Emerging from the shockwave of a Russian hydrogen bomb detonation in 1953, American civil defense agencies conducted three elaborate nationwide drills testing American preparedness for the inevitable communist strike: “Operation Wake-Up” the same year, “Operation Scamper” the next, and 1956’s “Operation Alert.” The H-Bomb’s significantly larger blast and fallout – covering several hundred miles – required the coordinated evacuation of all major US cities with rapid cross-country military deployment. These mock nuclear attacks served as a report card, and our country’s inadequate patchwork of outdated highways, unpaved roads, dangerous tunnels, and narrow bridges failed miserably.
America’s national defense required a distinctively Cold War solution: the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.
So, buckle up in your ‘56 Chevy Bel Air (yes, I checked, it really had seat belts).
Ideas for a federally funded, highway plan had been debated in Washington for five decades, but the National Interstate and Defense Highway System is vintage Ike. Eisenhower’s attention to domestic needs coupled with foreign policy strength guided his crisis management. Time and again the Republican president deftly reconciled American’s postwar feelings of promise and fear. Similar to his National Defense Education Act that funded major improvements for teaching math and science after Sputnik, Eisenhower’s highways answered the pervasive nuclear threat by investing in American infrastructure.
The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 authorized the construction of this comprehensive 41,000-mile system with modernized bridges and tunnels. Built in phases over 13-years, the $31 billion project is the largest public works program in American history, nearly as expensive as Roosevelt’s entire New Deal. Despite the hefty price tag, budget-conscious civilians embraced the potential economic benefits: commerce, tourism, and traffic safety. Cold warriors understood the military value. Clearly, General Eisenhower’s own WWII experiences moving allied troops and supplies on Germany’s autobahn shaped his thinking.
To honor Eisenhower’s home state, the first section in the nation was an 8-mile stretch of Interstate 70 west of Topeka, Kansas completed in November 1956. In fact, in the first 3-year phase, three routes were constructed in Ike’s Kansas. At the Pentagon’s recommendation, many Army posts, especially where division-level units are garrisoned, are located near interstate highways including the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas, just down I-70 from Topeka, and the 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss, near I-10 in Texas.
To avoid mass confusion and overcrowded evacuation routes, the Federal Civil Defense Administration initially maintained road signs instructing drivers of what to do “In The Event of Enemy Attack.”
At regular five-mile intervals there was a one-mile straightaway designated for American warplanes needing to make emergency landings on pavement. But to be fair, this may be a bit of Cold War folklore as there is little evidence in the historical record to support such a design or regulation.
Although the words “Defense” and “Eisenhower” eventually disappeared from roadside signage, the interstate got Americans to the suburbs, a defining feature of the era.
Eighteen million Americans moved to suburbia during the 1950s, more people than came through Ellis Island. Drawn by the American Dream of home ownership and the delayed promise of the good life, others left cities threatened with nuclear destruction, for the safety of what civil defense experts promoted as “defense-through-decentralization.”
Either way, we’re a thoroughly suburban-oriented nation now. Ike’s highways kind of did that.
