PORTLAND OREGON'S CIVIL DEFENSE DEBUT "A DAY CALLED X" (1957)

    A DAY CALLED X ATOMIC ATTACK  

Be prepared.

That's what they keep telling us. Prepared for a viral pandemic. Girded for a killer earthquake. Braced for the next volcano eruption, for widespread fires, for marauding terrorists.

Bad things happen, we know this. So hunker down. Gear up. And thank your lucky stars that no matter how scary the H1N1 virus may seem, at least we no longer consider ourselves to be poised on the brink of a day so horrifyingly destructive it can only be referred to as "X."

It actually happened in Portland, on a sunny September morning in 1957. You think I'm kidding, but I've seen it. You can see it, too (watch video below). What you'll see, my friends, will shock you.

It's our city. Fifty-two years ago, but entirely recognizable, full of light and life and something like vim. Urban life proceeding apace. Paper boys on their bikes, longshoremen loading scrap iron at the port, the City Council dickering over some incomprehensible point of sewer policy. "An average day in an average American city," notes Glenn Ford.

Wait. What? The actor Glenn Ford? How did he get into the picture? Who's he talking to? And why did he just compare Portland's size and population on this wonderfully average day to that of, um, Hiroshima?

"This day," Ford continues, "THIS day is the one called ... X."

That can't be good. And just in case you think you're watching a Hollywood fantasy, here comes Mayor Terry Schrunk -- the real Terry Schrunk, Portland's mayor from 1957 until 1973 -- looking extremely grim as he addresses officials stationed in the city's doomsday bunker in Kelly Butte.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he intones. "You've heard reports that enemy planes are approaching. In less than three hours an H-bomb might fall over Portland."

This really happened. The sirens really wailed. Mayor Schrunk really sprinted off to Kelly Butte. He really declared that enemy planes were on their way. Portland hospitals and schools were really evacuated. Citizens really fled the city in droves.

All for the benefit of cameras sent from CBS to film "The Day Called 'X,'" a 30-minute movie aired on the television network on Dec. 8, 1957.

Produced as a kind of dramatized documentary about the best way to respond to a nuclear attack, "X" was shot in Portland over several weeks that September, with actual Portlanders (including the mayor and other government notables) as themselves. Chosen as a result of a particularly successful citywide Civil Defense drill in 1955, Portland stepped easily into its role of an American city on the brink of a nuclear holocaust.

Families across the city became aware of the worldwide crisis when the newspaper landed on their front porch.

"We're interested more in the reality of Portland's civil defense work than in a glamour-type Hollywood production," associate producer Arthur Swerdloff told The Oregonian a few weeks before filming began.

Which seems fortunate when you consider the absence of real characters or a plot beyond the surface story of a city full of people made to run for their lives in the most calm, reasoned way imaginable.

"My dad was always big on civil defense, and being prepared," recalls Terry Schrunk's son, longtime Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk, who was a teenager during his father's turn in front of the cameras.

"He saw it as promoting civil defense," the younger Schrunk says. "There wasn't any big glamorous opening, or anything like that."

Granted, "The Day Called 'X'" isn't the sort of glossy crowd-pleaser designed to make audiences stand up and cheer. More like duck and cover, or perhaps run and hide. No wonder CBS felt compelled to plaster "AN ATTACK IS NOT TAKING PLACE" across the screen every few minutes.

The fun begins with a quick establishing shot from the radio tower on Kelly Butte, from which we see a pair of official-looking cars zooming up the road. A siren blares. The cars screech to a halt. And men in suits burst from the doors, striding past a guard and into the maw of an underground bunker.

The lead man is Schrunk, who seems a bit queasy as he faces the bureaucrats stationed at the desks and confirms what they already know to be true: Bombers are headed for Portland. The fiery holocaust is imminent.

The entire city hit the road, including patients in hospitals, students in schools -- all but essential personnel.

The shriek of an air raid siren accompanies the movie's title, which lasts scant seconds before we cut to the reassuring presence of Ford, perched on a stool on a darkened stage in a funereal suit.

"Like myself," the actor rumbles, "I think you'll be very interested in the story we're about to tell you."

This may strike you as an understated way to begin a movie about the end of the world. But Ford is nothing short of avuncular as he sets the scene for viewers, describing Portland's sylvan setting and the "friendly, rugged" people here. Why, here comes Joe the paper boy now, tossing a copy of the morning's Oregonian (good lad) onto the porch of Mrs. Frank Stuefel, housewife and mother of five, who avoids the terrifying headlines on the front page (WORLD SHAKEN BY CRISIS) in favor of the ladies' page. A nameless host on KOIN-AM beams happily into his microphone as he ushers his listeners into the new day. "Wake up, Portland!" he cries. "It's a wonderful day today!"

Not for long. Because what we're seeing is the world's worst nightmare, particularly in the 1950s depths of the Cold War between the nuclear powers of the United States and the Soviet Union: the onset of a nuclear war, waged against everyday citizens in virtually any, or perhaps every, city in the world.

"The banshee wail heralds the siren," the announcer says. "And the city prepares for survival."

There is, he continues, an intricate citywide plan already in place. "But," he muses, "will it work?"

Next we revisit the opening sequence, with Schrunk and his entourage bee-lining their way to Kelly Butte. The top ranks of the city's government are already there to greet him ("The government must survive if its people are to survive," Ford points out) and from there the film becomes a lesson in how a well-oiled bureaucracy approaches the prospect of a fiery apocalypse. Amazingly, and perhaps reassuringly, they make it all look boring: mass death foretold in traffic bulletins, evacuation statistics and reports of what sounds like widespread indifference. "There is no panic among the schoolchildren!" a functionary shouts.

Bunker-like facilities for the officials who had to stay in town were provided with purified air.

Then it's 1:47 p.m., almost three hours after the initial reports had the enemy something like, oh yes, that's right -- three hours away. The camera settles again on the grim face of Portland's mayor, who observes that "the bombers are probably overhead."

Silence. Then a quick cut back to Ford, perched again on his stool. "What happened after that moment, we'll leave you to contemplate," he says.

Viewers' contemplations inspired a variety of responses. Some were terrified, particularly in Portland, where dozens of panicked calls flooded into The Oregonian's city desk. More savvy watchers, such as the TV critic at Time magazine, declared themselves bored with a film that portrayed a citizenry greeting their own near-guaranteed destruction "with the equanimity of Perry Como in a high school fire drill." The fault, the review concluded, belonged to the 10,000 unprofessional actors. "Portland's citizens let viewers down."

I'm sure they felt terrible. But, as Ford pointed out at the movie's end, at least Portland had a plan. "They're ready, if there really is a day called 'X,'" he says, fixing the camera with a level gaze. "How about you?"

The definition of 'X' may change. But the question still looms.

THIS STORY COMES FROM A RESIDENT OF THE PORTLAND OREGON AREA AS
HE EXPLAINS HIS CITIES SCENES AND RESIDENTS WHO ACTED INSTEAD OF
HIRED  HOLLYWOOD TYPES ALL IN ALL WELL DONE PORTLAND WELL DONE!!! CONTACT PETER CARLIN FOR MORE HISTORY ON THE MOVIE A DAY CALLED "X"
 petercarlin@news.oregonian.com

A Day Called X is a dramatized CBS documentary film set in Portland, Oregon, in which the entire city is evacuated in anticipation of a nuclear air raid, after Soviet bombers had been detected by radar stations to the north; it details the activation of the city's civil defense protocols and leads up to the moment before the attack (the ending is left intentionally unknown). It was filmed in September 1957 and aired December 8 of that year. It was presented by Glenn Ford.

Its local rebroadcast in 2004 and appearance in the on-line Prelinger Archives attracted interest among local history buffs due to its extensive outside shots of the city, and the use of non-actor participants (local officials and broadcasters).Whenever one of these individuals is heard uttering warnings or statements regarding attack, the words "An attack is not actually taking place" are superimposed over the picture.

On September 27, 1955, Portland actually conducted an exercise evacuation of downtown called "Operation Greenlight,"and the film is often misattributed to that year. Ford's narration, however, does make direct reference to the 1955 exercise

At the dawn of the nuclear age, evacuation was opposed by the federal government. The Federal Civil Defense Administration produced a short movie called Our Cities Must Fight. It argued that in the event of a nuclear war, people need to stay in cities to help repair the infrastructure and man the recovering industries. "Nuclear radiation," it advised, "would only stay in the air a day or two."Despite this early opposition, evacuation plans were soon created. One city at the forefront of such efforts was Portland, Oregon. In 1955, their city government completed "Operation Greenlight"--a drill to evacuate the city center. Hospital patients were packed into semi-trucks, pedestrians were picked up by passing motorists, and the city's construction equipment and emergency vehicles were rushed out to "dispersal points." The entire city center was evacuated in 19 minutes. On December 8, 1957 CBS Television aired a dramatization of how a well prepared city might respond to an imminent nuclear attack. The show,A Day Called 'X', produced "in co-operation with the Federal Civil Defense Administration," was shot in Portland, using City officials and ordinary citizens instead of professional actors. It was narrated by Glenn Ford. Such plans were plausible in the early days of the Cold War, when an attack would have come from strategic bombers, which would have allowed a warning of many hours. The development of Intercontinental ballistic missiles made this goal less realistic, however. Despite that, civil defense officials still worked to prepare evacuation plans. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan announced the Crisis Relocation Plan. The White House suggested that the $10 billion, five-year program could allow the evacuation of targeted urban centers to rural "host areas" and thus save 80% of the population. The plan allowed up to three days for the evacuation to be completed, believing that a nuclear war would not come in a surprise attack but rather as the culmination of a crisis period of rising tensions. Thank god we did not have to Evacuate since as a study showed that if Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant had a level 1 Crisis with it being 50 plus miles up the hudson NYC residents would have to shelter in place since Evacuation would be impossible,Go ahead and look "shelter in place" on the FEMA web site, Another study during the 1970s was Evacuating Long Island if the Long Island Lighting Co. "LILCO" Shoreham Nuclear Power Generating Plant went online when construction was finished in the late 1980s, Long Island has one of the worst Rush Hour traffic problems in the world known as the worlds largest parking lot, A study showed it was impossible to Evacuate Suffolk and Nassau through New York City Day OR Night! If the Shoreham Reactor Had A crisis or a release of Radiation, (most long islanders had no idea about the working nuclear reactor at brookhaven national lab and IT was leaking into the ground water) Long Islanders trying to flee the reactor 80 miles east of NYC would try to Evacuate on  the Long Island Expressway and secondary roads not made for heavy traffic dooming anyone trying to get off LI,One simple point i will always remember And it was on every bridge pillar along the LIE, activists painted , Fallout Shelter symbols and statements like " If this were you evacuating would you make it ? imagine triple the amount of cars add panic-) Or (you are in the 30 mile Evacuation Zone lethal radiation expected) Now remember your sitting for over an hour in bumper to bumper traffic for miles reading these signs they worked and Shoreham was dismantled. Evacuation may have worked in "A Day Called X' with a 3 day head start but for most areas in the US this was wishful thinking,