For an entire generation of Americans, the Cold War is a history lesson rather than personal memory. Basement fallout shelters were standard features of some new home developments, and cocktail party conversations often revolved around the latest front-page stories about atrocities committed by the “Reds” and the “Commies” in China and the Soviet Union. For Americans who still had fresh memories of Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch hunts and the executions of “atomic spies” Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the news that the Russians had successfully placed the first artificial satellite, named Sputnik, in orbit on October 4, 1957, only seemed to confirm that the United States was losing the political and scientific battles for the hearts and minds of the world.
"[I]n those days ... we didn't believe [the Soviet Union] could build a refrigerator. And we were very stunned that they had done this," recalls space journalist Jay Barbee.
Caption: Fallout shelters were no joke in the 1950s, and Civil Defense pamphlets detailed how to stock them with food, water, and lanterns. National Archives, ca. 1957.
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