OK, HERE’S THE DRILL. Stand at this lookout post and watch for LOW-FLYING AIRCRAFT. Call the information center at the MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY and report any planes resembling SOVIET BOMBERS that might be carrying nuclear weapons. And then … what? CIVIL DEFENSE officials had a tough time recruiting volunteer plane spotters and block wardens even after the Reds got the Bomb. Although the civil defense model had worked well in Britain in WORLD WAR II, this was the nuclear era, and the American public mostly didn’t buy the underlying notion that the few minutes’ notice before an A-BOMB was dropped would do anyone much good. Might as well go to O’Hare Airport and look for UFOs.
Percentage of U.S. cities that have earned top grades for emergency communications from the Department of Homeland Security: 8.
Name of the animated star of the how-to-survive-nuclear-war film “Duck and Cover” in the early ’50s: BERT THE TURTLE.
Number of crackers found last year in a shelter inside the Brooklyn Bridge, where they had been awaiting disaster since 1962: 350,000.
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“We feel that the work of the plane spotters is of vital importance to the defense of Chicago.”
–GROUND-OBSERVER OFFICIAL ROY W. JOHNSON, APPEALING FOR VOLUNTEERS
Sources: Tribune archives, news reports, Cold War Museum.
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nwatkins@tribune.com
