{"id":10478,"date":"2011-07-21T06:46:24","date_gmt":"2011-07-21T14:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=10478"},"modified":"2011-07-21T06:46:24","modified_gmt":"2011-07-21T14:46:24","slug":"cold-war-americans-not-as-fainthearted-as-you-might-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/21\/cold-war-americans-not-as-fainthearted-as-you-might-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Cold War Americans Not as Fainthearted as You Might Think"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Reason<\/em>, Greg Beato sketches the history of the fallout
\nshelter in Cold War America. Apparently, most people didn’t get too carried away
\nwith doomsday preparations<\/a>:
\n\"I<\/a><\/p>\n

“Despite what a 1961 issue of Good Housekeeping<\/em> derided as ‘massive propaganda to induce Americans to burrow underground like worms,’ officials were never able to secure the level of funding a widespread shelter-building program would require. The government\u2019s more general efforts to persuade citizens to build shelters on their own dime were only slightly more successful. After a decade of federal proselytizing, Newsweek<\/em> noted in July 1961, American families had built around 2,000 shelters. In contrast, they\u2019d built around 300,000 swimming pools during that time. (A New York Times<\/em> article, also from July 1961, put the estimated total of family bomb shelters in the U.S. at 60,000.)”<\/p>\n

Of course, all they had to worry about was the Soviet Union, not guys who put bombs in their underwear. Shelter chic is making a bit of a comeback<\/a> today, so if you think a pool is a waste of a hole in the ground, then I have an investment opportunity for you:<\/p>\n

 
\n