An Examination of the Causes, Morality, and Demise of American Civil Defense While there are conflicting and overlapping reasons as to why "civil defense" became an important issue in America in the 1950's and 1960's, the fact remains that Americans became obsessed with civil protection and the threat of thermonuclear war. This took the form of general preparation for an attack, such as the construction of bomb shelters, stockpiling of food supplies, perfecting emergency drills in schools and homes, and even forming militias like the notorious "Minute-men" which prepared for a guerrilla war against a possible post-nuclear Soviet invasion of...
point of view. In 1963, Kennedy requested $695 million for his civil defense program but received only $80.5 million from the House Appropriations Committee, a mere fraction of his objective 233. Margot Henriksen asserts that this conveys the impact of the rebellion on Kennedy's fallout shelter campaign. In place of the cultural and societal paranoia that existed briefly, "a new conception of society and culture that rejected the immorality and insanity of America's nuclear policy was constructed" 223. The politics of dissent, so lacking in the 1950's, and so indicative of the history of the 1960's, had effectively begun.