Much as most everyone can agree the 1950s moved much slower and had a lot less technology to deal with, it didn’t mean the decade was any less paranoid and on-edge as it is now. The 1950s were consumed with fear of Communism, of nuclear obliteration, of undermining American principles.
Fear of annihilation by Atomic (or Hydrogen) bomb dominated conversations. Because of that fear, America braced for that eventuality at almost any moment – periodically, the entire nation would participate in a drill for a mock atomic attack.
One in particular “Operation Alert: 1955” managed to get the entire country involved – a massive assault by an unnamed enemy (i.e. Soviet Union), launched against every major metropolitan area on June 18, 1955, bringing mass imaginary death and destruction and many scratched heads – Here is an example (in addition to this segment of the Monitor radio service, which didn’t seem too perturbed at the time) of some of the press that ran on that day:
The Harrisburg Patriot News: – June 16, `1955
The ever-frightening wail of sirens reverberated through the city at 2:05 p.m, yesterday. Instantly, along with all other Americans in the nation-wide Civil Defense test, “Operation Alert 1955,” pedestrians fled to shelters, their homes, or into stores and office buildings, and drivers came to a stop, Officials of all kinds praised the way people here cooperated. DIRECTORS ‘WATCH’ Especially the directors. Where directors in other areas actually “directed” operations from control centers, in Harrisburg they mounted a tall building “to observe.” Carl B. Shelley, Dauphin County director of Civil Defense, chose the top of the Harrisburger Hotel, where, if he couldn’t see all of the county, he did see much of Harrisburg. “Very, very good here,” he exclaimed. “Best we ever had.” How about the rest of the county? Well, there were eight communities activated that he knew of. “See Joe, Joe knows all about what went on in the county,” he assured. But Harrisburg really was terrific: “There were only two vehicles moving that we know of – both military, but we’re going to check on them to see if they were official cars.” ‘Joe’ is Joseph Rhine, executive director for the county’s CD “organization.” With Shelley were Mayor Claude Robins, and city.
CD Director Franklin Moore. For a test with advance warning, he said, “it was the best we ever had just about perfect.” He, too, reported two vehicles–both in the city, and one woman who was walking. “Police quickly notified her.”
Victoria Texas Advocate:
Texans in scattered cities got inkling the problems confronting them if enemy aerial attack ever becomes reality. A theoretical hydrogen bomb scored a ground-burst hit in heart of Houston at 1:45 p.m, An estimated 45,000 people were “killed or critically injured.” The toll would have gone to 219.000 killed and 170,000 injured if 80 cent of the downtown population had not been alerted and evacuated earlier. A simulated warning from state disaster control center in Austin gave the Beaumont state disaster district half-hour notice 2 p.m. that “enemy aircraft” were approaching Nederland. That signaled an actual test evacuation of the entire city 7,000 men, women and children located in Jefferson County in one of Texas’ most heavily industrialized areas. Actually about 6,000 of the city’s population took part in the test. They filed into cars under a prearranged “share your car” plan, were escorted by police to open country about three miles from the city and dispersed.
Times-Herald – Vallejo California:
Make believe atomic bombs felling the five biggest cities on the West Coast yesterday, causing A paper disaster with 617,600 persons theoretically killed, 836,100 wounded and 2,065,500 homeless. The five city attack opened the West Coast phase of the Civil Defense Administration’s “Operation Alert, 1955.” With some 300 defense volunteers on hand at the CDA’s western headquarters here, the “attack” opened with an alert at 9:07 a.m., followed by atomic bombings in rapid succession on Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle. The San Francisco “bomb” exploded at 11:57 a.m. in the vicinity of Union Square, killing an estimated 180.000 persons, injuring 114,000 and leaving another 630,000 “displaced.” Simultaneously, a similar bomb exploded near the Oakland city hall, killing, 59,000, injuring 42,000 and leaving 300, 000 homeless. The Oakland “disaster” was heightened by the fact the East Bay was showered with radioactive fallout from the San Francisco bomb, Winds were carrying the lethal cloud toward Richmond and CD authorities ordered all evacuees to head south toward San Jose. Philip D.Batson, regional Civil Defense administrator here, said the exercise was attempting to cram “nine days of experience into A 26-hour program.” He said the nationwide operation, which began at 9 a.m. PDT, will officially end at 11 a.m. today.
A tiny sample of nationwide reaction – all on June16, 1955 – And of course, radio coverage (reports done between generous dollops of music and Pop Culture) all from June 16, 1955 by way of Monitor, during their first weekend of broadcasting this new radio service from NBC.
