Deaths as a percentage of national population FIGURE NH-6.-TOTAL DEATHS RESULTING FROM ATTACKS ON CONUS MILITARY DECISIONS CAN SOFTEN APPALLING EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WAR Well, to sum up, it is evident, I think, that the outcomes of future attacks are anything but precisely predictable. Fallout could create overwhelming disaster, but it might not. Whether it would depends to some extent on factors we have not examined today-on wind, for example. But it depends most importantly on the kind of war that the potential combatants may be prepared to fight. We have noted, in particular, how it depends on certain Soviet decisions: on whether they would attack cities; on whether they would use surface bursts exclusively; on whether the yields (particularly the fission yields) of the weapons of their stockpile are high or low; and on the extent to which they expand their stockpile of weapons. We have also noted the dependence on certain decisions of ours: on the defenses we chose to prepare, both active defenses and passive ones; and on our basing posture. The outcome of a nuclear war would undoubtedly be appalling in any case, but it is possible to meliorate the anticipated effects in some degree. That is all I meant to say. WITNESS' VIEW OF MISSILE SITING POLICIES Mr. ROBACK. Mr. Hanunian, do I understand your chart analysis to support the proposition that the missile siting, in effect, draws off hazards from heavily concentrated areas? Mr. HANUNIAN. On a regional basis it does this, yes. Mr. ROBACK. On a regional basis. In any given area there might be a problem as to base siting, but from a national standpoint the siting actually is a magnet which draws hazards away from other areas, assuming Mr. HANUNIAN. Assuming the Soviets would want to attack them. Mr. ROBACK. Yes. Mr. HANUNIAN. As a matter of fact, if you consider the population densities of the country, you find that they are much lower in the vicinity of our ICBM sites than they are elsewhere. Now, it would not be fair to consider the average population density of the United States-this is 60 persons a square mile or thereabouts-because, after all, no one could consider putting any missile sites in the middle of large cities; certainly, there has not been any emphasis on placing missile sites in the most densely populated locales. But even if we consider abstracting from the metropolitan populations, if we consider the average density of that part of the population that does not live in the large urbanized areas (say 200, 220, something like that, of the largest urbanized areas) you find that the rest of the population-the population outside of those areas-is more densely settled on the average than is the population located very close to the missile sites. The average population density outside those urbanized areas is less than 30 persons per square mile-28, actually, in 1960. But the average population density within 18 miles let me give you the figure within 18 miles of our new missile sites is 6. Six as opposed then, to 28 or so. I think this is evidence. Now if you go out even farther from the missile sites, you find that the population density is even lower. At 50 miles from the missile sites considering the whole area within 50 miles from the missile sites the average population density within that distance of our missile sites is only about two persons per square mile. This, again, is as compared with 28 persons per square mile for that part of the population of the United States living outside of the 200 or so urbanized areas. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Hanunian. You will make available to the committee those charts so that we can have them photographed for our record, will you please? Mr. HANUNIAN. I plan to supply you at the end of the day with a transcript including the charts, yes. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Of your complete statement? Mr. HANUNIAN. Yes. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Thank you very much. Our next witness is Walmer E. Strope. We are pleased to have him before us today. He is not new to this committee. He appeared before us in 1956 and again when we made a special study of the kinds of shelter development. The Chair considers Mr. Strope one of the outstanding shelter experts in the country, from the standpoint of practical knowledge of design and manning operations. Mr. Strope has been in an underground shelter which he had a hand in designing, one mile away from an atomic explosion at the Nevada test site. He has studied the problem of shelter living by realistic exercises, and I believe he has a short movie film of one of these experiments which will be shown in the course of his testimony. Mr. Strope, you may proceed. STATEMENT OF WALMER E. STROPE, ASSOCIATE SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR, U.S. NAVAL RADIOLOGICAL DEFENSE LABORATORY, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. Mr. STROPE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My formal statement is in the form of a report on the progress and results of the NRDL shelter research program. The formal statement itself is in a report format, and I will avoid this format in describing it to you this morning, and I intend to interject at appropriate points comments which tie this report to previous testimony you have received in these hearings. THE USNRDL SHELTER RESEARCH PROGRAM The objective of the USNRDL shelter research program has been to develop a completely equipped fallout shelter that meets certain standards of protection and habitability at a cost as low as the state of the art permits. At the time we started this program this had never been done before and, to my knowledge, it is the only effort of this type so far to date. Mr. HOLIFIELD. This was handled by the Naval Radiological Mr. STROPE. Defense Laboratory. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Defense Laboratory at Hunter's Point? Mr. HOLIFIELD. Have the studies been made available to the administration in consideration of their new program? Mr. STROPE. They are available in the Department of Defense; yes, sir. Although adequate protection against radiation hazards from fallout has been emphasized, protection against blast and fires from thermonuclear detonations has also been considered and incorporated. FLEXIBLE STEEL ARCH SHELTER STUDIED The desire to minimize cost dictated consideration of group shelters only at the beginning of the program. Subsequent analysis of the operational requirements for radiological defense have indicated that many of the required functions can be accomplished only if group shelters are available. A review of various blast shelter designs available in 1956 resulted in a decision to exploit a flexible-steel-arch structure that had been tested extensively for blast resistance by the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks. This structure, commonly used as an ammunition storage magazine, has shown excellent blast resistance at low cost. All efforts in the USNRDL shelter research program have concentrated on adapting this structure for use as a fallout shelter, with a rated capacity of 100 persons. That is to say, we have not looked at a large number of different types of structures. Rather, with this small program, we have concentrated on a particular one that has looked particularly attractive to us. HISTORY OF NRDL PROGRAM I would like to give a chronological summary of the experimental and design events that have occurred in this program to date. In July 1957 we conducted our initial experiments in a test shelter at Operation Plumbbob. This work was done under the Civil Effects Test Group, and was for the purpose of obtaining data under fallout conditions for design of the entrance and ventilation system. The results were reported to this subcommittee in 1958 by Dr. Paul Tompkins. They appear in the record of the hearings entitled "Atomic Shelter Programs." Following this experimental work, and upon the analysis of the results, we engaged in detailed design and costing studies of a fully equipped fallout shelter. This took us about a year, during the calendar year 1958. The design work was begun under the sponsorship of the Bureau of Ships, under a fund set up called the Director's Fund, which is for, among other things, projects that are too far out, so to speak, to have yet obtained sponsorship. But the work was completed under the sponsorship of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization. In June 1959, a contract was let for a prototype shelter based on this design study, which was constructed at Camp Parks, Calif., about 40 miles from San Francisco, where the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory maintains a field experimental station. In constructing this shelter an attempt was made to establish the actual costs of construction. |