This Is Only Test How Washington Prepared for Nuclear War (41 page)

1. “D.C. Starts 24-Hour Skywatch, but Needs Men to Continue,”
   WP
   , July 15, 1952; “Civil Defense Class Hears Camalier Plea for More Workers,”
   WS
   , June 11, 1952.
   
2. “Civil Defense Folds Its Lone Volunteer Air Spotter Post,”
   WP
   , June 28, 1953, clipping in Samuel Spencer Papers, box 4, folder 95, HSW; DCD, “Office of Civil Defense Organization,” attached to DCD Memorandum Order no. 8, July 6, 1953, box 228, folder 4-100, RG 351, BOC, 10.
   
3. “ ‘Operation Skywatch’ Proves Valuable,” 5.
   
4. For more on Washington’s “invasion” by UFOs, see Dan Gilgoff, “Saucers Full of Secrets,”
   Washington City Paper
   , December 14–20, 2001; Curtis Peebles,
   Watch the Skies!: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth
   (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994), 60–72; “Flying Objects near Washington Spotted by Both Pilots and Radar,” July 22, 1952, p. 27, and “ ‘Objects’ Outstrip Jets over Capital,”
   NYT
   , July 28, 1952, p. 1; “8 on Screen; Planes Sight Odd ‘Lights,’ ”
   WP
   , July 22, 1952, sec. A, p. 1; “ ‘Saucer’ Outran Jet, Pilot Says; Air Force Puts Lid on Inquiry,”
   WP
   , July 28, 1952, sec. A, p. 1.
   
5. “Air Force Debunks ‘Saucers’ as Just ‘Natural Phenomena,’ ”
   NYT
   , July 30 1952, p. 1.
   
6. CIA, “Comments and Suggestions of UFO Panel,” January 21, 1953, 1, accessed June 23, 2005 at
   http://www.foia.cia.gov
   ; Peebles,
   Watch
   , 80–7.
   
7. Quoted in Peebles,
   Watch
   , 84.
   
8. Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence to Walter Bedell Smith, September 24, 1952, quoted in Peebles,
   Watch
   , 77–9. For more on the CIA’s interest in UFOs, see Gerald K. Haines, “A Die-Hard Issue: CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947–90,”
   Studies in Intelligence
   1, no. 1 (1997).
   
9. “Statement by the President on the Ground Observer Corps ‘Operation Skywatch,’ ” July 12, 1952,
   PPP: Harr
   y S. Truman, 1952
   , 474–5.
   
10. Edward J. Ruppelt
    ,
    The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects
    (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956), 150–63 (the quotes are on 151 and 157, respectively).
    
11. “ ‘Sightings’ Increase Here,”
    NYT
    , July 30, 1952, p. 10.
    
12. Though many doubted the Air Force’s explanation, weather conditions did produce inversions on July 19 and 26. A Civilian Aviation Administration study of the sightings described eddies forming along the inversions’ edges, causing bulges that reflected radar signals. Pushed by the wind, the bulges moved swiftly off the sweep of the radarscopes. Furthermore, one of the F-94 pilots scrambled to intercept the UFOs concluded that another pilot had mistaken light coming from the ground as something in the air, a common error when flying at low alti
    tudes. See Peebles,
    Watch
    , 63–7; Ruppelt,
    Report
    , 169–70; Gilgoff, “Saucers.”
    
13. FCDA Daily News Digest no. 349, July 30, 1952, box 5, folder “Civil Defense Campaign—General Folder 2,” Quick Files; “Fondahl Flays Slash in D.C. Defense Fund,”
    Washington Times-Herald
    , July 6, 1952; Senate Committee,
    Civil Defense
    , 76.
    
14. “Officials Report D.C. Civil Defense Stalled,
    ”
    WP
    , September 12, 1952; Engineer Commissioner memorandum, December 4, 1952, box 228, folder 4
    102, RG 351, BOC; DCD, Information Bulletin, September 29, 1952, Office of Civil Defense Memoranda Orders, Washingtoniana.
    
15. “Public Apathy Still Cripples Defense Plans,”
    WS
    , June 8, 1951.
    
16. Robert Jay Lifton, “Imagining the Real: Beyond the Nuclear ‘End,’ ” in Lester Grinspoon, ed.,
    The Long Darkness: Psychological and Moral Perspectives on Nuclear Winter
    (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986), 79–99.
    
17. Lewis Mumford, “Social Effects,”
    Air Affairs
    (March 1947): 370–82.
    
18. Søren Kierkegaard, “The Sickness Unto Death,” in Robert Bretall, ed.,
    A Kierkegaard Anthology
    (New York: Modern Library, n.d.), 344.
    
19. Paul Boyer,
    By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age
    (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), 293.
    
20. Daniel Lang, “A Reporter at Large,”
    The New Yorker
    , November 16, 1946, 84 ff.
    
21. Sylvia Eberhart, “How the American People Feel about the Atomic Bomb,”
    BAS
    3, no. 6 (June 1947): 146–9, 168.
    
22. “Civil Defense Officials Complain of District’s Indifference to Needs,”
    WP
    , July 20, 1951.
    
23. Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan, “A Preliminary Report on Public Attitudes toward Civil Defense,” box 144, folder “Agencies—FCDA,” HST Papers, PSF, Subject File.
    
24. Millard Caldwell, “Civil Defense and National Security,” FCDA Press Information no. 254, June 20, 1952, box 5, folder “Civil Defense Campaign— General Folder 1,” Quick Files.
    
25. Barnet Beers to Robert Lovett, February 26, 1952, box 1088, folder “Michigan Survey of Public Attitudes”; Caldwell to Lovett, box 1091, folder “Minutes of Staff Meetings,” RG 330; “Summary Statement No. 4—The Federal Civil Defense Program,” March 26, 1952,
    FRUS, 1952–1954
    , vol. II, part 1, 49.
    
26. Caldwell, “Civil Defense.”
    
27. “Statement by the President on Civil Defense,” January 12, 1952,
    PPP
    , 25–6.
    
28. Michael S. Sherry
    ,
    In the Shadow of War: The United States since the 1930s
    (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 125.
    
29. Christopher Bright, “Nike Defends Washington: Antiaircraft Missiles in Fairfax County, Virginia, during the Cold War, 1954–1974,”
    Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
    105, no. 3 (Summer 1997): 317 ff.
    
30. Symington to Burton, June 20, 1950, box 2, folder 4, RG 51, Lawton Files, sub-series 47, 3b; Symington address to the Joint Atomic Energy Committee, December 4, 1950, box 15, folder “Federal Civil Defense Administration,” RG 304, Office File of W. Stuart Symington.
    
31. Caldwell, “Civil Defense.”
    
32. James Wadsworth to Symington, November 29, 1950, box 2, folder “Federal, State, Local Relationships, A,” RG 304, Records Relating to Civil Defense, 1949–1953.
    
1. “Message to the Congress,” April 24, 1952; “Statement by the President,” July 15, 1952,
   PPP
   , 289–90, 478 (the quote is on 290); Harry B. Yoshpe,
   Our Missing Shield: The U.S. Civil Defense Program in Historical Perspective
   
2. (Washington, D.C.: FEMA, 1981), 16, 162–83.
   
33. “Let’s Just Hope No A-Bomb Hits D.C.,”
    WP
    , March 8, 1953, sec. B, pp. 1, 7; Transcript of “District Round Table Program,” WWDC, May 10, 1953, Office of Civil Defense Memoranda Orders, Washingtoniana.
    
34. FCDA Daily News Digest no. 303, May 23, 1952, box 5, folder “Civil Campaign—General Folder 1,” Quick Files.
    
35. “Plane Spotting Post to Close in Maryland,”
    WP
    , November 3, 1952.
    
36. “Report of Security Survey,” May 18, 1955, box 1, folder “Front Royal,” RG 59, 1–2.
    
37. “Record of Conversation between Earl G. Millison and Melvin N. Blum,” tran
    scribed by Edward Mike, undated, box 1, folder “Basic Data on Relocation Site,” RG 59.
    
38. Permit, USDA Agricultural Research Administration, May 7, 1952, box 1, folder “Dept. of Agriculture Permit,” RG 59.
    
39. “Record of Conversation.”
    
40. “Record of Conversation”; “Report of Security Survey.”
    
41. Table attached to Benjamin Taylor memorandum, February 27, 1961, box 13, folder “Federal, State & Local Plans August 1961,” RG 396, OCDM National HQ Central Files, 1958–61.
    
42. Tom Vanderbilt,
    Survival City: Adventures among the Ruins of Atomic America
    (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 145.
    
43. USIA Announcement 56–40, February 1, 1956, box 5, folder “Vital Records Program, 1955 & 1956,” RG 59; GSA Relocation Officer to Participants, July 13, 1956, box 116, folder “056-129 Part 7 (General),” RG 64; Hampden-Sydney College historian to Christopher Bright, May 29, 2004. I’m grateful to Mr. Bright for sharing this letter with me.
    
44. Andrew Goodpaster to the President of Sweet Briar College, January 30, 1956, box 8, folder “Relocation Sites (1),” EAS.
    
45. USMC Commandant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, April 4, 1961, box 17, folder “3180 (17 November 1960) Sec. 2,” RG 218, CDF 1960.
    
46. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Benson to John Foster Dulles, June 7, 1954, box 1, folder “Dept. Of Agriculture Permit,” RG 59.
    
47. The agency was the Office of Emergency Planning. See William Rice to Justice Chambers, November 5, 1963, box 6, folder “Special Facilities Branch,” RG 396, Classified P-95 Records, Accession 66A03.
    
1. Bureau of the Budget Bulletin 51-11, March 21, 1951, box 1, folder “Background Information on Vital Records Program,” RG 59; “Emergency Relocation Plan Being Devised for Agencies,”
   WP
   , April 27, 1951; Truman to
   
2. J.
   Edgar Hoover, September 25, 1951, box 28, folder “NSRB 7 of 10,” HST Papers, WHCF, Confidential File.
   
48. Truman to Gorrie, June 11, 1952 and attached Gorrie memorandum, undated; NSRB Bulletin 53-1 Draft, August 20, 1952, box 28, folder “NSRB 10 of 10,” HST Papers, WHCF, Confidential File; Stowe to Maurice Staats, May 1, 1952, box 13, folder “Correspondence, 1952 [2 of 3, May–August],” Papers of David Stowe, HSTL; Gorrie to Truman, April 3, 1952, box 146, folder “Agencies—NSRB,” HST Papers, PSF, Subject File; Executive Order 10346 and related materials, box 1671, folder “1591 (Feb. 1951–53),” HST Papers, Official File.
    
49. Truman to Hoover, September 25, 1951; undated Gorrie memorandum; Gorrie to Truman, April 3, 1952; NSRB Activities Fourth Quarter, July 15, 1952, box 1, folder “National Security Resources Board,” HST Papers, Staff Member and Office Files, David H. Stowe Files.
    

6 The Eisenhower Way

1. Author interview with General Andrew J. Goodpaster (Ret.), July 15, 2003, Washington, D.C.
   
2. Stephen E. Ambrose,
   Eisenhower: Soldier and President
   (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 34–7, 43–5, 220–1 (the quote is on 34).
   
1. For the “hidden-hand” Eisenhower, see Fred I. Greenstein,
   The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader
   (New York: Basic Books, 1982). For the “hands
   off” Eisenhower, see H.W. Brands, “The Age of Vulnerability: Eisenhower and
   
2. the National Insecurity State,”
   American Historical Review
   94, no. 4 (October 1989): 963–89; Martha Smith-Norris, “The Eisenhower Administration and the Nuclear Test Ban Talks, 1958–1960: Another Challenge to ‘Revisionism,’ ”
   Diplomatic History
   27, no. 4 (September 2003): 503–41.
   
3. Oral history interview with Arthur S. Flemming by Thomas Soapes, November 24, 1978, Washington, D.C., DDEL, 24–7; author interview with Goodpaster.
   
4. Robert R. Bowie and Richard H. Immerman,
   Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy
   (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 4–5, 178–83 (the quote is on 179); author interview with Goodpaster.
   
5. Eisenhower as recorded by Maxwell Rabb, Minutes of the Interim Assembly, June 18, 1955, box 5, folder “Special ‘Cabinet’ Meeting of June 17, 1955,” Whitman File, Cabinet Series, 8.
   
6. Eisenhower to Henry Luce, July 6, 1960, box 21, folder “Luce, Harry,” Whitman File, Name Series.
   
7. John Prados,
   Keepers of the Keys: A History of the National Security Council from Truman to Bush
   (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1991), 65–7.
   
8. Ibid., 61–3, 77.
   
9. “Special Message to the Congress,” April 2, 1953,
   PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953
   , 142–6.
   
10. Richard Rhodes,
    Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
    (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 508–10.
    
11. As David Holloway writes: “It is, to some degree, a matter of taste whether one calls [the Soviet bomb] a thermonuclear bomb or a boosted weapon.”
    Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956
    (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), 303–9 (the quote is on 308).
    
12. Joseph E. McLean, “Project East River—Survival in the Atomic Age,” and Roland Sawyer, “It’s Up to You, Mr. President,”
    BAS
    9, no. 7 (September 1953): 244–52; Harry B. Yoshpe,
    Our Missing Shield: The U.S. Civil Defense Program in Historical Perspective
    (Washington, D.C.: FEMA, 1981), 189–96.
    
13. NSC 159/4, September 25, 1953,
    FRUS, 1952–1954
    , vol. II, part 1, 475–89.
    
14. “Summary of Present Decentralization Policies,” undated, box 19, folder “Space—Washington, D.C.,” RG 269, Central Files 1949-73; “Analysis of Department of Defense Space Utilization at Seat of Government,” December 31, 1949 and December 31, 1952, boxes 554 and 555, folders “Space Reports Washington Area March-December 1949” and “Space Reports Washington Area 1952,” RG 330, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Personnel & Reserve), Utilization of Space Reports, 1948–55.
    
15. Ralph E. Lapp, “Eight Years Later,”
    BAS
    9, no. 7 (September 1953): 234–6; “Architect Urges Key U.S. Depts. Be Moved,”
    WP
    , October 23, 1953.
    
16. Donald Monson, “City Planning in Project East River,”
    BAS
    9, no. 7 (September 1953): 265–7.
    
17. “U.S. to Keep New Buildings from Downtown Washington,”
    WS
    , August 2, 1954; Rowland Hughes to John Taber, July 15, 1954, box 92, folder “M7–2/3.5 FCDA Space,” RG 51, Subject Files of the Director, 1952–61.
    
18. Record of Actions by the NSC, January 29, 1954, box 1, folder “Record of Actions Taken by NSC 1954 (1),” Whitman File, NSC Series; Robert Cutler to Dr. Elliott, March 5, 1954; Flemming to Wilson, January 18, 1956, box 7, folder “[Emergency Governmental Relocation Sites] [1954–58],” NSC Briefing Notes; Flemming, Defense Mobilization Order draft, box 24, folder “Continental Defense—Continuity of Government (1),” Disaster File.
    
19. “U.S. to Keep.”
    
20. Allan M. Winkler
    ,
    Life under a Cloud: American Anxiety about the Atom
    (New York: Oxfor
    d University Press, 1993; reprint, Urbana: University of Illinois Press), 93–4.
    
21. Minutes, December 13, 1954, box 1, folder “Minutes of the 20th Meeting,” RG 328, National Capital Regional Planning Council, Minutes; ODM Statement, February 18, 1955, box 7, folder “[Emergency Governmental Relocation Sites] [1954–58],” NSC Briefing Notes.
    
22. Gordon Dean to Joseph Dodge, March 16, 1953; Strauss to Cole, undated, box 91, folder “Space Vol. I”; “The Inception, Design and Construction of the New Headquarters Building at Germantown, Maryland,” March 22, 1957, box 91, folder “Space Vol. II,” RG 326; S.Rept. 142, 84th Cong., 1st sess.,
    U.S. Senate Reports
    vol. 11815.
    
23. “New Headquarters Building for AEC,” minutes of October 27, 1954 meeting; Lewis Strauss to the Commissioners, March 9, 1955; John A. Derry to R.W. Cook, April 28, 1955, box 91, folder “Space Vol. I,” RG 326; Marie Hallion and Clarence Hickey, “The Atomic Energy Commission and Its Site at Germantown,”
    The Montgomery County Story
    44, no. 3 (August 2001): 190.
    
24. “Inception,” 9–10; John Nolen, Jr., to Strauss, June 29, 1955, box 91, folder “Space Vol. II,” RG 326.
    
25. J.L. Kelehan memorandum for the files, May 2, 1955, box 91, folder “Space Vol. I,” RG 326.
    
26. Libby to Eisenhower, May 3, 1955, box 91, folder “Space Vol. I,” RG 326.
    
27. Hallion, “Atomic Energy,” 191–2.
    
28. Peter Grose,
    Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles
    (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 388, 417–18.
    
29. In its editorial “CIA Belongs in the District,” th
    e
    Washington Daily News
    , December 15, 1955, reported that Dulles publicly stated he wanted the CIA to be as close as possible to the White House.
    
30. Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, December 10, 1954, box 4, folder “Cabinet Meeting of December 10, 1954,” Whitman File, Cabinet Series, 5–6.
    
31. Grose,
    Gentleman Spy
    , 417–18.
    
32. CIA, “Public Comment on the New CIA Building, 1955–1956,” May 19, 1956, 1–8 (the Fisher quote is on 2); CIA, “Chronology of Local Government Actions on the Langley Site, March 1955–March 1956,” May 28, 1956, box 25, folder 14, RG 263; NCPC, “Final Report on the Proposal to Locate the CIA Headquarters at Langley, Virginia,” March 2, 1956, box A, folder 8, John Nolen, Jr. Papers, HSW; “CIA Belongs in the District”; “CIA’s Langley Site Opposed by NCPC,”
    WS
    , December 16, 1955; “Council Launches a Renewed Effort to Get the CIA to Locate in District,”
    WP
    , December 24, 1955.
    
33. “Public Comment” (the Dulles quote is on 3); “Statement of the Regional Council Members Relating to the Langley Proposal,” December 5, 1955, box 9, folder 0-041, RG 351, BOC; “20 Minute Factor Vital in CIA Building Site,”
    WS
    , May 11, 1955; Grose,
    Gentleman Spy
    , 418.
    
34. “Public Comment”; “Chronology of Local Government Actions.”
    
35. “Description of New Headquarters Building of CIA,” undated; “CIA Staff Starts Move to Langley,”
    WS
    , September 21, 1961, clipping, box 25, folder 14, RG 263.
    
36. NSC, “Plan for Continuity of Essential Wartime Functions of the Executive Branch,” January 25, 1954, box 6, folder “NSC 159/4 . . . (1),” NSC Policy Paper Subseries, 2.
    
37. “Plan for Continuity,” 4.
    
38. NSC memorandum of discussion, January 29, 1954, box 5, folder “182nd Meeting of NSC,” Whitman File, NSC Series; “Plan for Continuity,” Annex II.
    
1. Annex B to ODM Report, attached to “Progress Reports on Continental Defense,” June 14, 1954, box 2, folder “Continental Defense, Study by Robert
   
2. C.
   Sprague (4),” White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, NSC Series, Subject Subseries, DDEL, 13.
   
39. NSC memorandum, January 29, 1954, 4.
    
40. Record of Actions by the NSC, January 28, 1954, box 1, folder “Record of Actions . . . 1954(1),” Whitman File, NSC Series.
    
41. Richard P. Pollack, “The Mysterious Mountain,
    ”
    The Progressive
    40, no. 3 (March 1976): 12–6; Ted Gup, “Doomsday Hideaway,”
    Time
    138, no. 23 (December 9, 1991): 26–9.
    
42. Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II,
    Seven Days in May
    (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 15, 115, 270, 322, 329.
    
43. Th
    e
    Departments were Agriculture, Commerce, HEW, HUD, State, Transportation, Labor, Interior, and Treasury. The Federal agencies were the Postal Service, FCC, Federal Reserve Board, Civil Service Commission, Veterans Administration, Selective Service, and the Federal Power Commission. See Pollack, “The Mysterious Mountain.”
    
44. Gup, “Doomsday Hideaway,” and “The Doomsday Blueprints,”
    Time
    140, no. 6 (August 10, 1992): 32–9.
    
1. Gup, “Doomsday Hideaway” (the Fowler quote is on 28); Biography of Paul L. Russell, January 1974, box 5, folder “Russell, Paul L.,” RG 70, Records of the
   
2. U.S.
   Bureau of Mines, Biographical Information Files.
   
45. “Report on the Relocation Operation Readiness of November 20, 1954,” December 1, 1954, box 4, folder “Cabinet Meeting of December 3, 1954,” Whitman File, Cabinet Series.
    
46. “Phonevision” was a type of subscription television service offered by Zenith to allow movie-viewing in homes. A device unscrambled the broadcast signal, which was delivered over a dedicated phone line or by air. It seems the ODM or the Signal Corps used the technology to set up this early form of video-conferencing. I’m grateful to Albert LaFrance for sharing these details about Phonevision with me.
    
47. “Report on the Relocation.”
    
48. Ibid.
    
49. Untitled report, circa July 1956, box 1, folder “Current Matters,” EAS.
    
50. Eisenhower to Flemming, December 14, 1954, box 14, folder “Flemming, Arthur S. 1953–55 (2),” Whitman File, Administration Series.
    
51. “Report on the Relocation,” 5, 10.