1950 popular mechanics fallout shelter plans

By November 1950 China was supporting North Korean attacks against South Korea and a United Nations force led by, and consisting mostly of, members of the United States armed forces. Then, in October of that year, Mao Zedong, the head of the Chinese Communist Party who became leader of the nation, declared China a Communist state. The Soviet Union's successful nuclear bomb test in August 1949 surprised American defense planners and forced them to reconsider America's military and civilian preparedness and capabilities. When the NSRB was established, only the United States possessed nuclear weapons. Would spur Congress to significantly expand this program and tailor America's civil defense programs to the age of nuclear warfare under the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950 (64 Stat.

Within two years, however, international events Although the OCD closed in June 1945, policymakers facing the beginning of the Cold War reestablished a small civil defense program in March 1949 under the National Security Resources Board (NSRB), an agency created by the National Security Act of 1947.

The OCD also sponsored programs like daycare and family health services to strengthen communities' social ties. The OCD created defense-related programs like air-raid procedures and black-out drills to minimize damage from aerial bombardment, and it relied on community volunteers to carry them out. Military technological developments since World War I, especially in airplanes and submarines, had made attacks on American soil real possibilities and challenged the government to defend the United States and protect civilians without overly militarizing American society. Roosevelt created the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD). Although the United States government sponsored a civil defense program during World War I, modern American civil defense did not begin until May 1941, when President Franklin D.

1950 popular mechanics fallout shelter plans