likelihood, in say, 10 years after the kind of war that is usually envisaged.

I am not going to say much at the present time on the social, psychological, political, and moral problems of recuperation. Some discussion may come out of the later testimony and, if there is time, I would like to make some additional comments at the end of the hearings. I cannot speak as an expert in any of these fields, but, if there is time, I would still like to make some additional comments.

But I would like to say now that in terms of studies which have to be done and in terms of the most serious questions which remain unanswered, these social, psychological, political, and moral questions are currently the hard questions. Many feel they are the dominating questions.

However, it is my personal belief, speaking less as an expert than as a man who has read widely, that these problems have been grossly exaggerated.

Most people will not be psychologically deranged. One is not, for example, going to break up family relationships by a war. The family relationship is a very stable one.

One is not even going to obliterate the basic fact that people are Americans. By and large, they will be about as honest, hard-working, reliable, and responsible as they are today. While everybody's lives and thoughts will be affected by the war, the character structure of the survivors is unlikely to be changed in any startling fashion.

The political questions are more difficult. We live today in a very stable country. It is one of the few countries in the world in which the government does not worry about revolution and subversion as major problems, because we do not expect the Government to be subverted or overturned. However, such an event could occur as a result of a war. Even if we won the war, it is conceivable that we might no longer live in a democracy.

However, even though a war is a cataclysmic event, it seems to me a reasonable conjecture, particularly if preparations have been made, that our political democracy could survive most wars. But this statement has more faith in it than analysis. It is not a statement which I would try to maintain before a hostile and skeptical audience. I hope, however, that this and similar statements will soon be subjected to a more careful and deeper examination than I am capable of giving them.

MEDICAL AND GENETIC PROBLEMS

I will not discuss the postwar medical problems and the genetic problems, the next two items on the chart. This committee and the Joint Committee have had more than enough testimony on this subject. It is all in the record. There is no point in bringing it up today except to make the point that in the middle and late fifties there was a widespread belief among scientists, among people who should know, that one could not survive these problems. In other words, the belief in the "end of history" was an expert's belief, rather than a layman's belief.

In fact, if the layman had been told fully and frankly what the experts believed, he would have been horrified. Seemingly reasonable, knowledgeable, and responsible people held the most extreme and

extravagant views. The picture and book, "On the Beach," reflected these views.

I would say that today, by and large, these extreme views are no longer held—at least for the kind of war that seems plausible in the early and mid-sixties. The end of the world, end of history, doomsday, and so on, are not appropriate descriptions.

DOOMSDAY MACHINES

I am not denying, by the way, that it is not technologically possible for us, if we wish, to build doomsday machines. I believe that we have the knowledge today to build such devices. I mention in my book that it might take less than 10 years and less than $10 billion to build devices which could actually destroy all unprotected human life.

All I am saying today is that such devices have not been built, and there are good reasons to believe that they will not be built in the near future.

The fact that they can be built is, correctly, the source of the gravest apprehension. This fact is one of the main things which gives urgency to our attempts to negotiate arms control.

Many people believe, and I am among them, that unless we have adequate arms control such devices will be built, say, before the year 2000, and that is a very serious problem indeed. But I do not expect them to be built within the next 5 or 10 years.

THE COMPLEX PROBLEM OF SURVIVAL

This summarizes, in rather rough form, the complexity of the notion that a nation can survive a war. I would like to emphasize again this complexity. The man who believes we can survive a war believes we can handle every one of the problems on this chart, each one of which is incredibly complex.

The man who believes he cannot survive a war simply has to believe that we fail on one of these problems.

To use a standard phrase, there are no prizes given for handling seven of these problems. We have to handle all eight.

So, to believe that a nation can survive a war is a complicated belief. To believe that one cannot survive a war is a simple belief. And by and large, it is easier for most people to believe simple things than complicated ones.

I believe that a persuasive case can be made for national survival but it is a difficult one to make in a give-and-take debate.

Let me now return to my first chart. (See fig. K-1.)

FIGURE K-1.-SOME COMMON REACTIONS TO CIVIL DEFENSE

1 Completely ineffective.

2 Too effective will touch off a United States-Soviet Union arms race or even a United States or Soviet Union strike.

To summarize my reaction to the first point on this chart, the common belief that civil defense is completely ineffective, I would simply state that for a very large range of programs, particularly

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including the current suggested program, one can make a case which will stand up before the most skeptical and most hostile audience, that these programs are effective enough to more than justify the money that is to be spent on them, so long as the criteria of effectiveness includes the questions: "If a war occurs, how many lives are likely to be saved, how much property is likely to be saved, how much is recuperation facilitated?" In other words, I believe that the argument of total ineffectiveness is completely wrong and can be dismissed by serious people.

CIVIL DEFENSE AS TRIGGER FOR ARMS RACE OR WAR

The second attitude is more complicated and controversial and is exactly the opposite of the first attitude. Many antagonists of civil defense argue it is too effective, that it will touch off an arms race or even a Soviet Union or United States strike.

I will discuss the arms race first. To the extent that one feels that civilians are a target, then an attempt to protect civilians may touch off a greater effort by the Soviets to be able to destroy them. If we build an adequate shelter system, they may then build larger missiles and procure more of them.

Or equally important, if the Soviets fear that because we have civil defense preparations we are more likely to strike them in a crisis or in an emergency, then they may have to keep their forces more alert. This could make them more accident prone, or trigger happy. We might then have the problem of what is known as false preemption or anticipatory retaliation. That is, they may strike us because they think that we are going to strike them. This is sometimes called striking second, first.

All of these problems could be raised by certain kinds of civil defense programs.

THE “SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY”

I do not believe that, by and large, either the program being recommended today or even much larger programs would raise such problems in a serious fashion. I think that most of the people who worry about this are worrying about the so-called self-fulfilling prophecy, not as an analytical proposition but as sort of a magical proposition. Let me describe what I mean.

The term self-fulfilling prophecy comes from psychology or psycoanalysis. It refers to the fact that if you are hostile and suspicious toward a person, you will often act in a manner that reflects your hostility and suspicions.

Even if the other person is innocent, he will notice your hostility. This will arouse in him reactions of hostility and suspicion. You will then observe at his reactions and say, "See I was right." And since he will indeed have confirmed your hostility and suspicion, you will become more hostile and suspicious; in time this will make him more hostile and suspicious. The mutual action and counteraction will build up to such a point that it can either lead to violence or stabilize at such a high level of hostility and suspicion that the possibility of violence is ever present.

It is quite clear that this self-fulfilling prophecy does occur both between individuals and nations.

If one is hostile and suspicious, it will arouse hostility and suspicion, which will in turn increase and intensify the original feelings. However, this admission of mine does not settle the problem.

In 1959 and 1960, I gave a series of public and semipublic lectures. At almost everyone of these lectures, someone brought up the selffulfilling prophecy. The first time they brought it up, I had been through a very relevant experience. In answer to the question, I related this experience and I have used that same story ever since. With the permission of the committee, I would like to use it again today.

I started by telling about a friend of mine who is an embezzler. He actually exists. This chap has been in jail twice, and at the time I had been asked this question he was under indictment for the third time and out on bail.

After he had been indicted I asked him, "Why do you do it? You have been caught twice, actually three times. Why do you keep repeating this pattern of behavior? Aside from being immoral, ít obviously isn't successful. Why do you do it?"

He looked me right in the eye and said, "I can't help it. People trust me."

He put the blame exactly where it belonged, on the excessive trust of the other individuals. He is an outgoing fellow; he does not have much character and he just cannot help it if he is excessively tempted.

In discussing the self-fulfilling prophecy, I sometimes refer to the "self-defeating prophecy." This is a prophecy which defeats itself. For example, it can happen that if one prepares for war, he deters the war. This can happen. It has happened in the past.

Or to go back to the story, if one worries about embezzlement, one may take precautions and not be embezzled. I would conjecture that the self-defeating prophecy plays as big a role in international and other human affairs as the self-fulfilling prophecy.

For this reason we simply cannot reject programs just because they reflect some hostility and suspicion of the Soviet Union. Some hostility and suspicion is justified. There are reasons why we have it. This hostility and suspicion was not created overnight by our own imaginations working overtime.

THE PACE OF THE ARMS RACE

I would believe that as long as one is careful with his programs, then the problem of stimulating the arms race has been grossly exaggerated. This is not to mean that one could not stimulate the arms race. While we are in a dangerous arms race today we are not running anywhere near as fast or as hard as we could; we could make it more dangerous.

It seems to be true, for the current programs of both sides, that both sides are being careful. Neither side seems to be doing the kinds of things which they might do if their only concern were to beat the

enemy.

Both sides are acting with a great deal of restraint, both budgetary and technologically, and one would like to keep these restraints operative and even increase them.

One would not like frivolously or carelessly to increase the pressures toward an accelerated arms race except, perhaps, in response to a changed situation.

The Berlin crisis may well result in an increased arms race, but this is mostly not our fault. It is the result of a crisis that has mainly been manufactured by the Soviets and one may have to react to it. In fact, it is exactly the threat that we may accelerate the arms race that might lead the Soviets to be cautious.

PREVENTIVE WAR RISK

As to the next point on the chart-the belief that civil defense by the United States might lead to a preventive war by the Soviet Union, because they were afraid that we intended to be aggressive, or even a preventive war by the United States because of our belief that we might hold casualties to less than 50 million, I find this almost beyond belief. The notion that some people have, that unless one can guarantee total annihilation, the other side will not be deterred or conversely, unless we can promise the Soviets that every single citizen we have will be killed, he will worry about our striking him in a surprise attack out of the blue seems to be a gross overestimate of both sides' desires to strike each other.

It is my personal belief that one could protect every citizen of this country and every citizen of Russia from being a casualty with 100 percent reliability, and one would still have both sides deterred under most circumstances. After all, the empty cities are still hostages. This property, which has been so laboriously created and which has such immense historical and cultural significance, is a very precious and valued hostage.

In addition, a country is not going to war lightly just because it could reduce fatalities from 60 million to, say, 20 million. Twenty million dead is a very impressive number of dead and the property, in addition, is a very impressive hostage all by itself.

There are circumstances, particularly in a very tense crisis, in which certain kinds of civil defense programs might tend to convert the crisis into a war. But these are the very circumstances when these programs are most needed.

I will come back to this later in my discussion of the different kinds of wars, but I just want to make the point now that hard situations can occur. In these situations, a total unwillingness to face any immediate risk of war may simply mean that one must choose surrender or appeasement and perhaps war eventually.

Let me repeat it, because it could be so important. Harsh choices can occur. We may have to choose between risk of immediate war or be willing to appease or surrender. Under these circumstances civil defense can make a difference in our choice and thus increase the risk of immediate war.

Let me now discuss the third reaction on the chart-the belief that civil defense is simultaneously both completely ineffective and too effective. At first sight this sounds like and often is a contradiction, a lapse in logic, by a critic who is not thinking very hard. (See fig.