Survival Under Atomic Attack ‘51: Nuclear Threats & Fallout

Survival Under Atomic Attack is a 1951 Civil Defense film which focuses on what the average American can do to protect himself if caught out in the open or at home during a nuclear attack. Narrated by the magnificent journalist Edward R. Murrow, the film shows clips of actual nuclear bomb tests interspersed with dramatizations of citizens huddling in gutters, houses, and fallout shelters. Murrow advises the audience that the worst thing to do after an attack is to flee the area, saying that the enemy would love for our factories, offices, and homes to be empty and unproductive. Instead, he suggests, people should take cover for a short time and then continue working and producing. The dangers of nuclear fallout are not discussed and Murrow even cites Japan as an example for both how dangerous nuclear bombs can be (if they’d known how to take cover, lives could have been saved), and how benign fallout is (Murrow says that most Japanese survivors did not suffer from radiation sickness). Through editing, many different scenes of interest are shown including an air-raid alert, bomb blasts, and a typical American family preparing for an attack. Engrossing for its use of powerful historical footage and for its blatantly false optimism about the effect of nuclear war, Survival Under Atomic Attack is a powerful civil defense film that will amaze viewers. Cold War propaganda is one of the most insidious types of propaganda, and it's at a fever pitch in this film.