This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

Recognize the possibilities of nuclear war in the middle age.

Without our citizens knowing what they should do and where they should go,

if bombs begin to fall, it would be a failure of responsibility.

And that of course is President John F. Kennedy speaking on July 25, 1961 during the Berlin crisis.

One of the various moments in the Cold War where we came very, very close to engaging in actual war

with the Soviets. Tomorrow I am requesting of the Congress new funds for the following immediate

objectives. To identify and mark space in existing structures, public and private.

They could be used for fallout shelters in case of attack. To stock those shelters with food,

water, first aid kits and other minimum essentials for our survival.

Basically what Kennedy is saying here is it's a real possibility that bombs are going to start

falling and we need to figure out where you can all go to take shelter if they do.

That's producer Katie Mingle. And after Kennedy made this horrifying speech, as you can imagine,

the phones started ringing. Immediately the Kennedy administration was besieged by people

wanting more information on fallout shelters. I'm Kenneth D. Rose. I wrote one nation underground

the fallout shelter in American culture. You know, businesses that had previously been making

swimming pools now declare themselves to be experts at building shelters.

They were door to door bomb shelter salesmen. Shelter displays at malls and county fairs.

But by the time Kennedy made that 1961 speech, there was one place that had already broken ground

on a unique shelter. Artesian New Mexico population 11,000 is about 40 miles south of Roswell

in the southern part of the state near Texas. And in 1962 they opened a brand new elementary school

completely underground equipped with a morgue, decontamination showers, and a stockpile of food and

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