352 ChaPter^7
Americans would die. Rather than prepare the American people for nuclear
war, the exercise was a cause for even more fright. One military official even
conceded the futility of the drill, noting that the Soviet Union had developed
its own hydrogen bomb and thus had “outstripped the progress made in our
civil defenses strides to defend against it.”
Other officials were similarly pessimistic. The administrator of civil defense
spoke to a Senate committee in March 1955 and warned that all Americans
should build an underground shelter to protect against the bomb “right now”
and stock it with sufficient food and water for 5 or 6 days. He was assuming
that nuclear radiation, which had a half-life of about 25,000 years, would clear
out within a week. Not reassuring, the administrator, Val Peterson, said, “we
had all better dig in and pray. In fact, we had better be praying right now.”
Local officials were just as alarmed. The Governor of Massachusetts was wor-
ried because he did not know whether raincoats were preferable to cloth coats
in warding off nuclear fallout, whether one should cover his or her face and
hands, or if one should keep car windows closed for protection. In New York
City, the Mayor, working with the Governor, had a report prepared to deter-
mine how to empty the city in the event of nuclear attack. It estimated that
1 million people could be evacuated by railroad cars, on the subway, or by
ferries. Another 4 million would have to escape in buses, taxis, trucks and
cars along only 200 traffic lanes leaving the area that was hit.
Even in the best-case scenario, if all those implausible plans worked, over
3 million people in New York City, out of 8 million, would not be able to
leave and presumably would die. As one senator from Michigan pointed out,
a single car crash usually led to a larger pile-up and he could not “visualize
[the plans for using cars and subways] lasting for 10 minutes as a means of
escape.” Still, the government, in June 1955, had another drill, “Operation
Alert.” This time it estimated that 5 million would die, another 5 million
would be badly hurt, and over 10 million would be homeless, with many more
in need of medical help, food, and other necessities. The drill itself was a mess.
When the sirens went off to warn that a bomb was incoming, a New York
Yankees game was stopped for 23 minutes, but the fans just stayed in their
seats. In fact, the drill even motivated protests, and 28 pacifists were arrested
for having a sit-down strike in a park near city hall, and another man was
arrested for refusing to go to a shelter, while a truck driver was jailed for
staying in his vehicle instead of evacuating. In some cities, the evacuation