Virgil Couch managed the survival of American industry after an atomic strike
For two decades, the man known as 'Mr. Civil Defense' calculated which factories and food supplies would endure the fallout of a nuclear exchange.
By Roy Castellano ·
Civil Defense
US Civil Defense files leave nuclear fallout and plutonium injections unprocessed
Families exposed to radiation and victims of plutonium injections remain footnotes in a massive, unsorted collection of government records.
By Eleanor Voss ·
1 Pacific Island Erased in First Hydrogen Bomb Detonation
Plastic figures were charred and typical American homes ruined to dramatize urban atomic blasts, while an entire Pacific island was completely destroyed during Operation IVY.
By Eleanor Voss ·
Atomic Energy Commission Injected Humans With Plutonium in Secret
Dead infants were used to measure strontium-90 while humans were injected with plutonium, secrets that stayed hidden until a 1974 investigation into the state's nuclear experiments.
By Roy Castellano ·
Harry Truman shifted atomic bomb control to civilians in 1946
Biological hazards and cancer risks remained hidden behind a public face of peacetime development while agency leaders planned emergency relocations with Strategic Air Command.
By Roy Castellano ·