Lesson Plan - Cold War Politics and Culture in the 20th Century United States

After the Soviet Union launched a test nuclear missile in 1949, the "Cold War" between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. intensified. As each superpower stockpiled more nuclear weapons, the United States fashioned scenarios about what might happen if the U.S.S.R. launched an attack. These scenarios included "second strike" capabilities—how likely it would be that a country could launch missiles after an attack—and the likelihood of "mutually assured destruction" (known as MAD), which meant that both countries would decimate the other to the point of no recovery. 

Virginia was a critical epicenter of U.S. Cold War defense projects because of its proximity to the nation’s capital and its central location on the Atlantic coast. World War I and II military camps became the sites of CIA and FBI training programs and code-operating intelligence gathering centers. Langley Air Force Base became an important center for NASA research operations, which ultimately supported the U.S. drive toward dominance in space. Norfolk became the headquarters of the U.S. Navy Fleet Forces Command, and NATO established its Supreme Allied Command-Atlantic here in the 1950s. Arlington County is the home of the Pentagon, where all U.S. military operations are directed. The military installed 11 Nike nuclear warhead missiles in Virginia—8 in Norfolk, 3 in Northern Virginia—to protect these operations.

During this era, many people feared that the world was on the brink of nuclear war. The U.S. government attempted to assuage fears of a potential nuclear holocaust by minimizing the effects of a potential bomb blast and assuring people that they could survive a nuclear attack. The Office of Civilian Defense produced cartoons, pamphlets, and movie shorts meant to reassure the American public that they could mitigate any danger from nuclear attack. The Office of Civilian Defense also encouraged people to take measurable actions so that they felt like they had some control over the situation.

At several points during this era, tension between the U.S. and Soviet Union almost erupted into open hostility. One of these was the Cuban Missile Crisis. In October 1962 a United States spy plane captured evidence that the Soviet Union was moving nuclear missiles into Cuba. Located just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, Cuba had allied with the Soviet Union after Fidel Castro took control of its government.

After several days of secret meetings with advisors, who confirmed the presence of at least 16 medium-range missiles, launch sites for long-range missiles, and storage facilities for nuclear warheads, President John F. Kennedy announced that the United States would implement a naval blockade to prevent further shipments. While the blockade succeeded in stopping additional nuclear weapons from entering Cuba, nuclear experts there were already working to make them fully operational. President Kennedy seemed to be facing two options: attack or accept the presence of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba. Kennedy instead proposed a policy that the U.S would not invade Cuba if the Soviet Union removed the nuclear missiles. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed, in part because the U.S. agreed secretly to remove its missiles from neighboring Turkey within six months of the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. Scholars consider this incident to be the closest that the United States and the Soviet Union came to a full-scale nuclear war. It illustrates just how easily tensions in the Cold War could erupt into crises during this period.

This map, used in secret meetings to determine the U.S. response, shows the range of the missiles installed in Cuba. It was part of the CIA's first memorandum about the missile sites in Cuba. It illustrates again the depth of the fallout Virginians would have experienced in the event of a nuclear war. The excerpts from Office of Civilian Defense publication about building a family fallout shelter reflect the ways in which the government tried to mitigate Americans’ fears of the effects of nuclear war.

Citation:  Excerpts from Document 46, "CIA Memorandum, Probably Soviet MRBM Sites in Cuba, 16 October 1962," in Central Intelligence Agency, CIA documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962, editor, Mary S. McAuliffe, [1992], Federal Documents Microfiche, PREX 3.2:M 69, Library of Virginia.

Citation: Excerpts from the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, “The Family Fallout Shelter,” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959, Visual Studies Collection, Library of Virginia.

Goals and Guiding Principles
Through this lesson, students will investigate the effects of the Cold War on life in America. They will explore how the US government tried to mitigate fears of nuclear fallout through preparedness campaigns, and about the reality of the nuclear threat through the example of the Cuban missile crisis. They will learn about Virginia’s centrality in American intelligence and military operations during this period.

In Their Shoes (15 minutes)
USII
Read through both the pages of the Civil Defense fallout shelter publication and the CIA memo about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Write a diary entry from the point of view of a student your age whose parents are building a fallout shelter for you. What would be your concerns? What would you be in charge of collecting for the shelter? What would you think about this situation?

Artistic Expression (10-15 minutes)
USII
Create social media post, infographic, or digital flyer for the “Family Fallout Shelter” pamphlet. How should the shelter be constructed? What were the “must haves” a family needed to pack? How would the family expect to live in a shelter for two weeks?

Oral History (this activity will take several days or up to a week to complete and can be done individually or as group projects; allow 10 mintues for each presentation)
WH, VUS
Interview a senior citizen (ideally over the age of 75) in your family or community. After reading through the documents, ask them questions about what life was like growing up in the Cold War era. A few questions to consider asking:

• What did your schools do to prepare you for a potential nuclear strike? How did you feel about that?
• Did you hear about nuclear bomb shelters in people’s homes? How did you feel about fallout shelters as a method to survive a nuclear attack? [you may want to print out the pages from the fallout shelter publication and show them the pictures]
• What do you remember about the Cuban Missile Crisis?
• How did it feel growing up during the Cold War?
• What did you perceive as the major differences between the U.S. and the Soviet Union at the time? In retrospect, what do you think about those differences now?

Create a digital presentation about this person that includes information about their background and family history. Explain how their answers illustrate the effects of the Cold War on kids in the twentieth century.

NOTE: if this is too challenging, you can also invite a few senior citizens to class to have students interview them together. From that they can create their own presentations, or do presentations as a group with a focus on one of the participants.

Dig Deeper (20 minutes)
USII, WH, VUS
Look at the missile range map in the CIA Cuban Missile Crisis memo and determine the general location of your community. Look at the wind patterns shown on the map of the Family Fallout Shelter guide and consider the effects of short/medium/long range missiles on your town. Use the Library of Virginia's online newspaper resource Virginia Chronicle to find a newspaper near your community in October 1962 and read news reports about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Complete the attached Dig Deeper chart about the media response. Who is being blamed for the crisis? How is the media trying to keep people calm? After reading the news articles, how might you have reacted?

Writing Response/Exit Ticket (20 minutes)
WH, VUS
Read the pages from the Family Fallout Shelter publication and the CIA memo about missiles in Cuba. Write an essay answering the following prompts:

• How did the U.S. government try to prepare Americans for the possibility of nuclear war?
• How many people do you believe could have followed the instructions about nuclear fallout shelters? Why?
• Based on these primary sources, how severe do you believe the threat to the United States really was? What evidence supports your ideas about this?
• Overall, how effective do you think the campaign to prepare American citizens for nuclear fallout would have been? Why do you think that?
• How do you think about the possibility of nuclear war now? Is it similar to or different from that of Americans in the late twentieth century? Why?