After securing $207 million in funding, the federal government started surveying schools and other public buildings to determine their suitability as potential bunkers.

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. 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. While Khrushchev had directed his comments at Dwight D. 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.”įour years later, in 1961, the threat of nuclear war loomed large over the U.S. In November 1957, Soviet Communist Party chief Nikita Khrushchev bragged to an American reporter about the effectiveness of his country’s long-range missiles.

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