This Is Only Test How Washington Prepared for Nuclear War (2 page)

W
hat follows is a history of the future that never happened in Washington, D.C.

Imagine
...a summer weekday in the District of Columbia, 1948. Perhaps June 22, graduation day at 13 of the city’s segregated public high schools. Maybe June 28, when Ulysses S. Grant III addressed the D.C. Society of American Military Engineers on “The Problem of Civil Defense Today.” Or July 22, the day General Lucius Clay told President Harry S. Truman he didn’t think the Soviets would go to war over their ongoing blockade of Berlin.
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And on this day that never was, the Soviets prove General Clay wrong. That afternoon, Soviet bombers arc across the sky and detonate one atomic bomb above the Federal Triangle, on the north side of the National Mall, and a second above the Pentagon, on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. In this attack, the Soviets seek to kill federal workers, members of Congress, and the President; level government buildings and facilities; and destroy vital records and maps. More than 120 buildings housing 140,000 federal workers fall within the bombs’ destructive range. Some 60 buildings are wrecked or suffer structural damage. More than 66,000 government employees die, another 34,000 suffer injuries. The detonations start fires fed by broken gas lines. Fortunately, Rock Creek Park and the rail yards leading to Union Station act as firebreaks, as does the Mall. Power-generating facilities sustain only superficial damage. But the stunning strike has devastated the seat of government and gutted the city; the ability of the nation to mobilize and fight back is severely limited.
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This attack
never
could have happened in 1948: not only was the Soviet Union still a year away from testing its first atomic device, its Tu-4 bombers lacked the range to reach Washington. The Joint Chiefs of Staff did imag
ine this attack, however, in a paper entitled “Strategic Vulnerability of Washington, D.C.,” finished on September 3, 1948. We might say the grim scenario inaugurated Washington into the atomic age, for many more
imaginary
atomic bombs rained down in the years to come. In November 1949, a 22 kiloton bomb “detonated” 1,800 feet above the city; on June 29, 1950, two bombs exploded, one near the Capitol, the other above 11th Street SE, killing 80,000 residents and injuring 64,000; on December 12, 1952, the targets were downtown Washington and the Pentagon; downtown again on June 15, 1955; and on May 6, 1958, one-megaton bombs hit Andrews Air Force Base and National Airport. Picture these fictional detonations as the montage that ends the film
Dr. Strangelove
, a morbid ballet of nuclear
explosions proving T.S. Eliot wrong.
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During the 1950s, such mock attacks were an annual event in Washington, making it the most bombed city in the Cold War American imagination.
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Why?

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Washington’s status as the nation’s capital was the first reason. Note that the Joint Chiefs totted up casualties for federal workers, not city residents; among the former were senior administrative personnel, both military and civilian, essential to mobilizing the nation’s population, resources, and econ
omy for war. Also vulnerable to strategic attack were the Naval Gun Factory, the National Bureau of Standards, and the Naval Research Laboratory, all located within the District in 1948. These and other sites, most notably the Pentagon, qualified Washington as the military’s nerve center. If it were par
alyzed, could the rest of the body function? The potential annihilation of government buildings, records, and personnel also threatened to cripple the rest of the nation. Presumably, a Soviet first strike would also target key industrial, agricultural, and financial centers—in a word, cities. Who would revive industrial production, feed survivors, restore the economy? None of this was possible without an intact federal government. To ensure the gov
ernment could function after an attack (“continuity of government”), federal officials had to continually envision the destruction of the nation’s capital.

Washington is more than the seat of government, however; it’s also a major metropolis, and many of the imaginary bombings were intended to prepare the city and its residents for atomic attack. These “war games” took place in a city grappling with two decades of rapid growth. Between 1930 and 1950, the city’s population rose from approximately 487,000 to 802,000. Much of the increase resulted from the expansion of the federal government as the nation fought a depression, then a world war. Like other cities, Washington faced challenges such as traffic jams, slums, and haphazard development. Racial discrimination was prevalent. Public schools, play
grounds, and recreation areas were segregated; many trade unions restricted membership to whites. After World War II, black Washingtonians and their allies successfully redoubled ongoing campaigns to dismantle the structure of second-class citizenship. The end of legally protected segregation, most notably the integration of schools in 1954, spurred “white flight” to suburbs in Virginia and Maryland. While Washington’s population began to shrink and the city obtained a black majority, greater Washington continued to grow. In 1948, the metropolitan area population was approaching 1.5 mil
lion, but more than 80 percent of the region’s jobs were inside the District.
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Area planners and leaders recognized that solutions for postwar problems required regional cooperation, a need complicated by the federal govern
ment’s role as the capital area’s largest employer. The connections among the federal government, the city of Washington, and the adjoining region inevitably affected preparations for an atomic attack.

The governance of the District further complicated the relationship between city and capital. Washington had neither a mayor nor a legislative council. Since 1878, a three-person Board of Commissioners appointed by the President had governed the city; this arrangement continued until 1967. The commissioners wielded considerable power and presided over a stable of city departments, from Public Health to Procurement, but even they were beholden to Congress. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to “exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatso
ever” over the seat of government. Congress determined the city’s annual budgets and enacted its laws, yet District residents couldn’t (and still can’t) elect Representatives or Senators. The House and Senate’s Committees on the District of Columbia oversaw the city’s governance, but parliamentary rules allowed even a single member of Congress to block legislation affecting the entire city. In 1948, the House’s District committee approved a bill allowing residents to elect a city council, but Rep. Oren Harris (D-Ark.), an opponent of “home rule,” arranged to have the bill tabled.
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Clearly the Government of the District of Columbia could do little without Congressional acquiescence; this included defensive preparations against an atomic attack.

Washington’s “political terrain” and symbolic importance further explain its attraction as an imaginary bombing target. Throughout American history, political leaders and groups have used Washington, as both city and capital, to fulfill national goals, set an example, provide a prototype.
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Americans have marched in Washington seeking women’s suffrage, veterans’ bonuses, and to stop the Vietnam War.
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Southern members of Congress correctly recognized that intense efforts to abolish slavery in the District signified a national strug
gle, prompting them to redouble efforts to protect slavery in the border states.
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During Reconstruction, Congress used the District as a “proving ground” for national legislation.
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After World War II, the District’s racial segregation tarnished America’s democratic ideals, and Presidents Truman and Eisenhower both regarded desegregation of the District as a Cold War necessity.
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Washington has also served as a model and laboratory for urban planning and practices. After the Civil War, the city’s business elite tapped Congressional interest in creating a world-class capital to modernize the city’s infrastructure.
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In 1902, Washington became a showcase for the City Beautiful movement through the McMillan Plan, which sought to create “the capital of a new kind of America—clean, efficient, orderly and, above all, powerful.” In 1926, Congress created the National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Responsible for providing a coordinated plan for met
ropolitan Washington, Commission members have also historically recog
nized their responsibility to make the capital region “worthy of the nation.”
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In the 1930s, New Deal officials used Washington to devise national public housing programs; postwar redevelopment and slum razing in Washington was also supposed to serve as a national model.
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In light of this history as political terrain and potent symbol, it’s not surprising that Washington served as a measure of national preparedness for nuclear war. The city was among the first to have an Office of Civil Defense,
which the commissioners hoped would serve as a model for other cities. It did, though not as intended. In April 1959, Commissioner Robert E. McLaughlin made the following statement to a Senate committee:

We on the Board of Commissioners feel very strongly that the District’s civil defense should be the best in the country. Civil defense here should set the example because what the Congress does both for its own civil defense organi
zation as well as to safeguard the Capital will be watched by every city and state in the nation. In a sense, Washington, D.C. is the key to civil defense in America.

However, we find ourselves far short of this ideal. Our legislation is out
dated; a volunteer organization is practically non-existent; not all municipal employees are adequately trained; and public interest in and support of civil defense planning is apathetic.
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The second half of McLaughlin’s statement didn’t just apply to the District; it also aptly described civil defense in every city in America. Washington both demonstrated and symbolized the failure of civil defense.

Capital, city, symbol: I use these connected, often conflicting identities to examine the four major ways in which Washington prepared for nuclear war between 1945 and 1962: one, dispersal of “wartime essential”
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executive agencies and employees to new buildings located 20 miles or more from the center of Washington; two, civil defense programs in Washington and the surrounding area; three, continuity of government programs, including emergency plans, evacuation methods, and the construction or designation of alternate government headquarters; and four, the staging of exercises to test the readiness of the capital and the city. These preparations often fell short, and the history that follows is, at many points, one of failures, false starts, and unmet goals.

Consider dispersal. As conceived by urban planner Tracy Augur, dispersal called for a sweeping reconfiguration of cities and their adjoining suburbs. New communities, planned from the ground up, would surround existing metropolises. Separated by undeveloped swaths several miles wide, these “cluster cities” would steadily draw population and industry from the estab
lished city, thus dispersing the target. While one atomic bomb could destroy an entire city, it couldn’t wipe out all the cluster cities, making postwar recov
ery and rebuilding easier. Advocates of dispersal also believed it could help ease traffic jams, urban crowding, and pollution. As applied to Washington, dispersal was more modest but still meant to serve as a national model. During the Korean War, the Truman administration twice asked Congress for $140 million to disperse 40,000 federal workers, based on Augur’s plans. The war had drawn attention to the capital’s vulnerability, but Congress rejected both dispersal bids—legislators were loathe to give the impression they were “protecting” bureaucrats while American soldiers were fighting and dying in Korea. Truman’s successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, also attempted dispersal, but the military resisted, as did most civilian wartime
essential agencies. By the time Eisenhower left office, only the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) had dispersed, to Germantown, Md. Another wartime essential agency, the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), was in the process of building new headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md.

Civil defense in Washington also met with failure. The watchwords of civil defense were readiness, survival, and recovery. All three called for the recruit
ment and training of volunteer corps of wardens, fire and police auxiliaries, medical professionals, and engineers. The need for readiness led the Air Force to establish the Ground Observer Corps, volunteers who watched the skies for Soviet aircraft. To ensure survival, the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) urged Americans to learn first aid. To help with recovery, the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) prepared to provide postattack communications, while pilots in the Civil Air Patrol prom
ised to retrieve stockpiles of blood. In promoting these wide-ranging pro
grams, the FCDA envisioned committed citizens joining forces with local and state governments “to meet the unprecedented requirements of an attack with modern weapons” while the federal government provided policy, guidelines, and matching funds. Individual initiative, local action and operations—these were the building blocks of Cold War civil defense.
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