Small pockets of laughter were heard Tuesday evening as author Garrett Graff detailed the ways past Americans planned for the end of the world -- specifically, surviving a nuclear apocalypse.
He alluded to duck-and-cover drills and fallout shelters stocked with food and other survival supplies -- all preparations for a nuclear war that never arrived.
"It sounds quite comedic when I talk about it," he said to the small crowd of students and others at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock.
But looking back, Graff, the former editor of Politico and Washingtonian magazines, said the plans encompassed every aspect of American life, representing a time when nuclear annihilation was a clear and present danger to people across the nation.
In an interview after the speech, he said it's difficult to imagine the level of fear in American society during the Cold War, but likened it to the anxiety that surrounds modern mass shootings.
Graff, who now works as the executive director of the Aspen Institute's cybersecurity and technology program, spoke Tuesday about his latest book Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself -- While the Rest of Us Die.
During the speech, he said the U.S. government's extensive plans in response to a catastrophic attack on American soil also bring up more existential questions about America. What should the U.S. government try to preserve? Should the government strive to save the three branches of government? Which historical totems should be saved first?
The rise of nuclear weapons, he said, also had far-reaching impacts that most people don't realize, including their effect on the office of the U.S. president by enabling a commander in chief to launch a nuclear strike within a matter of minutes.
Some of the interest Tuesday night focused on Graff's knowledge of former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who has been appointed as a special counsel to investigate potential ties between Russia and President Donald Trump's campaign. Graff has also written The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror, which was published in 2011.
Skip Rutherford, dean of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, introduced Graff at the event and said the author likely knows more about Mueller than any other journalist today.
Toward the end of the event, Rutherford asked Graff for his thoughts on the investigation.
Graff described Mueller as a "deeply tenacious" person and he described the team of prosecutors with Mueller as "probably the most talented team of investigators that has ever been assembled by the Justice Department, in its history."
Metro on 11/29/2017