Creating Calm: Cold War Era Public Messaging from the Civil Defense Agency

Creating Calm: Cold War Era Public Messaging from the Civil Defense Agency

Brittney Eastin

The Civil Defense Agency was the government entity responsible for distributing information on protecting oneself in the event of a nuclear attack. Looking primarily at publications by the Detroit Civil Defense Agency, one can tell that there was an urgency to keep the population calm and limitedly informed. Other sources from released federal documents and internal correspondence also suggest that information was distributed cautiously. Efforts to create a sense of control, power, and security can be seen in conflicting information between internal correspondence, CDA, and DCDA publications. The messaging to the public involved false equivalences, comparing potential bombs to less severe nuclear disasters, survival rates rooted in flawed comparisons, and poor information on survival outside of the short-term effects. Information on nuclear bombs was still in development, but federal documents now released to the public show that some negative long-term effects were known at the time. Controlled dissemination of information was likely done to prevent panic among citizens and create a sensation of confidence in one’s government’s capacity of protection.