Radiating Emergency

This essay argues that the development of CONELRAD marked a pivotal—and often overlooked—moment in the history of media and communications in the United States. As the nation's first coast-to-coast emergency broadcast system, CONELRAD established a new paradigm of networked communications for a new world order. Through close critical examination of the institutional events and discursive controversies surrounding CONELRAD's development, I show how those events and controversies were inflected by both contemporaneous atomic anxieties and older hopes and fears associated with over-the-air communications. I also suggest how they articulated, in the domain of electronic mass media, the politico-legal theory and practice of the state of exception. Notes 1. Ed Nanas, “Wanted: An Electronic Paul Revere,” Popular Electronics, February 1963, 41. 2. Harry S. Truman, “Providing for Emergency Control Over Certain Government and Non-Government Stations Engaged in Radio Communication or Radio Transmission of Energy,” Executive Order no. 10312 (December 10, 1951). 3. The principle that broadcasting should serve “the public interest, convenience and necessity” was enshrined in the Radio Act of 1927 and, subsequently, in the Communications Act of 1934. 4. See, for example, Erik Barnouw, The Golden Web: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, Volume II—1933 to 1953 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968); and The Image Empire: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, Volume III—from 1953 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970; Susan J. Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004); Douglas Gomery, A History of Broadcasting in the United States (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008); Michele Hilmes, Only Connect: A Cultural History of Broadcasting in the United States, 2nd ed. (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007); and Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922–1952 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). 5. Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception, trans. Kevin Attell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 31. 6. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, Hearings, February 21–22, 1951 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1951), 2. 7. A closed committee hearing was held a month earlier, on January 24, 1951. 8. An Act to Provide for the Regulation of Interstate and Foreign Communication by Wire or Radio, and for Other Purposes, Public Law 416, 73rd Congress, June 19, 1934. The definition of radio communication appears in section 3(b). 9. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 8. 10. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 11. 11. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 10. 12. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 9. 13. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 11. 14. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 9–10. 15. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 16. 16. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 27. 17. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices. 18. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 29. 19. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 64. 20. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 70. 21. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 64. 22. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices. 23. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 75–6. 24. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 66, 69, 65. 25. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 67. 26. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 68. 27. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices. 28. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 69. 29. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices. 30. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 70. 31. US Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Emergency Control of Electromagnetic Radiating Devices, 69. 32. For more on the broadcasting industry's response to the Electromagnetic Radiation Control Act, see Nancy E. Bernhard, US Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 101–4. 33. For more on the broadcasting industry's response to the Electromagnetic Radiation Control Act, see Nancy E. Bernhard, US Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 80. 34. For more on the broadcasting industry's response to the Electromagnetic Radiation Control Act, see Nancy E. Bernhard, US Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 86. 35. For more on the broadcasting industry's response to the Electromagnetic Radiation Control Act, see Nancy E. Bernhard, US Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 81. 36. For more on the broadcasting industry's response to the Electromagnetic Radiation Control Act, see Nancy E. Bernhard, US Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 85. 37. US House of Representatives, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Amend Section 606(c) of Communications Act of 1934 (Electromagnetic Radiations), Hearing, August 22, 1951 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1951). 38. An Act to Further Amend the Communications Act of 1934, Public Law 200, 82nd Congress, October 24, 1951. See also Mark Becker, “War Powers of the President: Section 706 of the Communications Act of 1934,” in The Communications Act: A Legislative History of the Major Amendments, 1934–1996, ed. Max D. Paglin (Silver Spring, MD: Pike & Fischer, 1999), 383–9. 39. Susan J. Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899–1922 (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1987), xxvii–xxviii. 40. Catherine L. Covert, “‘We May Hear Too Much’: American Sensibility and the Response to Radio, 1919–1924,” in Mass Media Between the Wars: Perceptions of Cultural Tension, 1918–1941, ed. Catherine L. Covert and John D. Stevens (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1984), 203. 41. John Durham Peters, Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 207. 42. John Durham Peters, Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 206. 43. John Durham Peters, Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 206–7. 44. Paul Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 78. 45. Paul Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 207. 46. Paul Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 204. 47. Paul Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 90. 48. On the topic of radium rays and etheric substance, see Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). On the topic of radio waves and etheric substance, see Joe Milutis, Ether: The Nothing That Connects Everything (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006); Peters, Speaking into the Air; and Jeffrey Sconce, Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000). 49. For press coverage of CONELRAD's public announcement, see Harold B. Hinton, “New Radio Plan for Foiling Raiders Keeps Stations on Air in an Attack,” New York Times, December 3, 1952, 1 +; and “Radio to Keep on Operating During Raids,” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1952, 28. 50. Federal Communications Commission, Approved Plan for the Control of Electromagnetic Radiation (CONELRAD) Pursuant to Executive Order No. 10312, November 19, 1952. See also Larry G. Burkum, “‘This Is a Test’: The Evolution of the Emergency Broadcast System,” Journal of Radio Studies 2 (1993/1994): 141–50; and Peter E. Hunn, “CONELRAD: Emergency Warning System,” in Encyclopedia of Radio, Vol. 1, A–E, ed. Christopher H. Sterling (New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004), 376–8. 51. An AM radio station had the choice to participate or not. Per the broadcasting industry's request, compliance with CONELRAD was voluntary, not compulsory. 52. “Radio Test Slated to Foil Bombers,” New York Times, September 13, 1953, 3. 53. Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 276. 54. Barnouw, The Golden Web, 156. 55. On the topic of wireless and maritime disasters, see Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 216–39; and Paul Heyer, Titanic Legacy: Disaster as Media Event and Myth (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995). 56. Lyombe Eko and Joanne Gula, “Emergencies, Radio's Role in,” in Encyclopedia of Radio, Vol. 1, A–E, ed. Christopher H. Sterling (New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004), 546. 57. Office of Civil Defense Planning, Civil Defense for National Security (Washington, DC: GPO, 1948). Beyond questions of ideology, Civil Defense for National Security anticipated CONELRAD in its advocacy of a “key station” scheme of organization for emergency broadcasting. 58. Guy Oakes, The Imaginary War: Civil Defense and American Cold War Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 37. 59. Office of Civil Defense Planning, Civil Defense for National Security, 108. Two years later, the National Security Resources Board, in United States Civil Defense (Washington, DC: GPO, 1950), also known as the Blue Book, made the same claim: “The nerve system of civil defense is communications” (85). 60. It is worth recalling that Senator Magnuson, too, invoked this metaphor when he remarked that Senate Bill 537 would give the president the ability to “paralyze the country by an order” (emphasis added). 61. Office of Civil Defense Planning, Civil Defense for National Security, 7. 62. Office of Civil Defense Planning, Civil Defense for National Security, 108. 63. Civil Defense for National Security had this to say about the new broadcast medium: “Television broadcasting stations provide for Civil Defense an excellent means for educating the public and conveying pertinent information through the simultaneous presentation of video as well as audio messages. Television has flexibility, permits prompt revision of information as an emergency situation changes, maintains accuracy of information by the simultaneous presentation to all users without deterioration which may occur when data are passed down through several hands ... . Television is expanding across the nation. It may, therefore, reasonably be expected that a great many people will be reached through this medium. The Office of Civil Defense should keep informed as to new devices or applications of television which may be developed” (117). 64. Civil Defense for National Security had this to say about the new broadcast medium: “Television broadcasting stations provide for Civil Defense an excellent means for educating the public and conveying pertinent information through the simultaneous presentation of video as well as audio messages. Television has flexibility, permits prompt revision of information as an emergency situation changes, maintains accuracy of information by the simultaneous presentation to all users without deterioration which may occur when data are passed down through several hands ... . Television is expanding across the nation. It may, therefore, reasonably be expected that a great many people will be reached through this medium. The Office of Civil Defense should keep informed as to new devices or applications of television which may be developed” 108. 65. Civil Defense for National Security had this to say about the new broadcast medium: “Television broadcasting stations provide for Civil Defense an excellent means for educating the public and conveying pertinent information through the simultaneous presentation of video as well as audio messages. Television has flexibility, permits prompt revision of information as an emergency situation changes, maintains accuracy of information by the simultaneous presentation to all users without deterioration which may occur when data are passed down through several hands ... . Television is expanding across the nation. It may, therefore, reasonably be expected that a great many people will be reached through this medium. The Office of Civil Defense should keep informed as to new devices or applications of television which may be developed”. 66. Civil Defense for National Security had this to say about the new broadcast medium: “Television broadcasting stations provide for Civil Defense an excellent means for educating the public and conveying pertinent information through the simultaneous presentation of video as well as audio messages. Television has flexibility, permits prompt revision of information as an emergency situation changes, maintains accuracy of information by the simultaneous presentation to all users without deterioration which may occur when data are passed down through several hands ... . Television is expanding across the nation. It may, therefore, reasonably be expected that a great many people will be reached through this medium. The Office of Civil Defense should keep informed as to new devices or applications of television which may be developed” 119. 67. Civil Defense for National Security had this to say about the new broadcast medium: “Television broadcasting stations provide for Civil Defense an excellent means for educating the public and conveying pertinent information through the simultaneous presentation of video as well as audio messages. Television has flexibility, permits prompt revision of information as an emergency situation changes, maintains accuracy of information by the simultaneous presentation to all users without deterioration which may occur when data are passed down through several hands ... . Television is expanding across the nation. It may, therefore, reasonably be expected that a great many people will be reached through this medium. The Office of Civil Defense should keep informed as to new devices or applications of television which may be developed”. 68. Civil Defense for National Security had this to say about the new broadcast medium: “Television broadcasting stations provide for Civil Defense an excellent means for educating the public and conveying pertinent information through the simultaneous presentation of video as well as audio messages. Television has flexibility, permits prompt revision of information as an emergency situation changes, maintains accuracy of information by the simultaneous presentation to all users without deterioration which may occur when data are passed down through several hands ... . Television is expanding across the nation. It may, therefore, reasonably be expected that a great many people will be reached through this medium. The Office of Civil Defense should keep informed as to new devices or applications of television which may be developed” 115. 69. Oakes, The Imaginary War, 34. 70. On the doctrine of survival through self-help, see Laura McEnaney, Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); and Oakes, The Imaginary War. 71. Office of Civil Defense Planning, Civil Defense for National Security, 115–6. 72. Office of Civil Defense Planning, Civil Defense for National Security, 116. 73. Office of Civil Defense Planning, Civil Defense for National Security. 74. Office of Civil Defense Planning, Civil Defense for National Security. 75. This conception was reiterated in subsequent government reports such as the National Security Resources Board's United States Civil Defense (1950) and Project East River's Warning and Communications for Civil Defense (1952). 76. Agamben, State of Exception. 77. In Global TV: New Media and the Cold War, 1946–69 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), James Schwoch uses the term extraterritorialities to designate electronic information networks and other “spaces beyond the traditionally understood borders and perimeters of nation-states” (5). 78. Hilmes, Only Connect, 4, original emphasis. Additional informationNotes on contributorsGreg Siegel Greg Siegel is Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara

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