matters and things assigned to the Defense Department under the Civil Defense Act, would need to coordinate with the other agencies of Government performing similar or related civil defense problems. But my concept of this thing is that there exists a matter of comity between agencies of Government operating at the same level, and that the President's Executive Order places in the Office of Emergency Planning the overall role of coordination which you say is essential, and which I am inclined to agree is essential. Thus the Office of Emergency Planning, operating by virtue of advice to the President, would execute overall authority and complete coordination in this entire

area.

Now, to back that up, sir, I would like to call attention to the Executive Order of July 20. And this is Executive Order 10952 about which there was considerable testimony yesterday. And I suggest that the committee consider section 2 of that Presidential Executive Order where the duties and responsibilities of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization are assigned. Under section 2, is a subdivision, and under that subdivision this little (ii) reads

Mr. HOLIFIELD. I have a copy.

Mr. ELLIS. This little (ii) reads:

there shall be this assigned to the Office of Civil Defense Mobilization, reviewing and coordinating the civil defense activities of the Federal departments and agencies with each other, and with the activities of the States and neighboring countries in accordance with section 201 (b) of the act.

So that power under the Executive Order is granted to the Office of Emergency Planning.

Now, what is 201(b) of the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950? Section 201 (b) is this:

There shall be in OCDM the authority to delegate with the approval of the President to the several departments and agencies of the Federal Government appropriate civil defense responsibilities, and review and coordinate the civil defense activities of the departments and agencies with each other, and with the activities of the States and neighboring countries.

Under this Civil Defense Act, and that provision which I have just read, is the delegation of the authority which is possessed by OCDM to make these emergency preparedness orders. And here, under the Executive Order that authority is clearly reserved.

Now, to back up what I have said about this, I call your attention, sir, to the page of the Executive Order under section 3. On page 3 of the Executive Order it says:

Excluded functions. Those functions which are excluded to the DOD.

What is excluded to the DOD? There is excluded section 201 (b). In other words, the DOD is specifically, by the terms of this order, prevented from making any assignments to other agencies. And that power is under the other section which I first read reserved to the OCDM.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Which would be the OEP.

Mr. ELLIS. Which would be the OEP. And that power is the basic inherent power in the Civil Defense Act of 1950.

Consequently, I am of the opinion that under the terms of this Executive Order that there remains in the Office of the President the coordination right which is so important to the chairman, and I am sure to this committee, in keeping this matter operating in its proper

relationship and injects the position throughout the entire program. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Then I am going to assume, in view of the Executive Order and the act which you have cited, and in view of your testimony, that the Office of Emergency Planning will be the arm of the President as far as overall national planning is concerned, give advice as to the delegation of authority and function, retain the power to follow up those delegations and scrutinize their implementation, and report back to the President that delegations A, B, and C are being carried out by the agencies, and delegation D is not doing a good job, it needs the President's attention. And the President then can utilize his judgment as to whether he calls in agency D on the carpet and says to them, "Why are you not implementing the function that has been assigned to you under the delegation of this Executive Order?" Is my assumption your understanding?

Mr. ELLIS. With this reservation, sir, that I feel that for DOD to perform in the area of defense, the overall job which it is going to be required to perform, it should have, certainly, a right to correlate with the other agencies the various functions and to bring them into balance.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. But those are agencies with which they deal under this delegated authority. Now, there is an overall obligation, as I understand-first, there is the primary obligation of the Department of Defense to report back to, I assume, the Office of Emergency Planning of the President, I am not quite clear on that, that they fulfilled their delegation in the following way.

But I am also assuming that if you are going to function as the overall Office of Emergency Planning for the whole Nation, that you have not only an interest in what the Department of Defense does, at least the power to evaluate it for the benefit of the President, but you also have all these other areas which are outside and excluded from the Department of Defense.

Mr. ELLIS. That is right, sir.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. You have the same power to scrutinize these other delegations of functions, and to bring back a report to the President. Now, if you don't have that power, why this thing is going to fall between the cracks of all these different delegations just like it did before. I called it diffusion of responsibility and diffusion of function and loss of effectiveness, because in most instances, following that diffusion of function and responsibility, there was no adequate funding for them to even carry out the limited missions that they were given to carry out.

So unless the Office of Emergency Planning has this overall power of evaluation and reporting back to the President, then I would say that you are engaged in a futile exercise.

Mr. ELLIS. Sir, you understand that whatever the meaning of Executive Order No. 10952 is, it is binding upon my office, and I have such authority as I receive under that order. And I will not either expand, enlarge, or interpret that order other than in the way I think the President intended it to be.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. I understand that. And I understand that you may not yet be clear on some of these points. But I think the committee wants to stress some of these points of danger which we see and which we have seen exhibited in the previous delegations of authority.

Mr. ELLIS. Might I read, sir, the President's own words in respect to this matter, which might give some clarification?

Mr. HOLIFIELD. All right.

Mr. ELLIS. The President stated:

I

The civil defense, like other elements of the total nonmilitary defense program, reaches into virtually every phase of our Government and our national life. shall, accordingly, be actively concerned with the problem of coordinating civil defense preparations with other nonmilitary defense preparations required to achieve a strong position for our Nation. In this I shall be represented and assisted by the Director of the Office of Civil Defense and Mobilization.

That seems to me very clear.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. That sounds very clear. But I have heard statements like that before, and I am going to explore it further. I am going to have the Budget Bureau up here to get their understanding. All I am asking you for today is your understanding. Your understanding may be right and it may be wrong. You may be upheld in a wide scope of exercise of authority which I think the Office of Emergency Planning should have, or you may be deprived of that power. I don't know how this is going to work out. And I am going to request the Director of the Bureau of the Budget to come up and give his interpretation of this, too, because I want it to be on the record that this committee is going to look at this thing with a magnifying glass. The fact that it happens to be a Democratic administration which is in power doesn't mean a thing to the chairman of the subcommittee. I am only interested in one thing, and that is in the protection of the people of the United States. And if this program proves to be inadequate, I am going to say so on the House floor, and I am going to say so in the report of this subcommittee, even if I have to write an additional view. But I don't think I will have to do that, because I know that the members of the subcommittee have the same intense interest in this subject that I have, and I am sure they feel the same way about it. If they don't, they will have an opportunity to express their views.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. May I make just a brief statement.

Mr. Chairman, I want to say to Mr. Ellis that the presentation he made this morning is probably one of the boldest approaches to the program this committee has had. It is wide in scope and very comprehensive.

I think that my main feeling along this line would be the same as my chairman, that it sounds good.

And I think that the approach that you have made is excellent as far as I am concerned.

But we are more concerned, as the chairman said, as to whether or not you are going to have the authority to carry out the program which you have outlined to us because, after all, the committee has seen-we have heard testimony in the past that has been very interesting and constructive, but we have seen no results.

And the problem that—or the fear that I have, may I put it that way-is that you may not have the opportunity to carry out this expensive program and to ride herd over these different agencies which you are going to give authority to carry out the program. The question of complication arises in my mind between your responsibility and that delegated to the DOD, how far you can go in riding

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.

us.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. That is, of course, the point that concerns all of 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. HOLIFIELD. Is it? Well, I have got the figures here.

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?