Eisenhower

In a speech during his first year in office, President Eisenhower declared that an effective civil defense program required sober training and selfdiscipline. In the final analysis, the American response to a nuclear attack depended on a moral regime to which the American people would subject themselves. 1 The main training site where civil defense discipline would be cultivated was the home.
The decisive role assigned to the household in Cold War national security planning was a consequence of the fundamental premise of civil defense: In World War III, the American people would be responsible for protecting themselves. Because the federal government had ruled out a publicly financed program of civil defense, survival would largely be a do-it-yourself enterprise. The state would provide a central organization, a national pla...