Atomic Radio Collection

What an interesting time: Fallout Shelters and Fins on Fenders, Air Raid Alarms and Rock and Roll. The future was full of the wonders that science and technology could bring us. And science and technology had also given us the means to decimate all life on the planet. Improvements in Rocket Science had brought us to the edge of the Space Age, but the same technology brought the ICBMs that could deliver world-ending Atomic destruction.

The beginning years of the Cold War (approx 1946-1963) were also the waning years of the Golden Age of Radio. The improved broadcast and recording technology developed during WWII combined with greater sophistication on the part of writers and audiences, and resulted in some great programming. We call this programming Atomic Radio.

In this collection we will share some of radio's efforts to teach us about the new Atomic Technology with documentary shows like The Fifth Horsemanand The Quick and the Dead. The collection explores how our leaders reacted to the dawning of the Atomic Age in Keys to the Capitoland President Harry Truman: Atomic Bomb Destroys Hiroshima.

Fiction is a great way to explore concepts as complex as the Atomic Age, and Radio doesn't disappoint. Many programs dealt with the espionage world that was such a large part of the conflict between the Superpowers. I was a Communist for the FBI was based on Soviet Sponsored Communist infiltration of our country. Man Called X, The Saint, and Mr Moto were all called to secretly protect us from our devious enemies.

Science Fiction was filled with tales of the horrors of Atomic War, and morality fables of how easily the horrors could be released. Stories from the best Science Fiction writers would be featured in Dimension X, Exploring Tomorrow, Suspense, and X Minus One. Probably the best way to defeat something that you fear is to laugh at it, and we can find these laughs at Duffy's Tavern and Fibber McGee & Molly.

The Cold War is finally over. But Fear and the Bomb are still with us. Perhaps we can be reassured by knowing we have survived them before.

See also: Apocalypse Collection.