The period from 1954 to 1961 — from the Bravo H-bomb test to the time when civil defense received its highest support from government — was one of two well-known peak periods of anti-civil defense protest. The dissenting protesters of the late 1950s won the day; springing from marginal status to mainstream importance they had achieved a decisive and rapid victory by 1962. This chapter describes the first stage of that growing protest, from the Bravo test to the major expansion of the antinuclear movement in 1957. That increase was enormously strengthened by the national civil defense drills Operation Alert, the federally sponsored annual nuclear air raid drills held in the major cities of the United States from 1955 to 1961. The existence of Operation Alert fired the peace movement into action, and the public reaction to Operation Alert convinced many top federal officials that the annual bomb drill posed an intolerable threat to nuclear strategy.
Keywords: Bravo, H-bomb, protests, civil defense, Operation Alert, peace movement