Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

1960s. Nuclear fallout

Editorials in the 1960s reflected the constant threat of nuclear war. Here are excerpts from two, from near the beginning and near the end of the decade:

"After years of indecision in Washington, the Kennedy administration has made the crucial decision to support an active and extensive fallout shelter program costing 700 million dollars for the next fiscal year . . .

"As long as nations of the world remain squared off in a balance of terror, the law of survival requires that man take whatever protective measures are possible and feasible.

". . . the Kennedy program blends federal support and guidance with local implementation, urgency with deliberation and bold action with moderation. It represents a sensible start toward minimum protection against a war which nobody wants but which could happen."

-- Journal editorial, Dec. 23, 1961

"It did not take the Vietnam conflict to pose the threat to all living things on our planet. The threat has been there ever since the first nuclear explosion at Los Alamos. Perhaps it has been more than just luck that the capability for wiping out mankind has remained leashed for the last 22 years. But the threat increases, and governments lag far behind technology in achieving control over the risks of nuclear war . . .

"Alexander Pope's dictum that 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing' has been magnified many times over. For man, in plunging ahead with all his new technological inventions, is acting upon 'dangerously incomplete knowledge . . .

"Men still grope almost blindly for the formulas, the techniques, the restraints that would remove the overwhelming threat of the final war. Against it, we have only the hope that the efforts of scientists will provide what Margaret Mead has called 'a new social invention.' That is the defining of issues and providing of information that enables citizens to weigh the benefits and hazards of new technology. To this theme . . . we can only say, 'Amen.' "

-- Journal editorial, Jan. 10, 1968