5, folder “1956”; “New Home for National Bureau of Standards,” box 5, folder “1964”; Astin to the Secretary of Commerce, February 2, 1961, box 1, folder “Reasons for Move to Gaithersburg”; “New Home for National Bureau of Standards,” box 5, folder “1964,” RG 167.
   
8. Management Planning Division, “Summary of the Responses on the
   Move to Gaithersburg
   ,” February 11, 1957, box 5, folder “1957,” RG 167.
   
9. James B. Banks et al., “Civil Rights in Washington, D.C., 1948–1958: Status and Trends in Housing,” in Ben D. Segal et al., eds.,
   Civil Rights in the Nation’s Capital: A Report on a Decade of Progress
   (New York: National Association of Intergroup Relations Officials, 1959), 41–2. For more on how federal home ownership programs spurred white flight, see Peter Dreier et al.,
   Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-First Century
   (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001), 107–10.
   
10. Haynes Johnson, “Integration Outside District Has a Smooth Beginning,”
    WS
    , April 15, 1964; Robert E. Baker, “Suburbs Opening for Negroes,”
    WP
    , October 17, 1963.
    
11. Johnson, “Integration.”
    
12. “Race Problem in Nation’s Capital,
    ”
    U.S. News & World Report
    43, no. 13 (September 27, 1957): 35;
    Washington Board of Trade News
    , August 1957; Robert A. Harper and Frank O. Ahnert,
    Introduction to Metropolitan Washington
    (Washington, D.C.: Association of American Geographers, 1968), 15–8.
    
13. Bruce Bliven, “Black Skin & White Marble,
    ”
    New Republic
    119, no. 25 (December 20, 1948): 13–15.
    
1. Constance McLaughlin Green,
   The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital
   (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 286, 296–8
   
2. (the quote is on 286); George B. Nesbitt, “Non-White Residential Dispersion and Desegregation in the District of Columbia,”
   Journal of Negro Education
   25, no. 1 (Winter 1956): 12.
   
14. Th
    e
    Brown v. Board of Education
    decision didn’t apply to the District of Columbia. In voiding the “separate but equal” principle, the Court cited the 14th Amendment’s requirement that no
    state
    could deny equal protection of the laws. The Court simultaneously reviewed
    Bolling v. Sharpe
    , a suit filed by black parents of children enrolled in the District’s public schools. Citing the 5th Amendment’s due process clause, the Court also ruled the District’s segregation to be unconsti
    tutional. For more on the desegregation of the District’s schools, see the articles in
    Washington History
    16, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2004/05), a special issue com
    memorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Brown and Bolling decisions.
    
15. Samuel Spencer to Eisenhower, May 26 and June 7, 1954, box 282, folder “71-U Segregation in District of Columbia,” White House Central Files, Official File, DDEL; Walter Goodman, “The Capital Keeps Calm,”
    New Republic
    131, no. 17 (October 25, 1954): 10–13; Carl F. Hansen,
    Miracle of Social Adjustment: Desegregation in The Washington, D.C. Schools
    (New York: Anti-Defamation League of B’Nai Brith, 1957), 45–50; Eugene Davidson, “An Analysis of Desegregation in the District of Columbia,” box A226, folder “Desegregation: Schools Branch Action—District of Columbia 1954–55,” NAACP Records, Group II, LOC, Manuscript Division.
    
16. Hansen,
    Miracle
    , 50–9;
    U.S. News
    , “Race Problem,” 38.
    
17. U.S. News
    , “Race Problem,” 35.
    
18. Hansen,
    Miracle
    , 59–60.
    
19. David Lawrence, “Washington’s Worry,”
    U.S. News & World Report
    46, no. 14 (April 6, 1959): 120.
    
20. Green,
    Secret City
    , 323.
    
21. GSA, “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, 19.
    
22. Nicholas Dagen Bloom
    ,
    Suburban Alchemy: 1960s New Towns and the Transformation of the American Dream
    (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2001), 17–32.
    
23. Joshua Olsen
    ,
    Better Places, Better Lives: A Biography of James Rouse
    (Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute, 2003), 136–94; Bloom,
    Suburban Alchemy
    , 33–47 (the quote is on 47).
    
24. William Maher to John Derry, February 27, 1956, box 91, folder “Space Vol. II,” RG 326.