surface of the ground, if they were under the ground the blast itself would seek the point of lowest resistance, which would be an expansion into the atmosphere, into the lower atmosphere, and not necessarily to digging up the ground as it rolled along.

Secretary MCNAMARA. I think your point, that in the event of blast or imminent blast one should seek to protect himself in the simplest fashion against objects which will function as missiles, is a very important point. But for that very reason, I believe it would be unwise for people to look upon these fallout shelters as blast shelters and seek to move to them when time wouldn't permit it; rather they should take the type of action you have in mind, utilize whatever protection is at hand, to protect themselves against the blast, from which they will have very little warning.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Any type of construction between the shock wave and the individual should be utilized, whether it be a heavy stone wall or a heavy building; anything that you could get behind that would put substantial strength of material between the individual and the point of explosion, of course, would be saving. We have evidences of that, of course, in your experiments, where animals have been protected behind brick walls and cement walls, and things like that.

So when we use the word "blast" we must use it in a relative sense, and we must recognize that the simple basement shelters and simple underground shelters do provide a measure of protection from fire and blast waves and things like that.

And so you start gaining lives outside of the perimeter of ground zero in relation to the quality of the shelter that you are in, and in relation, of course, to the size of the weapon.

I wanted to get that understanding, because it is my opinion that when you take a point in the center of a circle which is ordinarily referred to as ground zero, you recognize that any kind of a shelter might be expendable in view of the fact that we have excavations as low as 165 feet from an explosion of a megaton weapon. And so, therefore, it would be silly to try to think about furnishing shelters that would counteract that type of a blast.

But smaller degrees of blasts are factors which can be taken care of in more simple types of shelters.

USE OF AVAILABLE DATA AS STARTING POINT

Now, when the President cited the need to accelerate this program, of course we all took heart. But we are concerned now with the announcement that there will be surveys and other things, and you may fall into a trap doing things which have already been done by the Federal Civil Defense Administration, or the OCDM during the past 10 years, and not using what they have done as a starting point in going forward.

There have been studies on all types of shelters, very voluminous studies. Experiments have been made out in Nevada showing the efficiency of several different types of shelters. We are not going into a research and development program to plow that ground again, are we?

Secretary MCNAMARA. On the contrary, we propose to use all of the information which has been accumulated, and, as you point out, it is voluminous. We have gathered it together, we have already analyzed it. We have partially utilized it in developing recommendations that have been presented to you today and that have otherwise been presented to the Congress, and we will continue to utilize it in selecting the areas and constructing the shelters.

REVIEW OF CIVIL DEFENSE PERSONNEL QUALIFICATIONS

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Regarding the people who are in OCDM and who will be transferred in the Defense Department, is it your plan now, or can you say whether you expect to maintain those people without regard to their qualifications or background of experience, or whether there is going to be a screening of those people to find out what political appointees need to be relieved of their cushion chairs and replaced with effective people?

I do not mean in all instances.

Secretary MCNAMARA. I don't propose to retain in the employment of the Defense Department any person whom I consider unqualified or poorly qualified for the responsibilities assigned to him.

That is our standard principle on which we operate.

It is a standard principle on which we recruit people, it is a standard principle on which we retain people. And I would apply that same principle to those personnel transferred to us from OCDM.

I am not in any position, however, to appraise the quality or ability of those people, or comment upon them. I have no personal knowledge of the abilities of the great bulk of them, and I think it would be doing a disservice to them for me to make any comment.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Are you going to have their qualifications screened as they come in?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Will they acquire civil service rights in the Department of Defense when they are transferred?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I believe that they are considered as a separate group for the purpose of the rights you are referring to.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO STATE CIVIL DEFENSE ORGANIZATIONS

Mr. HOLIFIELD. On the subject of Federal contributions for civil defense, you now take over the administration of the total program. I am particularly interested in knowing your present thinking on handling the personnel and administrative expenses so as to achieve a balanced total civil defense program. Do you see these contributions as primarily and solely related to the civil defense functions transferred to the Department of Defense, or do you see them as also covering State manpower or a local economic stabilization staff if the State requested approval for such under Public Law 606?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I can't answer the question, I am just not sufficiently familiar with the functions of the organizations in the States.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. I can understand that. And I am not asking these questions to embarrass you, but they are matters as to which, if you

do not have the answer, we would appreciate you having your staff furnish them later on.

Secretary MCNAMARA. I would be very happy to do so.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. In the day-to-day relationships, especially with States and other political subdivisions, to what extent will there need to be a direct liaison between men in uniform and civil authorities? Will the relationship always be or usually be with civilian members of the Defense Department, or will this vary by program?

Secretary MCNAMARA. It will normally be and entirely be with the civilian members of the Department.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Do you see any problems in the area of classified information whereby the issuance of statements by the Department of Defense in the civil defense field might be taken as revealing a specific defense frame of mind or philosophy? Secretary MCNAMARA. No, I do not.

STUDIES OF POSSIBLE ATTACKS

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Now, on the basis of attack assumptions, because there has never been a study made public on a hypothetical attack such as we made in our Subcommittee on Radiation hearings in 1959, do you believe that there should be a study made by the Defense Department considering various types of attacks and the plans needed for protection made to fit the different types of attack?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I believe that the civil defense programs which are recommended should be examined against the alternative forms of attack which might be considered possible or likely.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. You see, there has been a complete void in the local planning in States and regions, as to what type of an attack might take place-not that you can guarantee that the attack would be of such a nature, but there could be a series of studies made in which different types of attacks might be hypothesized and plans made to meet those types of attacks, to give reality to the programing on the local level.

Do you think that that would be in order?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I think that in order to avoid confusing the planning on the local level it would be wise to pick an attack that is both most likely, and also the largest-and I believe that the largest is the most likely-and base the local planning on that assumption and on the outlines that such an attack might carry with it.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. On page 5 of your statement you said:

Other patterns of attack might increase or decrease the proportion of the population exposed to fallout alone, and thus increase or decrease the number of lives that can be saved by fallout shelter. But it is probably a reasonable estimate that the identification and marking of existing fallout shelter space could, without additional effort, save at least 10 to 15 million lives in the event of a thermonuclear attack.

I would say that that would be an acceptable estimate.

Of course, this leaves out of 185 million people in the total population, 170 million people subjected to the hazards of the attack; you are aware of that, naturally.

Secretary MCNAMARA. Well, it leaves only the 140 million, approximately, that are not in the shelter spaces, subject to the fallout hazard.

TIMING OF PLANS AND PROGRAMS TO SURVEY AND MODIFY SHELTER SPACE

Mr. HOLIFIELD. And so in your response to Mr. Riehlman you did say that the plans at the present time are to give protection to the greatest number of people in the shortest length of time?

Secreary MCNAMARA. Yes.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. And that they are not the final or total plans in this field?

Secretary MCNAMARA. They are definitely not.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Now, you spoke of surveying existing shelter space. And I can see where this might well run into several years of effort if it is attacked in a piecemeal or inadequate fashion. I am wondering if criteria have not already been developed which would enable you to set up standards by which you could now call upon those States and cities and counties that do have civil defense efforts to assist you in locating available existing shelter as a part of their obligation in order to speed up this finding and marking of shelters.

Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes, we definitely can. And we have no intention of allowing this program to take several years to be completed.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Now, as you find these shelters, do they become a statistic, or will there be a concurrent plan of adaptation of these shelters, giving them, these existing potential shelter areas, the capability which can be given them by the methods of closing windows, the furnishing of auxiliary air equipment, the provision of water and food supplies, and so forth?

Secretary MCNAMARA. There will, of course, be a concurrent plan to provide the shelters with food and water and the minimum supplies I have outlined, and shelters which do not qualify for immediate stocking because of some serious limitation of ventilation or entry or exit will be identified, and these will be put into the pool for further work in the next phase of the program.

USE OF UNDERGROUND STRUCTURES

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Is it your intention in this survey of shelters to seek out all possible means of underground and aboveground shelters, and I will cite underground shelters such as subways, service tunnels, storm drains, basements, and subbasements of all kinds

Secretary MCNAMARA. Oh, yes

Mr. HOLIFIELD (continuing). And natural caves where they might exist and are capacious enough?

In other words, your idea is not to confine the search for shelter to any specific type so long as it will meet a criteria of resistance against radiation?

Secretary MCNAMARA. That is exactly correct. Our sole objective here is to develop a potential for saving lives that otherwise might be lost because of inadequate protection from fallout in the event of an attack.

FOOD STOCKS FOR SHELTERS

Mr. HOLIFIELD. In the proposal for furnishing food, I think here is an area in which it might be reasonable to propose that there be, wherever possible, a large element of self-help. However, I think that

leadership could be given in the providing of concentrated foods such as you have mentioned, and these people have to feed themselves anyway, and it would be, I think, reasonable to ask that wherever possible the citizens supply this concentrated food which should be made available to them at as cheap a price as possible.

I notice the 5-day provision there I think 2 weeks would be nearer the time that might be required, particularly in heavy attack areas, according to the testimony before our committee. However, I am also aware of the fact that recent tests have shown that people can live for 30 days without food if they have plenty of water.

Now, this isn't a very pleasant thing to contemplate, but I don't think that we should stumble on an extensive food program when we might be called upon to get along without some of the things we are accustomed to eating.

Secretary MCNAMARA. The ration we are proposing would cost on the order of 16 to 20 cents per person.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. So this shouldn't be too big a burden on people, providing they were given an opportunity to buy an approved powder, or whatever it might be?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes. I suspect that eventually each individual would wish to undertake to provide his own property with such stocks. In this initial program, however, where we are dealing with public shelters, it seems wise to initially stock them with public financed food.

NEAR SYSTEM

Mr. HOLIFIELD. On page 9 you speak of the National Emergency Alarm Repeater system, the NEAR system. Could you give us a little more explanation of what that is?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes. This is a system that relies upon a generated signal introduced into the electrical circuits by the public utility at particular points in their grid which modifies the current entering the home, and when a receiver is inserted in the home line, perhaps through a plug, will activate that receiver to present an alarm to the people in the house. It is a small, individual alarm system tied in with the total emergency communications network of the Nation.

We believe it is entirely feasible.

A test is now underway in Michigan to prove its system feasibility.

DELEGATIONS OF FUNCTIONS

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Now, I am somewhat concerned about the program of delegation of functions. I think it can be done right. And I think it can be done wrong more easily.

In the past we have had delegations of functions. For instance, the function of reducing urban vulnerability was delegated to the FHA by the OCDM, and they were given a $16,500 budget to carry out that delegated function. This provided for a modest salary for one individual and a secretary. At the same time, I recognize that the Department of Agriculture can do certain things, and other departments the Federal Aviation Agency certainly is better able to be responsible for emergency plans on civil airports and airways, and