Many of the top physicists who had worked on the Manhattan Project believed that it would be at least five years before the Soviets could build their own atomic bomb. In a 2016 episode of The Americans, various households watch The Day After.After the viewing, 15-year-old Paige, whose parents are secret Soviet spies, approaches her father. As San Francisco leaders plan for a horrific possibility of a North Korea nuclear strike in 2017, they can do so knowing the city has been through this before. Schools began issuing dog tags to students so that their families could identify their bodies in the event of an attack. Civil defense-related conspiracy theories appeared in The Chronicle letters page. The American people believe it pays to advertise.”. In March 1951, construction firm Barrett & Hilp put their bulky shelter on display in the middle of Union Square, offering free tours. The gathering included far-out theories — including the possibility of the Russians using a bomb to cause a 100-foot tidal wave, that would cover the state in radioactive mist. The atomic scare hit the Bay Area so hard and fast in 1950 and 1951, even the upscale shopping district of Union Square felt the impact. Photo: Chronicle file photo / The Chronicle 1951. Khan Academy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. When San Franciscans ignored a Dec. 30, 1950 whistle siren warning from the top of the Ferry Building — financial district workers thought it was a New Year’s celebration and threw confetti out their windows — Robinson dug up the city’s gas-powered sirens from World War II and installed them atop Bernal Heights and the St. Francis Hotel. “You guessed it — on a Friday at 11 a.m. “ATOMIC BOMB SHELTER.”. More than 65 years later the weekly sirens continue on Tuesdays at noon, followed by instructions. Both Harry Truman and Major General Leslie Groves ha… Popular culture and mass media in the 1950s. “San Francisco’s air raid warning system flunked its first test yesterday,” The Chronicle reported in 1950. Bomb shelters showed up at the Home Show at the Oakland Expo that summer, and in dozens of real estate listings. “With the widely publicized time and date for the practice of air alerts, just when would the enemy planes plan their attacks on us?” Raff wrote. “The Mayors of ‘target cities’ of the Pacific Coast sat down here yesterday to talk about what might be done in the event of an atomic attack,” J. Campbell Bruce reported on the front page of The Chronicle. In the decade since the atomic bombs were dropped, fear of nuclear weapons and radiation grew so widespread and deep that in the mid-1950s President Eisenhower, Weart … At the same conference, a federal official criticized the city’s experts for fear-mongering. The atomic scare hit the Bay Area so hard and fast in 1950 and 1951, even the upscale shopping district of Union Square felt the impact. The fire department reported they would “work toward the center of the blast from all sides, extinguishing any fires as they went.”. If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. Hartlaub and columnist Heather Knight co-created the Total SF project and event series, engaging with locals to explore and find new ways to celebrate San Francisco. Atomic bomb scare in 1950s brought the city on high alert. Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s culture critic and co-host of Total SF. Fear of the spread of communism and the Korean War caused a wave of civil defense preparation in the Bay Area that would be hard to match. It wasn’t long before fear led to new marketing opportunities. Donate or volunteer today! But that fact never makes the threats seem any less real. Earl Warren outlined a civil defense plan with a target completion date of 1953, Robinson demanded immediate results, leaning heavily on his civilian defense director, retired admiral A.G. Cook. To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser. (“This is a test …”) They’re solar powered now, run by the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management. Email: PHartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub. Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop culture critic. “And from the talk of experts, if you are attacked with atomic weapons there’s nothing much you can do, for the simple reason most people won’t be around to do anything.”. Smiling passersbys assembled under the parking garage during one of the regular 11 a.m. Friday drills. April 2, 1951: An atomic bomb shelter is on display in Union Square in San Francisco. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. He made the city’s readiness for an atomic bomb attack a priority, spouting dire warnings and criticizing other government officials for not preparing enough. When the White House publicly announced that the Soviet Union had indeed exploded their own atomic weapon (known as JOE-1) on September 23, 1949, discussions surrounding the proposal to build the superbomb immediately intensified. While California Gov. George Galvin, Admiral A.G. Cook, Mayor Elmer Robinson and Andrew Pansini set up air raid signs before a civil defense drill in San Francisco's Union Square on June 19, 1951. Read about the impact of nuclear proliferation in the 1950s, including fears of atomic bombs and increasing militarization. Holiday fire stations once lit up the city.