Duck and Cover (1951)
0This video suits both the start of the Cold War AND National Preparedness Month!
Immediately after World War 2, 2 Superpowers emerged from the ruins of a blasted Europe. Across the sea to the West was the United States. A Capitalist nation with (mostly) free elections and government.
Meanwhile, occupying the Eastern half of Europe was the Soviet Union. A Communist nation (at least, outwardly). A single-party dictatorship that suppressed opposing speech.
The initial goodwill they had for each other, having just overcome the Nazi regime did not last long. The two nations were very alien to each other and started gathering allies, wary of invasion by the other.
In September 1947, the Soviets created Cominform, the purpose of which was to enforce orthodoxy within the international communist movement and tighten political control over Soviet satellites through coordination of communist parties in the Eastern Bloc.
By 1947, US president Harry S. Truman's advisers urged him to take immediate steps to counter the Soviet Union's influence, citing Stalin's efforts (amid post-war confusion and collapse) to undermine the US by encouraging rivalries among capitalists that could precipitate another war. In February 1947, the British government announced that it could no longer afford to finance the Greek monarchical military regime in its civil war against communist-led insurgents.
The American government's response to this announcement was the adoption of containment, the goal of which was to stop the spread of communism. Truman delivered a speech that called for the allocation of $400 million to intervene in the war and unveiled the Truman Doctrine, which framed the conflict as a contest between free peoples and totalitarian regimes.
Duck and Cover
by Federal Civil Defense Administration
Published 1951
Usage Public Domain
Topics FedFlix, ntis.gov
Federal Civil Defense Administration
Duck and Cover (Wikipedia)
NTIS AVA11109VNB1
From the Wikipedia:
Duck and Cover was a social guidance film produced in 1951 by the United States federal government's Civil Defense branch shortly after the Soviet Union began nuclear testing. Written by Raymond J. Mauer and directed by Anthony Rizzo of Archer Productions and made with the help of schoolchildren from New York City and Astoria, New York, it was shown in schools as the cornerstone of the government's "duck and cover" public awareness campaign. The movie states that nuclear war could happen at any time without warning, and U.S. citizens should keep this constantly in mind and be ever ready.