the field of radiological studies for countermeasure and basic civil defense concepts. We have called upon the laboratory from time to time for technical advice and consultation. Its staff has always been helpful and cooperative. We believe that this Laboratory, which is an important Navy installation, but is more than merely a military service laboratory, deserves full support and ample funds to continue its work. Certainly I believe very strongly that its studies and experiments in shelter design and operatons should go forward. Captain Roth, will you tell us briefly about your staffing, funding, and present operations.

STATEMENT OF CAPT. ELI B. ROTH, COMMANDING OFFICER,

NAVAL RADIOLOGICAL DEFENSE LABORATORY

Captain ROTH. Well, thank you for the kind words, sir.

Actually the shelter work is less than 2 percent of what we have done in the business of learning to live with the atom.

The Laboratory is a basic, rather than an engineering laboratory, where chemical, physical and biological aspects of radiation and radiation effects are studied. All aspects of the Laboratory actually contributed to this shelter by being available and giving a backup of some 13 years of experience for this design.

We are not constructors. We are not in the engineering business as far as the building or construction business is concerned. That is another part of the Navy and part of the Army.

BACKGROUND OF NRDL EXPERIENCE

Mr. ROBACK. When Mr. Strope mentioned a $150,000 investment in the shelter research phase, he did not state explicitly, but you are now stating, that contributing to the high value in results of a modest investment were these long years of experience and experimentation in the Laboratory.

Captain ROTH. Well, yes; we must admit this. In other words, the money that OCDM assigned to this project, which paid specific people for doing the work they did on the shelter, had the backup and support of all of the technology of the whole Laboratory, which goes right across the board.

Essentially, if you want to cut it thin enough, there are some 60 different scientific disciplines involved in contributing, to making this a technologically correct thing.

Mr. ROBACK. What is the problem? Now we have $12 or $13 million requested for research in shelter work in the Department of Defense budget.

Can you give us any observation about the use of such moneys for hiring firms who, say, do not have such a background of experience or who must learn at public expense? I mean, what conclusions can we draw, if any?

Captain ROTH. Well, of course, as you well know, all of our reports, every one on the shelter, certainly, is available to all activities that have to work in the business.

Some of the improvements that might be needed for a big shelter program we think we would be best able to help with but it is a small amount compared to that $13 million that was mentioned.

The kind of work we would do would come in the tens of thousands and maybe up to $100,000. That is about all we would expect to be working on in this specific field on such a program.

Mr. ROBACK. With the new dispensation for civil defense, do you assume that since you are already in the Department of Defense, your work will be drawn upon and that you will get further assignments?

Captain ROTH. We were not involved in the budget preparation for this so I cannot really answer that candidly. I do not know.

CURRENT PROGRAM A FIRST STEP

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. I would like to ask Mr. Strope, not on this point, is the present shelter suggestion an effective shelter program if the bombs drop far enough away? Is it built really on that premise? Is it an effective shelter if the bomb hits far enough away?

Mr. STROPE. You mean this first proposal?

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. This first step; yes.

Mr. STROPE. If you offered me the $170 million they have programed and asked me to save as many people as possible, I am afraid I would do it exactly the way they are doing it.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Well, I agree.

Mr. STROPE. But I regard this as a first step only in what I think is a reasonable civil defense program.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. But it is only effective, is it not, if the bombs are landing, for instance, in the next town.

Mr. STROPE. This is true.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. And military bases are hit in place of cities.

FILM ON MIXED POPULATION SHELTER TEST

Mr. STROPE. Would you care to see this film ?

Mr. ROBACK. During the course of the film, Mr. Strope will be a commentator.

Mr. STROPE. I think the committee, if you would move over to this side, you will see the screen which is located in the best possible position.

(Showing of film.)

Mr. STROPE. Madam Chairman, this film is a work print, it is not edited, it is simply a sequence of scenes taken during the most recent experiment.

I think that the main purpose of showing it is that a picture is worth a thousand words in allowing people to understand what we really mean by life in a shelter. Most people have feelings about this, but I have found that their concepts are usually quite erroneous.

There is no sound here, and what I will do is comment to show you what is happening as we go through this film.

These are some of the people, volunteers from the laboratory, getting on a bus to go to the shelter. None of these people had ever seen this shelter before. It is all very new and different to them.

You will notice we are having them sit down in two rows back to back in the center of the shelter. The reason for this is that this is a blast shelter and, as I mentioned in the testimony, it has a flexible arch structure. It deforms to resist blast. If you were leaning against it at the time you would be injured, so we keep the people away from the shelter walls during the red alert.

78266-61-18

ORGANIZING THE SHELTEREES

While they are setting in this position I take the opportunity to explain to them what we are going to do. The problem of 100 people living in such a confined place, which is the size of a rather small home, for any considerable period, requires a considerable amout of organization. You cannot put 100 people into this shelter and just let them go.

The way we organized the shelter is as follows: All the actions that will take place here can be divided into one of two kinds, those actions that affect the health and safety of the occupants, and those that do

not.

Of course, most of the actions do not affect health and safety, but for those that do, you want a shelter commander whose word is law, and when he says to do something it is done. On the other hand, for those actions that do not affect health and safety you would like to have living rules in the shelter as congenial as possible for the people who happen to be in that shelter.

To do this I divide the group into 10 groups of 10 people each. These people are assembled by taking the various larger families and then adding on people they would like to eat with and play with. It forms a smaller social group in the shelter.

I have each group elect a leader, and these 10 leaders then, working with me, decide what the rules of living in the shelter will be.

Now, everybody has a job in this shelter. We see now the men who have been assigned to the engineering detail charging the chemical toilets with a certain amount of water, and adding the chemical so that the toilets are ready for use.

We have certain people who are assigned to aid in the cooking and food service. These girls are volunteering to be baby sitters, to help in the child care program.

Everybody above 12 years old in this experiment had a job to do part of the time each day, say, for an hour or so, and in future experiments I would extend this down to about 5 years of age. I think the youngsters get a great deal out of having a chore to do. You will see here some pictures of youngsters ready and willing to help.

FURNITURE AND FOOD

Here the engineering crew is starting to set up the tables. We seat 50 people and therefore can feed them at two sittings, 50 people

at a time.

In the back you see the cup rack, occasionally, with a hundred cups on it. Each person has a numbered cup which is his own.

We have done some experiments with trying to cut costs. Here you see cardboard carton material, which is being made into benches.

We also have some very fine cardboard chairs that you will see shortly, and we hope eventually to be able to outfit the shelter very cheaply with this type of approach.

You see the youngsters in there doing their share. Here are the folding chairs that are being put up.

You see there is very little to do in a shelter, other than to sit down or lie down. In fact, you would like to discourage people walking

around. If we do not have places for them to sit or lie down, we have considerable difficulty. We did not realize this when we started.

Here is one of the benches made up. Apparently this is one of our first meals. We are using at this point a rather advanced version of the Department of Agriculture wheat diet. The basic component is a wheat cracker, which can be eaten out of hand or with jam or peanut butter, but also can be crumbled up in a paper dish, and covered with a topping of spaghetti sauce or onion soup or dehydrated foods made liquid to form a main course. A very flexible arrangement which permits you to alter the diet without really doing so.

Now, the engineer group is putting up the bunks for the first time. The bunks are demountable so we can use the space when we are not sleeping. The system can be put up in about 10 minutes without tools.

We finally concluded, although we had a lot of toys and so forth in the shelter as potential, that large sheets of paper and crayons were probably the best thing to put in the shelter for youngsters.

These bunks are essentially canvas cots, but they are continuous, side-by-side, 12 in a row, four high, 48 on a side, 96 total.

We assume there will be at least a four-man watch during sleeping hours in this type of shelter.

ACTIVITIES IN THE SHELTER

These sequences are not in any order, that is why they flash back and forth. But I think it gives you a feeling for the general situation when 100 people occupy a space of this type, particularly if it is properly outfitted for them.

At this point I am assigning bunks. The women on one side and the men on the other, and putting the teenage girls at the top row, and the teenage boys on the other side.

That turned out to be a tactical error. A group of teenage girls on one side and teenage boys on the other just do not want to go to sleep. This is too much fun.

There are various scenes here of recreational activities, of food preparation and service.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. How long do you stay awake?

Mr. STROPE. We turn the lights out at 11 o'clock, but we leave enough lights so that people can walk around the shelter, but it is still dark enough so they can sleep well.

We got up at 7 a.m., 11 to 7.

Of course, some the youngsters went to bed earlier than that. This is completely flexible. You can take down the bunks as we are doing here, or leave half up as these people preferred so that the youngsters can take naps and people can read in the bunk, or you can take them part way down. It is a very flexible system.

We used an organized system, without being too rigid about it, for activities. The group, for example, who ate breakfast second in the morning stayed at the tables and played cards and suchlike until lunch, and ate first, and then the second group took over in the afternoon.

On the other hand, if somebody had a particular bridge partner we did not particularly care about it.

This is our youngest participant right here.

This particular ration that we have been working with is down to about 30 cents per person a day.

I think that it is about as close as you can come to the normal hot entree-type feeding in a group shelter, and I am personally quite enthusiastic about it.

Many activities went on in the shelter and most of these were spontaneous, that is, I did not plan them. The people in the shelter decided what they wanted to do. You will see here some scenes where a group of people are planning out some exercises for the youngsters. They have decided that the youngsters need some exercise. Here you see now this gentleman is overdoing the action over here, and this woman corrects him on what she has in mind.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. The subcommittee will meet again in the morning at 10 o'clock.

(Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, August 9, 1961.)