Safety from Atomic Attack:

...at need, replace the defunct button king...

...Part V (published by Associated Universities...

...This problem of services could also be tackled by improving our transportation arrangements between smaller towns...

...but don't want to face up to its implications...

...Lewis Anthony Dexter, who has frequently been associated with Congressman Boiling since 1948, is an industrial analyst at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a consultant at the University of Delaware, and a former adviser to the Democratic National Committee...

...And it is right at the center of a target area...

...New York, 1952...

...In instances where employes suffer a loss because, for instance, a wife has to give up a job, a very substantial non-taxable cost-of-moving bonus should be provided...

...but, it should be emphasized, the very notion of "retaliation" presupposes that the enemy first attacks us...

...And in order to avoid fire storms, if for no other reason, slum clearance in target cities is still highly desirable...

...For example, there is every reason to suppose that about 30 per cent of all investment in plants in metropolitan areas during the last three years has been in the central target areas...

...It might then reveal alternative methods of defense among which an informed choice could be made...

...All this proves, of course, that it is awfully hard to persuade a man who lives on a volcano to get off it--tomorrow never comes...

...Like any proposal for a legislative investigation, the Boiling proposal is not altogether new and has numerous ancestors and antecedents...

...An effective program of civilian defense could mean the difference between a rapid resumption of military production and public services in many areas and a situation so catastrophic that we could not continue fighting...

...But public discussion of this sort can have even greater value...

...Discussion anywhere, but particularly before a Congressional committee, will throw a good deal of light on what will be accepted most readily and some on the problems and difficulties of administration...

...In other cases, it would need to stimulate??financially--the building of roads or bridges, or the development of ferry services...

...However, whatever the facts are, they should be established, and the first function of the committee will be to summarize and interpret them so that the people can understand what decisions must be made...

...ten to fifteen years later, most of them had been killed off or enslaved by the barbarian invaders...

...Probably many essential parts of vital weapons are now produced exclusively in target cities...

...the national industrial-dispersion policy, announced by the President in the summer of 1951, has never been broadly implemented, and by and large, since then, target cities have kept on growing faster than the rest of the country...

...But, on the other hand, along the Charles River in Boston and Cambridge there is a terrifying coneen-tration of scientific research, most of it defense-orietiled...

...Some order of priority needs to be set up...

...Civilian defense concentrates on mass evacuation before an attack, putting out fires, rebuilding telephone lines, rescuing the wounded, etc...

...otherwise, Brunswick itself would become a new target area...

...The third, foreshortened leg stands for immediate pre- and post-attack civilian defense...

...The chairman of the New Haven committee said in the spring of 1954: "Industrial dispersion is not accepted as practical...

...5. Transportation...

...The first leg may be seen as representing hardware, the weapons of "massive retaliation...

...It might dispel the deadly lethargy of hopelessness about the possibility of effective defense against H-bomb attack...

...This, in itself, is a question on which we must rely upon scientific judgment...

...But if there were easy rapid transit between the smaller suburbs and outlying districts--that is, from spoke to spoke, rather than through the hub--the difficulties involved in getting people to move out would be reduced...

...if, at the same time, Federal loan and mortgage policy makes it less profitable to build new houses or new department stores in Baltimore than in Brunswick, new buildings of this sort will take place in Brunswick and not in Baltimore...

...But, in any case, the first, obvious task of such an investigation would be to find out how and where the H-bomb and other developments of the last three years affect the conclusions of Project East River about how far we must spread out to be safe...

...Richard Boiling is the Democratic Congressman from Kansas City, Missouri...

...Consequently, one of our pressing needs at present is to rescue the Federal Civil Defense program from the no-man's land of buck-passing to which an unrealistic notion of states' rights has condemned it...

...Who shall make the decision on such knotty points as this: Radcliffe College builds a new Center for Graduate Students: is it new building...

...A parallel has already been provided by loan programs for GIs entering business, and no doubt such legislation could be adapted to help those establishing new businesses or professional services in towns showing a population increase because of spreading out from the cities...

...The Government cannot exactly transfer Maryland schools to Battle Creek, but there should be legislation permitting it to give aid to Battle Creek schools as "Federally-impacted" areas immediately, before the move takes place...

...3. Governmental operations: The Government itself is a prime offender in making life unsafe for everybody...

...2) What proposals permit the most economical and effective administration...

...and the ways in which the Federal Government in cooperation with state and local governments can, within our free-enterprise system, contribute to such dispersal or relocation policies through its monetary, credit and fiscal policies and through purchases and construction, aids to education, health and welfare, the regulation of transportation, and other programs or policies affecting the pattern of the nation's economic development.'' Congress has, of course, adjourned since the Boiling and Humphrey resolutions were introduced, but they will be reintroduced next year...

...So, no doubt, the elegant Romans of Britain in 390 AD would have disregarded any warning that they had better get out while the getting was good...

...But it goes well beyond any previous proposal in that it assumes that it is and should be national policy to use all the economic powers of the Federal Government to encourage industrial dispersion wherever such use will increase the safety of the country...

...This is what Senator Norris used to call the "lazy fairy" notion of government run mad...

...Very likely, many of these ways--if adopted--would be equally effective...

...However, the situation here seems to be still generally the same as when the late General Hoyt Vandenberg, then Air Chief of Staff, wrote: "Should war come, we can be expected to destroy no more than 30 per cent of the planes making an attack in strength on the United States before their bombing missions are accomplished...

...A group of scientists and scholars over the last eight years have pointed out that the basic reason why we must fear the atomic bomb is that we are all bunched up together like lambs in a slaughterhouse...

...There are, no doubt, dozens of other ways in which people could be persuaded to seek safety by spreading out...

...But, here again, the problem is complicated...

...Yet, only one Federal agency, the Federal Civilian Defense Administration itself, has actually arranged to move in order to meet the atomic threat...

...But they were and are largely, though not entirely, ineffective...

...That is, we make the target cities more attractive to attack--and less safe to live in--by something like this amount...

...The sixty-seven critical target areas contain most of our productive resources--including defense factories and a lot of skilled people...

...otherwise, since what is everybody's business is nobody's business, we would all be left defenseless...

...Only a few firms should be encouraged to build in Brunswick...

...If the Federal Government wants weapons or officers, it has to supply incentives for producing or training them...

...If a firm knows that it can deduct all expenses from gross--from the top--if it builds in Brunswick, Maryland, for instance, but not if it builds in Baltimore, it is likely to build in Brunswick...

...And what if a manufacturer puts a new wing on a plant...

...If so, this is of considerable importance...

...This proposal, which seems the most obvious common sense, has run up against a stone wall of indifference and hostility...

...In some cases, for instance, there might be considerable movement to a town without obstetricians...

...it means that industries can remain at their present locations...

...Saturday Evening Post, February 19, 1951) In other words, this system of continental defense presupposes an attack --and an attack which will be successful in damaging and perhaps ruining many of our big cities...

...Similarly, if we want safety, we have to provide incentives for those who can secure it...

...The second leg stands for the military aspects of defense--radar screens, continental air defense and the rest, which may permit us to detect and knock out some attacking enemy bombers...

...4. Inducements and compensations: A basic reason why the Federal Government has been unable to persuade itself to seek safety, so to speak, is the unwillingness of its employes to move...

...For instance, the Government could --and perhaps should--assume carrying charges on houses which are vacated and cannot be sold as a result of its requiring employes to move...

...First elected to the House in 1948 at the age of 33, he has been member of the Committee on Banking and Currency and the Joint Committee on the Economic Report...

...And this could have consequences far beyond the military field...

...Obviously, without such weapons we would be naked in a world of power politics...

...introduced a similar resolution in the Senate last July and, in his remarks explaining the meaning of the resolution, discussed the possible establishment of an Urban Decentralization Authority...

...The city manager of Cambridge, Massachusetts was quoted in July 1954 as urging that Cambridge, which is right in the heart of a high-priority area, start to build skyscrapers...

...The resolution declares that "it is the purpose of this resolution to bring before the Congress and the American people the best judgments of scientists, lay leaders and Congressional experts on the effect of the H-bomb or its successors on existing concentrations of population and industry...

...the possibilities for defense measures within those areas...

...science and industry are still concentrating in a few key areas--making them even more vulnerable Safety from Atomic Attack By Richard Boiling and Lewis Anthony Dexter AMERICAN MILITARY defense policy may be thought of as a chair with two legs which reach the ground, a third which is viciously foreshortened, and a fourth which is a mere stub...

...We hope that investigation and analysis by such a committee will lead to the invention of better ways of making us safer from attack than anything we now propose...

...among his articles was "Politics in Dispersal," which appeared in the September 1951 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists...

...The National Security Resources Board proposed plans, which were approved by President Truman, for dispersing essential governmental bodies into units so scattered that an A-bomb attack would use too much of the enemy's power to be worthwhile...

...Dudley Harmon of Boston says: "Our committee [on industrial dispersion] seems destined for complete inactivity...

...all of it with defense implications...

...and, furthermore, the United States Employment Service or some similar agency should provide special aid and help in getting new jobs for displaced wives...

...To be sure, a number of communities, under some prodding from Federal authorities, have formed industrial-dispersion committees...

...how can it be encouraged if new housing is not to be built in its place and the land is to be turned (as for safety it should be) into parks...

...And under what circumstances does an addition to plant get counted as new building...

...In such cases, inducements should probably be provided for specialists to move into the area...

...some substitute can doubtless be found, and in all probability other button manufacturers in smaller cities can...

...The actual problems are: (1) What proposals would be adopted with the least resistance and resentment...

...2. Vital products and services: Many basie national products and services are manufactured or developed entirely in target cities...

...The most exhaustive preparations for [civilian defense], while they can promise a considerable reduction in the number of casualties, could do little to protect the production facilities of an attacked city--facilities whose incapacitation is likely to be the prime aim of the attack...

...In San Diego, the assistant city manager says: "There have been no cases of [industrial dispersion] in the last two years...

...It could shut off new building almost entirely in obvious target areas by refusing to give the same tax and loan considerations to building there as elsewhere...

...Congress should make it unmistakably clear that they should do so...

...It matters relatively little if a contractor engaged in making uniform buttons is bombed out...

...Such historical parallels are unlikely to be convincing without the provision of concrete inducements...

...Indeed, one of the biggest arguments for such a committee is simply that it may focus attention and discussion on the question: How can we best preserve our lives and our civilization against atomic attack...

...Since the significance of this fourth leg lies in its relationship to the other three, let us first identify them...

...This report should have set off wide discussion, but in fact it has been almost completely ignored...

...At present, roads, railroads and bus schedules spread out from the big city like spokes from the hub of a wheel...

...The biggest obstacle to getting people to move out of cities is that they will miss some service that they are accustomed to...

...In some instances, all the Government would need to do would be to provide subsidies to the bus companies for more frequent bus trips...

...and, consequently, the gist of the Boiling proposal is the establishment of a Joint Committee on the Economics of Atomic Defense, which would "conduct a special study of the ways in which existing and proposed Federal economic powers and programs can make their greatest contribution to defense against modern atomic attack...

...Senator Hubert Humphrey (D.-Minn...

...But what has been done has been only a drop in the bucket compared with what could be done...

...But it isn't...

...The reasons why this is so have been cogently, patiently, carefully scientifically and persuasively presented in a series of publications, the most notable of which is probably Project East River...

...It is only fair to say that the use of certificates of necessity sometimes has encouraged new construction outside rather than inside target areas...

...How can and should this be done...

...Consequently, the daytime population of cities is needlessly large, and anybody who lives outside the city is at a disadvantage...

...All these things presuppose that the enemy successfully completes a most unpleasant attack--or at least threatens to do so...

...It is about as sensible as it would be for the Federal Government to proclaim that in order to defend ourselves we need battleships, tanks, airplanes, guns, uniforms, trained officers, etc., and then to leave it up to the manufacturers or the cities to produce them...

...Conversely, then, our capacity to retaliate would be increased by some measure of dispersion...

...By training a historian, he volunteered to serve in the Army during World War II and was released as a lieutenant-colonel...

...the degree to which industrial dispersion and urban decentralization can be expected to reduce the dangers of present-day atomic warfare...

...A co-author of this article, Representative Boiling, has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives which is directed toward finding out how we can most effectively and inexpensively purchase safety by using space...

...For instance, an editorial in the September 1951 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said: "Dispersal is the only measure which could make an atomic 'super-Pearl Harbor' impossible...

...At present, the purchasing agents for the Defense Department do not systematically take the contractor's safety from attack into account in placing contracts...

...Yet, the Defense Department has kept on placing contracts with MIT, Harvard and adjacent institutions...

...We must, these scholars have pointed out, spread out, or, in the event of war, we shall surely perish, individually and perhaps nationally...

...These the Federal Government can offer, if it will, to its employes in large measure...

...He has written frequently on military and international affairs...

...Common sense, similarly, would suggest dispersing Federal agencies out of metropolitan New York and San Francisco...

...This article deals with the fourth leg--safety against attack, ways and means of making it less effective for an enemy to attack with A-bombs and H-bombs...

...It has then chiefly left things up to the individual manufacturer, institution or worker...

...Having done this, we are inclined to believe that the committee will decide to explore and make recommendations on the following points: 1. New building: The major target cities add new building each year which altogether is the equivalent of four Bostons...

...Most people recognize the sense of it...

...Basically, the Federal Government has merely, given undramatically presented advice on industrial dispersion and on some means of making cities less attractive targets...

...as of July 1951, neither Harvard nor MIT even had library copies...

...but it seems probable that the area of great danger is considerably smaller than most people (or Chambers of Commerce) now fear...

...These arguments were cogent, careful, scientific and persuasive to those who read them...

...Through mortgage insurance, housing loans and taxes, the Federal Government can influence who builds what where...

...The Federal Civilian Defense Administrator has often declared that he thinks Washington is the Number 1 target for any enemy...

...At present, nobody knows very clearly...

...So stated, the problem seems simple...

...In some cases, if the target cities were to be destroyed the goods and services could not be obtained elsewhere...

...But, in most instances, with some effort and perhaps at a slightly greater cost, it would have been possible to place the contracts at institutions like Cornell, the University of Missouri, the University of New Hampshire, or the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee...

...A member of the industrial-dispersion committee in a New England area says: "As a matter of fact, there is a conflict between the idea of industrial dispersion from a defense and security point of view and the attitudes of our local civil organizations with respect to holding industry within the city...

...But the fourth leg--safety from attack--still remains to be considered...

...in most cases, new contracts have led to an even greater concentration of research talent in the field under study by bringing more specialists to Cambridge...

...They own houses, their children go to school in Washington, a wife or husband works in Washington and cannot find employment in Battle Creek, they like the metropolitan atmosphere of Washington, and so on...

...the length of time and the scale of action necessary to arrange for dispersion and relocation of population and industry now in target areas...

...This means that people who want any sort of service--use of a big library, beauty treatment, medical care from a specialist, a chance to see The Pajama Game--have to go into the city...

...Indeed, at present writing it appears probable that a substantial number of Federal Civil Defense Administration employes will refuse to move to Battle Creek and will transfer or resign...

...if several of these cities were knocked out, our capacity to retaliate would be much reduced or destroyed altogether...