cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/16751749
The Householder’s Handbook explained how to prepare a home for nuclear attack: Whitewash the house, tape windows and create a safe core in one of the rooms. It listed medicines, food, and supplies needed and explained what to do if there was a nuclear attack. Householders would be able to occupy themselves and their families in preparing for the worst.
Even before the 80’s version, Protect and Survive and the CND peace movement’s riposte – Protest and Survive, the handbook seemed remarkably naïve. A 20-megaton bomb detonated 500 feet above St Paul’s Cathedral in central London would have created a blast wave destroying or damaging buildings for up to 17 kilometres and deliver a lethal dose of radiation for nearly five kilometres.
It is funny because they assumed that both you, and policemen, and firefighters and everyone else would all be alive after a nuke.
As the UK National Archives comment under it. “[it] seemed remarkably naive”. And it was. Guess they were focusing more on trying not to freak people out.
Not publishing leaflets about nuclear attacks would freak me out less!
I think it’s more about giving people who were already scared an illusion of safety and control. But that’s just my opinion.