As chairman of the Special Subcommittee on Radiation of the Senate and House Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, I have also held two series of hearings on the related subject of bomb test radiation and the biological and environmental effects of a nuclear war attack on the United States.

As far as this subcommittee, and certainly this chairman, is concerned, we have devoted long hours and great effort to this task for no idle reasons. We consider this matter with the utmost concern. This is serious business. Civil defense is a program for protection of the American people in case of a nuclear attack. It is a program for the very survival of our national life.

I would like to interject at this point a rather personal note. I have felt so deeply about the importance of an effective civil defense program that I undertook to write to the President and talk to him on several occasions about it. I would guess that the very first letter that President Kennedy received from a congressional source came from me and dealt with civil defense. I say this because the letter was mailed in time to reach the President on Inauguration Day.

The President has promised cooperation in helping us to have an informative and successful hearing. We, in turn, I may say, have cooperated by giving the departments and agencies concerned with preparing the outlines of the new civil defense program and preparing the necessary instructions and executive orders, time to do their work. We have deferred the hearings several times to accommodate the executive branch. Of course there are some, I suppose, who would never be finished with their paperwork unless they had deadlines. This hearing is a deadline in a certain sense. We had proposed, before this session ended, to provide a public forum for the President's new civil defense program in the interest of better understanding on the part of the Congress and the public. I dare say, after we have evaluated the testimony and presented our report, there will be a better understanding on the part of the executive departments and agencies.

We intend, as a subcommittee, so long as I am chairman, to maintain our friendly and sympathetic but critical eye on civil defense.

Our witnesses today will be Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer. Under Executive Order 10952, promulgated by President Kennedy on July 20, 1961, Secretary McNamara becomes the President's chief deputy for civil defense. We will want to know how Secretary McNamara proposes to go about his new job. What kind of an orgazination he intends to set up. How it will be funded. What military agencies and resources will be drawn up for civil defense tasks. His concept of relationships with civil agencies, both Federal and State and local.

In other words, we want to know more about Secretary McNamara's concept of his new responsibilities in the civil defense field. He has a new job and a big one and we don't expect he will have all the answers at once. However, I believe that the Congress and the American people want assurance that the civil defense program under Defense auspices will retain its essentially civilian nature, will be seriously undertaken, and will be supported at a sufficiently high level in terms of money and effort.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, August 2, we will have before us Frank B. Ellis, Director of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization. This office is marked out for a new career under the President's Executive order. Mr. Ellis becomes, as I understand it, the President's chief adviser in civil defense and related fields while Secretary McNamara becomes the chief operator. At any rate, we will expect to learn more about the relationships between the Department of Defense and the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, whose name will soon be changed to the Office of Emergency Planning.

We will ask Mr. Ellis to explain his concept of the new civil defense program, the interagency relationships, the continuing functions of his office, and the dimensions of the civil defense job.

We will set aside Thursday, August 3, for supporting witnesses from both the Department of Defense and the OCDM. Our inquiries will be partly on policy matters and details of organization, and partly on technical aspects of civil defense of interest to the committee.

On Friday, August 4, we will hear representatives of the Atomic Energy Commission. Dr. Charles Dunham and Robert L. Corsbie, of the Division of Biology and Medicine will present testimony on recent findings in biological and environmental aspects of nuclear weapon effects.

On Monday, August 7, we will hear a panel of civil defense experts from the RAND Corp. This panel will be headed by Herman Kahn, the author of a brilliant and much-quoted book "On Thermonuclear War." Mr. Kahn and his associates will discuss the following subjects: (1) The strategic role of civil defense;

(2) Consequences of different levels of hypothetical nuclear attack;

(3) Recuperation and recovery after nuclear attack;

(4) Problems relating to fires and firestorms caused by nuclear explosions;

(5) Ecological effects of thermonuclear war; and,

(6) Recent developments in Soviet civil defense.

Following the RAND presentation, on Tuesday, August 8, we will have an account of experimental group shelter manning and operations and matters of related interest presented by representatives of the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory. Walmer E. Strope, Associate Scientific Director, will be the primary witness from the laboratory.

This hearing schedule is flexible and may have to be adjusted in accord with time taken by witnesses. We have not planned at this time to call outside witnesses or organizations other than those named, but the subcommittee will receive prepared statements and may want to call additional witnesses at a later date. I will instruct the staff to assemble for the hearing record the pertinent statements and documents by the President and other officials concerned with the civil defense program.

That concludes my rather lengthy opening statement.

But, before we proceed to hear our principal witnesses today, I want to pay a personal tribute for the cooperation and assistance over the past 5 or 6 years from the Republican side of our committee. Congressman Walter Riehlman and his associates have been hard-working

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and loyal supporters of this civil defense program. This has not been a partisan program, this has been a bipartisan program for the good of the Nation.

And, at this time, I am going to ask my colleague if he would like to say a few words.

STATEMENT OF RANKING MINORITY MEMBER

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Secretary, and General Lemnitzer, I do have a statement that I would like to make at this time. Mr. Secretary, I join with my distinguished Chairman in welcoming you before this subcommittee today. I am confident that this will mark the beginning of a fruitful association between yourself and the subcommittee.

I am hopeful that this will mark the beginning of an enlightened era of civil defense; both in the administration and in the Congress. I appreciate the complexity and the magnitude of the responsibilities which you bear, and I commend you for the manner in which those responsibilities have been carried out. I fully realize that in civil defense you are inheriting a problem child. You are acquiring responsibility for a program which is at best unpopular. But in my humble opinion, although there have been few programs so closely linked to the security of this country which have been so dismally supported and which have excited so little interest, there have been few programs of such compelling importance.

I am particularly glad to see you here today, because I have been convinced for the last 7 years or so that civil defense operations logically should be the responsibility of the Defense Department, and that from a standpoint of practicality we simply would never get the job done until the Department took over.

Your presence here today represents a start in the right direction. It indicates that the real problems facing us in the civil defense field are beginning to be appreciated and it makes me, as well as the committee, feel that our past efforts have not been in vain.

However, the great need for civil defense and the welcome realization that the wheels are slowly beginning to turn must not obscure what is surely the most important consideration at this point, and that is that this essential program be placed on a solid footing from the very outset.

We cannot afford to tolerate the continuation of our present level of effort, but neither can we afford to give vastly increased support to civil defense unless we can be certain that we have a program which will bring home to the American people the vital importance of civil defense, a program which will fully reflect an understanding of the task ahead, and one which is backed up by people who have the authority and who are willing to commit the resources to do what

needs to be done.

I trust, Mr. Secretary, that we shall have a program of the kind that I have outlined.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Do any of the other members have anything to say at this point?

Mr. Kilgore?

Mr. KILGORE. Not at this time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Mrs. Griffiths?

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. No; except that I am particularly happy to welcome the Secretary this morning. I am sure all of the Nation is proud of him.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Mr. Morse?

Mr. MORSE. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. You may proceed, Mr. Secretary. We welcome you here. And I understand you have a prepared statement. You may proceed with it.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT S. MCNAMARA, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

Secretary MCNAMARA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It seems particularly appropriate and fitting that I should appear before this committee on August 1, the day that I assumed new responsibility for an accelerated program in the field of civil defense under the President's Executive order. I know that the pioneer efforts of your chairman and indeed of your entire subcommittee have played an important role in the development of an awareness in the executive branch that civil defense is an essential element in our total national defense program. As the President said last week:

To recognize the possibilities of nuclear war in the missile age without our citizens knowing what they should do and where they should go if bombs begin to fall would be a failure of responsibility.

You must be gratified to feel that your efforts are beginning to bear fruit.

FOUR PRINCIPLES STATED BY SECRETARY M'NAMARA

When Executive Order 10952 announced less than 2 weeks ago the responsibilities to be transferred to me, I stated that we would be guided by four principles in administering the program within the Department of Defense.

(1) The civil defense effort must remain under civilian direction and control, involving, as it does, the survival of every citizen. It requires the closest and most sympathetic cooperation between the Federal civilian authorities and State and local governments.

(2) In the age of thermonuclear war, civil defense must be integrated with all aspects of military defense against thermonuclear attack.

(3) The civil defense functions of the Department must not be permitted to downgrade the military capabilities of our Armed Forces.

(4) Whatever expenditures are undertaken for civil defense projects must be directed toward obtaining maximum protection for lowest possible cost.

Defending the civilian population of the United States against the dangers of a thermonuclear attack is not in itself a new responsibility for the Department. Our primary reliance is on U.S. military forces as a deterrent against attack. But if miscalculations, irrationality, or accident produces an attack against the continental United States, our defensive forces are prepared to meet and engage the attacker. Despite the damage that these forces might inflict on enemy aircraft, some of these aircraft would probably penetrate our defenses far enough to release their weapons. Further, we do not yet have any effective operative defense against ballistic missiles, and some of those

missiles would undoubtedly reach targets in the continental United States. Therefore, in a nuclear attack, several million Americansperhaps several tens of millions-might be killed.

PROGRAM TO GIVE FALLOUT PROTECTION

In the hypothetical attack which was examined in the "1959 Hearings of the Special Committee on Radiation," of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, under the chairmanship of Mr. Holifield, it was estimated that approximately 50 million Americans would have been killed and some 20 million others would have sustained serious injury. No program of civil defense could save all of these people, at least no program that is financially practicable. But a comparatively modest civil defense program can provide a great deal of protection for people who are not close to points of detonation.

The augmented civil defense program proposed by the President is designed to protect the American people primarily against the dangers from fallout. I need not detail this committee with any explanation of the nature of the fallout problem or the reasons why a fallout shelter program is at the core of any effective civil defense program, which are well known to the committee. I do want to point out for the record, however, that protection against fallout is much less expensive than protection against blast and can be highly effective. A megaton yield weapon can destroy the heart of a city. But a near-miss, upwind, could also wipe out the city's population, unless the citizens know how to take advantage of the time following warning or the burst of a nuclear weapon in order to seek previously identified and previously prepared fallout shelter.

COMPETITION BETWEEN DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS

I want to point out also that while a substantial blast shelter program is somewhat competitive with active defense systems such as the Nike-Zeus, now in development, fallout shelter is complementary rather than competitive to such a system. If we are able to develop a satisfactory missile defense system, the need for blast shelter is proportionately reduced. But no currently conceivable antimissile defense system could cover the entire country. In the 1959 hearings that I referred to just now, the hypothetical attack produced initial dose rates exceeding 500 roentgens per hour on about 11 percent of the national land area. Even with effective active defense systems for all of the major targets in the United States, an enemy attack could produce enormous fallout casualties unless shelter were available.

SURVEY, MARKING, AND IDENTIFICATION OF SHELTERS

The President's program is designed to take advantage of available shelter, and in so doing, it is designed to provide a large number of shelter spaces at the least cost per shelter space in the near future. These spaces should be sufficient to give reasonably adequate protection for about one-quarter of the population. At the same time, the program is designed to explore the most economical ways of further increasing the number of shelter spaces by modifying the shelters