THE CRUEL DECEPTION OF CIVILIAN DEFENSE
Meyner, Robert B.
The Cruel Deception of Civilian Defense by ROBERT B. MEYNER One of the questions frequently put to me has to do with steps I ought to take now in our state to protect our people in event of war. I...
...He doesn't think suicide in a nuclear war is the proper vehicle for advancing the cause of Communism...
...When we created these cataclysmic weapons, we justified our policy by saying we were in a position to control them...
...Suppose we take my own city of Newark, for example...
...And that is to make sure that no one has the means of annihilating anyone else...
...This is the direction we have to take if our foreign policy is to work...
...The majority of the humans on this planet happen not to live in either the United States or the Soviet Union...
...It will be determined by the side that has the most to say about human freedom and the making of a better and safer tomorrow for all peoples, and by the side that can earn and keep the respect and support of the overwhelming majority of the world's peoples...
...But there is also another kind of showdown looming ahead in the world—and it requires another kind of preparedness...
...But he hasn't said what he means by this...
...Does the Atomic Energy Commission believe it...
...Today, one 20-megaton bomb contains more destructive power than all the bombs that were exploded in World War II...
...The bombs that will be used against cities in the next war will not be kiloton bombs but megaton bombs...
...I am asked, for example, whether I will go before the state legislature with a plan to build a vast system of underground shelters, or recommend that individuals start digging deep cellars of their own...
...And that is by creating in the world an organization strong enough to prevent aggression, strong enough to carry out effective arms control, strong enough to deal with basic threats to the peace, strong enough to eliminate some of the tensions, strong enough to punish individual violators—strong enough, in short, to create a rule of law in the world instead of the rule of force...
...The United States and the Soviet Union will be some thirteen minutes apart on the route of the ICBMs...
...What we do concerns them...
...One is the kind represented by the big bombs...
...That is by declaring it to be the fundamental objective of our foreign policy—and not only to say it but mean it...
...he hasn't said what he means by inspection...
...If a city like San Francisco or Newark were to be hit by a few megaton nuclear bombs, everything in the civilian defense handbook would go out the window...
...But I have not heard anyone in the Administration propose the specific strengthening measures necessary to give the United Nations the effective power that world law requires...
...That is, it had a destructive force measured in terms of thousands of tons of TNT...
...The cause of human life on earth has never been more precarious or fragile than it is at this moment...
...It is going to be difficult enough to get the Russians to agree on arms control with inspection and enforcement, but if our own government is ambling all over the place on the issue, what hope is there...
...But we are not living in 1914 or 1939...
...Now, let us suppose that people could come up out of the shelters...
...What is the step beyond that...
...Khrushchev says he is serious about agreeing to arms control with inspection...
...Yet we debate issues as though no one else in the world existed...
...We ought to keep after Khrushchev and not let up until the world has had the fullest possible airing of just what he means by inspection and enforcement, and just -what it is that we propose...
...One of the main weaknesses in the present approach to peace is that both the Americans and the Russians are giving the world the impression that war or peace is their own private business, and that our own interests are the only ones that count...
...And the more you study the nature of these new weapons, the more you realize that going underground is no answer...
...Instead of spending the $150 billion or $200 billion that would be required for a national network of underground shelters, let us put just a fraction of that money and work into a massive effort to make our world safe for human habitation—while there is yet time...
...That issue is peace...
...Meanwhile, a canopy of radioactivity from these high fission-fusion blasts would contaminate an area covering hundreds of square miles...
...It takes no particular feat of the imagination to recognize that the next argument will be to drop the bombs on the other fellow before he drops them on us...
...But if there is not to be mutual suicide, we have to figure out a structure for peace that really works...
...It is a fair-sized American city, one large enough and important enough to invite enemy attack...
...We ought to be forging links with other peoples instead of forging iron doors to deep cellars...
...I would most certainly recommend underground shelters...
...The means are now at hand for eliminating life several times over...
...Premier Khrushchev has finally said that the Soviet Union would be willing to accept inspection and enforcement as part of a comprehensive plan for arms control...
...If we really want security in today's world, there is only one way to get it...
...There are two kinds of preparedness...
...The issue is whether we understand what our age is all about, whether we have a view of man and human destiny, whether we can use human intelligence and the human spirit in the cause of a world made safe for people...
...How will it advance the cause of American security to increase the number of fuse points for a world nuclear explosion...
...Let's find out whether he really means business...
...Soon these means will be fitted into the special delivery systems...
...It can only be peace—real peace, that is...
...By real peace, I mean not just a brief siesta between crisis and calamity...
...If we are serious when we say we want peace, then there is only one way to get it...
...There is no point in negotiating over disarmament once the nuclear stockpiles become general...
...What would they use for food...
...This must be our thrust if we are to serve the cause of a just peace without freedom...
...I defy anyone to demonstrate that he can provide genuine or even reasonable protection through such shelters...
...But the Hiroshima bomb was a kiloton bomb...
...The area of total or near-total destruction from each megaton blast would be upward of twenty square miles...
...And even the best of friends sometimes disagree...
...The question of control, quite literally, is a matter of life or death for our nation...
...But equally devastating would be the fire, spreading out from the center with jet plane speed in all directions...
...There is only one way to find out...
...The basic purpose in modern warfare is to kill an entire city...
...Yet this is precisely the time that the Administration chooses to talk about spreading nuclear weapons around to other nations...
...And the reason he can't is that he doesn't know whether he is going to be hit with one bomb or five or six or sixteen—or even whether it will be kilo tons or megatons...
...If we are ever in a showdown on that level, God help us...
...I mean a peace that sticks and a peace that works...
...It would be unrealistic to assume ROBERT B. MEYNER is the Governor of New Jersey...
...The President has said he believes in world law...
...Here again some say there are no real issues...
...If we were living in 1939 or even in 1914, my answer would be easy...
...In short, the issue is whether we are equal to the needs of our civilization, and whether we can stand before the human community with the ideas that are literally large enough to embrace the world...
...What do people mean when they say there are no major issues...
...It is the kind of peace that must make sense to the human spirit and the human intelligence...
...Either we create a situation of safety, security, and sanity for the human race in this world, or we destroy the precarious conditions that make life on this planet possible...
...We ought now to be talking about building 200 million pre-fabricated homes for the homeless people of Asia and Africa—instead of bemusing ourselves with the cruel nonsense about underground shelters...
...I think it is equally true that democracy cannot flourish through suicide...
...We have the biggest issue in the world to think about...
...What would they use for hospitals...
...Most of the underground shelters in the area would be sealed in under a mountain of radioactive rubble...
...Remember this: any enemy bent on killing a city is not going to allow a puny instrument like an underground shelter to slow him up...
...This is the non-military showdown...
...that these bombs will not be used in the event of war...
...This brings us to the question of arms control...
...What would they use for air...
...The President says that we will give them only to our friends...
...What would they use for people...
...That is why I say we are fostering a cruel deception on the American people if we try to persuade them that they can have civilian defense through underground shelters in the next war...
...Let's test the Russians instead of testing the bombs...
...From time to time, I hear it said that there are no major issues in 1960...
...Our ties to other peoples—the good will we can earn, the support we can justify for world leadership—these will contribute far more to our safety and peace of mind than the holes we can jump into when it is too late...
...But is workable control possible...
...Only the other day, we heard prominent military men argue that the security of the United States depended on having constantly in the air several hundred jet bombers fully loaded with nuclear bombs...
...I have not heard anyone in the Administration propose the kind of revision conference that has as its aim the transformation of the United Nations into an authority that could create a situation of safety and sanity for the world's peoples...
...Within a year—two years at the latest—the existence of man will be staked on a board of pushbuttons...
...The reason Khrushchev wants peace is clear...
...Now that the door has been partially opened we ought to be pressing against it with all the weight we can command...
...President Eisenhower has said it, or has come close to saying it, but does his own Administration believe it or mean it...
...They will contain the equivalent of millions of tons of TNT...
...Now, if I could be sure that an enemy would plan to drop a bomb of the size that was exploded over Hiroshima, I would recommend building an effective system of underground shelters...
...This is 1960, the age of nuclear weapons and radioactive contamination...
...I contend that our safety today depends on the workable control of force rather than the pursuit of force...
...If either party fails to make sense on this issue, it makes no sense on any issues...
...he hasn't said what he means by enforcement...
...But the long history of nations shows that friends change...
...The problem would be intensified because the dirt and the rubble would carry the kind of radioactivity that would retain its killing power not for hours but for months, and, in some cases, for years...
...In short, it is our turn to speak...
...What would they use for streets...
...All he has to do is pick out of his nuclear rack a few bombs with a high megaton rating and dispatch three or four of them—or maybe even ten or twenty for the extra large cities...
...Of course there is a real issue...
...What kind of world would they come up to...
...I would start all the machinery turning in New Jersey as fast as I could to guard against attack from the air...
...I believe I can best serve the people of my state by making clear to them that there is one and only one defense against a nuclear war—and that is peace...
...Such a peace requires more than special deals, over or under the table...
...What do we say now...
Vol. 24 • June 1960 • No. 6
