Spring 1982: Reagan Administration Proposes Massive Civil Defense Program, Says Nuclear War ‘Manageable’

The Reagan administration asks Congress for $4.3 billion for what the 1980 GOP campaign platform called a “civil defense which would protect the American people against nuclear war at least as well as the Soviet population is protected.” The funding request is for a program, based on the platform plank, that the administration says will protect 80 percent of Americans in case of a massive Soviet nuclear strike. President Reagan’s chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Louis Giuffrida, says of nuclear war, “It would be a terrible mess, but it wouldn’t be unmanageable.” FEMA’s head of civil defense, William Chipman, says that most civilians would not only survive a nuclear onslaught, but would rebuild society in short order: “As I say, the ants eventually build another anthill.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 130]