7 Of The Creepiest Cold War Fallout Shelters
Fallout Shelter Basics: September 1959 Popular Science archivesSteuart Pittman, head of the U.S. fallout shelter program, died earlier this month at age 93. As a reminder of just how frightening the Cold War was, check out these old family-style bunkers from the pages of Popular Science. President John F. Kennedy appointed America's first civil defense chief for nuclear war preparedness in 1961, during the height of the Berlin Crisis. Steuart Pittman, a lawyer, was tasked with building enough fallout shelters to protect everyone in the U.S. in the event of an atomic attack. Three years later, Pittman resigned the position--which he described as one of the most "unappetizing, unappealing and unpopular" jobs ever created--after bitter debates over the ethics, feasibility, and cost of the program. As the New York Times reports, he died earlier this month at his family farm in Davidsonville, Md., at the age of 93. The era of...