Cold War fallout

The United States' diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and China were in tatters, the Soviet Union had tested its first atomic bomb (1949) and the development of the hydrogen bomb (1952) escalated the arms race into overdrive. The natural reaction of civil defense organizations in the United States was to try to protect its citizens.

One of the primary figures in this effort was Leo Hoegh, governor of Iowa from 1955 to 1957. Immediately after his term ended, Hoegh was named by President Eisenhower to be the national administrator of civil defense. When that office was combined with the Office of Defense Mobilization in 1958, Hoegh became the director of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization. He also served on the National Security Council and represented the United States at NATO meetings.

Hoegh's plan for civil defense was to modify existing buildings for fallout protection. He also strongly advocated mandatory shelters in new home construction. When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, Hoegh moved into the private sector as head of the fallout shelter division of Wonder Building Corp. of Chicago.

Civil defense efforts went into high gear after the Cuban missile crisis in 1961. Larger population centers and military installations were considered to be the most likely enemy targets, so rural construction of fallout shelters was encouraged. By October 1961, Eastern Iowa had approximately one known shelter for every 7,000 people. There were others, but the owners didn't want the existence of their shelters to be known by the public.

That may have been one of the reasons the Kennedy administration advocated large-scale, community shelters over backyard bunkers. The first one in Iowa was built in 1961 in the basement of Concrete Materials and Construction Co. at 4096 First Ave. NE in Cedar Rapids. The 50x70 shelter was an addition to the company's original building. Its difference from ordinary construction was that its ceiling was reinforced 16-inch thick concrete, supported by six 12-inch square concrete pillars on footings about five feet square and 14 inches thick. The walls were 8-inch reinforced concrete with the portion above ground protected by a planter. It had baffles and sealed doors, a 195-foot well, and a generator to operate lights, ventilation and pumps. There were cooking and sanitation facilities and decontamination showers. The shelter accommodated 200 people who would alternate between the 100 cots and 100 chairs. The space didn't sit empty. It was used to store items that could be moved out quickly during an emergency.

The Civil Defense Administration of Iowa conducted experiments involving inmates at the state penitentiary at Fort Madison. Twenty-four prisoners were selected from a group of volunteers to participate in a fallout shelter diet test conducted by University of Iowa staff. The men were restricted to one quart of water a day and were fed the simplest food that would allow people to survive in underground shelters for three weeks. The inmates were segregated from the general prison population for the testing period, were not allowed to shower, but could shave with soapy water and were permitted to smoke.

In October 1961, a Gazette survey of surrounding counties showed varied interest in civil defense. Efforts were more active at city and county levels, but relatively rare in rural areas. Small towns didn't know where to start, or were simply apathetic.

A few, though, took the advice to build a fallout shelter seriously. In Independence, the John Driscoll family was one of three families known to have shelters. The Driscolls built an 8-by-10-foot shelter in the basement of their rented duplex. Chester Schmitz's Independence shelter was 7 1/2 by 8 feet. He excavated the space next to his existing basement and included a gun and ammunition among his supplies.

In Oelwein the Robert Cannady family prepared a basement shelter, while a section of the basement of the Oelwein post office was being prepared for postal employees.

In Iowa City, building inspector Warren Buchan found 50 private shelters, most in basements, but some outdoors. The cost for preparing a basement shelter was estimated at $300 to $600, while constructing an underground shelter outdoors could run from $2,000 to $3,000. Buchan noted that some shelter owners were including loaded guns among their supplies.

In Cedar Rapids, the Veterans Memorial Building and the Linn County Courthouse provided areas as public fallout shelters. An estimated 50,000 spaces were available citywide for a population of 100,000.

Iowa's largest single shelter site was in Clayton County in a mine that was stocked for 46,000. Since there were only 16,000 people in the county, Allamakee and parts of Fayette counties also would use the mine in the case of attack.

When Kennedy's fallout shelter program, which asked for $568 million for mass shelter construction, was denied by the House Appropriations Committee in 1962, Iowans' less-than-enthusiastic interest in constructing shelters took a nose dive.

Civil defense organizations, still promoting fallout shelters in 1971, offered to help families who had basements retrofit them so that they met fallout shelter standards. They also reminded people that the shelters would come in handy during natural disasters as well.

Apathy and the lack of a perceived threat led to the decline of shelter construction. There was little support for civil defense by the 1970s.

Stockpiles of food in public shelters were sent to starving people in Bangladesh. About 30 percent of available bomb shelter food - 736 tons of items such as dehydrated crackers and 'carbohydrate supplement” - were earmarked for shipment to Bangladesh in 1974 after that country had suffered massive flooding.

Civil defense organizations found their duties shifting from preparation for survival during war to coping with natural disasters. Planners felt that stockpiling in shelters was obsolete because the average home's pantry held enough food to get through a national crisis.

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