Some Blasts From the Past We Can Live Without

Godzilla is back. So is The Bomb.

Welcome to Retro Menace Month.

Why, at a time when the world should be looking to the future, are we regurgitating the past?

What’s next? Shall we bring back polio? Stalinism? How about a segregated South?

The original Godzilla movie was released in 1956. Deciding the world needs more fictional terror, Hollywood has re-created the mutant lizard, which was the result of nuclear testing gone awry. So far, the box office is good.

Seeing the numbers and sensing a trend, India and Pakistan apparently have decided the world also has gone too long without a bona fide nuclear threat. So, they’ve conspired to give us one. If Hollywood can resurrect a menace, so can they. Never mind that their countries are racked by poverty and despair; they’ve concluded that a little underground nuclear testing is just what they need to put themselves on the map.

Someone should tell them that the idea behind nuclear weapons is just the opposite.

First, India, then Pakistan. Instead of prompting somber reflection among the citizenry, the detonations sparked celebrations in the two countries, with many people jubilant over their governments’ achievement.

U.S. schoolchildren who grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s will remember the good ol’ days of nuclear threat somewhat differently.

Every so often, somewhere between recess and spelling, American students would take five and hit the deck. It was called “civil defense,” and it wasn’t supposed to be a joke.

People of a certain age also will remember the occasional radio moment when an ominous buzz would interrupt programming with a reminder that went something like: “In the event of an actual emergency . . .” They weren’t necessarily talking about tornadoes and floods.

Today’s schoolchildren would be surprised to know there was once a term, “bomb shelter.” It was the place we were going to go if the Russians attacked. That’s the kind of scenario that probably sounds like a fun game to today’s children. And it would have been fun for us, too, except that it was real.

It was so real that in the 1960s the country built a network of fallout shelters, where we would go and stay for who knows how long. Nuclear radiation was so devastating that citizens were told they’d have to remain in shelters for indeterminate lengths of time.

Naturally, the cold, dangerous reality spawned a comic counterpoint: a popular poster from the mid-1960s listed a sequence of steps to take in case the Russians attacked. The first several instructions were sober and serious, advising such things as taking adequate supplies and clothing. That all led up to the final instruction for what to do if, in fact, nuclear bombs fell on America: “Bend over, grab your ankles and kiss . . . “

Well, you had to laugh because the subject matter was too deadly to think about. The specter of nuclear war was part of American and Soviet Union life.

One measure of civilization’s progress is that today’s young people don’t know about things like that.

You’d think anyone with a memory of those years would be disinclined to return to them. You’d think that once Godzilla stared you in the face, no one would invite him back.

President Clinton’s reaction perfectly captured the moment. Sounding more like Joe Citizen than a world leader, Clinton said of the countries’ nuclear tests: “I cannot believe we are about to start the 21st century by having the Indian subcontinent repeat the worst mistakes of the 20th.”

India and Pakistan, however, must be feeling very retro these days. The Cold War ended. Northern Ireland is inching toward peace. The Middle East may get there too. Meanwhile, the Indians and Pakistanis can’t resist a hankering to revive the menace.

Maybe they want the world’s children to relearn phrases like “arms race” and “mutually assured destruction.” Children, can you pronounce a-n-n-i-h-i-l-a-t-i-o-n?

Nothing for us Americans to worry about, you say? Maybe not. Probably not. But once the menace escapes, you can’t be sure where it’ll go.

Check out the current Godzilla on the country’s movie screens. The big boy started out somewhere in the South Pacific and ended up in Manhattan.

Hollywood has brought back Godzilla, the ultimate menace.

So have India and Pakistan.

Hollywood can take care of the beast it has created.

The question is, can India and Pakistan?

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821, by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.