Coral Gables Historical Archive
The Coral Gables Times
Thursday, March 1, 1962, page 23 (of 43)
The page
The text of this pageRead by computer from the scan, so some words may be wrong. The page picture is the original.
Suburbia Today ROUND TABLE • 1
Editors' note: Here are the men who make up this round table on the question of fallout shelters in the suburbs—a select panel of editors and publishers of leading suburban papers chosen from communities that are representative of their regions from New England to the Coast, from Michigan to Florida. The answers to our questions were impressive in terms of concern over the problem, and just as impressive was the wide variety of opinions. A well-known reporter and military analyst gives you the gist of their findings here, against a background of the national picture as observed by the writer. We hope it will help you in reaching your own conclusions. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.
What About Fallout
Newspapermen report from all over the country in SUBURBIA TODAY'S Edited by GEORGE FIELDING ELIOT WHAT DO you think about building shelters in which you and your family could seek protection against radioactive fallout if a nuclear attack should be launched against this country? Should each family have its own shelter where this is possible? Should there be large community shelters? Shelters in schools and public buildings? Does the whole idea of fallout shelters represent reasonable disaster insurance, or is it an illusion, a giant boondoggle, even a cruel hoax? We have asked newspaper people and housewives and commuters for their opinion and for a report on what their towns are doing, and their answers, from all over the country, make three points clear at once: 1. There is no solid consensus for or against a shelter program. 2. The climate of interest yo-yos with the temperature of the cold war. 3. There is a fairly widespread tendency to ascribe lack of interest to absence of strong federal direction and federal funding. The Ready-Made Shelter Several editors, however, noted some quickening of interest when teams of the National Shelter Survey appeared locally. The 1961 Congress appropriated federal funds for these teams to identify and mark spaces in existing buildings, tunnels, and other structures which, with minor alterations, would be suited for fallout shelters, and to stock these spaces with nonperishable rations, water, first-aid kits, and radiological detection devices. It is estimated that 50,000,000 people could be sheltered in such spaces, many of which are located in suburban areas and within easy reach. And how many new shelters are the towns going to build, with state and federal help? As an example of the present confusion in suburban plans, consider the records of four Midwest suburban communities, all in the same county: Community No. 1 announced eagerly, "We are planning a crash program"; No. 2 cut its civil defense budget by nearly two-thirds—"No need for more"; No. 3 tripled its civil defense spending; No. 4 reported "No plan, no funds." As the replies to our questionnaires came in, we found much controversy on one central question: Will nationwide building of fallout shelters make a nuclear attack on this country more likely, or less likely? In one form or another, this question was obviously present in the minds of many editors and others whose opinions were noted. To this reporter, who has been writing on military subjects for a third of a century, it was encouraging indeed to see how clearly, from coast to coast, people seem to understand the root-element of our nuclear defense policy: to deter the Soviet leadership, who alone can launch a nuclear attack on the United States, from ever considering such an attack by keeping them convinced that they cannot hope to escape devastating retaliation in kind. One editor said bluntly we'd do better to spend our money for retaliatory force or for developing a reliable antimissile weapon such as the Army's projected Nike-Zeus. Other comment echoed this view. Several thought that a shelter program would downgrade our national morale—perhaps encourage the Soviet leaders in their nuclear blackmail tactics. "We're unwittingly building a panic-button psychology" . . . "If shelters become a national obsession, they'll damage American moral fiber more than communism ever could." Yet quite a number of thoughtful replies faced up to another aspect of the problem—that if, despite the threat of our retaliatory forces, a nuclear attack does come, fallout shelters would save many lives, perhaps many millions of lives, which would otherwise be lost. There seemed general understanding that people within the blast and fire radius of a thermonuclear explosion would certainly be killed. But comparatively simple shelters could give protection against the otherwise lethal effect of radioactive fallout, which could spread over thousands of square miles, covering a far greater area than that of blast and fire. "We ought to give these people a chance," was one comment, typical of several others supporting President Kennedy's statement: "We owe that kind of insurance to our families and our country." After Survival, What? But what happens to these survivors when they emerge from their shelters after, say, two weeks—the period usually mentioned for allowing the worst of the fallout to deteriorate? "What kind of world will they survive into? Where will they find uncontaminated food and shelter? To whom will they turn?" Behind such questions was apparent the feeling that fallout shelters might not mean too much unless linked with a national survival program involving far more elaborate planning and spending than is at present proposed. Two editors sent clippings quoting Senator Stephen M. Young (D., Suburbia Today, March 1962