Prepare for survival; Evacuation policies

Imagine every single bullet and every last bomb fired by every German and every Japanese every Russian and every Briton every Italian and every American and every other army fighting World War 2. Multiply this total of explosives by seven and concentrate all this into one single bomb exploding in mere millionth of a second over any or all of several hundred major United States targets and you will have some idea of the magnitude of the problem of survival. In and why you gonna run away gonna run in and I am playing on Iran on that day. Run to the tree hardly run to the tree run to the trees the trees want to hide me. Oh on the. Lord said cinnamon phrasal my lord said cinnamon

a lot said cinnamon will be a lot on that day. The National Association of educational broadcasters present prepare for survival a radio sounding board for facts and opinions on civil defense. All cinema on Iran do. Oh cinema. Gonna run to and GONNA RUN do. All on one. On that day that day that the bombs begin to fall on that day all discussions of civil defense preparedness will be futile on that day. The choice will be simple. We will either run from them or hide from them. They call running away from the target area. Evacuation and hiding taking shelter.

But these are euphemisms we will run or we will hide. Just a few years ago the official civil defense policy was to evacuate our cities in the event of an emergency. When the people begin to ask what should be done to feed clothe and protect them from radioactive fallout in the open countryside. The policy was changed. Then the people were told to build shelters instead of fleeing from the cities. Neither the evacuation policy nor the Do It Yourself shelter policy has produced any degree of civil defense preparedness. However to an economy minded administration those policies share a common virtue of not costing the government any money. This failure to provide for the protection of our people has been accompanied by an almost total lack of concern for the safety of federal assets that will be sorely needed in a post-attack situation. There has been no recent shift in policy and I'd like to

discuss that for just a moment. For Ensign's the many people misinformed people think that this is a matter of shelter versus evacuation. That's not the case and as I mentioned to you I served in the military for some years. I remember as a young lieutenant when I was at Fort Benning they add me attack all the time. But gee they had me also go on defense and I thought how ridiculous that is. Why do I need defense what I want to do is go and win this war and come home. Well I had a great combat waiter general Major General Terry Allen was my division commander I was with his fighting division. Well he was a great office man attacked attacked attacked. They are not. But you know once in a while we had gone defense and fortunately we were prepared because we devoted many hours to training and defense. This is the nuclear age. I make no similarity other than this. You have to

prepare for every contingency. Prepare for it. We urge the target cities to have a capability of executing a movement plan should there be adequate time and should conditions permit. Secondly we urge that every city every community including the strategic target areas that we consider ourselves have a cup a capacity to take shelter take cover in adequate shelters. Those are two tactics you can't do without. Both tactics planning. You have to have preparation for who executes the order. I don't execute the orders. The governor of a state does not execute the orders. The Executive of that community the mayor he's the elected leader and the head of the local government. He makes the decision depending upon the conditions on the time etc.. Whether or not he should

move people out or whether or not they should take immediate cover. That's his decision not mine. All I say to the mayor is have the capacity the capability of executing one should the conditions merit it. Like I mention on strategic watch. Or if you had adequate time of two or three hours would you move people from the office or the center of the city down to their homes or out to their homes. It's a win the strike. It's ground zero. Everything within a very short distance there's Paul Rudd. And if I can get him out of that if time permits and certainly a good civil defense staff of the mayor would be able to properly advise him as to whether or not he should take that course of action. The first voice was that of Representative Geoff Hollyfield who was chairman of the House Military Operations Subcommittee which had been holding hearings on nuclear warfare and

civil defense. The second was that of the director of the Office of Civil and defense mobilization of the federal government governor Leo Eyharts. They are two of the most informed people on civil defense. Governor hawgs Office of Civil Defense mobilization has no direct control of the state and local civil defense offices. Consequently differences over official policy matters can be found between the federal and some state and municipal civil defense offices. But this is not necessarily bad as circumstances differ from city to city. And while we may expect New York or Washington to be prime targets a city like Portland Oregon might be temporarily bypassed. Mr. Jack Loew director of the Portland Civil Defense Office discusses a policy disagreement with the federal government regarding evacuation and shelter procedures. Course we're very very I'm interested in this particular thing at this time and we don't see eye to eye

with. The way the program is coming out of the federal level at the present time. As a matter of fact the national program the nation will plan for civil defense and you take a look at your carefully you'll see that which is the current doctrine that there is no basic change in civil defense policy from evacuation to fallout shelters the basic policy is evacuation and shelter for evacuation and shelter. And statements have been made by Governor Hoiberg to the effect that outside of the target areas and outside of the probable high damage areas that is where we need fallout shelters. But we agree with that statement completely but the way the program is coming out of the federal agency one gets one is likely to get the impression that they're recommending fallout shelters even for citizens who live in probable target areas. We don't buy this at all. Of course and as a result we have recently issued a policy

statement. A policy statement agreed to by the executive heads of all government agencies in the Portland target area in which we point out that we must make our main effort. And concentrate upon developing a capability for evacuation. The people want to build shelters in the target area they should build blast shelters and will do all we can to help them. We do not recommend fallout shelters within the evacuation area which is a roughly in area extending 20 miles from downtown Portland. And as a matter of historical record in most places peace is where we differ. During the past several years ultimately the federal program has come around to our point of view. I'm not saying that because I think we know more about anybody else but we have tried to keep our program on a very realistic basis. Well evacuation is a survival maneuver.

Not peculiar as you know to Washington D.C. Mr. George Roderick civil defense director for the District of Columbia provided for in almost every plan including military plans in the military. Some people would call this retreating. Others would call it advancing to the rear. The basis for evacuation is that we are trying to provide ace a maneuver that will allow people to put some time and distance between them and the place where the accident is about to happen. And so we're looking at the criteria for setting up evacuation. We find that we on Nolen 1060 still. With the feeling that the if was again provide us with advance warning against men to bomb us from any potential enemy and we

are confident that we can get this warning. So we have said that we can evacuate certain numbers of people in the district if we have the time. And I plan presently calls for an evacuation advisory to be issued over Kano Arad by the District of Columbia civil defense. If we have more than one hour's time to negotiate this maneuver. It means that the Air Force which pipes its information directly into this office on a 24 hour basis must tell us at the estimated time of attack in this area is more than one hour. If we receive such information then we advise the people in the District of Columbia to evacuate to district using the routes which we have prepared and marked for them and called to their attention and to leave this District of Columbia and try to get about 20 miles at least 20 miles away from the city in the

time allotted to them. We also have in our plan. And you know another proviso which says that evacuation will be stopped when when the time reaches 20 minutes before the estimated time of attack. The Air Force again. Well keep us advised on a running basis of the attack pattern and estimated times so that when we are told that the time is now down to 20 minutes we would again sound the public outdoor warning systems on the sound in the take cover. And Conrad would switch over from advisory on evacuation to instructions to take cover. That's our evacuation plan. These routes and the traffic studies made and all of the work done by our professional people in developing it show was that if all goes well during an evacuation we can drain the District of Columbia in an amount equal

to about 100000 people per 30 minute time interval. That is to get them over the 20 mile line so that. We would probably within that hour's time I would think reduce the population within the district by probably 400000 people I know the arithmetic doesn't add up at this point. But remember I'm saying that it takes time. We can get them out of the 20 mile line we get a better rate of about 100000 every 30 minutes. But from the 20 mile mark a back to the district boundary there will be thousands of people still going out. Montgomery County Maryland adjoins the District of Columbia on the north its civil defense plan is coordinated with those of Washington and several other surrounding counties in both Maryland and Virginia. The Johns Hopkins University Operations Research Office located in suburban Bethesda Maryland took a survey of public opinion on civil defense in Washington and Montgomery

County. Dr. Ellis a Johnson is the director of this office and along with Governor Hoyer a resident of Montgomery County. There is an evacuation plan and the Montgomery County Civil Defense Bowen which is advisory to the Montgomery County Council was a very fair and in its recommendations to their council that Montgomery County should not participate in any evacuation plan that Gration plan has been worked out very carefully. And it began the planning for that big must have begun something our sixty eight years ago. But it said planet was a book about six or eight years ago and has pretty much complete nonsense now. If you assume

that the United States is going to be hit in surprise it's not a sense because the conditions of a surprise attack will only have 15 minutes warning 15 minutes warning at the most against missiles and perhaps several hours against aircraft. And we know it will take about twenty one to 24 hours to evacuate Washington and even then the population will still be within blast and far radius damage. And there is no provision so far as I know to provide and so far as the evaluation committee was able to find out to provide fall out shelter or any other kind of shelter for the back your ways. Well all this means then is that I'm of the conditions of surprise attack. All that and evacuation plan is to redistribute the

corpses. You can show without any ambiguity that if you do have shelters your chance of survival is a very very much higher in fact that we would expect 80 percent of the population in a metropolitan area to survive if they had adequate shelters they shelters would have to provide some blast protection as well as fallout ship protection for those close then. The question one has to ask oneself is. Since an evacuation plan is good only in the case of a surprise attack. I'm sorry. Since evacuation plan is no good in the case of a surprise attack. What kind of a situation is it good for.

Some people talk about evacuation of cities. This seems a singularly unsuited idea yet has absolutely no value and it's completely impossible for several reasons. Dr. Oscar Morgenstern now speaking is an advisor to the military applications subcommittee of the Joint Congressional Committee on atomic energy on the board of scientific advisors to Convair aircraft and a consultant to the Atomic Energy Commission. The first is that if an attack comes only minutes of warning time exist and you cannot even empty a building in a few minutes let alone big cities. And if the cities were evacuated hours or perhaps days in advance of an attack what would the paper do. What are the preparations for feeding them housing them. In the open countryside where do you put the paper from Los Angeles in the desert isle or are they fed. How are they fed and how do they receive even water.

Or do you put them where you housed them in the winter cold in Minneapolis and around Chicago. All of this is utterly impossible and simply ludicrous. So I have no faith whatsoever that evacuation has any meaning. Furthermore fall out will come and the fallout will certainly kill them because evacuation without getting the people down into Fallout shelters which obviously don't exist is nonsense. There is no fall out during evacuation. As you know the evacuation is based on the fact that we are conducting these maneuvers prior to the attack. That is the initial evacuation and so there would be no bonding no for this place. The cost there are no fallout shelters in any significant numbers to the north south east or west of us here. But there are many shelters

and many shelter areas the automobile itself has a shelter every basement is a shelter every bond every building every house. These adequate shelters know the not adequate shelters but the shelters. We have studied the fallout patterns developed over all of the operations of operation alerts in the past four five years. And so when we have lost reception area counties south of us to take on this mission of providing for people we consider that they are the best counties and those that would be least subjected to fallout or in any event. Will not be subjected to lethal radiation and full out for some many hours and maybe good day more after attacks west of us and we would have a chance to advise people by radio and other means to take the best available Shell said. New York City's civil defense director General Robert E. Condon was asked by

our producer whether his plan called for evacuation or shelter. We consider that there are three co-equal elements and several to fast shelter dispersal and evacuation. We give equal consideration to all we're able to develop an aggression of dispersal evacuation. Much farther than we've been able to develop in the shelter program have you had evacuation tests in the city of New York. We have training for evacuation tests constantly say our dispersal plan. How much time would you need to evacuate. We estimate that between 47 and 50 hours if we're have sufficient time for active attack that we can evacuate a minimum of maybe 5 percent of the 8 million people in the city of New York. The other 15 percent would be those that would be retained yours that would offend some others

for a critical effort that they this 15 percent could be evacuated within three hours immediately preceding an attack. Testing evacuation is almost impossible. And even if you do I know that New York State has tested evacuation from Binghamton New York to about 20 miles east to a town called deposit. They were able to evacuating one ward to one political jurisdiction there in Binghamton. It takes them weeks to prepare the people for such an evacuation. It takes weeks to prepare in the reception committee at the reception area. This type of test test to be so carefully planned and guided that if you end up with some would be able to test a theory really even though in practice you have moved people. I don't write much that we could ever test evacuation here in Washington unless

a demand would come from the people themselves to have such. Yes you can't get anyone to have any city that's likely to be attacked again in the United States in a hurry that will take a week to some weeks talk back to a New York City. I'll take a day off some days to evacuate Washington and any important tag it takes a long time to back away. Well are you going to have strategic warning of an attack. And I don't know. No one is given any information on which to base this were asked to be prepared to evacuate. But I personally do not propose myself to evacuate because. The president plans to leave the judged leave the judgement of what to do up to the individual. Leave it up to the local community.

There is nothing that forces an individual to participate in any particular plan and no individual is given adequate information on which to make a judgment as to what he ought to do. In my case my own personal judgment is that I'll go to a shelter my own shelter. Are you optimistic about American we should be thinking well optimistic I'm optimistic then I hope that if we ever had to use it that the people would use the plan now affectively that they know how to conduct themselves in the operation of evacuation. But whether evacuation is whether I'm optimistic or not whether students of this conclude that it's feasible or wise or not we must have evacuation as part of a plan.

But now the heraldry program we don't know exactly what the program is there and I played from for instance my home city. The siren sound at 12:15 every Monday that disturbs the peace of our citizens. It's an expensive matter to have the siren sounding all over Cleveland and Washington and other cities in our country and in Cleveland it was the program to evacuate Cleveland and immediately upon the siren sounding Clevelanders that were expected to run away toward Lorraine and then a little rain they had the sirens sounding and the people in the rain were expected to run toward Cleveland and they have these highways marked civil defense high which maybe maybe you me and have wondered why that is. Well I'll let you in on the secret. It's so they can get money from the federal government which is taxpayers money to help pay for those highways.

That was Ohio Senator Steven Young. Pre-attack decentralization means the building of cities and location of manufacturing sites and administrative offices. Over as wide an area as possible. And like evacuation this is in order to minimize the destruction which would occur in the crater and areas of complete destruction near the blast center. Mr Kenneth chairman of the survival planning subcommittee of the National Association of Manufacturers and security coordinator for the Standard Oil Company describes briefly the progress toward industrial decentralization. Our committee has considered the broad subject of industrial dispersion has well known that the USSR have deployed much of their industrial might into the Ural Mountains. The United States government has been advocating for years dispersion of industry wherever possible. Even giving tax concessions. Might be imagined as some headway has been made but it is still well-known that industry still tends

to locate in compact areas other survival planning items which should be mentioned is the making of provision for a continuity of management. Even with the deed even with the decentralized managements of which there are many today it is an accepted fact that there must be headquarters guidance and at least minimal amount of control from central source reasonably soon after a catastrophe. All the various boards of directors actions are not too generally known we have to meet that well over half the industrial and business world in this country. I have made some provision and there are by laws to cope with possible emergencies particularly with respect to reconstitution of managements. We as a committee agree and recommend as such provision be made in all instances. Many companies have gone the route of non military defense along preparedness lines. Recognize that this type of preparedness also prepares for natural

emergencies. We on the mobilization of survival planning subcommittee recommended all industry and business enterprises. You have studied consideration with respect to the formulation of plans consistent and commensurate with their needs. It need not be a pretentious blueprint for security but with plans drawn and company records safely stored at a remote point the possibility of reconstitution of that respective operation would be materially hastened. From the foregoing. One is forced to raise the question what will all of these alternate and remote management points manage if the resources and the factories and the distribution facilities and the people are gone. Why are you going to run to the cinema. Why you gonna run to the cinema. Well you gonna run on that. Run to the rocks rocks won't run to the rocks rocks

the rocks rocks on the. North said cinnamon rocks will be a melting Lord said cinnamon rocks will be a melting on that day. Prepare for survival is a radio sounding board for facts and opinions on civil defense. It's written and produced by Richard Scheck and directed by Alan Murdoch the family fallout shelter and fallout shelter policies will be discussed on our next program. Recording editor and music by Rowena Logan is being prepared for survival is recorded by Wayne State University Radio in Detroit for the National Association of educational broadcasters under a grant from the National Educational Television and Radio Center. This is the end Radio Network.