It has been a long time since Bert the Turtle has been a mainstream star. For many of the Baby Boomer generation, and even some Gen X-ers, who could forget the cartoon reptile wearing his silly pith helmet jumping into his shell whenever his monkey nemesis set off a firecracker? Bert was the face of “duck and cover”, once a serious effort about a very serious matter that very quickly became the object of derision and spoof.
The Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb (using stolen technology, of course) in 1949. President Truman turned to the National Security Resource Board, assigning it a portfolio of civil defense responsibilities. These were absorbed by the newly created Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) under an act which had been signed into law on January 12, 1951, one of Truman’s final.
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