Q: During the course of Truman's administration a large number of civil
defense films were produced. What were the American people being told about
how to protect themselves?
LM: Right. Well before the propaganda was produced, some of the initial
problems were, do we have American citizens help themselves, protect
themselves, or does the federal government step in and provide this kind of
protection?...So the debate about Federal assistance or self-help, as they
called it, continued throughout the 1950s, and what the Truman administration
basically did was put formally in place a policy of self-help. Without money
for sheltering, without being able to work out logistically what people could
do and how the federal government could shelter all those people, they settled
on a policy of self-help and that instructed people to duck and cover,
stockpile supplies, food, sanitation materials, to build basement shelters or
backyard shelters. To take, in other words, the Truman administration told
families that they were responsible for helping themselves, that the federal
government could not provide the kind of assistance that people might be
looking for. And that really, the Truman effort was really a public relations
campaign selling this concept of self-help. And it was only mildly successful.
It was, it was quite an impressive public relations campaign, but the question
was, who was listening?
back to Interview Transcripts
|
PBS Terms of Use Privacy Policy
Pledge Your Support
Stories to Go