Salvation and Destruction

And so the ballots for Miss Rheingold were saved!

But, in 1959, safety for the populace wasn’t assured. Indeed, even the beer was a threat, on-going open-air nuclear testing having produced fallout of strontium-90(1)

And, of course, there was the continuing Cold War confrontation with nuclear-armed Soviet Union, although the greatest danger of a nuclear holocaust was still three years in the future—the Cuban missile crisis. 

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I have been monitoring coverage in The New Yorker of the threat of nuclear destruction during the late 1950s. The magazine itself inaugurated a feature during 1959 called “These Precious Days.” 

Here is an excerpt from one of those columns:

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Here are some cartoons and other material The New Yorker published during the years from 1956 to 1959. The excerpts below range from the fatuous to whistling past the graveyard. 

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And lest we think that 65 years later we are no longer dwelling under the volcano, there’s this cartoon by Barbara Smaller, published just 3 weeks ago:

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(1) Strontium-90 can be inhaled, but ingestion in food and water is the greatest health concern. Once in the body, Sr-90 acts like calcium and is readily incorporated into bones and teeth, where it can cause cancers of the bone, bone marrow, and soft tissues around the bone.

https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclide-basics-strontium-90