In November 1957, Soviet Communist Party chief Nikita Khrushchev bragged to an American reporter about the effectiveness of his country’s long-range missiles. Issuing a taunting challenge to the United States government, he said, “Let’s have a peaceful rocket contest, just like a rifle-shooting match, and they’ll see for themselves.”
Four years later, in 1961, the threat of nuclear war loomed large over the U.S. While Khrushchev had directed his comments at Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration, the question of how to handle America’s increasingly contentious relationship with the Soviets was now in the hands of newly elected president John F. Kennedy.
That May, Nelson Rockefeller, then-chair of the Civil Defense Committee of the Conference of Governors, encouraged Kennedy to initiate a national fallout shelter program. After securing $207 million in funding, the federal government started surveying schools and other public buildings to determine their suitability as potential bunkers. Once identified, these shelters were marked as such and stocked with supplies.
