CIVIL DEFENSE-1961 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1961 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY OPERATIONS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 1501-B, New House Office Building, Hon. Chet Holifield (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Chet Holifield (presiding), Martha W. Griffiths, R. Walter Riehlman, and F. Bradford Morse. Also present: Herbert Roback, staff administrator, Earl J. Morgan, chief investigator, Paul Ridgely and Robert McElroy, investigators, and Douglas Dahlin, staff attorney. Mr. HOLIFIELD. The subcommittee will be in order. Our first witness today is Mr. Leon Gouré, of the RAND Corp. Mr. Gouré is a student of Soviet civil defense. He will tell us about recent developments in that field. I may note that this subcommittee put out a report on Soviet civil defense in April 1959 (H. Rept. 300, 86th Cong., 1st sess.). Our study was based upon published Soviet documents and other sources examined by Library of Congress specialists. So far as I know, it was the only published source of information on Soviet civil defense of any extent, at that time. Subsequently, there have been some articles and statements which have relied heavily upon our committee report, but Mr. Gouré may have some information beyond that which is contained in our 1959 study. Mr. Gouré, will you please come forward to the witness chair? STATEMENT OF LEON GOURÉ, RAND CORP. Mr. GOURÉ. Thank you, sir. Will it be reasonable to do it from here? I will need the charts. Mr. HOLIFIELD. All right. You may proceed from there. SOVIET CIVIL DEFENSE Mr. GOURÉ. Mr. Chairman, my report on Soviet civil defense represents my personal views which are based on work I have done for the past 3 years on this subject for the RAND Corp. In my work I have attempted to ascertain the nature of the Soviet civil defense doctrine, the character and scope of the Soviet program and especially the actual extent of its implementation. I have described my findings, insofar as they can be made available to the public in two papers published by the RAND Corp. There is no need for me to duplicate and repeat the excellent report on Soviet civil defense published by this committee in 1959. (I am referring to the fifth report by the Committee on Government Operations, titled "Civil Defense in Western Europe and the Soviet Union".) Instead, with your permission, I would like to take this opportunity to bring this report up to date, since a considerable body of new information has become available in the past 3 years and to suggest some of the limitations and assumptions of the Soviet civil defense program. SOVIET PUBLICATION OF CIVIL DEFENSE INFORMATION Even though the Soviet Union continues to maintain a great deal of secrecy about its civil defense program, the large volume of available fragmentary information, despite its limitations, makes it possible to reach conclusions of which one can be reasonably confident. Although the principal newspapers such as Pravda, Izvestiia, and Red Star do not mention civil defense, there are nearly daily reports on local civil defense activities published in specialized newspapers and magazines, in addition to nearly 100 handbooks and manuals, which have been published in hundreds of thousands of copies and translated into most of the languages spoken in the Soviet Union. SERIOUS SOVIET INTEREST IN CIVIL DEFENSE The committee is aware, I know, that for the past 10 years or so the Soviet Union has been engaged in an extensive and expanding civil defense program. This is not a paper program, nor is it merely an extension of the prewar Soviet program or a crash effort designed to reach a maximum level of readiness by a specific date. Instead the Soviet program seeks to improve progressively, within the limits of its budget and resources, the Soviet capability to deal with the threats and problems arising from new developments in weapon technology. The continuing development of increasingly destructive weapon systems, which has made the problems faced by civil defense more difficult and complex, has in no way diminished the Soviet leaders' interest in providing the Soviet Union with a significant civil defense capability. There appear to be several reasons for this Soviet interest: 1. Although, according to Khrushchev, war between the Communist and Western blocs is no longer fatalistically inevitable, because the growing Soviet military strength increasingly tends to deter the West, the possibility of the outbreak of such a war cannot be excluded under all circumstances and consequently the Soviet Union must prepare for it, and must try to assure the survival of the Communist system. 2. If such a war were to occur, the Soviet leaders say neither side would be constrained by moral consideration from employing nuclear, chemical, and bacteriological weapons not only against military and strategic targets but also against the main political, administrative, economic, and communication centers of the enemy. 3. Although Khrushchev denies it, the vulnerability of the Soviet Union to strategic attack has increased as a result of the growing urbanization of its population (of the 212 million inhabitants of the Soviet Union, 49 percent or over 103 million live in cities, and 70 percent of the entire population resides west of the Ural Mountains, while half of the urban population is concentrated in 155 major administrative and industrial cities). 4. The Soviet military chiefs have publicly stated that they view civil defense as an integral part of the Soviet defense capability and as directly contributing to Soviet readiness for war. A current Soviet civil defense handbook states the case for the Soviet need for civil defense quite simply: The possession of atomic, chemical and bacteriological weapons in the hands of the imperialists, and the threat of their use, forces us actively to prepare for civil defense. MISSION OF SOVIET CIVIL DEFENSE The current Soviet civil defense program is based on a number of requirements. (1) Civil defense must try, within budgetary and technical limits, to protect the population and the economy against attacks with nuclear as well as chemical and bateriological weapons. (2) The population must be trained in civil defense so as to reduce casualties and provide the necessary manpower to deal with the effects of an attack. (3) Civil defense must be so organized as to be able, at least following some types of attacks, to limit the damage and facilitate, where possible, a rapid recuperation of the country from the attack. SOVIET CIVIL DEFENSE ORGANIZATION Some changes in the Soviet civil defense organization have taken place since the publication of the committee's report. Until 1960 the civil defense organization was headed by an administration and staff within the Ministry for Internal Affairs of the U.S.S.R. This Ministry was abolished in January 1960 and there is some uncertainty about the present administrative affiliation of the civil defense administration. In all likelihood it has been transferred to the Ministry of Defense in view of the close ties between the civil defense and military organizations. Its former and possibly present head, Lieutenant General of Aviation Oleg V. Tolstikov has been promoted to the rank of colonel general, which may be an indication of the growing importance of civil defense in the Soviet Union. (See fig. G-1, p. 266.) FIGURE G-1.—ORGANIZATION OF A SOVIET SELF-DEFENSE GROUP IN ADDITION TO REGULAR MEMBERS, EACH TEAM HAS TWO RESERVE MEMBERS. IN VETERINARY TEAM: ONE ADDITIONAL PERSON IS ADDED FOR EACH 50 HEAD OF CATTLE OVER 100. Below the national administration the Soviet civil defense organization remains substantially unchanged, with permanent full time staffs at republic, provincial, county, city and borough levels and part-time but fully trained civil defense services and units at all levels down to individual factories, public buildings, large apartment houses and collective farms. I think the committee is familiar with the organization charts of the civil defense, for example, of a city and the various services which are performed and which have already been published in it report. (See fig. G-2, p. 267.) FIGURE G-2.-SOVIET CITY CIVIL DEFENSE ORGANIZATION While no official figures have been published on the size of the Soviet civil defense organization, Khrushchev has boasted to some foreign visitors that there were 22 million fully trained persons serving in civil defense and that the organization was being further expanded.-. This would represent about 10 percent of the population and would roughly be the number necessary to fulfill the basic Soviet requirement for a ratio of 1 civil defense unit of approximately 48 persons for every 500 inhabitants. Khrushchev may have exaggerated the actual size of the organization, but since recruiting is carried out on a compulsory basis the Soviet authorities would have no difficulties in achieving such numbers at least on paper, and available sources appear to indicate that most of the required units have been formed. SOVIETS CIVIL DEFENSE BUDGET As the committee's report has indicated, the Soviet authorities have published no information on the size of their civil defense budget, many parts of which are actually hidden in the budgets of other agencies and local administrations. |