The Concise History Of US Civil Defense Policy During 1950s

As the passive defense, The main purposes of the civil defense as follow:Protect population for attacks and prepare for post-war reconstructions. The civil defense in US began at world war I, the civil defense policy went into effect as the band aid for homeland security during the second world war.When the post-war area began, the emergence of nuclear weapon and the origin of the cold war promoted the Truman administration to establish the permanent national civil defense system, the national civil defense system base on the Federal Civil Defense Agency and "Federal Civil Defense Act" came into being, which became the part of the "National Security State".From the beginning of 1951, the FCDA took charge of a serious of programs include civil defense propagandas and mobilizations, in auspicious of Psychological Strategy Board and other research institutes in universities,the FCDA promote the "East River Project" focus on fear prevention and management, removing theories and regimes of psychological propaganda abroad to domestic civil defense programs. In light of this facts, the FCDA carried out the well-designed civil defense propaganda & mobilization programs included "Alert America"&"Civil Defense Education Program", which became a successful cold war ideological public propaganda and mobilization, during the course, civil defense was regarded as an essential measure for protecting "free world ", "Cold War Civilian" and "Cold War Patriotism" became the vital ideological connotation of the civil defense education and mobilization then.。The last chapter focus on the cognition and debate of federal shelter program within policy makers during 1950s.the shelter program suffered from query at the outset within the administrations, at the first part of the 1950s, a serious of recommendations including "Caldwell program" came to a premature end. Eisenhower administration had to reassess the national shelter program beneath the shadows of Sputnik Incident in 1957,National Security Council acknowledged significant value of the civil defense as national security policy, however Eisenhower administration abandoned the national shelter program in light of the exorbitant cost and the collision between doctrine and program. Throughout the 1950s,There was few achievement in term of planning and practice of shelter program for US government, shelter program was in a "rational" squeeze. Nonetheless, the debates among executive departments military and congress last for ten years enhanced the cognitions related to the strategic deterrence value; the effort for improving national nuclear capability and so on, to lay the foundation of massive shelter construction after 1960s.Base on the discussions as follow:the civil defense propaganda and mobilization in auspicious of FCDA;the cognition and debate of the national shelter program within the government, the thesis came to the conclusion that US civil defense policy presented two significant features, which call "lead to cold war and nuclear".