herd over DOD and its delegation to the other agencies to carry out this program. I repeat that the approach to the whole program-your approach in your statement to this matter of civil defense, and in all of the other areas that you have alluded to in your statement certainly is interesting, and is put together in a very fine way, and it is just a question as to the authority you are going to have to carry them out. And that is the fear that I have, Mr. Chairman. Mr. HOLIFIELD. That is, of course, the point that concerns all of us. We are going to have to wait and find out. I don't think you can answer dogmatically some of the questions which this committee has in its mind. I think this is a matter for exploration. But the committee is not going to be satisfied with a diffusion of responsibility and a diffusion of authority without proper coordination and proper integration into an overall national plan. And if that plan doesn't come from your agency, it is not going to come on the basis of a hodgepodge of 18 or 20 different plans; it has got to come from a central station close to the President and have the President's support and prestige behind it. If it does have that, I think it can work. But if it doesn't have it I think it will be just as I say, a diffusion and not a solution. Mr. GARMATZ. Mr. Chairman, I am sorry I was late because I had to attend another committee meeting, and I am sorry I didn't get a chance to hear Mr. Ellis' statement. But from what I have heard and read I want to congratulate you, Mr. Ellis, in carrying out your new program. And I plan later to go through your statement. INCREASING PUBLIC INTEREST IN SHELTERS Mr. ELLIS. Before you leave, Congressman Garmatz, I would like to indicate one basic thing that I think is of critical importance. And that is, for the benefit of this committee, we made a check to determine the public attitude as best we could, the public acceptance at the present time as compared to what it has been in periods gone by. And as a sort of index of what is taking place throughout the Nation today, the volume of letters received by the OCDM offices was 4,700 for January. In the month of May, after I had been aboard about 4 months, the volume of mail was 14,175. And then in July it was 16,994. And yesterday, following the President's speech to the Nation, we received 5,382 inquiries in 1 day. Mr. GARMATZ. That proves that you and your group have created this interest on the part of the public and brought this about. Mr. ELLIS. We have created a greater interest, based on the foundation which this committee has laid, establishing interest throughout the Nation. A great job has been done by the chairman and the members of this committee. We today believe that the public for the first time in history is ready to accept a real civil defense program, and that public information is one of the most critically important things that this agency has got to do, and that is, get to the public a followup, because since the President's great message to the people which was telecast the other night the public is aroused. And now we must not let them down, but we must follow immediately, we think, with a bulletin that would be coordinated with the Secretary of Defense and with the Bureau of the Budget which would go into every home in America with a personal letter from the President of the United States, a joint letter from the Secretary of Defense and myself, and an abbreviated outline of a shelter with minimum criteria, necessary medical aid, and one or two other documents. This publication would go into every home in America. I think then you will begin to see a revival of the inclination to build shelters in homes throughout the Nation. I think it is coming, I think it is here, and with this sort of Presidential leadership I think we are going to get it. I may be overly optimistic about it, but I believe we will. PIECEMEAL PROGRAM WILL NOT BE SUPPORTED Mr. HOLIFIELD. I will state unequivocally that you are not going to get a voluntary building of civil defense structures in America that will approach 1 percent of the need. And I am properly appreciative of every shelter that is built on a voluntary basis by the funds of individuals. But you are not going to get the kind of shelters that are needed in this country to meet the hazards of nuclear war unless the Government plans them and plans them in the main. There will be plenty of things for people to do in addition to that if we are going to meet this challenge. And I will tell you further that your Congress isn't going to support a piecemeal program. They are going to have to be very sure that we are going into this thing in a serious manner, or you will get the same kind of treatment that you have gotten on your request for your bill, where it was cut in third in the House, and it is cut down a half of what was left in the Senate. It is in Congress now, as you well know. Mr. ELLIS. It was a little better than that, Mr. Chairman. Mr. ELLIS. We were cut from $105 million in the House committee to $79 million. Mr. HOLIFIELD. I was speaking of the delegation of functions to the agencies. Mr. ELLIS. I agree with you on that. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Mrs. Griffiths? EFFECTIVENESS OF DOWNTOWN SHELTERS Mrs. GRIFFITHS. How close could a 20-megaton bomb come to the Empire State Building and still have it remain an effective shelter? Mr. ELLIS. Well, that is a scientific question. And I have the answer to it. What a 20-megaton bomb would do insofar as blasting radiation is concerned, and what square mile area it would affect, Herman Kahn states that if a 20-megaton bomb were exploded in the heart of downtown Los Angeles and a man was standing on the outskirts of a California town 20 miles away by a window, he would be scorched to death. Mrs. GRIFFITHS. How long could you remain in the fallout; you have 30 minutes, I understand, before fallout would be effective? How long could you remain in the fallout? Mr. ELLIS. We have made, over a long period of time, many scientific investigations and many tests, and we have made a determination that you can remain in a fallout shelter Mrs. GRIFFITHS. In the fallout, not the shelter, but in the fallout. Mr. ELLIS. In the fallout itself? Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Yes. Mr. ELLIS. That would depend upon the degree of radiation. Mrs. GRIFFITHS. From a 20-megaton bomb, under ordinary conditions. Mr. ELLIS. You are talking about fallout that would come from a 20-megaton bomb? That fallout would, with the prevailing winds, if they carried it to a degree where it had a strength of 500 roentgens or more, then it would begin to endanger human life. Mrs. GRIFFITHS. I would like to ask you if this shelter program is for all practical purposes a tacit abandonment of the hit cities. Mr. ELLIS. I would not say so. I would say that everything has to have a beginning, and this is a beginning of the fastest and quickest program that we can put into effect and get the maximum benefit for the amount of money we are spending, and it is a great beginning. But I think it has got to be followed up with some sort of protection. Now, you do get protection with underground shelter construction. You do get certainly some blast protection from that, and Mrs. GRIFFITHS. I would agree with you that it is a beginning. But I would like to point out to you that a shelter program that is not fully available to all is, for all practical purposes, a selective shelter program. That is at 3 o'clock in the morning in every major city in America, if the best shelters are large downtown buildings, the people that you will save will be skid row drunks, prostitutes, a few people in hospitals Mr. ELLIS. Yes. SHELTER PROGRAM MUST PROVIDE FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN AT HOME Mrs. GRIFFITHS (continuing). Maybe the night shift on the newspaper, and only a few people. Now, it really is not-it has some problems in the daytime. The people that you will save in the daytime, if the shelter program works 100 percent, would be the working population composed chiefly of men, and women past childbearing age. There is no need worrying about the continuity of government unless you can continue life. You have to have a shelter program Mr. ELLIS. Yes. Mrs. GRIFFITH (continuing). That saves women of childbearing age. Mr. ELLIS. Yes. Aren't there lots of public buildings now in urban and rural areas Mrs. GRIFFITHS. There would not be in my district. I have already talked this over with the Secretary. The mean age is 30 in my district and you would not be saving those women. The only point I make-while I congratulate you upon a beginning-this is just no shelter program. Mr. ELLIS. This is the beginning, and it will expand into the program that this committee has recommended in the past. We will try to follow through and carry out some of the things that this committee has suggested. FEDERAL EXAMPLE AND INCENTIVES FOR SHELTERS Mrs. GRIFFITHS. I was a little bit worried about your statement on page 24 where you say: If a State's funds or resources fail to provide protection for its civilian population, a Federal military establishment stationed in the city simply cannot function. State and local governments must to a large extent be self-sufficient. Are we still going to depend largely upon the States and local governments? Mr. ELLIS. I have been very hopeful that, I have understood why the general public would never begin the construction of shelters in their own homes, because there had been no Federal example in past years. They built the State Department Building here in the city of Washington, and provided no shelter facilities in it at all. The Federal Government was preaching, "Do it yourself," and then failing to do it at a Federal level; therefore, there was no example whatsoever. I would like to believe, Congresswoman Griffiths, that if the Federal Government sets, as President Kennedy is beginning to do, a great Federal example and follows that up with construction in all Federal buildings, new and old, in addition to this program of marking existing areas, that that will be a beginning. Then we can try to work toward, as the Congressman said here in his presentation to this committee, the incentive program, which is now under close consideration, and while it has not been decided as to what that incentive program will be, there certainly will be a very substantial one. I hope in the field of taxation Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Would you consider supporting an amendment to the housing bill that an FHA mortgage not be granted on a house that does not contain a shelter? Mr. ELLIS. I would prefer to see the incentive program not appended onto any particular bill, but handled as one piece of legislation; in other words, it could contain provisions applying to FHA, provisions applying to the Hill-Burton_hospital construction program, and also, for urban renewal where Federal money is used. The bill should provide that no money should be loaned unless a shelter was included. I would like to see that. Mrs. GRIFFITHS. I have asked this question in years gone by. Mrs. GRIFFITHS. And while some people seem to believe that they would be glad to support it, when we got down to the housing committee I could never get any support from the Administration. Mr. ELLIS. Well, it might be that one incentive act that would be an inducement covering many different fields of activity that would be extremely helpful to us. Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Thank you. Mr. HOLIFIELD. I am inclined to agree with your last statement, Mr. Ellis, that if there are going to be incentives Mr. ELLIS. Yes, sir. Mr. HOLIFIELD (continuing). And I am not averse to having incentives for self-help Mr. ELLIS. Yes, sir. Mr. HOLIFIELD (continuing). I think that we ought to attack this problem from every angle that we can attack it to get it done, and where incentives can be offered, as Mrs. Griffiths has said, in the housing and home finance field, why, certainly, this is worthy of consideration, and in all these other fields which you have suggested. Now, the way of approaching this might be in the way of what you might call an omnibus incentive bill, which would have provisions, which would be sent up by the President when the time comes for working this out. I understand we are in the first stages of this changeover. Mr. ELLIS. Exactly so. Mr. HOLIFIELD. And I understand that you have not got a complete program. Mr. ELLIS. Right. Mr. HOLIFIELD. I do not think this committee expects you to come forward with a perfect, full and complete program at this particular time. But time is of the essence in getting this job done, and we certainly do expect to have further progress that will go far beyond the progress that has been suggested so far. Mr. ELLIS. Yes, sir. Mr. HOLIFIELD. An omnibus bill along the line of incentives, and one which would not preclude also activity on the part of the Federal Government on its own responsibility, which certainly would be one way of approaching it, providing it had the backing of the President and the Executive Department. Mr. ELLIS. Then, sir, you might even follow up with the matching of funds to hospitals and eleemosynary institutions and other agencies that operate throughout the country. For instance, the Hôtel Dieu in New Orleans, operated by the Sisters down there, is now building a tremendous annex. They want to put up 50 percent of the money, and they want OCDM to put up the other 50 percent to put up a shelter in this new annex. We do not have the money available or the legal right to do that at the present time. But the program might include shelters in church construction throughout the Nation, coupled with a real church revival in the area of survival and, coining a phrase, you would have a revival for survival throughout America. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Well, there are many ways we can go about it. Mr. HOLIFIELD. There are many new buildings and adaptations of old buildings that could be considered. Congressman Kilgore? COMMENT BY MR. KILGORE ON RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRYING “WOLF!” Mr. KILGORE. I would just like to make this comment: I appreciate your being here and I appreciate your statement. |