including the current suggested program, one can make a case which will stand up before the most skeptical and most hostile audience, that these programs are effective enough to more than justify the money that is to be spent on them, so long as the criteria of effectiveness includes the questions: "If a war occurs, how many lives are likely to be saved, how much property is likely to be saved, how much is recuperation facilitated?" In other words, I believe that the argument of total ineffectiveness is completely wrong and can be dismissed by serious people.

CIVIL DEFENSE AS TRIGGER FOR ARMS RACE OR WAR

The second attitude is more complicated and controversial and is exactly the opposite of the first attitude. Many antagonists of civil defense argue it is too effective, that it will touch off an arms race or even a Soviet Union or United States strike.

I will discuss the arms race first. To the extent that one feels that civilians are a target, then an attempt to protect civilians may touch off a greater effort by the Soviets to be able to destroy them. If we build an adequate shelter system, they may then build larger missiles and procure more of them.

Or equally important, if the Soviets fear that because we have civil defense preparations we are more likely to strike them in a crisis or in an emergency, then they may have to keep their forces more alert. This could make them more accident prone, or trigger happy. We might then have the problem of what is known as false preemption or anticipatory retaliation. That is, they may strike us because they think that we are going to strike them. This is sometimes called striking second, first.

All of these problems could be raised by certain kinds of civil defense programs.

THE "SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY"

I do not believe that, by and large, either the program being recommended today or even much larger programs would raise such problems in a serious fashion. I think that most of the people who worry about this are worrying about the so-called self-fulfilling prophecy, not as an analytical proposition but as sort of a magical proposition. Let me describe what I mean.

The term self-fulfilling prophecy comes from psychology or psycoanalysis. It refers to the fact that if you are hostile and suspicious toward a person, you will often act in a manner that reflects your hostility and suspicions.

Even if the other person is innocent, he will notice your hostility. This will arouse in him reactions of hostility and suspicion. You will then observe at his reactions and say, "See I was right." And since he will indeed have confirmed your hostility and suspicion, you will become more hostile and suspicious; in time this will make him more hostile and suspicious. The mutual action and counteraction will build up to such a point that it can either lead to violence or stabilize at such a high level of hostility and suspicion that the possibility of violence is ever present.

It is quite clear that this self-fulfilling prophecy does occur both between individuals and nations.

If one is hostile and suspicious, it will arouse hostility and suspicion, which will in turn increase and intensify the original feelings. However, this admission of mine does not settle the problem.

In 1959 and 1960, I gave a series of public and semipublic lectures. At almost everyone of these lectures, someone brought up the selffulfilling prophecy. The first time they brought it up, I had been through a very relevant experience. In answer to the question, I related this experience and I have used that same story ever since. With the permission of the committee, I would like to use it again today.

I started by telling about a friend of mine who is an embezzler. He actually exists. This chap has been in jail twice, and at the time I had been asked this question he was under indictment for the third time and out on bail.

After he had been indicted I asked him, "Why do you do it? You have been caught twice, actually three times. Why do you keep repeating this pattern of behavior? Aside from being immoral, it obviously isn't successful. Why do you do it?"

He looked me right in the eye and said, "I can't help it. People trust me.

He put the blame exactly where it belonged, on the excessive trust of the other individuals. He is an outgoing fellow; he does not have much character and he just cannot help it if he is excessively tempted.

In discussing the self-fulfilling prophecy, I sometimes refer to the "self-defeating prophecy." This is a prophecy which defeats itself. For example, it can happen that if one prepares for war, he deters the This can happen. It has happened in the past.

war.

Or to go back to the story, if one worries about embezzlement, one may take precautions and not be embezzled. I would conjecture that the self-defeating prophecy plays as big a role in international and other human affairs as the self-fulfilling prophecy.

For this reason we simply cannot reject programs just because they reflect some hostility and suspicion of the Soviet Union. Some hostility and suspicion is justified. There are reasons why we have it. This hostility and suspicion was not created overnight by our own imaginations working overtime.

THE PACE OF THE ARMS RACE

I would believe that as long as one is careful with his programs, then the problem of stimulating the arms race has been grossly exaggerated. This is not to mean that one could not stimulate the arms race. While we are in a dangerous arms race today we are not running anywhere near as fast or as hard as we could; we could make it more dangerous.

It seems to be true, for the current programs of both sides, that both sides are being careful. Neither side seems to be doing the kinds of things which they might do if their only concern were to beat the

enemy.

Both sides are acting with a great deal of restraint, both budgetary and technologically, and one would like to keep these restraints operative and even increase them.

One would not like frivolously or carelessly to increase the pressures toward an accelerated arms race except, perhaps, in response to a changed situation.

The Berlin crisis may well result in an increased arms race, but this is mostly not our fault. It is the result of a crisis that has mainly been manufactured by the Soviets and one may have to react to it. In fact, it is exactly the threat that we may accelerate the arms race that might lead the Soviets to be cautious.

PREVENTIVE WAR RISK

As to the next point on the chart-the belief that civil defense by the United States might lead to a preventive war by the Soviet Union, because they were afraid that we intended to be aggressive, or even a preventive war by the United States because of our belief that we might hold casualties to less than 50 million, I find this almost beyond belief. The notion that some people have, that unless one can guarantee total annihilation, the other side will not be deterred or conversely, unless we can promise the Soviets that every single citizen we have will be killed, he will worry about our striking him in a surprise attack out of the blue seems to be a gross overestimate of both sides' desires to strike each other.

It is my personal belief that one could protect every citizen of this country and every citizen of Russia from being a casualty with 100 percent reliability, and one would still have both sides deterred under most circumstances. After all, the empty cities are still hostages. This property, which has been so laboriously created and which has such immense historical and cultural significance, is a very precious and valued hostage.

In addition, a country is not going to war lightly just because it could reduce fatalities from 60 million to, say, 20 million. Twenty million dead is a very impressive number of dead and the property, in addition, is a very impressive hostage all by itself.

There are circumstances, particularly in a very tense crisis, in which certain kinds of civil defense programs might tend to convert the crisis into a war. But these are the very circumstances when these programs are most needed.

I will come back to this later in my discussion of the different kinds of wars, but I just want to make the point now that hard situations can occur. In these situations, a total unwillingness to face any immediate risk of war may simply mean that one must choose surrender or appeasement and perhaps war eventually.

Let me repeat it, because it could be so important. Harsh choices can occur. We may have to choose between risk of immediate war or be willing to appease or surrender. Under these circumstances civil defense can make a difference in our choice and thus increase the risk of immediate war.

Let me now discuss the third reaction on the chart-the belief that civil defense is simultaneously both completely ineffective and too effective. At first sight this sounds like and often is a contradiction, a lapse in logic, by a critic who is not thinking very hard. (See fig.

FIGURE K-1.-SOME COMMON REACTIONS TO CIVIL DEFENSE

1 Completely ineffective.

2

.

Too effective-will touch off a United States-Soviet Union arms race or even a United States or Soviet Union strike.

CIVIL DEFENSE BAD ENOUGH TO FAIL, GOOD ENOUGH TO FOOL

However, sometimes the point is made in a sophisticated fashion. The critic could say, for example, that the civil defense program does not work; it is ineffective, but it will fool the Government, to the point where it is more reckless or the civil defense program will fool the people, and then the people will themselves be more reckless or allow the Government to be.

Now, I happen to think that this last view is almost completely wrong. I have position No. 4 on the chart. I think the suggested civil defense program does work but that it does not work so well that it triggers off an accelerated arms race. I do not think any of the testimony this committee has heard about the performance of this program could make this committee feel reckless.

AVOIDANCE OF THINKING ABOUT WAR

I think the common reaction of both one and two is simply a visceral reaction to dismiss the whole subject. The critics do not want to think about a thermonuclear war actually being fought. Civil defense forces them to think about this possibility so they use any argument which comes to mind to dismiss the possibility.

As this committee well knows, most people and I am including many professional analysts in this category-do not want to face the reality of potential thermonuclear war as something which might be fought. They prefer deterring it, abolishing it, wishing it away, thinking it away, ignoring it, or in some other way denying its existence as a problem worthy of consideration together with other

programs.

I would like to give the committee some quotes which illustrate this point. The first one is from a private letter I received from a man who I am told is extremely intelligent and reasonable about most things. Among other things this letter said:

There is [not] much point in thinking about the unthinkable. In my view, which is not too different from James Newman's, nuclear war is unthinkable. I should prefer to devote my thoughts to how nuclear war can be prevented. This remark is by a man of scientific background. However, he does not want to think about an important aspect of what he admits to be an important problem, and he is proud that he is unwilling about it. This is from an amateur.

Let me give a similar view, but this time by a scholar. This is from a review of my book by Walter Millis, a review which was by and large remarkably friendly, given how much we disagree on substantive and policy issues:

Unless thermonuclear war can be reestablished in the public and the official mind as something which it is possible both to fight and to survive, it is unlikely that there will be a thermonuclear war.

In other words, it is thinking so that makes it so. This the basic notion. The quotation continues:

And its students and potential practitioners will one day find themselves out of jobs.

This last is sort of an unsolicited slam.

Mr. ROBACK. Would you repeat that last?

Mr. KAHN. I said it is an unsolicited slam.

From my point of view, the review was a very good review. Millis understood all or most of the arguments in the book, and was even friendly to those arguments in the intellectual sense. It was a History Book Club review and the History Book Club recommended that their subscribers not exercise their privilege of not taking the book. In other words, I like the review and am not using this quote because I was offended.

I also think very highly of Walter Millis personally. I think he is one of the real scholars of war in our country today. He is a professional. Nevertheless, he is perfectly willing to sign his name to a remark that the major cause of war is believing that we can survive it. This would make an effective civil defense program, designed to enable us to survive a war, the major cause of the war.

This view is widespread. It is, in fact, a standard view, and because it is standard, we will find the utmost opposition to civil defense programs.

An incrdeibly large number of people believe that if you build shelters you will have to use them. Most of these believers are acting not out of analysis but out of the same kind of supersitious fear that motivates a woman to refuse to go to a doctor to be examined for cancer for fear he will find cancer, or that motivates a man to refuse to buy life insurance for fear he will die.

It is rather interesting to examine this life insurance example._If the company said they sold death insurance few would buy it. But that is literally what they sell, insurance against death. They do not really sell life insurance. There is not a word in the legal contract about life, insuring that one will live.

Mr. ROBACK. Mr. Kahn, you made reference to Mr. Newman's comment. Now, that was a review of your book. I recall reading at one time that he referred to your voluminous opus as a tract for mass murder. What do you suppose that meant?

Mr. KAHN. What was the question?

Mr. ROBACK. He referred to it as a tract for mass murder. Does that impute a desire to see people destroyed?

Mr. KAHN. Well, the review, I thought, was a rather extreme review.

Mr. MORSE. Is this the review that denied your existence?

Mr. KAHN. Yes, which was the most unkind cut of all. My first reaction was to put on 10 pounds. [Laughter.]

Newman's reaction to my book was an extreme form of a fairly common reaction and remarkable only in that it got published in a respectable magazine. It was common not only in the violence and emotion of his reaction but also, as far as I know, in that Mr. Newman did not read the book. It has been reported to me that he has said that he read less than 200 pages.

Mr. ROBACK. You will have to admit it is not an easy job.