Introduction To RADEF Exercise (1964)

[Music] [Music] [Music] I knew who it was the Cold War was getting hotter again so it had to be John Watson our civil defense director my first thought was of all times to activate the Emergency Operations Center Saturday morning I was a little annoyed I knew everyone in town felt this crisis was not another Cuba it was business as usual like 65 when they started to bomb North Vietnam even though I'm the local rap officer I followed the Cold War like everybody else interested but not openly worried about it the headlines were black so often that after a while you deliberately ignore them well maybe for me that wasn't quite true I was a high school physics teacher and I suppose my interest in world affairs was more than average that could be the reason I found myself saying yes to Watson when he asked me if I'd take some training and become the civil defense R def officer but on my weekend with my game sharper than it had been for weeks activating my rap staff didn't appeal to me there was quite an international squabble going on all right shooting incidents the usual threats and counter threats it was the old pattern and it did seem that the whole thing was getting more complicated but I was almost tempted to tell Watson that I'd finished the game before calling my staff to the EOC the international situation just didn't look that bad alerting my staff was no problem the way the system had been set up each staff member had his own telephone alerting diagram card and each call I made set up a chain reaction it worked so well that when I arrived at the EOC I was one of the last of the Rev staff to report Watson filled me in on what was being done locally to increase our Readiness for an emergency but he had no more news than what was in the evening paper the National Security Council was still meeting at the White House after A hurried call from the president I set the men to work and grabbed five minutes to call my wife and tell her where I was at the time I said I'd be home later that night probably after we all caught the late news broadcast Marge tried to sound calm but her voice gave her away listening to her my thoughts went back over the last few years of our life since I'd become involved in civil defense our family had slipped into the habit of preparing for the worst as sort of like learning to buckle your seat belt all the time I remembered how we had stocked up on some food and kept track of all the things we might need fortunately a good Community fallout shelter was just down the street from our apartment and I remembered how Marge had started keeping blankets and certain Essentials in a handy place to take to the shelter if they had to go like Bobby's medicine but we never labeled anything or put stuff in a box or anything like that we didn't even really talk about it because you always think that's playing the game a little too seriously it was a good feeling that Marge would know what to do without me and that she and Bobby had a safe place to go just in case I called a short meeting of the rap staff and we discussed whether we were going to activate our Fallout monitoring stations and our fallout shelter mon monitors but we decided we'd postpone that step I said we'd plot a few Fallout predictions for practice and then go home for [Music] dinner it's strange I remember thinking about the golf game Fred and I were three up on them when I had to leave we never came that close to beating them before either we interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin the White House has just announced that it has received reports of a major strategic nuclear blast Somewhere over the central European area fragmentary information arriving in Washington indicates severe damage the president now in meeting with the National Security Council has asked the American people to remain calm and follow the instructions of local government officials the nuclear blast occurred after almost AEK it's funny I just I didn't think would start this way not this way I don't know how I thought I just never believed it would come at [Music] all