Civil Defense Researcher Finds What's Old Is New Again

Newswise — A book exploring modern civil defense through the lens of performance suggests today's all-too-familiar security efforts -- metal detectors in federal buildings, shoe removal at airports and suggestions to scrutinize those around us in response to terrorism alerts -- were foreshadowed by civil defense practices of the 1950s and 1960s.

"Civil defense is no longer merely an arcane by-product of the Cold War characterized by memories of ducking under school desks, kitsch artifacts or the dispensing of ID tags to children," says Tracy C. Davis, Northwestern University Barber Professor of Performing Arts, professor of English and author of "Stages of Emergency" (Duke University Press).

"Since 9/11, civil defense has been resurrected as homeland security," she says.

In the 1950s, U.S. schoolchildren learned to protect themselves from disaster with the help of Bert the Turtle in "Duck and Cover," a film produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration. Its aim was to teach youngsters what to do in the event of unexpected nuclear attack.

"Bert would go under his shell whenever a mischievous monkey unsuspectingly dropped a firecracker," says Davis, whose book compares civil defense efforts in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain. "Today FEMA uses Herman, a crab with 'disaster-proof' armor, to guide children around their homes to collect potentially vital materials in the case of emergency, including terrorism," says Davis.

"What's old is new again," says Davis, who began her research prior to the dark events of September 2001. In "Stages of Emergency," she shows how different national priorities, contingencies and social policies in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain influenced those nations' rehearsals of nuclear disaster.

Raised in Canada in the 1960s and 1970s, Davis recalls growing up "amid the futility of civil defense efforts" that convinced her "the world could be blown up and destroyed at any moment." She had "constant fears about being on the frontline" between U.S. and Soviet missile paths.

A theatre scholar investigating the theatrical nature of Cold War civil defense exercises, Davis dug deep into the national archives of the countries she was studying. In the process she uncovered information classified in the Cold War.

"Stages of Emergency" analyzes public exercises involving private citizens -- Boys Scouts serving as mock casualties, housewives arranging home protection, clergy trained as fallout shelter managers - as well as covert exercises by civil servants.

While the three countries constantly exchanged information about the science underlying civil defense practices, "the very different ethos of the three nations resulted in very different civil defense rehearsals," she contends.

In the U.S., civil defense government guidelines permeated all levels of the school curriculum. Civil defense activities in the U.S. involved millions of people at a time in rehearsal evacuations, and architects and engineers were offered incentives to build public fallout shelters.

"The civil defense activities people recall from their school days are a micro-version of rehearsals that occurred in U.S. cities nationwide," Davis says. "In 'Operation Alert,' an event that occurred annually from the mid-1950s to early 1960s, at least a quarter of the population would tune into their radios for instructions "as if a nuclear attack already had occurred."

While school children hid under their desks and city office workers scrambled to basement shelters, President Eisenhower was airlifted to a safe facility in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the federal government apparatus went underground or headed to relocation facilities.

In Great Britain, a cash-strapped government in need of funds to replace housing destroyed in the Blitz was in no position to build public fallout shelters. With their more communal national ethos, the British instead built upon efforts they had developed during World War II and created a civil defense corps.

"This unarmed force at its height had 350,000 volunteers conducting elaborate rehearsals on weekends," Davis says. They included medical triage efforts connecting the National Health Service with block-by-block organizations training people in rescue and first aid.

In the early 1950s, Canadians followed suit and developed a rudimentary civil defense corps. But Canadian officials soon encountered resistance from their citizens, who were enjoying an unprecedented, booming post-war economy.

"In a short time, Canadians simply refused to build fallout shelters in their homes or show up for disaster rehearsals," Davis says. As a result, the government became the focus of Canadian civil defense activity, and civil service exercises practiced linking all echelons of the federal government to provincial, regional and local governments.

In the U.S., such coordination of all governmental levels was illusory. The federal government refused to fund the effort properly, and state governments were unable to keep up with federal mandates for either civilian or civil service measures.

"We remember the Cuban Missile Crisis as the epitome of anxiety," Davis says, "but papers in the Kennedy administration's archive reveal that even in those dark days the government never ordered civil defense measures to protect the public." And, even if it had, the action would have been hopelessly short of stipulated goals, she adds.

Ultimately the U.S. government made the decision to spend the fruits of post-war prosperity on an interstate highway network that could serve in both war and peacetime as opposed to blast-proof bunkers that were useful only in war. It decided it was cheaper to take the civil defense message home via school children trained by Bert the Turtle.

As the Cold War ended, so did civil defense exercises. But as governments struggle with 21st century fears of sleeper cells, dirty bombs, rogue states and terrorism, some strikingly familiar civil defense efforts have been revived.

Late last month (September 2007), emergency planners in the Alabama city of Huntsville (population 158,000) announced they were planning the nation's most ambitious fallout shelter plan, including the conversion of an abandoned mine that could provide underground protection for 20,000. What's old is new again.