The Denver Plan—A plan for everyone Tired Undergrad History Senior Seminar 2012 {Author's note: In the following paper, the terms “Denver's Civil Defense Plan.” “Denver's Emergency Operations Plan” and the “Denver Plan,” all refer to the same plan. Likewise the terms “Denver Civil Defense Office” and “Denver’s Emergency Operations Center” are both the same governmental department. Whenever possible I have retained the language of the documents that I was examining. When I was not examining any particular document, I used the term “Denver's Civil Defense” to refer to the governmental department, and the term “Denver Plan” to refer to the emergency plan developed by Denver's Civil Defense. In addition, the City and County of Denver used the word “annex” instead of “appendix,” and in most cases, I have chosen to do likewise.] In 1969, attendees at a series of courses at the Civil Defense Staff College in Battle Creek, Michigan were told about the Civil Defense Plan that Denver, Colorado had developed. After the course, one of the participants, Harold A. Ellison, a retired Colonel (AUS) and Civil Defense instructor for the State of Arizona, wrote Denver Mayor Tom Currigan. Ellison said, “I heard frequent reference to the “Denver Plan’ [during the course]. It was held by the Faculty to be a model and we were encouraged to write you for a copy—on a loan basis, if available. It appears most probable that we would find some of the ideas presented in this report adaptable to our needs.” Ellison was not the only person to write Mayor Currigan for a copy of the Denver Plan. Frank G. Ratliff, Director of Civil Defense of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, North Carolina, also ‘wrote, noting that a member of his staff had been “informed of the high regard of the faculty for the effectiveness of the Denver Emergency Operations Plan.” Furthermore, Ratliff said, “As we are in the process of updating our plan, it would be sincerely * Letter from Harold A. Ellison to Mavor Tom Currigan, November 28, 1969, William MeNichols Papers, ‘Box 40, Folder 10, Denver Public Library Wester History Collection (hereafter DPL Collection).appreciated if you would ask Colonel Allen to send this office a copy of your plan.” Railiff closed his letter with the promise to return the plan within thirty days “as spare copies are probably limited.” Both men got a reply from Colonel (retired) William J. Allen, Jr., the Director of Denver's Civil Defense program. Allen wrote to Ratliff, ‘The Honorable William H. McNichols, who succeeded Tom Currigan as Mayor of the City and County of Denver, has asked me to express his appreciation for the compliment you pay Denver by asking for a copy of our Emergency Operations Plan. We are mailing under separate cover copy Number 1057 of our plan. As you suggested, we published only a limited number of copies of the plan, so we will appreciate your returning this copy when it has served your purpose. With the thought that you might find them useful, I'm also enclosing a copy of our Civil Emergency Operations Plan and a mass casualty plan that we developed for explosions in buildings, plane crashes in the city, etc., and a small booklet, “Civil Defense in Denver,” that briefly explains our organization.’ Ellison received a similar reply. Enough copies repeat the language that one could call the response a form letter. Ellison received copy number 1044." ‘These two responses were not the first time that the Denver Plan was shared with another Civil Defense organization. Earlier, in August 1969, Virgil N. Salisbury, Chairman of the Dade County Civil Defense Advisory Council, who had visited with Colonel Allen, requested the “Memo’s [sic] of Understanding with 23 or so agencies” and another copy of the “street closure ordinance and center” plan. In addition, Salisbury said that “Denver should be proud to have [Allen] a man of his capabilities in charge of Civil Defense.’ ° Letter from Frank G. Ratliff to Mayor Tom Currigan, November 14, 1969, Willism MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 10, DPI. Collection, > Letter from Colonel Aten to Frank G. Ratliff, November 18, 1969, William McNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 10, DPL Collection. * Letter from Colonel Allen to Harold A, Ellison, November 28, 1969, William McNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 10, DPL. Collection, * Letter from Virgil N. Salisbury to Mayor Tom Currigan, August 15, 1969, William MeNicbols Papers, Box 40, Folder 10, DPL. Collection.Salisbury received the requested material. Salisbury also received “a copy of the latest updated edition of [Denver's] Casualty Care Plan.” As for the memos of understanding, Salisbury received a letter signed by Mayor Williams McNichols, with the note that “the majority of the memoranda of understandings with our support organizations are essentially the same in format, with only the mission varying in the individual documents.” Therefore, Salisbury received a sample memoranda and a list of the twenty-eight organizations that agreed to give their support to Denver's Emergency ‘Operations Center. And in a trickster’s twist, the letter from McNichols said, “I appreciate your nice compliment concerning the capabilities of our Director of Civil Defense, and shall convey your remarks to Colonel Allen.”® In typical government form, someone else prepared the letter for Mayor MeNichols. One wonders if the preparer had a smile on his face when he wrote of passing on the compliment to Colonel Allen, for the preparer of the letter was Colonel Allen himself.” Given the governmental layers involved, it is hard to figure out who was the brain behind the Denver Plan. Mayor McNichols was given credit for it by some, yet he inherited the Plan and the organization behind it, Denver's Civil Defense Office (later the Emergency Preparedness Office) from his predecessor, Mayor Currigan, who resigned from office on December 31, 1968 to take a job with Continental Airlines.* Colonel Allen served as Civil Defense Director for both mayors, and in many regards seems to be the actual creator of the Denver Plan. It is also hard to figure out from the documents how ° Letter from Mayor McNichols (prepared by Colonel Allen) to Virgil N. Salisbury, Dade County Civil Defense, August 19, 1969, William MeNichols Papers, Folder 10, DPL. Collection, "This is one of the few places that one sees anything personal in Box 40 of the McNichols’ Collection, The collection is a set of government documents written by generally faceless men. In this particular instance, 1 find myself detecting a sense of humor in the hand of Allen, a form of wily trickster humor. * Letter from Mayor W. H. McNichols, Jr. to Mayor Carl B. Stokes, January 15, 1969, William McNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 10, DPL Collection‘widely distributed the Denver Plan was. For instance, Ellison received a lower numbered copy of the Denver Plan than Ratliff did, despite the fuet that Ratliff had been replied to carliet than Ellison. Compounding this doubt is the fact that the copies of the Denver Plan distributed to other government agencies were on loan and mailed back to the City and County of Denver to save on printing costs. Another question that is hard to answer from the documents is exactly why the Denver Plan was held to be a model emergeney plan. Occasionally, one can read why a particular person or governmental department wanted a copy of the Denver Plan; for instance, both Ellison and Ratliff were requesting a copy because of the recommendation from faculty of the Battle Creek Civil Defense Staff College. Yet the reason for the high regard that the Battle Creek Civil Defense Staff cannot be determined from the documents in the Williams McNichols Papers of the Denver Public Library Western History Collection. What is easier to figure out is what made the Denver Plan suitable for Denver itself. What made the Denver Plan special was the fact that it was a multi-purpose plan. that addressed the needs of the City and County of Denver. It was designed to handle any disaster from the nuclear strikes that Civil Defense was typically thought of preparing for, to natural disasters, such as floods and tomados, Also included in the Denver Plan was an appendix (called an “annex” in the documents) detailing how the City and County of Denver would deal with the threat of civil unrest if it ever struck the Mile-High City. It ‘was a plan for every conceivable disaster, a plan for everyone. The Plan made Denver much like the proverbial Boy Scout, prepared for anything. If the average person today thinks about the Civil Defense of the 1950s and 1960s, they might think about fall-out shelters, two weeks of living on graham-likecrackers, and the duck and cover exercises. Or they might not. Today, Civil Defense is mainly forgotten outside of the occasional yellow sign indicated where a fall-out shelter used to be. The warning siren system in Denver is used to warn golfers, joggers and park users about severe weather conditions. If one goes by the few traces remaining, one is tempted to say that Civil Defense no longer exists. But Civil Defense did not just disappear. Where it was not voted out of existence or starved monetarily, it morphed into something else, something useful for the citics that continued to fund it. One of the cities where Civil Defense morphed into something else is Denver, Colorado, and the Denver Plan was the matrix that allowed Civil Defense to change into a communication and decision hub designed to deal with every possible disaster. The historian Kristina Zarlengo, in her article “Civilian Threat, the Suburban Citadel, and Atomic Age Women,” argues that both the nested arrangement where “{the] various structural layers of American life...were portrayed as similar pieces that successfully contained and filled one another, like a set of nesting dolis,” and the new role of the 1950s women came about due to the presence of civilians in the nuclear target zone? The targeting of civilians started during the World Wars. Zarlengo writes that “Once civilian bombing had been incorporated into warfare, it became an accepted tactic." As a result, the military, as well as Civil Defense, came to view the heart of cities as possible targets of nuclear strikes. Some experts in the 1950s and 1960s considered dispersing the contents of urban centers across wider areas as a viable defense, separating the important parts of the cities (factories, businesses, population ° Kristina Zarlengo, “Civilian Threat, the Suburban Citadel, and Atomic Age Women,” Signs: Jounal of Women in Culture and Society (1999) Vol. 24, no. 4, pg 931. "© Kristina Zarlengo, “Civilian Threat, the Suburban Citadel, and Atomic Age Women,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (1999) Vol. 24, no. 4, pe 927.6 centers) away from one other.'' Other ways of defending the country from the aftereffects of a nuclear attack involved ereating ways to bind together resources, and use civilians to man the defense and cleanup."” Furthermore, because all civilians were targets, societal roles changed, including the role of women.? Zarlengo’s theory is similar to that of historian Elaine Tyler May. In her much quoted Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, May argues that the very way that we think of families in the United States changed during the Cold War. May states that the traditional 1950s family was an artificial creation, created to help bind together families in roles that they would have to assume after a nuclear attack.’ May wrote, ‘A major goal of these civil defense strategies was to infuse the traditional role of ‘women with new meaning and importance, which would help fortify the home as place of security amid the cold war. Even in the ultimate chaos of an atomic attack, appropriate gender roles would need to prevail. A 1950 civil defense plan put men in charge of such duties as firefighting, rescue work, street clearing, and rebuilding, while women were to attend to child care, hospital work, social work, and emergency feeding.!* May argues that the increase in the number of marriages, increase in family size, and the declining divorce rates during the 1950s, all of which reversed trends present before World War II and which resumed in the 1960s, may be due in part to the role that civil defense laid upon women.'* The warping of a societal unit to fit the Cold War and possibility of nuclear attack went both ways; sometimes it was Civil Defense that got changed in the process. Jenny " Zarlengo, py 934. Zarlengo, pg 932. * Zarlengo, ng 940-956, “ Blaine May Tyler, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988/2008). Blaine May Tyler, page 101 "Elaine May Tyler, pages 1-12.Barker-Devine says in the article “"Mightier than Missiles’: The Rhetoric of C: Defense for Rural American Families, 1950-1970,” that because “Few rural residents believed that the next global conflict would involve nuclear weapons, as evidenced by various surveys, but disasters such as tomados and floods were very much a reality” that Civil Defense in the rural areas became more concemed with dealing with natural disasters than with surviving and cleaning up after a nuclear attack.'” The concems of the City and County of Denver would likewise change the focus of Civil Defense in Denver. The Denver Plan, during the years 1965 to 1975, showed le concem for the thought of nuclear attack. More concen was given to natural disasters, such as floods and snow removal, than nuclear fall-out. Civil unrest was given a higher priority than restocking fall-out shelters. Given the likelihood that heart of Denver would be destroyed in a nuclear blast, and not everyone was sure that a nuclear war was inevitable, preparing for a nuclear attack took 2 backseat to emergencies that threaten the City and County of Denver on a regular basis, such as severe weather conditions. To understand the shift of focus that Denver Civil Defense Office would undergo, the shift that would generate the Denver Plan, one must understand the problems facing the Civil Defense program on the national and regional levels. These problems begged for a solution. The Civil Defense plan of Denver, Colorado addressed many of the problems, though in a way that would lead it into becoming an agency focused on general disaster preparedness rather than just focused on dealing with the aftermath of a nuclear attack, "Jenny Barker-Devine, "Mightier than Missiles’: The Rhetoric of Civil Defense for Rural American Families, 1950-1970," Agricultural History (Autumn 2006), Vo. 80, No.4, pe 429,‘One of the issues facing regional Civil Defense was the lack of public education. On a national level, according to Zarlengo, “the vast majority of federal civilian defense funds were spent on public information campaigns only.”"* Even with the lion’s share of the federal funding being spent on advertising, the public remained ignorant of the scope of their local Civil Defense. During a (circa 1970) CBS television feature, “Report on Civil Defense,” people interviewed expressed confusion about what to do in the case of a nuclear disaster. One woman said, “Where would I go? Who would I find out from? You know, what?”"? Ignorance of where the fall-out shelters were was compounded by the problem, according to the CBS report, that not only did people need to locate the shelters, they needed to locate the shelter that they were supposed to use.” In other words, in the case of a nuclear attack, a person could not go to any old fall-out shelter; they had to go to the right shelter. Given the importance of being able to find the correct local fall-out shelter to use in case of nuclear attack, a solution had to be found to help inform citizens where to go. CBS reported that the Pentagon created a pilot program in Rhode Island to map out the state’s shelter system. “And then it printed thirty thousand dollars worth of pamphlets to tell Rhode Islanders where the shelters were and what to do in the case of an attack." Tt is unclear whether the public, or even CBS thought this was a good idea or not. We can presume that the Civil Defense directors thought it was a good idea, for other areas, including Denver, emulated this program. But given the ignorance of local fall-out "* Zaclengo, pe, 932. "Teletype “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS), Memo from Dave Harrison to General Moff and Colonel Allen, et al, February 3, 1970, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 8, DPL Collection, pg. 5. The actual broadcast date isnot stated in the memo or teletype distributed to the Civil Defense departments > Teletype, “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS), ps. 4. * Toletype, “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS). pe 4locations expressed by the men and women that CBS interviewed for their broadcast, one must admit that either the maps were not widely distributed enough, or that the program was a failure.” In March 1971, the Denver Civil Defense Office issued the map of the community shelter plan as a newspaper supplement to the Denver Post (March 10) and the Rocky Mountain News (March 12). Emblazed across the first page of the twenty-four page supplement was the words, “Keep this plan....t may save your life.” One page was about how to survive if one lived on a farm, and how to improvise a fall-out shelter at home (whether or not if you had a basement); another page was about how to deal with major natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, tornados, high winds, and winter storms). The rest of the supplement consisted of maps of the different areas of Denver, showing where the fall-out shelters were located. The area with the most shelters was the downtown area, the area most likely to be targeted if a nuclear attack occurred.” Another issue facing regional Civil Defense was the sheer cost of the program and the lack of funding, Civil Defense departments did the best that they could to cut costs. For instance, the community shelter plan for Denver was originally meant to be issued in a mail distribution, Instead it was issued as a newspaper supplement. Colonel Allen, on ‘the transmittal slip for the advance copy sent to the Mayor's Office, wrote, “Why [change the method of distribution]? Money.” With only a small amount coming from the ® No locations were provided for the people that CBS interviewed, nor could I discover a complete index of the Civil Defense districts who published maps of local fall-out shelters. * Denver's Community Shelter Plan, newspaper supplement with Memo from Jack Allen (Civil Defense) 10 John Henry (Mayor's Office), March 8, 1971, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 13, DPL. Collection. * Denver Community Shelter Plan, memo.10 federal government, the regional Civil Defense Departments had to fund their programs ‘through local budgets. ‘The cost of Civil Defense was high, too high for the tastes of some people. CBS reported that in 1963, the taxpayers of Portland, Oregon “decided their civil defense was not worth the one hundred thousand dollars a year it cost them.” As a result, Portland “pulled out of the national program and abandoned its half million dollar emergency operating center.” Portland went from being “a model civil defense organization” and an innovator with “the nation’s first underground command post” to a city without a civil defense program.” In order to get local funding, regional Civil Defense had to convince the taxpayers that the program was worth it. In the case of Denver, Civil Defense would become the comerstone of Denver's emergency planning, a place where it would be casier to argue that the benefits of Civil Defense justified its cost, Many taxpayers believed that the Civil Defense program was designed to create a false sense of hope that a nuclear war was survivable. Stanley Farle, Portland’s Public Safety Commissioner, was the man who spearheaded the abolistunent of Portland’s Civil Defense program. Earle said to CBS, “I believe, as I have for a long time, that it's a complete waste of money; it’s a falsification that lulls people into a false sense of security. I think it should be abolished as Civil Defense.””” Taxpayers who felt that Civil Defense was a waste of money were quite willing to vote the bill away. ‘When one remembers how destructive the nuclear weapons of the time were, even as primitive as they were compared to the modem versions, itis easy to understand why people felt the money was being wasted. CBS conjured up a nightmarish vision of what ® Teletype, “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS), pe 6. Teletype, “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS), pe 5-6. ™ Teletype, “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS). pg 6.it ‘would happen to Denver and its half million residents in 1970 if an average sized (twenty megatons) warhead was dropped on the city. [At the center of the target, and for a mile and a half in every direction, everything ‘would be consumed in a monstrous fireball. Its heat, eighteen million degrees [sic]. Up to five miles from the target, every living being would be incinerated, Seven miles out, forty percent would die: twenty-five percent would be casualties. Five percent of those who were in the next four miles would be killed: another twenty percent injured. Up to fifteen miles from the target in all directions, the surface heat would be so intense it could ignite a newspaper. There would be immediate fall-out, and for hundreds of miles spreading radiation.”* Despite the grimness of the effects of a nuclear bomb, there were some who believed that Civil Defense was useful. One such person was the head of the national Civil Defense, John A. Davis, former governor of North Dakota and former American Legion Commander. Davis estimated in the CBS report that “{There] would probably be a hundred million people who would be living in the United States after a type of sustained attack which the Soviets are capable.” With Civil Defense in place, Davis estimated that another fifteen million people to survive the attack. Joseph Benti, a reporter for CBS, stated “Saving those additional fifteen million people is the main 8 purpose of the shelter system.” Fifteen million additional Americans to survive an all- ‘out nuclear attack was the perceived benefit of the Civil Defense program. Some people thought even more funding should have been allotted to Civil Defense. One such person was U.S. Representative Chet Holitield, who considered “the Civil Defense system in the United States [to be] completely inadequate.” Congressman Holifield considered the lack of funding to be the primary problem.°° In 1970, sixty-nine million dollars was spent on Civil Defense by the federal government, “less than one one- * Teletype, “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS), pg 3. ® Teletype, “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS), ne 3-4. © Teletype, “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS). pg 6.12 thousandths of what the United States [spent] on military defense and weapons.” Holifield claimed that the shelter supplies and communications were “less than one percent of what would be needed in case of a nuclear attack.” Furthermore, Holifield estimated that “It would take about twenty billion dollars spent over a period of maybe five or six or seven years” to make Civil Defense “acceptable.” Given the size of the amount of money needed, Holifield said, “But let us recall that we have spent more than ‘that to place five or six men on the moon.”?* Even the cost of a program like the Rhode Island shelter mapping or the Portland model Civil Defense program was expensive when viewed from the perspective of a city operating budget, such as Denver's. The Rhode Island shelter mapping plan cost thirty thousand dollars, just for the printing and distribution of the maps. Portland’s Civil Defense cost a hundred thousand dollars a year, a cost so high that the taxpayers chose to abandon the program completely. By May 1968, the City and County of Denver had a list of the fall-out shelters located inside the county of Denver. The list stated the locations of all 864 shelters in the City and County of Denver. The system was able to house a million citizens. Not all of the shelters were stocked with food, and there were issues with foodstuffs going bad and needing replacement. Despite the mapping being done already, Denver Civil Defense still needed to cut costs when it came to distributing the maps in 1971. There were also additional costs associated with updating the maps.” * The cost of even a program like Portland’s could dent the operating budget of the City and County of Denver. Teletype, “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS), pg 6-7. © City and County of Denver—Civil Defense Fallout Shelters by Street Address, May 9, 1968 (33 pages), William McNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 9, DPL Collection. * Additional references in other folders refer to upgrading the list with structural fitness of the shelters (ability to withstand blast), and the rancidness of the wheat based survival rations13 ‘An undated (probably 1962 or early 1963) document lists the City and County's expenditures as $22,391,015 and revenues as $23,047,063 for the year 1953; $35,175,870 expenditures and $34,649,874 revenue for 1958; and estimated $44,494,704 expenditures and estimated $42,108,900 revenue for 1963." These figures are for the entire city budget. Even a quick glance at the figures reveals the troublesome sign that expenditures were greater than the revenues that the City and County of Denver was bringing in. Another undated paper entitled “Your Denver Government (A short compendium of miscellaneous facts and figures)” reveals that only 25% of the taxes collected went to city government purposes while 64% went to the Denver Public Schools, 5% to public welfare, 2% to bonded indebtedness, 2.5% to the state, and 1.5% to the Fireman’s Pension. The possibility of improving Denver’s Civil Defense program as a pure nuclear attack response program was non-existent unless the City and County of Denver decided to rob public education or some other agency. One of the biggest expenses for the Civil Defense programs was the cost of its employees. CBS reported that much of the money available for Civil Defense went to its seven hundred federal employees, who were “among the best paid federal workers.” The average Civil Defense employee's pay was seventeen thousand a year, with the top one hundred employees making “more than twenty-one thousand a year.”** According to the website, The People’s History, the average yearly wage was 9,350 dollars in 1970, and a new house cost 23,400 dollars. Converting the wages into 2005 dollars, the average Civil * Undated document, City and County of Denver, 1962?) William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 26, DPL Collection. ° “Your Denver Government (A short compendium of miscellaneous facts and figures)” (undeted— Cursigan’s administration —folder is dated 1968), William MeNichois Collection, Box 40, Folder 26, DPL Collection. * Teletype, “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS), pg 514 Defense employee was making the equivalent of 88,000 dollars, and the top paid were making the equivalent of 108,706 dollars.>’ The high wages did not guarantee that a region's Civil Defense program had talent at its helm. CBS admitted that “Many of the jobs are given for political merit rather than any particular expertise in Civil Defense.”** Fortunately for the City and County of Denver, the Civil Defense program for Denver had already started to shift to address the problems of money, education and public perception of inadequacy. The name of Denver Civil Defense Office was changed to the Emergency Preparedness Office in 1973. Part of this name change, according to a press release issued by the Office, was “keeping with recent changes in the identification of Civil Defense at the Federal and State levels.” But a more important reason for the name change, the press release states, was that “The new name more closely defines our functions, which are all types of major emergencies, rather than [just] the nuclear aspects of emergency preparedness, that was thought of when civil defense was mentioned.” The key factor that changed the nature of the Civil Defense ageney in Denver laid in the fact that the Mayor of Denver viewed the responsibilities of the Director of Civil Defense to be much wider that just preparing the citizenry for a possible nuclear attack. Ina Statement of Policy issued in June 1968, the Office of the Mayor [Currigan} said, “Contrary to what many municipal officials think, the Civil Defense Director on the [city’s staff] can and should have a role...to prepare a community to cope with all types of [disasters]. The Mayor of Denver charged the Director of Civil Defense with “[the] «1970s history including Popular Culture, Prices, Events, Technology and Inventions,” The People’s History (date created unknown). April 30, 2012. http:/www.thepeoplehistory.com/1970s.tml 2 Teletype, “Report on Civil Defense” (CBS), pg 5. » Press Release from City and County of Denver Emergency Preparedness Office, 1973, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 16, DPL Collection © Office of the Mayor, “Statement of Policy” (June 10, 1968) page 1, ia Wi 40, Folder 8, DPL Coilection, sm MeNichols Papers, Box.15, responsibility for initiating plans and concepts,...organizing, guiding, integrating, coordinating and testing all elements of [government] and privately owned resources...” in accordance with the Denver Plan.*! The type of disasters that the Civil Defense were charged with preparing for included “all types of civil disorders, as well as with various types of natural disasters or enemy attack.” This new mission made the Civil Defense in Denver into the core communication and brain in all of the subsequent emergency plans that the City and County of Denver would make in the 1970s. Everything from plans dealing with natural disasters (floods and tomados) to civil disaster (civil unrest) would become part of Denver's Civil Defense responsibilities. This is the Civil Defense agency that Mayor MeNichols inherited from his predecessor, Mayor Currigan, in 1969. Not only did MeNichols inherit a Civil Defense agency that had changed its focus, MeNichols seems to have inherited a Civil Defense Director who was willing to address the issues of the city that he served. One of the concems of the City and County of Denver was the weather. Denver was prone to tornadoes, thunderstorms, and the oceasional blizzard. Much like the rural residents, the inhabitants of Denver were more concerned with these natural disasters than they were with the possibility of being victims of a nuclear attack. After all, a nuclear attack on US soil had never happened; the weather, on the other hand, happened every day. Denver needed a plan that addressed the local concerns of the region, especially potential disasters that could occur on an annual basis. Office of the Mayor, “Statement of Policy” (June 0, 1968) page 1, in William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 8, DPI. Collection. © Office of the Mayor, “Statement of Poliey” (Sune 10, 1968) page 1, in William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 8, DPL Collection, © The weather is still a concen for residents of the City and County of Denver today.16 It was a flood in June 1965, while Currigan was still Mayor, which cemented the new role for Denver's Civil Defense office. Mayor Currigan wrote that “the disaster taught city officials what the boy scouts have preached for years: “Be Prepared.’”* Currigan noted that at the time of the flood, “[Denver] had a disaster plan on paper... Still in too many cases we found [the energies of responders] misdirected.”** One of the problems encountered was that “many key department heads operated in the field. This left them virtually unavailable to the mayor’s office.” It was apparent that the City and County of Denver needed a central location with communication capabilites if it wanted to present a coordinated response to city-wide emergencies. “Colonel William J. Allen, Denver's civil defense director [sic], had set up an emergency operating center for civil defense in the basement of the City-County Building. We decided to develop this as an emergency center.” One of the strengths of the Denver Plan was that it used existing procedures and resources. In this case, Colonel Allen had already created a ‘communication center, and the City and County of Denver adapted it for a wider purpose. This simple change improved the city’s ability to coordinate between departments and make faster decisions in the course of emergencies. Thirty days later, the wisdom of the new communications center was tested with the threat of another flood.° Another strength of the Denver Plan was that the city officials subjected the Plan to tests to check its efficiency. Currigan wrote, “[We] developed plans for a series of exercises that would simulate both a natural disaster and a nuclear attack. The Federal “ Departinent of Defense—Otfice of Civil Defense. Information Bulletin, No, 188 (December 15, 1967), “Denver's Mayor Cutrigan Supports Vigorous Disaster Preparedness Program,” (Reprint from the November 1967 issue of The American City) page 1, in William MeNichois Papers, Box 40, Folder 8, DPL Collection. “Denver's Mayor Currigan Supports Vigorous Disaster Preparedness Program,” page 2 “Denver's Mayor Curtigan Supports Vigorous Disaster Preparedness Program,” page 2.17 Office of Civil Defense, Region 6, assisted in developing the exercises.""” This would not be the only set of exercises and tests that the Denver Plan would be subjected to. Over the years, exercises stimulated airplanes crashing into buildings and civil unrest among other possible disaster situations. One would think that such exercises would not be as successful as actual disasters to illustrate possible shortcomings of the Denver Plan; such thinking would be wrong. Currigan wrote of the second exereise, stimulating a natural disaster, “Everyone seemed to enter into the exercise in a light-hearted attitude, After the first few minutes, however, you could sense a change. As the problems developed, the ‘men could see that similar situations calling for immediate decisions would develop if the real thing were to occur.”* One of the problems that could arise from such detailed testing is that an emergency plan could become too cumbersome to enact. The Denver Plan sidestepped this by remaining a generic emergency plan. Colonel Allen said, in reply to a request from Santa Clara fora copy of Denver's flood plan, “Denver's basic Disaster Plan is prepared to cope with all kinds of disasters, whether natural or manmade or large or small. We do not have a specific plan for floods, earthquakes, or snow storms, etc. [Iam sending you a copy} complete with annexes.” The individual parts of the Denver Plan that addressed particular types of disasters were contained in separate appendixes while the core of the Plan was flexible enough to address emergencies unthought-of by the planners. © “Denver's Mayor Currigan Supports Vigorous Disaster Preparedness Program,” page 2. “ “Denver's Mayor Curtigan Supports Vigorous Disaster Preparedness Program,” page 2 Letter from Colonel Allen to Mr. W. H. Schwalbe, Civil Defense Coordinator of the City of Santa Clara March 15, 1968, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder &, DPL. Collection.18 Another change that occurred in the Denver Plan, due to a weather emergency, was realization that clear statements were needed of when emergencies would be declared and department heads would head to the central command center. There are two versions of the snow emergency protocols in the Civil Defense folders of the McNichols collection. While both state that the department heads will head to the central command center and operate out of the center for the duration of the snow emergency, the two versions have a significant difference. The earlier version (January 1974) does not specify exactly what conditions would constitute a snow emergency, merely saying that “When it appears to the Manager of Safety and/or the Manager of Public Works that snow conditions will impair the movement of the city emergeney vehicles to the extent that their operation may have to be seriously circumscribed or halted, the [Managers] will advise the Mayor to declare a snow emergency and inform the Director of Emergency Preparedness of the emergency.”*” The later revision (December 1974) clearly states the conditions that trigger a snow emergency, as well as changing who declares the emergency. “When the National Weather Service issues a Heavy Snow Waring (four or more inches in the next 12 hours or six or more inches in the next 24 hours) or a Blizzard Waming....the Emergency Preparedness Office will go on alert and alert city departments.”*! The revision of the Snow Emergency Plan was more automatic with less room for confusion, The City and County of Denver was not the only government body concerned with updating its responses to emergencies. One of the parts of the emergency response ® Emergency Plan fora Severe Snowstorm for the City and County of Denver with memo from Jack Allen to Ed Sullivan, January 3, 1974, page 1, Wiliam MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 8 ™ Emergency Plan for a Severe Snowstorm forthe City and County of Denver (Revised December 10, 1974) with memo from Jack Allen to Ed Sullivan, December 12, 1974, page 1, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 8, DPL Coll19 system that was advanced on a national level was the creation of the 911 system starting in 1968, Previous to this time period, in the case of an emergency, a civilian had two choices. One was to look up the phone number and dial direetly the appropriate city agency, such as the Fire Department. The other option was to dial the operator, and have the operator connect them with the proper agency to deal the emergency. It was President Lyndon Johnson's desire to have a national phone number and system devoted to emergencies. Mountain Bell, after studying the question, decided that 911 would be the number assigned to the new system.*” One of the issues that slowed down the installation of the 911 system was cost. Cities who desired the 911 system had to set up centers to handle the calls, and pay a monthly fee for the phone company to send the calls to the 911 center. In the November 5, 1970 meeting notes of the “911 Emergency System-Joint Meeting,” Chief William Hamilton, the Fire Chief of the city of Englewood wondered why they were not included in the 911 system which they claimed to be interested in joining. Mountain Bell’s reply was that the city of Englewood had not formally committed to the system yet. Furthermore, there was no agreement for Denver and Englewood “to mount a joint effort in furnishing 911 service [sic]. Despite the initial problems of installing the system, the 911 system could be argued to be a success. By 1974, the Emergency Response Center (911) was handling over a half million calls a year, with “98% of all calls in [Denver being] handled in four and a half minutes.”** ® “911” Emergency Calling System for the City of Denver, August 5, 1969, Mountain States Telephone, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 11, DPL Collection * Notes of Join Meeting "911 Emergency System Joint Meeting,” City and County of Denver and ‘Mountain Bell, November 3, 1970, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 11, DPL Collection. * Meeting notes, Denver Emergency Preparedness Advisory Council, January 15, 1974, Willaims MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 12, page 2, DPL Collection20 Besides being concerned with getting information from people who were reporting emergencies, there was also a need to communicate the news of impeding disasters to the general public. For Civil Defense purposes, as well as for tornadoes, there ‘was the siren system, The siren system was not as widely placed as the city of Denver desired because of the costs associated with the system which Colonel Allen called “prohibitive.”** Colonel Allen, writing back to a woman who expressed concern that she ‘would not hear the siren if she was in the shower, reassured the woman that Civil Defense was aware of the problem and was working on ways to address the issue, Allen mentions a pilot program being tested on the East Coast that would “tum on radios and/or TV sets and bring the message into the home. This system, if successful, will be expanded to cover the entire country. [The] system. .will also be available for local control [to provide warnings of local emergencies].”** The concept of this system, besides being Orwellian, sounds remarkably like the modem reverse 911 system that many cities now use to inform citizens of emergency situations. The increasing national and local attention to emergencies had awoken other cities to the fact that their emergency plans were insufficient or worse. Many times, the reason that the Denver Plan was sought after by other city governments was the sheer lack of planning on the part of other cities; Denver had a well-rounded emergency plan and the other cities did not. This fact becomes apparent when one examines the requests for the Civil Unrest Annex of Denver's Emergency Plan. The urban unrest in Glenville Letter from Mayor MeNichols (prepared by Colonel Allen) to Mrs. LaVon Kemper, “Regarding experience with the Civil Defense siren test on February 15, 1973, William McNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 16, DPL. Coltection. * Letter from Mayor McNichols (prepared by Colonel Allen) to Mrs. LaYon Kemper, “Regarding experience with the Civil Defense siren test on February 15, 1973, William McNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 16, DPL. Collection.(Huly 1968) caused several cities (inclu ing Cleveland) to write the city of Denver for 2 copy of the Civil Unrest Annex. Cleveland’s mayor, Carl B. Strokes wrote, “When the Glenville incident broke....the city of Cleveland was caught without any type of contingency plan for emergency situations. Fortunately, the incident did not become wide-spread and we did not suffer greatly from our lack of preplanning.”*” ‘The Civil Unrest Annex of Denver's Emergency Plan shows the dynamic nature of Denver's Emergency Plan during the years of 1965-1975. There are two versions of the Annex in Box 40 of the McNichols Papers (DPL Collection, ete). One version was labeled “Revised 4/69. The other copy has no date on it, and is contained in a folder with the tentative dates “1965-70.” The undated version scems likely, based on the evidence of memos detailing the development of the Civil Unrest Annex and internal changes between the two versions, to be the original version of the Annex. The Civil Unrest Annex was developed in 1967 and 1968; the likely date for the undated version is 1968, here forth it will be referred to as the “circa 1968” version.*® The biggest change outside of how some instructions are worded, and the inclusion of certain volunteer organizations in one version, the renaming of the stadium which would be used as an volunteer assembly point for Career Service assignment (Bears Stadium in circa 1968 version; Denver Municipal Stadium in the revised version"), is the concerns of where to get certain emergency equipment. © Letter from Mayor Car! B, Strokes to Mayor Currigan, January 15, 1969, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 10, DPL Collection. ® Basic Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, Revised April 1969, Williams MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 10, DPI. Collection, ® Basic Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, (undated—circa 1968), Williams MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder &, DPL. Collection, °° Basie Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, (undated circa 1968), page ?. © Basic Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, Revised April 1969, page 10,22 ‘The difference of what is addressed in terms of needed emergency supplies, and possible sources, shows some of the lessons that the City and County of Denver was learning while it was testing the Civil Unrest Annex though simulations, The circa 1968 version states that only a few gas masks are available, enough for only 60 officers. The 1969 revision slates that there were enough gas masks “for the uniformed patrol division,” and notes that “There is still a need for masks for other police personnel who may be required to enter a riot area.” The circa 1968 version said that binoculars could be rented and a dozen pairs were needed; “one for each command car,” and that none ‘were available." Binoculars were not mentioned at all in the revision. Likewise, maps are ‘not mentioned in the circa 1968 version, but the lack of maps of the city is addressed in the 1969 revision. The basic policy of the City and County of Denver was clearly stated in the Basie Emergency Operations Plan. The first goal was to “eliminate the causes of unrest by vigorous prosecution of appropriate sociological programs.” Sadly, what these sociological programs were is never stated in the document or any memos detailing the development of the Civil Unrest Annex. The first goal was tied into the second goal of preventing violent outbreaks by combining intelligence with “timely initiation of appropriate preventive measures.” The third and fourth goals were to halt the spread of violence and to suppress the violence when it occurred.” This four point “general © Basie Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, (undated—circa 1968), page C-5. © Basic Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, Revised April 1969, page C-6. Basie Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, (undated —cireu 1968), page C-10, © Basic Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, Revised April 1969, page C-12. % Basic Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, Revised April 1969. pg. 1.23 program” is also stated in a statement of policy issued by the Office of the Mayor, Civil Defense in Civil Emergencies, in June 1968." ‘The reason for including a Civil Unrest Annex in Denver’s Emergency Plan was the events happening in other cities, “Early in the summer of 1967, the Denver Civil Defense staff reviewed the city’s basic disaster plan in light of information available from other cities that had suffered civil disorders."** These cities included Detroit (1967) and Watts (1965).” The logic of the City and County of Denver government was that if it could happen in these places, it could also happen in Denver. ‘The tactics being used by protestors is laid out in the Assumptions section of the Civil Unrest Plan. The three types of tactics used are referred (o as “conditions” or “phases” depending upon whether one is looking at the circa 1968 or the revised 1969 version of the Civil Unrest Plan. The three types of tactics listed are “non-violent disruption of the city or utilities (sit-ins)...unruly demonstrations or guerilla warfare (hit and run)...[and] burning, looting and sniping (riots).”” The use of the term “tactics,” as well as the type of possible activities listed, reveals the fact that government officials, ‘thought that the people involved in urban unrest were organized, as well as the fact that a retired military man was involved in the creation of the Civil Unrest Annex. Furthermore, the Plan presumes that there will be a displacement of residents during a period of civil unrest, indicating that the City and County of Denver was preparing for a repeat of the earlier urban disturbances seen in other large cities. © City and County of Denver, Office of the Mayor, “Statement of Policy: Civil Defense in Civil Emergencies,” Sune 10, 1968, Folder 8, DPL Collection, pz 3-4. © City and Coumy of Denver, Office ofthe Mayor, “Statement of Policy: Civil Defense in Civil Bmergencies,” June 10, 1968, Folder 8, DPL Collection, pe 3 © Basic Civil Emergeney Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, (undated—circa 1968), page ES. ” Basic Civil Emergeney Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, Revised April 1969, page |24 One of the things that can be leamed fiom examining the Civil Unrest Annex in Denver's Emergency Plan is the things that the City and County of Denver were concerned that protesters might do. There was a “distributed on a need to know basis” section to the Plan.” This section was the list of “fuel points” where City and County vehicles, as well as National Guard vehicles, would fuel up. This section was not present in the circa 1968 copy of the Civil Unrest Annex. The fueling point “Appendix to Annex was labeled “Classified” in the revised 1969 version of the Civil Unrest Plan,” Obviously, there was concem that protestors would try to control these refucling points. An item that various cities repeatedly wrote the City and County of Denver to acquire were the exercises (scripts) that the city used to test the various emergency plans. While some cities had plans already designed, some of them did not know how to test them and practice the techniques that would be involved in a real emergency. Dr. Harold W. Thomas, Civil Defense Director of Amnold, Pennsylvania, wrote regarding “Denver's Mayor Currigan Supports Vigorous Disaster Preparedness Program,” an article from The American City that was reprinted in the December 15, 1967 Office of Civil Defense information bulleti Since the information bulletin was sketchy and I was unable to learn from this the ‘exact methods you used in preparing this program, | am wondering whether or not you could mail to me the exact exercises which you practiced for an eventual civil defense crisis. The explanation did not give in detail the methods that you used. ‘We also have a plan on paper, but we have never had any exercise to practice the plan and perhaps suggestions from your method would be a great help to us in planning exercises for the real thing.” Basie Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, Revised April 1969, pe. C-2. ” Basic Civil Emergeney Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, Revised April 1969, Appendix to Annex C. * Letter fram Dr. Harold W. Thomas to Mayor Thomas Currigan, February 12, 1968, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Foer 8, DPL. Collection.25 The exercises that Thomas was referring to were a test of “Denver's readiness to meet an intemational crisis in the form ofa nuclear attack,” a natural disaster “telephone fan-out” (a phone tree exercise) system exercise, and a four-hour “nuclear attack” exercise.” ‘The Civil Unrest Plan was also tested through a series of six exercises. The first exercise focused on the intelligence-gathering capability of the city, “including the Intelligence Bureau of the [Denver] Police Department.””> According to the official Statement of Policy, “This exercise was given priority so that the city government could, as quickly as possible, have knowledge of what was going on all over the city, so as to spot possible trouble quickly and move to prevent the trouble fom degenerating into violence.””* The second exercise was a review of “the general strategy and tactics the city would employ in the event of civil disorders.” This second exercise consisted of six ‘workshops attended by State and City policy level personnel. Exercise No. 3 focused on developing a communication network to support the plan. Exercise No. 4 was designed to test to make sure that supplies and service requirements were ultimately only the responsibility of a single department manager. In other words, the city developed a clear set of guidelines for insuring that for any given item or service, only a single department ‘was responsible for ensuring its availability.”’ Exercise No. 5 focused on the agencies that would provide for the feeding, housing and care of refugees displaced from the zone of civil unrest. And exercise No. 6 focused on developing “answers to the problems of 7% “Denver's Mayor Curtigan Supports Vigorous Disaster Preparedness Program,” pages 2-3 °S “Civil Defense in Clvil Emergencies," City and County of Denver, Office of the Mayor, June 10, 1968, William McNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 8, page 4, DPL Collection. * “Civil Defense in Civil Emergencies,” City and County of Denver, Office of the Mayor, June 10, 1968, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 8, page 5. 7 “Civil Defense in Civil Emergencies,” City and County of Denver, Office of the Mayor, June 10, 1968, William McNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 8, page 5-6.26 orderly and timely re-entry into a devastated area and/or buildings.” Each of these exercises, except for No. 2, resulted in the development of an Annex to the basic uncivil unrest response plan.” Besides the duties clearly laid out in the C il Unrest Plan and general emergency plan, Denver had a general policy informing city agencies of their general responsibilities. For instance, the role of the Director of Civil Defense included not only ‘matters concerning nuclear defense in the “Denver Metropolitan Target Area,” it also included various duties such as: condueting and coordinating exercises and training programs, making surveys of private and local government resources, funetioning as the overall coordinator of all disaster operations, establishment of Emergency Operating Centers, establishment of emergency warning systems, and coordinating communications among various agencies during emergencies.®” The other agencies and personnel addressed in the 1965 Assignment of Disaster Responsibilities were the Mayor, City Council, Budget and Management, Law Department, Parks and Recreation, Department of Revenue, Clerk and Recorder, Safety and Excise, Fire Department, Police Department, Sheriff" Department, Building Inspection Department, Career Service Authority, Health and Hospitals, Welfare, Planning Office, Public Works, and the General Services Department. It was a “the buck stops here” policy where every agency knew what they ® “Civil Defense in Civil Emergencies,” City and County of Denver, Office ofthe Mayer, June 10, 1968, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 8, page 6 ® “Civil Defense in Civil Emergencies,” City and County of Denver, Office ofthe Mayor, June 10, 1968, William McNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 8, page 6 "© “Assignment of Disaster Responsibilities,” Inter-Otfice Memorandum jrom Wn. J. Allen, Director of (Civil Defense to the Managers of Safety and Excise, General Services, Public Works, Welfare, Health and Hospitals, Parks and Recreation, Revenue, Planning, Career Service Auhority, Budget and Management, Building inspection, Clerk and Recorder, City Atorney, Administrative Assistant of Mayor's Office, and Civtf Defense, December 3, 1965, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 8, Civil Defense page I, PL Collection. This particular memo consisted of departmental responsibilities, and the page numbers are restarted in each section,27 were responsible for in the event of an emergency in the City and County of Denver. This clear statement of the duties of each of Denver's governmental agencies was the backbone of the Denver Plan. It was these additional duties of the Director of Civil Defense that allowed the agency to morph into an agency that addressed the real world concerns of the City and County of Denver. It allowed Denver's Civil Defense agency to be useful during regular and emergency operations. There would be no vote to eliminate the Civil Defense program in Denver, for the Civil Defense program was also responsible for helping the city survive floods and prepare for the perceived threat of civil unrest. The funding for Civil Defense served double duty. The Emergency Communication Center was not just about surviving a nuclear war; it was about surviving anything that could go badly wrong in the city. In tum, this mode of operation would make the Denver Plan suitable for other cities to imitate. The problems facing Civil Defense were the same everywhere: how to justify the cost of the program; how to address the local disaster concerns of their particular region; how to make the public believe that the agency had a real purpose; how to fund the program; how to practice the Civil Defense plan without having an actual nuclear disaster. The Denver Plan, and the Denver attitude towards the duties of the Director of Civil Defense, put Denver ahead of the curve. It made the Denver Plan into a model plan for those officials responsible for the Civil Defense and disaster response,28 Appendix The Role of the Public School System in Civil Defense The Public School system had a role in the Civil Defense program. High schools taught a course designed by the Emergency Preparedness Staff. Some seven thousand sophomores were trained in disaster survival in 1974."' In addition, the schools were used as potential staging points in the Civil Unrest Annex. The junior high schools were earmarked for police and National Guard.** These facilities, operated by the Denver Public Schools System have been selected because of their locations, the open areas around the buildings, the internal facilities and the land line communication links to the [Emergency Operations Center] which can be made a direct tie, The school or schools used will afford a command post, shelter to the troops, cooking facilities and sanitary facilities. The school or schools used as staging points will not be used as a refugee center at the same time." Refugee housing and feeding was assigned to the high schools.* Even the elementary schools had a role to play in the Civil Unrest Annex, though a limited role. ‘The Denver Elementary Public Schools in the disturbance vicinity will be used as refugee collecting points. The collecting points will provide only a central location(s) where transportation can come to move the people to a place of temporary shelter. No other functions will be performed at these points.®° ‘The schools mentioned also had fall-out shelters. The following chart shows the number of spaces each of the high schools and junior high schools mentioned in the Civil Unrest Annex could handle (the full fall-out shelter list from May 1968 lists 864 fall-out shelters capable of dealing with 1,023,453 refugees).** * Mecting notes, Denver Emergeney Preparedness Advisory Council, January 15, 1974, William ‘MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 12, page 1, DPL Collection. ® Basie Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, Revised April 1969, pg C-7. ® Basie Civil Emergency Operations Plan, City and County of Denver, Revised April 1969, pg C-7 to C8. Basie Civil Emergency Operations Plan, Cty and County of Denver, Revised April 1969, ng D-4 ® Basie Civil Emergency Operations Plan. Cty and County of Denver, Revised April 1969, pg D-2 © City and County of Denver Civil Defense Shelters by Street Address, May 9, 1968, page 33, William MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 9, DPI. CollectionDenver High School Fall-out Shelters (May 1968)°” 29 Ni if School Number of Spaces Stocked with Rations | ‘Abraham Lincoln High | 4,925 Yes East High 9.910 Yes George Washington High [12,165 Yes John F. Kennedy High Unlisted Yes Manual High 4348 Yes ‘North High 6,000 Yes Thomas Jefferson High 5,640 Yes West High 4240 No Junior High School Fall-out Shelters (May 1968)** Name of Schoo ‘Number of Spaces Stocked with Rations Baker [5570 ____| Yes Byers 2,440 Yes Cole 4,226 Yes - Gove 665 ‘Yes Grant 1,185 ‘Yes Hill 1,685 Yes Mann 2.675 Yes Kepner [1.510 Yes Kunsmiller [2,584 Yes Lake 1,194 Yes Merrill 2,005 Yes Morey 1,545 Yes Rishel 3,275 _ [Yes 4,705 Yes 1,162 Yes The area of the role that schools played in Civil Defense deserves further research. The future researcher should be warmed that little information can be found in the Civil Defense files (at least in Box 40 of the William MeNichols Papers), and that a quick perusal of the Denver Public School Papers in the Western History Department ° City and County of Denver Civil Defense Shelters by Street Address, May 9, 1968, 33 pages, ‘MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 9, DPL Coilection. “City and County of Denver Civil Defense Shelters by Street Address, May 9, 1968, 33 pages, William ‘MeNichols Papers, Box 40, Folder 9, DPI. Collection m30 Collection at the Denver Public Library revealed that the papers involving the DPS are disorganized without no rhyme or reason.