Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

Almost one third of the British population would be killed: See Hughes, “The Strath Report,” p. 270.

the most productive land might “be lost for a long time”: Quoted in ibid., p. 269.

“Machinery of Control”: For the workings of the proposed martial law, see Hennessy, Secret State, p. 139; and Hughes, “The Strath Report,” p. 270.

“drastic emergency powers,” and … “rough and ready methods”: Quoted in Hughes, “The Strath Report,” p. 270.

Churchill ordered the BBC not to broadcast news: Ibid., pp. 272–73.

“Influence depended on possession of force”: Quoted in Hennessy, Secret State, p. 54.

“We must do it”: Quoted in ibid., p. 44.

build an underground shelter “right now”: Quoted in Allen Drury, “U.S. Stress on Speed,” New York Times, March 12, 1955.

“we had all better dig and pray”: Quoted in ibid.

“YOUR CHANCES OF SURVIVING AN ATOMIC ATTACK”: “Survival Under Atomic Attack,” The Official U.S. Government Booklet, Distributed by Office of Civil Defense, State of California, Reprint by California State Printing Division, October 1950, p. 4.

“EVEN A LITTLE MATERIAL GIVES PROTECTION”: Ibid., p. 8.

“WE KNOW MORE ABOUT RADIOACTIVITY”: Ibid., p. 8.

“KEEP A FLASHLIGHT HANDY”: Ibid., p. 19.

“AVOID GETTING WET AFTER UNDERWATER BURSTS”: Ibid., p. 23.

“BE CAREFUL NOT TO TRACK RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS”: Ibid., p. 27.

Val Peterson called for concrete pipelines to be laid: See Anthony Levieros, “Big Bomb Blast Jolted Civil Defense Leaders; But Program Still Lags,” New York Times, June 10, 1955.

“Duck and cover,” one journalist noted: See Bernard Stengren, “Major Cities Lag in Planning Defense Against Bomb Attack,” New York Times, June 12, 1955.

Hoping to boost morale: The historians Guy Oakes and Andrew Grossman have argued that the underlying goal of Operation Alert and other civil defense exercises was “emotion management”—reassuring the public in order to maintain support for nuclear deterrence. The propaganda value of such drills was considered far more important than their potential usefulness during a Soviet attack. See Guy Oakes and Andrew Grossman, “Managing Nuclear Terror: The Genesis of American Civil Defense Strategy,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, vol. 5, no. 3 (1992), pp. 361–403; and Guy Oakes, “The Cold War Conception of Nuclear Reality: Mobilizing the American Imagination for Nuclear War in the 1950’s,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, vol. 6, no. 3 (1993), pp. 339–63. For an overview of official efforts to protect the nation’s capital, literally and symbolically, see David F. Krugler, This Is Only a Test: How Washington D.C. Prepared for Nuclear War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

sixty-one cities were struck by nuclear weapons: For the imaginary attack and the estimated carnage, see Anthony Leviero, “H-Bombs Test U.S. Civil Defense,” New York Times, June 16, 1955; and Edward T. Folliard, “Tests Over U.S. Indicate Centers Might Suffer Heavily in Raid,” Washington Post, June 16, 1955.

the corner of North 7th Street and Kent Avenue: See Anthony Leviero, “U.S. H-Bomb Alert Today; Eisenhower, Top Officials Among 15,000 Slated to Leave Capital,” New York Times, June 15, 1955.

only 8.2 million people would be killed and 6.6 million wounded: Cited in ibid.

the United States would “be able to take it”: Quoted in Anthony Leviero, “Mock Martial Law Invoked in Bombing Test Aftermath,” New York Times, June 17, 1955.

more than half of those casualties would be in New York City: The casualty estimates for the city were quite specific—2,991,285 deaths and 1,776,889 wounded. And yet those numbers did not dim the upbeat reporting of the drill. Cited in Peter Kihss, “City Raid Alert Termed a Success,” New York Times, June 16, 1955.

“we might — ideally — escape”: Quoted in “Anthony Leviero, “Eisenhower Hails Operation Alert as Encouraging,” New York Times, June 18, 1955.

“great encouragement”: Quoted in ibid.

“staggering”: Quoted in Betts, “A Nuclear Golden Age?” pp. 3–32.

A new word had entered the lexicon … megadeath: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word appeared in print for the first time on June 21, 1953, in an Alabama newspaper, the Birmingham News.

“The United States experienced … total economic collapse”: I read an edited version of this quote in Betts, “Nuclear Golden Age?” p. 14, and then sought out the original in Robert H. Ferrell, ed., The Eisenhower Diaries (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), p. 311.