Quote 285 of 497

Some White House officials felt that release of the pamphlet would
create a public panic.  Already, shelter mania was possessing large
segments of the population, and the Administration was largely to
blame.  It was not only Kennedy's forceful advocacy of fallout
shelters that nourished the fever; it was that he did so in a speech
about the Berlin crisis and the concrete possibility of war with the
Russians by the end of the year. ...

The New York Times described incidents of people in the suburbs
constructing shelters clandestinely so that neighbors won't try to
invade the shelter in the event of nuclear attack. ...  The Reverend
L. C. McHugh, a columnist for the Catholic magazine America, assured
readers that it was ethically permissible to shoot your neighbors if
they tried to break into your fallout shelter.
		-- The Wizards of Armageddon, by Fred Kaplan, p. 312

Tags: population whitehouse fever neighbors segments columnist wizards russians reverend armageddon pamphlet nuclearattack newyorktimes catholicmagazine publicpanic berlincrisis fredkaplan falloutshelter falloutshelters forcefuladvocacy