deputy assistant secretary of defense for civil defense, argued before Congress in 1962, bulgur’s “shelf life has been established by being edible after 3,000 years in an Egyptian pyramid.” The result of its efforts? A bulgur wheat biscuit dubbed the “All-Purpose Survival Cracker.”īulgur, a Mediterranean staple made from parboiled whole grains known as groats, has been consumed for thousands of years by everyone from Chinese emperors to ancient Babylonians. Department of Agriculture had already developed what it considered the ideal “Doomsday food”: nutritious, easy to prepare and reasonably priced, with a long shelf life. Kennedy also encouraged Americans to build private shelters, the estimated number of which rose from 60,000 in June 1961 to some 200,000 in 1965.īy the early 60s, the U.S. Kennedy expanded the nation’s civil defense programs, calling for more than $200 million in appropriations for the construction of public fallout shelters in the United States. civil defense policies in the ‘50s and early ‘60s were based on the significantly flawed notion that most of the nation’s population would survive a catastrophic nuclear attack.Īnd when they did, they would need something to eat.Ī tin of biscuits found open, along with other survival supplies, in a fallout shelter dating from 1962, pictured in 2017.ĭuring the crisis over Berlin in mid-1961, President John F. Community shelters were constructed beneath municipal buildings, and emergency government bunkers were carved into hillsides.Īs ridiculous as it seems now, given what we know of the power of nuclear weaponry, these and other U.S. Families across the country (at least those who could afford it) built fallout shelters in their basements and backyards.
In schools, children learned to “ duck and cover,” diving under their desks and staying far away from windows in drills designed to protect them during an atomic strike.
With Cold War tensions escalating in the 1950s, the threat of a Soviet nuclear attack cast a terrifying shadow over everyday American life. What were postwar Americans planning to eat in the event of a nuclear attack? Hint: It wasn’t very appetizing.
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