Cold War Discussion

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Unitek College, Fremont *

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411

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History

Date

Oct 30, 2023

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docx

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Uploaded by ColonelMouse3496

Module Five: Post World War II Era Rebecca Beirne Unitek College Contemporary History-411B Professor T. Roka September 5, 2023 The purpose of the “Duck and Cover” video is to inform the public about the Civil Defense Administration policies in regard to a nuclear attack. The U.S. government offers a paltry approach to surviving an attack both “with warning” and “without warning.” “Duck and Cover” was distributed nationally to schools and movie theaters around the country in an effort to ease the minds of U.S. citizens and was initially lauded as an effective way to survive an attack. Only in certain circumstances does the video show legitimate ways to avoid serious injuries to the individual - covering the head and neck area and seeking shelter under a desk or next to a wall. These methods would be effective well outside the radius of the blast zone, people inside the blast zone would have virtually no chance of survival from the pressure wave, not even mentioning the onset of acute radiation poisoning which killed more people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than the physical blast. At the height of McCarthyism, “Duck and Cover” was used as state sponsored propaganda to ease the minds of the common citizen (Fried, 2017). The illusion of some semblance of control was key to both the Civil Defence Administration

and the general populace. The video portrays the idea that being “prepared” will save the public but in actuality, the CDA was trying to avoid mass hysteria. The idea of John Q Public going about their day and suddenly being destroyed along with everyone and things they knew shifted all segments of society in the onset of the “atomic age”. This was a new concept for society and would lead to an existential crisis among the populace, therefore there was a need to pacify American society on the brink of a nuclear war (Jones, 2018). References: Fried, R. M. (2017). Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture. American Communist History , 3 (2), 301–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/1474389042000309826 Jones, M. (2018). To kill nations: American strategy in the air-atomic age and the rise of mutually assured destruction. By Edward Kaplan. International Affairs , 92 (3), 719–721. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.12612

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