Past Forward: A Cold War Kit for Surviving a Nuclear Attack

On 12 January 1951, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed into law the Federal Civil Defense Act, which mobilized government agencies to plan for the aftermath of a global nuclear war. As the country's civil defense plans evolved, the U.S. Post Office Department responded by designating certain post offices as fallout shelters and training personnel to monitor radiation in the event of an attack. The CD V-700 shown here was part of a kit they were trained to use. It's a low-range Geiger counter for monitoring beta and gamma radiation during cleanup and decontamination operations, as well as for detecting radioactive contamination of food, water, and personnel. The U.S. civil defense program officially ended in 1994 without ever having been activated for a nuclear threat and by which time many Americans had forgotten it existed.