“How You Can Survive Fallout”: Life Magazine Cover and Letter from President John F. Kennedy (1961)

The normalcy people craved after two world wars proved elusive amid the pervasive climate of cold war. Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were especially high in the early years of John F. Kennedy’s presidency. In the spring of 1961, he approved an ill-fated invasion of communist Cuba and several months later, the Soviets began construction of what would become the Berlin Wall. The possibility that these provocations could spark nuclear war between the two superpowers was an ever-present reality. It was in this setting that the popular magazine Life devoted its weekly photographic essay to the topic of how to survive a nuclear attack. The magazine’s coverage included detailed, do-it-yourself style instructions on how to build various kinds of fallout shelters both inside and outside of the home. President Kennedy introduced the essay with a letter to the American people urging them to be prepared by following the advice in the ensuing pages. With more than twenty-eight million adult readers, Life was a fixture in American culture at the time, thereby ensuring that Kennedy’s message would circulate widely.

From John F. Kennedy, “A Message to You from the President,” Life, September 15, 1961, 95.

The White House

September 7, 1961

My Fellow Americans:

Nuclear weapons and the possibility of nuclear war are facts of life we cannot ignore today. I do not believe that war can solve any of the problems facing the world today. But the decision is not ours alone.

The government is moving to improve the protection afforded you in your communities through civil defense. We have begun, and will be continuing throughout the next year and a half, a survey of all public buildings with fallout shelter potential, and the marking of those with adequate shelter for 50 persons or more. We are providing fallout shelter in new and in some existing federal buildings. We are stocking these shelters with one week’s food and medical supplies and two weeks’ water supply for the shelter occupants. In addition, I have recommended to the Congress the establishment of food reserves in centers around the country where they might be needed following an attack. Finally, we are developing improved warning systems which will make it possible to sound attack warning on buzzers right in your homes and places of business.

More comprehensive measures than these lie ahead, but they cannot be brought to completion in the immediate future. In the meantime there is much that you can do to protect yourself—and in doing so strengthen your nation.

I urge you to read and consider seriously the contents of this issue of LIFE. The security of our country and the peace of the world are the objectives of our policy. But in these dangerous days when both these objectives are threatened we must prepare for all eventualities. The ability to survive coupled with the will to do so therefore are essential to our country.

John F. Kennedy

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