Expanding our nuclear capacity, bomb shelters and fear

Years ago, I was exploring a City Hall building about to undergo renovation. This was in New Britain, Conn. I was working as a newspaper reporter. Joined by the city property manager, we went to the basement and worked our way through a series of tunnels and small rooms in the circa-1850s building. In one room was a stockpile of bomb shelter supplies. It included toilet paper, drinking water in cans, and food rations, mostly high protein biscuits. It was a total time warp. We really don't think today about nuclear weapons and war the way we did in the 1960s. I was a kid back then, but clearly remember a duck-and-cover drill. In class I daydreamed about a nuclear bomb going off in the distance. The government no longer prints phamlets about radiation or technical guides for do-it-yourself bomb shelters. But those days may return. Readers of Eric Schlosser know about the real risk of nuclear near-catastrophe (See his recent World War Three, by Mistake in the New Yorker), a...