“Oh my,” thought the little piglet, “what will become of us all?” -Patty the Atomic Pig (1951)


The public, post 1945, were very aware of the irrefutable damage nuclear weapons could cause, and a culture of fear surrounded the weapons.  This culture of fear came in the form of personal stories; when will the world end? Stories are central to an understanding of the impact the advent nuclear weapons had on society. When President Harry Truman introduced the bomb to the American public, he told a story about atomic energy--that it was the “basic power of the universe,” the source of the sun’s energy, and that this fundamental key to the limitless power hidden in the natural world was specifically given to his country by “God.” As mentioned previously, these “stories” are central to understanding of the impact of nuclear weapons and the affect they had on society.  “From the very start of the atomic age, nuclear narratives spilled over into the fantastic: atomic power might lead to an age of limitless energy and abundance, making physical labor unnecessary; it might make war obsolete; it might fill the natural world with unnatural genetic mutants; it might lead to horrifying destruction and the end of the world, and the flash of a bomb might be the last thing you and most other people on the earth would ever see.”   

The public was in great fear of nuclear weapons and the ultimate destruction they could cause. Underground bomb shelters were being built with the intention of keeping communists and nuclear weapons at bay. The construction of bomb shelters became a daily activity for most Americans during the late fifties and early sixties.  A fallout shelter is a civil defense measure intended to reduce casualties in a nuclear war.  Basically, they are designed to allow those inside it to avoid exposure to harmful fallout from a nuclear blast and its likely aftermath of radiation until radioactivity has dropped to a safer level.  Nuclear weapons, especially after the war were seen in a paradoxical light; they are used for our “protection”, but also are able to cause disaster with a single button.  There of course have been various public awareness advertisements and broadcasts throughout the ages, intended to inform the public about what to do in case of a nuclear attack.  A notable one from 1951 is called “Duck and Cover” or “Bert the Turtle Civil Defense Film.”  This 9 minute film was periodically shown in schools as the cornerstone of the government’s “duck and cover” public awareness campaign.  “According to the United States Library of Congress (which declared the film “historically significant” and inducted it for preservation into the National Film Registry in 2004.) it ‘was seen by millions of schoolchildren in the 1950s.”  Another infamous example of Atomic Bomb awareness to the American public was the Lyndon Johnson political campaign ad in 1964. Albeit only being aired once, it was considered a very important factor in Johnson's landslide victory over Barry Goldwater.  It can be viewed directly below.  As you can see, the ad itself drew attention and remains to be one of the most controversial political advertisements ever made.  The American public tried to understand what it really meant to enter the nuclear age, and the reality was clear with these advertisements and the building of bomb shelters.  

Movies and musical influences on popular culture have always remained strong throughout the nuclear age. Nuclear radiation developed in to a cultural icon on which several major Hollywood films are based.  The Incredible Shrinking Man! is a perfect example of how much nuclear weapons infiltrated the American public’s minds.  The film was released in 1957 as public concern over radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests increased.  In The Incredible Shrinking Man!  a radioactive cloud device from a nuclear weapons test is the twist in the plot that affects an ordinary man as he becomes contaminated with “atomic dust” one day while boating with friends.  He gradually begins to shrink at a rapid rate until he is so small he is able to fit through the screen and ends the movie with the infamous line “I guess it’s all relative,” as he looks up to the night sky and stars, realizing how small and insignificant man really is on this planet, when nuclear weapons come into play.  In relation to more modern times, there have been dozens of films released such as the James Bond spy thriller, Goldeneye in 1995.  With this particular Bond movie, he is trying to prevent an arms syndicate from using the Goldeneye satellite weapon against London in order to cause  a global financial meltdown.  Yet another film portraying nuclear weapons, "The Sum of all Fears",   


This film depicts how Hollywood became infiltrated with the fear of atomic weaponry throughout the nuclear age. Radiation embodies some of the most paradoxical iconography of the early Cold War and continues well into the 1970s. Of course, we must not forget the British-American black comedy, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb directed, produced and written by Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick began writing the script with little idea of a plot, but he focused  mainly on the “what if” scenario of a nuclear thriller based on the ideas of the “balance of terror” between the major nuclear powers of the Soviet Union and the United States.  This film truly satirizes the nuclear scare and incorporates a slew of famous actors and actresses of the time including Peter Sellers, (The Pink Panther, Lolita) and George C. Scott (Patton, A Christmas Carol.)   These hilarious actors formed a combination of nuclear nonsense and dry wit culminating the epoch of the nuclear scare.  


Since the debut of nuclear weapons, there have been numerous songs pertaining to the topic of nuclear weapons that have permeated throughout the ages.  During the rebellious decade of the 1960s, numerous songs were written and recorded to include the nonproliferation movement.  Singers and songwriters work, especially during the nuclear age reflect the times.  An example of this is a small clip from Bob Dylan’s famous song, “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall”, which debuted shortly before the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963. Another famous bomb ballad is “99 Luftballons”, premiering in 1983 by the German group Nena, which is about an accidental nuclear war that began due to balloons with enemy missiles and bombers.

This is the first image that pops up on Google Image search for “nuclear weapons.” What can this tell us about the portrayal of the atomic and the concept of “doomsday?”  The majority of the these images are rather terrifying and visually explosive, (pun intended) with intent to scare. Pictures tell us a thousand words, and images of nuclear weapons throughout the times show us how terrifying the nuclear age was.  Images of nuclear weapons evoke strong feelings of fear and uncertainty, which has led to the molding of a distinct popular culture  around these weapons and reactionary political repression.  



Since their worldwide debut in 1945, nuclear weapons have infiltrated popular culture via album covers, nuclear ballads, and classic Hollywood films. Since this introduction, the primary nuclear narrative functions as a signifier of social and cultural transformation.    The lyrically talented Bob Dylan famously composed the song, “A Hard Rains Gonna Fall” a song influenced by the Cuban Missile Crisis which eventually morphed into a protest song throughout the 1960s and beyond.  In addition to Dylan, films surrounding nuclear weapons have become extremely popular, including the infamous “Dr. Strangelove.”  This film is a dark and deceiving parody based on the nuclear scare of the sixties.  This film, among others, showcases the terror of nuclear weapons within popular culture.   




From the end of WWII until the early 1990s, our world faced a period of heightened international tension and competition, called the Cold War. The United States and the Soviets of the former USSR were competitively developing dangerous nuclear weapons and flexing their newfound nuclear muscles extending throughout the world. In 

1945, when the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a new world order had formed.  We were now aware of how dangerous life could become by just pushing a single button. This “push-button war” became a very real and scary threat to humankind. The Cold War was a period of history profoundly shaped by a physical object--the bomb--that very few people had actually ever laid eyes on.  What gave the American public and beyond nightmares of nuclear explosions or guided them to quickly build fall-out shelters, or to throw money at the arms race were stories about the bomb. These stories were told in articles by experts who predicted doomsday by the advent of nuclear weapons. These stories have surpassed generations and infiltrated within the daily lives of most Americans living in the 1950s and sixties.  



During the atmospheric testing era, from 1945 to 1963, the United States detonated 317 nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, including 207 in Nevada, with a peak of more than 80 between Nevada and the Pacific testing site in 1962.  As the frequency of nuclear weapon testing increased, so too did public awareness of radiation and fallout.  Nuclear weapon advertisements, along with scattered news reports, reminded Americans that the world they lived in was increasingly radioactive.  American celebrated the end of the defeat of the Japanese and the Axis Powers but post Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the constant frightful awareness of nuclear weapons was evident. If you took a walk down your familiar streets in anytown, USA after the two bombs were dropped, fear was every where. 




With the successful Soviet nuclear bomb test and the initiation of the Korean war, the already heightened state of fear was coupled with fears of nuclear fallout that would come from the other side of the world, in the Soviet Union.  News outlets tended to exploit these fears of the American public with the arrival of McCarthyism, which is political repression based on fears of communism that lead to the widespread practice of baselessly accusing citizens of disloyalty, subversion or treason initiated by the anti-communist agenda of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.    




By the early 1950s, McCarthyism swept the nation. Everyone was afraid of each other and accusations of Communism abound. Seemingly innocent neighbors could be thrown in prison for the mere suspicion that they might be a communist.  This widespread witch hunt gradually become known as the Second Red Scare and lasted well in the early 1960s.   Americans feared that the Russians were harboring nuclear weapons with intent to destroy America and above all, they were destined to turn the entire world to communism and that American citizens were becoming loyal to this Soviet agenda.