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Credit to Author: Garrett M. Graff| Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2018 11:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Donald Trump plans <\/span>to text you Wednesday, whether you want him to or not. The first nationwide test of the government\u2019s Presidential Alert system will unfold at 2:18 pm ET, when every cell phone user in the United States will receive a text message from FEMA saying, \u201cTHIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System<\/a>. No action is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n The test alert\u2014which has already spawned numerous jokes about President Trump\u2019s Twitter habits\u2014is actually a rare public display of the classified side of FEMA\u2019s daily work. The agency best known as the public face of the federal government\u2019s response to major natural disasters originally started as\u2014and continues to be\u2014its secret doomsday planner<\/a>, overseeing the so-called \u201ccontinuity of government\u201d efforts that would ensure the evacuation of key officials to mountain bunkers<\/a> and airborne command posts<\/a> after a catastrophe.<\/p>\n In fact, Wednesday\u2019s test of the Wireless Emergency Alert System\u2014the fourth nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, and the first to use texting\u2014is only the latest in the country\u2019s odd history of national doomsday alerts, plans that over the years have included everything from special radio stations to pink balloons to TV entertainer Arthur Godfrey to, at least for the cable network CNN, the song the band played as the Titanic<\/em> sank.<\/p>\n Figuring out the <\/span>fastest way to alert citizens of an impending enemy attack or other national crisis has befuddled planners since the dawn of the Cold War. The first attempt by civil defense authorities was a joint effort between radio and television broadcasters and government planners in the early 1950s, known at the time as Conelrad (CONtrol of ELectromagnetic RADiation).<\/p>\n Upon activation of the warning system, radio stations across the country would have shut down their normal broadcasts while more than 1,000 AM stations would switch over to broadcasting on the same two channels, 640 kHz or 1240 kHz. In an era long before GPS or satellite navigation, the goal was to provide the public with information while simultaneously confounding any Soviet bomber that was trying to home in on a specific city by following local radio signals. Instead, the select AM radio stations would blanket the airwaves with emergency announcements and attack warnings on two specially designated civil defense channels nationwide, which were marked with special logos on every radio dial manufactured between 1953 and 1963, when the program ended.<\/p>\n In the event of an imminent attack, TV personality Arthur Godfrey\u2014one of the era\u2019s most trusted voices, and a close friend of Dwight Eisenhower, the president at the time\u2014had been asked to record a special public service announcement. His PSA, copies of which have never been found<\/a>, was meant to calm panic and report optimistically that most Americans would survive the forthcoming nuclear war.<\/p>\n Later, in the 1970s, the Watergate scandal actually derailed an update to the Conelrad system, as public distrust of government surveillance forced the FEMA predecessor to abandon a new technology it had proudly developed. In the years after World War II, the government had moved away from relying on air-raid warning sirens, and instead briefly set its sights on a system known as the National Emergency Alarm Repeater, or NEAR. The small buzzers, available for $5 or $10, could plug into any household electrical outlet and were triggered by a unique high-frequency electrical current transmitted across the national power grid by 500 specially designed warning signal generators.<\/p>\n The small town of Charlotte, Michigan\u2014close to the civil defense agency\u2019s headquarters at the time, in Battle Creek\u2014became the test bed for the NEAR device, US Patent 3,284,791<\/a>. The government handed out 1,500 devices to civilians and, for its low-tech test, gave each NEAR-equipped home a pink weather balloon to release into the air if the buzzer went off successfully. Spotters set up camp atop the city\u2019s courthouse roof and counted the mass of balloons as they rose into the sky to determine the test\u2019s effectiveness.<\/p>\n Although it was originally intended to alert 90 percent of the country\u2019s population within 30 seconds, the multimillion-dollar NEAR program was abandoned quickly when it became clear how useless a blanket, indistinct national alert would be. It provided no way for the government to give specific details or updates on the imminence or scale of an attack, and there was no way to reach citizens afterwards with further information about the government\u2019s response.<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s test of the Wireless Emergency Alert System is only the latest in the country\u2019s odd history of national doomsday alerts.<\/p>\n Instead, officials through the Johnson and Nixon administrations began to develop what they called the Decision Information Distribution System, a national radio network designed to notify citizens of a Soviet strike. The DIDS device could be installed in television sets for $10\u2014or retrofitted onto existing TVs for about $30\u2014and would, following a special government signal, turn on the television at any hour and tune it to a special low-frequency channel. Within 30 seconds of Washington issuing a warning, every TV in the country could be alerted, saving precious minutes in the race for shelter.<\/p>\n At the same time the Watergate burglary was unfolding in 1972, the government invested $2 million to build the first dedicated DIDS transmitter outside Washington, for a station dubbed WGU-20, Public Emergency Radio. The government branded the program\u2014which it estimated would save the lives of 27 million Americans by providing immediate warning of a Soviet attack\u2014with PERki, a peppy, friendly puppy mascot emblazoned all over its literature. It began to move ahead with plans for 10 more DIDS stations spread across the country, all of them controlled by centrally located radio transmitters in Ault, Colorado, and Cambridge, Kansas.<\/p>\n In one poll, seven out of 10 Americans said they were excited about the program and willing to invest their own money in a DIDS transmitter. But as the Watergate scandal spread, so too did public distrust of the government. When congressional oversight hearings highlighted secret surveillance programs and dirty tricks by the FBI and CIA, the government quietly shelved the entire warning system. \u201cThe technology is there,\u201d one federal official explained anonymously afterwards, \u201c[but] after [Watergate], there was no way we were going to tell John Q. Public that we were going to put something in his home TV that was controlled by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n By the 1980s <\/span>the government had settled into the Emergency Broadcast System, with regular public tests turning its incessant buzz and staccato warning voice into a familiar aspect of the American TV and radio experience. Behind the scenes, FEMA and the Pentagon tested the system twice a day, ready for a Soviet attack that never came.<\/p>\n If it had, FEMA would have activated a special dedicated AT&T party line and announced nuclear war using the day\u2019s specific emergency authentication codeword. The codewords for an attack were distributed in a red envelope four times a year to all the users of the emergency broadcast system. The codewords were generated automatically and preprinted for each month by an unsophisticated computer, which meant that the nation\u2019s Emergency Alert System long contained codewords for days like February 30 and September 31.<\/p>\n CNN secretly prepared a video featuring the final song played by the band aboard the Titanic,<\/em> set to air during the final moments before nuclear Armageddon.<\/p>\n Once activated, the alert would spread through warning centers like FEMA\u2019s headquarters, secret bunkers like Mount Weather, and more than 2,000 state and local \u201cwarning points,\u201d such as emergency 911 dispatch centers. Each center would hear an announcement: \u201cAttention all stations. This is the National Warning Center. Emergency. This is an Attack Warning. Repeat. This is an Attack Warning.\u201d FEMA would interrupt radio and television broadcasts as the FAA sent alerts to all airborne pilots, NOAA interrupted its weather radio network, and the Coast Guard broadcast nuclear war warnings to mariners at sea.<\/p>\n Some cities had their own unique warning systems, too: Button #13 in the DC mayor\u2019s emergency command center activated the Emerzak network, seizing control of the city\u2019s entire Muzak network and replacing the piped-in background music of the city\u2019s elevators, lobbies, medical offices, and department stores with instructions about impending doom.<\/p>\n The officials in charge of the system had little confidence that all of the alerts would make much difference. Lt. Robert Hogan, New York\u2019s deputy head of civil defense, said at one point, \u201cThe people who hear them will run into buildings and be turned to sand in a few seconds anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond the government\u2019s official systems, some media outlets readied their own doomsday warnings. When Ted Turner launched CNN, the network secretly prepared a video featuring the final song played by the band aboard the Titanic,<\/em> set to air during the final moments before nuclear Armageddon. As Turner said publicly, \u201cWe'll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event. We'll play the National Anthem only one time, on the first of June [when the network premiered], and when the end of the world comes, we'll play Nearer My God To Thee before we sign off.\u201d CNN recorded the song played by a joint US military band, with an honor guard standing at attention, and the tape sat in the network\u2019s archives for years. Slugged as \u201cTURNER DOOMSDAY VIDEO<\/a>,\u201d the program\u2019s notes read, \u201cHFR till end of the world confirmed,\u201d using the network\u2019s abbreviation for \u201chold for release.\u201d As Turner explained, \u201cWe knew we would only sign off once, and I knew what that would mean.\u201d<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s alert by FEMA tests what is now known as IPAWS, an acronym that has nothing to do with the perky dog mascot of days yore. The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System represents both the familiar Emergency Alert System, for TV and radio, and the recent addition of the Wireless Emergency Alerts System, added during George W. Bush\u2019s administration as a recognition that cell phones now represent the quickest way to reach the majority of Americans.<\/p>\n In the event of an IPAWS warning of a real nuclear strike, Americans would likely have about eight to 12 minutes to seek shelter before the missiles arrived.<\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n