"Linus Pauling and the Twentieth Century." 1996. Produced by BMV Productions for Soka Gakkai International, used in conjunction with
the traveling exhibit "Linus Pauling and the Twentieth Century."
An Atmosphere of National Panic. (0:40)
Transcript
Narrator: In the 1950s, Americans wanted to forget about the hardships of war and focus on
their new prosperity. But the ever-increasing arms race between the United States
and the Soviet Union made the threat of nuclear war impossible to ignore. As the
Cold War heated up, hatred of Russia and its communist beliefs swept the nation.
Many American scientists went along with the government's position that the fallout
from atomic bombs was not particularly harmful, and that so-called "clean" bombs were
being developed. In this atmosphere of national panic and witch-hunts, Pauling spoke
out.
