(The following information on the roles of Reserve Forces in relation to civil defense was received from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, July 31, 1961 :)

Question. What assignments, if any, that are clearly identifiable as civil defense functions have been given to the various Reserve establishments (Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps Reserve, Air National Guard, and Army National Guard), prior to the implementation of the latest Executive order regarding civil defense?

Answer. No assignments to the various Reserve units have been made by the Department of Defense for the sole purpose of providing civil defense support. Assignments that have been made are on a contingency basis. To meet their prime wartime responsibility, the military services plan to employ their Reserve Forces to bring to wartime strength and supplement active forces and to provide subsequent force buildup.

In the event of thermonuclear attack upon the United States, it is recognized that some forces of the Active and Reserve Establishments would be available for emergency recovery missions, depending on the situation at the time. However, no specific designation of such forces has been established. At present the Marine Corps considers that the wartime mission of Marine reservists normally takes priority over civil defense missions. Each Marine Ready Reserve officer required for initial mobilization has already been issued orders to proceed to an assigned wartime post. On the other hand, the Army recognizes that certain Reserve units might be available for civil defense functions. However, it is felt that designation of specific Army units to civil defense functions should be made after an attack when combat requirements can be determined.

The three major categories of Reserve Forces provided by law are (a) Ready Reserves, (b) Standby Reserves, and (c) Retired Reserves.

The authorized strength of the Ready Reserve is 2,900,000 (including the Coast Guard Reserves and reservists on extended active duty). The Ready Reserve not on active duty has an authorized strength of 2,500,000 and is allocated to the individual services as follows:

Army (includes the entire Army National Guard)
Navy---.

Air Force (includes the entire Air National Guard).
Marine Corps__

Total_

1,448, 000

530, 000

314, 000

208, 000

2,500,000

Each service is required to screen its Ready Reserve annually to insure that only the immediately available and trained units and individuals are retained on Ready Reserve rosters. Of the Ready Reserves, 1 million may be involuntarily called to active duty by Presidential declaration of a national emergency. To call the balance of the Ready Reserve to active duty requires a congressional declaration of a national emergency. This means that if the entire Ready Reserve is to be used, Congress would have to be convened immediately after a thermonuclear attack unless the President exercised extraordinary authority. Under current DOD policy, preparation for civil defense assistance is not to downgrade or detract from the combat readiness of Active and Reserve Forces. Under this policy, active-duty and Ready Reserve combatant forces are not available to be organized for a full-time civil defense mission.

The largest part of two categories of reservists still might be available in time of war or national emergency_declared by the Congress for primary civil defense missions: (1) The Standby Reserves and (2) the Retired Reserve.

No elements of the Army and Air National Guards are included in the Standby Reserve. Standby reservists are, therefore, responsible only to Federal au thority as reservists.

Under current plans, the great bulk of the Standby Reserve probably will not be called to duty in the first 2 or 3 months of war. The Standby Reserve will be utilized, if authorized, during the early period of a mobilization to meet specific requirements which cannot be met from the Ready Reserve, and in the later time frame to meet specific shortages which cannot be met from the Ready Reserve.

A major portion of the Standby Reserve would, therefore, presumably be available for civil defense assignment immediately upon the outbreak of war without detriment to current military plans.

The Retired Reserve consists entirely of reservists who have completed their military obligation. Some of its members draw no retired pay; others (who have met certain service requirements) received retired pay; and still others will be entitled to retired pay upon reaching age 60. Within the Retired Reserve almost 90 percent are officers, and of the officers some 55 percent are of field grade rank or higher.

No detailed legal and administrative analysis of Reserve Forces in civil defense roles has been made, although the preliminary opinion of the Assistant Secretary of Defense/Manpower is that it is possible to use the substantial resources of the Standby and Retired reservists in civil defense programs. However, new legislation would be required in order to form simple organizations and conduct elementary training, other than on a voluntary basis, prior to a surprise attack. On the other hand, if thermonuclear attack were preceded by general war, and the Congress had the opportunity to act in the premises, then the Standby Reserve and Retired Reserve could be mobilized and formed into CD organizations during the "escalation period."

Mr. MORSE. A former President of the United States said in his farewell message to the Nation on July 18, 1961-and I will read one paragraph:

In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Do you see anything in the Executive order that has gone into effect today which involve any dangers like that?

Secretary MCNAMARA. No; I do not. I think that the reference made by President Eisenhower was to possible actions and pressures brought to bear upon both the executive and the legislative branch by various parts of our society acting in concert with other parts and associated with the defense activities in the procurement of weapons and weapons systems.

Mr. MORSE. And you don't feel that there is any danger in the transfer of this authority in this regard? Secretary MCNAMARA. No, sir, I do not.

EFFECT ON BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE

Mr. MORSE. In your statement, I believe it is on page 4, you state that "We do not have any effective operative defense against ballistic missiles."

Is maximum effort being made in this direction?

Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes, it is. We have budgeted approximately $248 million to be obligated during fiscal year 1962 for the further development of the Nike-Zeus system. And beyond that, we have budgeted, if I recall correctly, approximately $100 million for further development of anti-ICBM systems, a total of something approximating $350 million. And with these fundamental programs, every possible effort that can be made is being made to develop an active defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Extensive tests of the Nike-Zeus system are beginning, and will be carried out under this program.

Mr. MORSE. In one of the President's statements he states that civil defense is part of our nonmilitary preparedness, if I recall the phrase. Couldn't it be as easily said that the state of the economy is part of our nonmilitary preparedness, and hence rationalize the transfer of the Department of Commerce to the Department of Defense?

Secretary MCNAMARA. I think not. I think that the relationship between fallout shelters and the other activities that have been assigned to us by the Executive order to the other activities of the Department are much closer than any possible relationship between our activities and those of the Department of Commerce.

I see no clear analogy between the two.

Mr. MORSE. It is remote indeed, Mr. Secretary. Thank you very much.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Mr. Secretary, I realize that the whole problem of civil defense is very complicated, and I might say in advance that I appreciate the statement that you have made, because it does cover a great many important matters.

We are going to have to question you at some length, however, in order to get our record as clear as we want to have it for those who are not able to attend the hearings.

“BLAST” AS A RELATIVE TERM

I want to refer, if I might, to a statement which you made about blast a few minutes ago in talking with Mrs. Griffiths. I am just a little bit afraid that the press might pick up the statement that you made in regard to blast and try to draw a line, a definite line as to the meaning of the word "blast." And I think we ought to have a definition of this.

I would like to see the definition of the word "blast" be something of this nature, that it is not a fixed term, it is a relative term, and some protection against blast can be obtained in fallout shelters just the same at is can be obtained in other types of shelters. But it is a matter of degree.

Now, when we speak of blast, testimony before us has shown that in the case of megaton weapon explosions, all types of physical materials become flying missiles in the air to a distance of possibly 10 miles from the point of a megaton explosion. It is true that if we use the term "blast" rigidly and apply it to the bomb crater, or very near to the bomb crater, there is no protection against that type of blast. But on the perimeter of the crater, and going out for as far a distance as the shockwave, the ground blast wave, goes, objects such as building materials and other objects become missiles and are hurled through space, and in that area you do save lives by having fallout shelters. And when I speak of fallout shelters, I speak of a type of shelter which might be a very simple shelter 3 feet underground or a similar type of protection in the basement.

Now, people that otherwise would be killed above the surface of the ground out in the open, either through missiles or material hitting them, or through the people themselves becoming human missiles, might be saved from blasts in fallout shelters.

You will agree with that interpretation of blasts, would you not? Secretary MCNAMARA. Yes. But I would not believe that the fallout shelters we were discussing, those specifically that we were requesting funds for, would be appropriately thought of as blast shelters.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Not from the standpoint of p.s.i., pounds per square inch of blast, but from the type of blast that would move along the

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