![]() ![]() The emphasis of the FCDA in the 1950s was preparedness. PREPARING CIVILIANS FOR A MILITARY ATTACKĬivil defense refers to organized nonmilitary plans that prepare civilians for a military attack. People began to understand that even nontarget areas would be exposed to poisonous radioactive fallout in their air and water. As public awareness of nuclear proliferation and its potential consequences increased, so did the fear that our existence as we knew it could end instantly. Both sides developed a “second-strike capability,” meaning that each country could launch a devastating attack even after sustaining one consequently, launching a first strike was considered suicidal and thereby assured the “deterrence” of a first strike from either side. and the Soviet Union competed for supremacy in nuclear arms in a strategy that came to be known as Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), each side developed and stockpiled a vast arsenal of nuclear bombs and the requisite means of launching them. The atomic explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 showed the world the horrors of nuclear warfare, and the development of hydrogen bombs in 1952 diminished the hope that a nuclear war could be limited or survivable. and the Soviet Union fostered a profound anxiety in our nation during the 1950s. The political and military tension between the U.S. ![]() My base was Battlecreek, Michigan, under the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA). As the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union grew, I was assigned to the Chicago area to develop medical care plans and programs for five states in the case of a national attack. The Cold War had intensified the conflict between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, and Cuba's alliance with the Soviet Union made the possibility of an attack from Cuba seem much more likely. Public Health Service called me to active duty to help face a national crisis. I had been serving as Director of the San Juan Basin Health Unit in Durango, Colorado, for three years when, in early 1957, the U.S. ![]()
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