Atomic Artifacts
7/3/202641 min
Back in the 1950s, facing the threat of nuclear annihilation, federal officials sat down and pondered what American life would actually look like after an atomic attack. They faced a slew of practical questions like: Who would count the dead and where would they build the refugee camps? But they faced a more spiritual question as well. If Washington DC were hit, every object in the the National Archives would be eviscerated in a moment. Terrified by this reality, they set out to save some of America’s most precious stuff. Today, we look back at the items our Cold War era planners sought to save and we ask the question: what objects would we preserve now?
We first released this episode back in 2020, but with our big fourth of July – 250 years! – just around the corner, we thought it was a strange but profound reflection on what this whole America thing that we’re celebrating… actually is.
Special thanks to Luke Manon, Ben Irving, Bill Pretzer, Jason Spier, and Garrett Graff for all his reporting that made this episode possible.
LATERAL CUTS -
The Cataclysm Sentence (https://radiolab.org/podcast/cataclysm-sentence)
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Simon Adler
with help from - Tad Davis
Produced by - Simon Adler
Original music and sound design contributed by - SIMON ADLER
and Edited by - Pat Walters
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsLulu Miller· Host0:00
[intro music] Radiolab is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Here's a helpful fact that you might not know yet: drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over nine hundred dollars on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, ninety-nine percent of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average twelve-month savings of nine hundred and forty-six dollars by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary. So a few years back, I woke up in the middle of the night to my wife saying, "Lulu, get out. Fire. Fire." And I looked through the window, and in front of me was just a blaze of orange. The apartment building one over from us was on fire, and I had that moment. What do you take? I grabbed my kid, my computer, and this journal I was making of my kid's, like, footprints and photos and stuff, and that was it. I didn't even get my wallet. I didn't even put on my shoes, and now I know that's what I would take. Luckily, in my story, nobody was hurt, but the episode we're about to play for you is about this question of what to take if something much, much more destructive were headed our way. Figuring that out was a real project that the most powerful people in our country were grappling with, but it's a project you probably have never heard about before because