civil defense contributes to deterrence. It provides further unmistakable evidence of serious determination on our part.

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE DEFENSES

Finally, there is the matter of the importance of both active and passive defense measures. An active defense comprises weapon systems and allied communications and early warning systems which can, together, detect, engage, and destroy incoming enemy bombers or missiles.

By "passive measures," I mean civil defense, which is designed to reduce or minimize damage to our civilian population from enemy weapons which penetrate our active defenses. These passive measures, such as a trained population-and I wish to emphasize strongly the importance of such training-fallout shelters properly identified and stocked, identification and warning systems, plus an effective organization for assuring adequate control, are prudent steps to take in the light of the risks our population may be exposed to. Further, Government leadership as evidenced by this program will serve as incentive for an expanding future civil defense effort.

To summarize, civil defense bears an essential relationship to military strength in assuring continued national security.

Čivil defense should be considered an integral part of the overall deterrence.

Finally, the civil defense program presented to you today will serve effectively to complement our active military defense measures and thus provide additional protection to the American people against the dangers of nuclear attack upon this country.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Thank you, General Lemnitzer.

It is heartening to the chairman, and I know the members of this subcommittee, to have the assurances and the acknowledgement of many of the principles which we have given over the years in our civil defense reports. It is not gratifying from the standpoint of personal pleasure, but it is gratifying from the standpoint of the fact that it indicates that our studies and our recommendations have been serious ones and sound ones.

And for the Chief of Staff to say this morning that civil defense should be considered an integral part of the overall deterrence of our Nation, and that it has an essential relationship to military strength in assuring continued national security, is to advocate, or to accept the principle which our committee has now been sponsoring since our first major report in 1956.

Now, at this time, we will have questions of the witnesses.
Mr. Kilgore?

STATEMENT OF MR. KILGORE

Mr. KILGORE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to add my appreciation to that expressed by the chairman and the ranking minority member to the Secretary and to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for his statement, and to concur in what the chairman has said, that it is a great deal of satisfaction to this committee to hear this sort of a presentation on civil defense, a very forthright recognition of the interrelation between the operation of the Department of Defense

with respect to an active defense, and the problems relating to the preservation of the population in a passive defense.

It seems to me that these statements constitute a basis on which it could be expected that a very effective civil defense program could be begun and established for the American people. And it is genuinely appreciated to hear this sort of a presentation made. I will defer questions to the staff until a later time.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Mrs. Griffiths?

DEFINITIONS OF "ADEQUATE" AND "MINIMUM" SHELTER

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Thank you very much.

I would like to ask you Mr. Secretary-on page 4 you point out "These spaces should be sufficient to give reasonably adequate protection." May I ask you what you consider reasonably adequate protection, under what set of circumstances?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes. By "reasonably adequate protection" we mean protection sufficient to prevent loss of life or serious injury to the individuals resulting from fallout during an extensive thermonuclear attack on this Nation.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. On page 5 you point out, "will provide a minimum of shelter for approximately one-fourth of our population.' Does that mean under a minimum attack, a maximum attack, a minimum number of people, or a maximum number of people?

Secretary MCNAMARA. The word "minimum" applies to shelter in the sense of a spartan environment. The shelters will be stocked with minimum materials and equipment to permit survival. They will not be stocked with materials and equipment to provide comfort during the period of life in the shelter. We don't plan, for example, auxiliary heating, we don't plan the type of supplies in the way of bedding and other equipment that would provide anything other than the opportunity to survive.

And the word "minimum" connotes that, rather than the size of the attack. The size of the attack that we are presuming here is a large attack.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Would you assume, then, that it will provide a sufficient shelter under a very heavy attack for any of those people who reach the shelter?

Secretary MCNAMARA. It depends on how much radiation they have absorbed prior to the time they have reached the shelter. But assuming that they have absorbed very little, yes.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Under the warning system, do you propose that the warning be given when you have knowledge that an attack is about to be made, or will the warning be given after the attack to take shelter from the fallout?

Secretary MCNAMARA. The warning very probably would be given just shortly before, and I mean within a matter of minutes before the attack, or after the attack.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Under the system that you have set up of marking out the shelters, would the inner city become the most protected place?

IDENTIFIED SHELTER LIKELY TO BE INSIDE CITIES

Secretary MCNAMARA. I can't specifically answer the question. It is probable that the highest percentage of the shelters to be identified and marked would lie within what you might term the inner city.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. So that if the attack occurred at night how many people would you save?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Approximately the same number as we have indicated. In contrast to damage from blast, which occurs simultaneously with detonation, the danger from fallout, as you know, occurs over a period of time, and even in the area immediately surrounding the area damaged by blast, there will be an opportunity to move to a shelter. Time will permit movement of at least 30 minutes duration. In the areas outside of that radius there may be as much as several hours available for movement to a shelter.

REVERSE EVACUATION TO INNER CITIES?

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. And in place of evacuating from a city there will be a rush back to the inner city, is that right?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I think that evacuation under the circumstances that we are hypothesizing would not be a practical alternative to use of the fallout shelters that we are providing.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. But if the attack occurred at night, in place of the evacuation you are going to have the reverse, they are going to have to rush back from the homes to the city?

Secretary MCNAMARA. They will be going to move back to the shelters, many of which, as you point out, will be in the city.

This program, as I have emphasized, is the first phase of a national program. It would be completed at a later date by other shelter dispersed beyond the limits of the shelter that we will identify and mark and stock in this phase of the program.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Do you think that the rush back to the city would be any more practical than the rush out?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes. The rush out from the city is impractical simply because of the time available. The possibilities of obtaining sufficient warning time to permit evacuation are very low, in my opinion. But the possibilities of obtaining time to move into the marked shelters are high, and certainly warrant the very, very low expense of marking and stocking the shelters.

ACCESS TO SHELTERS

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. If the shelters are in a place where the building is not open at night, do you contemplate maintaining the buildings open at night?

Secretary MCNAMARA. We would expect to have access to the shelters. In cases where that is impractical because of lack of access to the shelter or to the building, we would not propose to mark, identify and stock the shelter.

DEGREE OF PROTECTION

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Do you assume that any of these shelters would be absolute protection?

Secretary MCNAMARA. "Absolute" is a word that permits no qualification, and I wouldn't presume to apply it to these shelters. But I would say that they will provide sufficient protection to save approximately 10 to 15 million lives in the type of attack that we are hypothesizing.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Do you think it would be easier to protect people in rural areas; that is, they could be more nearly absolutely protected, if you had the shelters?

Secretary MCNAMARA. No, I don't. I don't believe that the absolute level of protection is easier to obtain in rural areas than metropolitan areas. I would distinguish here between protection from fallout on the one hand and protection from blast on the other. We believe that these shelters will provide very effective protection against fallout; they will not provide, in any sense of the word protection against blast.

BALANCING MILITARY AND CIVIL DEFENSE NEEDS

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Some years ago when Adm. Arthur Radford was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this committee was concerned with the problem of civil defense. And at that time we had before us a resolution which would have made the Secretary of Defense the head of civil defense. Admiral Radford then said:

If the proposal set forth in House Concurrent Resolution 108 were adopted, then the Secretary of Defense would become the arbiter between the Department of Civil Defense, whose primary mission is defensive and passive, and the military, whose primary missions are offensive. In my opinion, the Secretary of Defense should not be placed in such a position. There is the danger that this would detract from the offensive role now assigned to the Department of Defense. There is another danger, that the Department of Defense would become unduly subordinated.

Do you see any problem?

Secretary MCNAMARA. No, I do not. Treating the second danger that he expresses first, I think the fact that on the first day on which the assignment has been made to the Department of Defense, we are presenting to the Congress a shelter program which we believe will save 10 to 15 million lives is an indication that the assignment of responsibility to the Department of Defense will not dilute the program. Nor do I believe that the assignment of the program to the Department will dilute our military program, because concurrently with the presentation of this program we are presenting a program for three and a quarter billion dollars to substantially strengthen our military force. I think both of these actions indicate that both of the programs can be developed and expanded simultaneously..

Mrs. GRIFFITHS. When the matter of the budget comes up, and billions more are added, and the Federal Reserve, as it is already doing, is saying that this is inflationary, who wins, civil defense or defense?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I don't believe that the dollars are competitive one with another. It is my personal view that we should not spend one dollar in any program that isn't absolutely required for that particular program, and we should make every possible effort to reduce expenditures in all areas.

It is for that reason, among others, that I have strongly recommended against expanding the appropriations for bomber aircraft and bomber development. I see no reason to assume that either one of our programs will suffer because they are associated with the other. Mrs. GRIFFITHS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Mr. Riehlman?

USE OF EXISTING SURVEY DATA

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Mr. Secretary, just following a bit along the line that my colleague has been speaking of, with respect to this shelter program, surveys have been made in the past of areas that would be available for this type of protection in many of our metropolitan areas.

Are you taking into consideration that information that you now have available when you start this new type of a survey that you are speaking about in your testimony?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes, sir, we definitely are. I am familiar with the test or spot-check surveys that have been made. We have utilized information from those in outlining the program. We will certainly make further use of that information as we proceed to implement it, assuming that the Congress appropriates the funds.

USE OF EVACUATION PLANS

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Certainly you have not alluded in your statement in any respect to a program of evacuation. You cannot conceive of any type of an evacuation program being successful in this era in which we are living should we be attacked by nuclear weapons of any kind?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I wouldn't go so far as to say I can't conceive of any evacuation program being desirable or practical in current or future circumstances.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. May I clarify it, Mr. Secretary, by asking, under the situation in which we find ourselves today, does it seem at all conceivable or at all practical that we should initiate or have in our program provision for an evacuation plan?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I should say that we should certainly not rely on any such program as an alternative to a fallout shelter program. The probabilities of obtaining warning of an impending attack in sufficient time to allow orderly evacuation are very small, in my opinion. The reliance on missiles for the purposes of attack, the increasing reliance on missiles that we can expect in subsequent years means that the total time between the launching of the missile and the detonation of the missile will not exceed 30 minutes.

We could expect, perhaps, warning of the launching of the missile 15 minutes after it has been launched and 15 minutes ahead of detonation. It is impossible to consider any evacuation taking place with the maximum of 15 minutes' warning.

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