COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00008 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	SURVIVAL AFTER NUCLEAR ATTACK ON THE UNITED STATES
C00025 00003	NOTES:
C00042 00004	Some notes on shelters
C00049 00005	Fighting the War
C00054 00006	THE POLITICAL PROBLEMS OF TRIAGE
C00061 00007	Some slogans
C00062 00008	What can I do now?
C00063 ENDMK
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SURVIVAL AFTER NUCLEAR ATTACK ON THE UNITED STATES


	There may be a nuclear war involving the United States.  We
take no position on how likely this is or on when it might occur.
It might occur suddenly so that the governments at all levels and
the people are no more prepared than they are now or there may be
days, weeks or months for preparations.  The war may be over
quickly or it may be necessary to continue to fight while repairing
damage.  Help may be available from other countries, e.g. Canada and
Mexico, or it may not be.  We may be in a position to help other
countries or we may not.  The world may be in a mood to recover from
the devastation, or there may be nuclear Napoleons out to conquer as
much as possible.
One percent of the population may be dead
or eighty percent may be dead.  Certainly, some parts of the country will have
suffered greater destruction than others.

	Our position is that whatever the damage and whatever the
situation, the survivors should try to maintain or re-establish
a democratic technological society based on the U.S. Constitution
as it may be amended.  Tribalists, Napoleons and messiahs should
be resisted to the extent that they appear.  We mention this not
because we think this will be very prevalent but, because these
are the themes of much science fiction, and science fiction represents
the most widely distributed "thought" on the subject of post-nuclear
survival.

	Another theme of  much present thought is surrender.
If we are defeated
militarily by a country that can occupy the U.S. militarily without
suffering unacceptable damage to itself, surrender
may be unavoidable.  Remember though that our probable enemy is the
Soviet Union, a communist country.  The short history of communism
has already demonstrated that surrendering
to communism is no guarantee of peace or even survival.  In spite
of the ideological affinities of the different varieties of communism,
they are at least as likely to go to war with one another as they
are with non-communist countries.  A very likely result of a surrender
to communism is being drafted into an intra-communist struggle in
which our remaining people and resources are regarded as expendable.
Therefore, if the survivors have that option, they should
regard maintaining the United States Government as worth great
sacrifice.

	Another prevalent theme is tribalism.  This is prominent in
science fiction, but also various small groups have organized for
survival in case of a nuclear or other breakdown of society.
They imagine defending their members and families against the
starving hordes and re-establishing society later according to
whatever principles (sometimes quite undemocratic) their leaders favor.
Other writers imagine relatively small
tribes forming after the disaster warring with their neighbors.
In my view large scale democratic society will save the most people
and is most desirable.  Moreover, integrating the
majority of the survivors into a reduced version of the prewar
political structure will result in the capability to prevent the
tribalists from doing much harm.

	There is also the theme that civil defense preparations make
war more likely by making our leaders bolder and by provoking the
Soviets into thinking we are preparing to strike first.  We hold that
civil defense preparations make war less likely by making it seem
less likely that the U.S. will be forced to surrender by threats.
As long as the Soviets are spending $20 per year per person on civil
defense, they can hardly be provoked until our expenditures on civil
defense rise from our present 50 cents per person per year to (say)
their $20 or even $40 to make up for lost time and to correspond to
our more productive economy.

	A final theme is that the psychological effect of destruction
of even a third of the population and resources will be so great that
the survivors will envy the dead and will make no effort to restore
society or even to survive further.  While no disaster comparable
to nuclear war has ever struck an area comparable to that of the
United States, many disasters (mostly wars) have devastated to
a comparable degree (killing more than half the population) of the
known world of the survivors.  The most recent such event was the
communist holocaust in Cambodia, killing (according to the Vietnamese
communists) 2.8 million out of a population of 8 million and leaving
most of the rest starving.  Not only didn't this destroy the will to
live of the Cambodian population, but they seem to be continuing
a struggle against the Vietnamese invaders and against Cambodians
of different political opinions with only slightly diminished
ferocity.


	THE SITUATION AFTER A NUCLEAR ATTACK

	Admission of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.  We really
don't know what the situation will be, and strategy should provide
for a wide variety of possibilities.  (Needless to say, the opponents
of civil defense don't know either).

	The damage will be different in different places.  There is
a reasonable probability that many nuclear weapons aimed at the U.S.
will malfunction for one reason or another.  Therefore, some high
priority targets may escape - at least on the first round.  Many small
towns will be undamaged except as caused by the loss of supplies
and services from damaged areas.  Some cities may be completely
destroyed with almost all the population killed or fatally injured.
Some things will be in short supply; others will be plentiful.
Some problems will have to be dealt with in minutes or more
death will result.  (Since they usually won't be dealt with in
minutes, there will be more death).  Other problems have time scales
of days, weeks, months and years.  Here are some examples:

1. Medical.  There will be many injured people who could be saved by medical
attention.  Since doctors and nurses will also be killed and
injured and medical facilities and supplies destroyed, many who
could be saved by medical attention will die.  Nevertheless,
whatever medical capability survives will help others survive
if used effectively.  Some things must be done in minutes
to be effective, others in hours, days, weeks, months and
years.  Most likely, there will always be a shortage of
medical care, and triage will occur.  Some will survive
and some will die, and individuals and society will maximize
survival.  If society is very poor, then many people, who
could survive with expensive care, will die. 

Within a few weeks or months of an attack, the main medical results
will have occurred.  The dead will be dead, the permanently crippled
will be obviously permanently crippled, and most of those who are
going to recover will have done so.  Medical matters will no longer
be dominant considerations if they ever were.

Of course, public health measures will still be important, but only
to the extent that they are important in less developed countries
than the U.S. that have more severe public health problems.

There may also be the problem of medical preparation for further
attacks if these can be expected.

We will discuss medical problems more concretely later.

2. Fallout.  The destructive effect of a nuclear bomb is maximized
by an airburst which produces little fallout.  However, there may
also be surface bursts either aimed at hardened targets like
missile silos or for the specific purpose of creating fallout.
  Downwind from the zone of destruction from a nuclear surface burst,
there is a zone of fallout.  In this zone, unprotected
people will suffer radiation injury if they go out of shelter
before the fallout radioactivity decays.
Where the fallout is intense, proper fallout shelters are necessary.
Where it is less intense, staying indoors will suffice.  After
two weeks, the fallout is insignificant as far as immediate injury
is concerned, but increased risk of delayed cancer persists longer.  The
increased risk of cancer will be accepted as part of the price
of mobility, because other dangers
from the attack will be greater.  People should stay in shelters,
if they have them, or indoors anyway for up to two weeks, even at the
cost of not eating for this period.  Drinking water may have to be
filtered to get rid of fallout particles.  Radiation
detectors and a doctrine describing how to act on the basis of
their readings are one of the most important preparations that
could be made.

3. Food.  The danger of starvation comes to mind readily, and much
science fiction is based on starving hordes.

For the country as a whole and in
most places, food will be one of the lesser problems.
This is because
food production and food storage are more dispersed than the population
as a whole.  Therefore, the loss of food will be less than the loss
of people to eat it.  Canned and packaged foods are not harmed by fallout
and even fruits are safe if carefully washed.
  Moreover, even at the most unfavorable times of
the year, just before the main harvests, the country as an approximately
19 month supply of food.
It will be necessary to re-organize the food
distribution and processing system.  For example, it may be necessary
to temporarily abbreviate the process whereby grain stored in elevators is made
into bread and distributed.  If electric power is lost for prolonged
periods, much food in cold storage will be lost.  Therefore, cold
storage may rate priority in restoration of electric service.

While grain can be ground by hand and cooked into edible mush, restoration
of baking will free much labor for other purposes and provide
better food.

Since people can survive without food for several weeks, and since
there are large supplies of already processed food, the time scale
of re-organizing the food system is weeks and months.  Remember that
food is produced in harvests, and so there is generally enough on
hand to last from one harvest to the next.  In the U.S. there are
usually large carryover stocks of most foods.  With rationing, and in
view of the probable large casualties in cities,
might even be possible to go one or two years before food production
has to be re-established.

Localized severe food problems are more likely, and re-establishment
of a transportation system may require high priority.
The alternative is to move people closer to food supplies.

4. Shelter.  Earthquake experience suggests that houses are more
destructible than people.  Moreover, people will evacuate damaged
areas, and if there is a danger of further bombing, the population
should be as dispersed as possible.  The solution to this is crowding
many people into housing and public buildings that ordinarily
hold fewer people.  Many countries, including the Soviet Union
have much more crowded housing than we.  Twenty times more people
can be safely crowded into American houses than they normally hold, and
this crowding can be maintained for years.

5. Heating fuel.  This is a serious problem, because
fuel is ordinarily transported long distances, there is only limited
storage where fuel is used.  Shortages of fuel may force more crowding
than is forced by shortage of housing itself.  If worst comes to worst
we have to rely on blankets, warm clothing and body heat.

6. Transportation.  There is a great oversupply of transportation
equipment in
the U.S., but its use will be seriously disrupted by nuclear war.
Railroads, highways and airports will be damaged.
The surviving vehicles will suffice, but the roads etc. will require repair.
This will be one of the major requirements for labor.

The biggest shortage will be of fuel.  The industry is readily disrupted
by the destruction of refineries, pipelines and transportation, and it
keeps very small stocks.  Evacuation and dispersal may place large
demands on fuel.  Providing dispersed stocks of fuel is a very important
form of preparedness.  Proper use of available fuel will be an extremely
important consideration after an attack.  To save transportation workers
will often have to camp out at their places of work.

7. Dispersal.  It would be best to disperse now, and many social
thinkers would advocate dispersal for reasons apart from defense.  Failing that,
and we don't expect much dispersal, unless the war is over, there
will be a need for additional dispersal after an attack.

The best preparation a person can make to preparedness for nuclear
war is to disperse now.  If you can move a substantial economic
activity to a less congested area, you will help a lot.  Even a
retired person can help by moving to a non-target area.  This will
provide housing that can be shared and will attract economic activity
to the area that will build it up.

8. Civil defense.  After an attack there will be a motivation to
do many things that should have been done in advance.  It seems likely
that much can be done in the way of providing shelters and stocking
them to reduce the damage from further attack.

Much worthwhile thinking has been done about civil
defense preparations.  It was shown that loss of life could be enormously
reduced by devoting a small fraction of our defense budget to civil
defense preparations.  Unfortunately, this was not done, and it seems
unlikely that it will be done.

However, even though we think a large Government civil defense program
is desirable, we mainly emphasize what the individual or company or
town or city can do to increase his or its probability of survival.
We also emphasize psychological preparation.

Even if an individual or organization makes no material preparation,
we believe that knowing what to do and what possibilities to expect
can greatly reduce fatalities.  This is especially important, because
the "peace movement" propaganda of hopelessness reduces the probability
of effective action and because the tribalist fantasies of much
science fiction also generates incorrect expectations and makes
random action more likely.
NOTES:

Lest some unintended reader of this essay misunderstand, it is an
individual effort not at the behest of anyone else or based on
information supplied by any official source.  In fact I have no
unpublished information.

1. Most of this essay is based on the likely assumption that there
will be almost no preparation.  This assumption is based on politics
rather than on a view of what policy would be correct.  My opinion
is that a large scale civil defense program is desirable, although
it should probably take a different form than it took in the fifties.

Actually, there is substantial likelihood of a crisis period before
ware starts in which there will be a strong motivation for a crash
program of civil defense.  Any amount of time - even hours - can be
useful.

2. Readers may be interested in what they can do to prepare.  The
most important way of reducing vulnerability is dispersal.  An ounce
of dispersal is worth a pound of hardening.  Any
activity whose location a reader can influence should be as far
from other activities as is economically feasible.  Maximum advantage
should be taken of modern communication facilities to disperse
activities.

3. Private preparedness groups are important.  However,
exclusiveness will doom the group to irrelevance and possibly
subject it to confiscation of its resources.  The best policy is
for the group to assume that after an attack or in crisis periods
during which an attacks is believed to be likely, it will have to
expand its numbers by a factor of 100.  The model of building
a military unit from a small cadre should be considered.
Survival training courses should not merely provide an analog
of basic training but also an analog of officer candidate school.

4. Publication of a book based on this essay may be useful.  Even
if physical preparation is not undertaken, having a few thousand
mentally prepared people will increase the probability that
individuals, businesses and local governments will act in a way
that will save the largest number of lives immediately and will
co-ordinate their activities as soon as it becomes possible.

5. For example, less damaged areas should be prepared to send
buses to collect survivors from more damaged areas.  This seems
to be the point most shocking to those who expect or advocate an
"every man for himself" approach.

6. An inventory of local food storage, fuel storage and storage
of other supplies will help.

7. In our present society, more than half of the active population
is involved in activities that can be indefinitely postponed in
an emergency.  Thus all teachers, students, employees of entertainment
industries, producers of luxury goods or goods whose stock can
serve for years can be mobilized.  Recall that no automobiles
or large domestic appliances were produced in the U.S. during
World War II.

8. It may also be forgotten to what extent we can get by with
less food, less fuel and less living space.  It will be very
important to make a fast transition to an austere way of life.

9. Secrecy.  If war continues after an attack it will be extremely
important to conceal which areas are damaged and how much.  The
enemy will have limited resources for further attack, and further
damage will be greatly reduced if he has no way of knowing which
missiles malfunctioned.  Shooting down satellites and observing
radio discipline and providing misinformation will all be important.
Even a relatively ineffective ABM program would help enormously
by making it difficult for the enemy to program his second round
missiles.

Since the enemy will have spies with in the U.S., it may be necessary
to disable the telephone system except for official calls in order
to prevent the spies from surveying the damage by calling about
the country.  This would make it
impossible for individuals to determine
whether distant relatives survived until some months after the first
attack.

10. Electromagnetic pulse.  The damage to communications will be
great and probably erratic.  Repair will be important.
Keeping a radio in a metal box or file cabinet is an important
precaution.

11. Time scale of repair of essential facilities.
This depends on stocks of spare parts and their location.  It would
be desirable to exempt such stocks held by utilities, etc. from
taxation on inventories.

12. The key point that must be repeatedly emphasized is how little
is known of what could be known, and how little what can be known
in advance amounts to.  The possibilities for devastation are unknown,
the possibilites for accidental escape are unknown, and the
opportunities for reducing damage by intelligent action either
before or after an attack are unknown.

This definitely includes the considerations described in this essay.
Entirely different considerations may dominate the decisions that
will have to be made.

13. Some will claim that this essay should not have been written
and should not be read, because any discussion of how to mitigate
the effects of nuclear war makes it acceptable and detracts from
the efforts to prevent it.  The reply is (a) Some of the efforts
to prevent war have probably increased the probability of war
by increasing the probability that the Soviet Government will
think we can be beaten.  On this argument, which I believe correct,
mental and physical preparations for civil defense reduce the
probability of nuclear war.  (b) There is little evidence that the
opponents of thinking about mitigating the effects of war have
in fact reduced the probability of war.  (c) The stakes may be
very large.  Effective thought about reducing casualties may make
a difference of tens of percents in the fraction of the American
population that survives.

14. Making use of existing organizations.  The number of people
presently involved in civil defense is extremely small, and they
have limited capability.  Should there be an attack, it may be
more effective for existing organizations, especially business
firms, to undertake various survival functions.  Construction
firms and companies with construction capability like utilities
and distribution firms with transportation facilities
are cases in point, but even organizations whose functions are
entirely postponable such as universities, advertising agencies,
may advantageously undertake to promote the survival of their
employees and their families and then undertake such broader
functions as may be assigned to them.

15. One of the major uncertainties is how much government will
survive, how effective it will be and how authoritative it will
be.  One possibility is that the national government will survive
and will maintain its communications and organization including
its military organizations and the civil defense organization.  It
may be capable of expanding its existing organizations to deal
with emergencies.  This is the most favorable possibility.

It is also possible that Federal and State Government organizations
will become destroyed or lose communication for a long time
 or otherwise become
ineffective.  In this case, much will depend on whether local
organization can be expanded or formed to deal with local aspects
of the emergency until regional and national organizations
can be rebuilt or communication with existing organizations
re-established.

16. Survival and the Bomb, University of Indiana Press (1969) edited
by Eugene Wigner is a perfectly good explanation of the rationale
for a civil defense effort and a discussion of what it may accomplish.
However, the copy in the Stanford University library had been checked
out exactly once.

17. In our opinion, it is most likely that the present leadership of the
Soviet Union does not intend a nuclear attack on the U.S.  However,
"most likely" isn't something we advocate betting our lives on, so
we favor defense in general and civil defense in particular.
This "most likely" means, however, that we advocate restraint in dealing
with the Soviet Union.  If we believed that the Soviet Union most
likely intended to attack us, we might support pre-emptive measures
that might increase the risk of attack so as to minimize its effect.

18. We also believe that while the danger remains high enough to
warrant precautions, these precautions should be such as can be
sustained for many years, i.e. more than 20.  The ability to mobilize
should the danger seem more acute should not be wasted by
efforts that cannot be sustained.  For this reason, appropriations
of money to be used by a professional organization seem better
than organizing a volunteer effort larger than can be sustained.
Professional preparations for a volunteer effort
are especially appropriate.

#. While nuclear power plants can be destroyed in an attack, their
location away from other facilities and their ruggedness means that
each would require an individual attack by an accurate bomb.
Those which are not attacked or are missed can provide full power for up
to two years or part power for very much longer.  Refuelling doesn't
make heavy demands on transportation, so such nuclear power as exists
may play an important role.  The distribution network for electric
power is redundant, rugged and repairable.

#. The role of military installations and military personnel in
recovery from nuclear attack will be very important.  Besides that
they provide another element of dispersal.

#. No disaster in history shows definite evidence of very large loss
of life beyond that caused directly by the disaster itself.
Thus we expect that those who survive the attacks themselves and a
few weeks thereafter will mostly live out their lives.

It has been speculated that if a nuclear war kills a substantial fraction
of the population, the rest will become so despairing that they will
let themselves die.  While no continent wide disaster on the scale
of a thermonuclear war has ever occurred, disasters have struck smaller
populations that destroyed their known world leaving very few survivors.
As far as we know, these populations have always done their best to
survive.  For this reason, we can expect that the American people will
also do their best to survive regardless of what fraction are killed.
Some notes on shelters

1. The best book I've seen so far on fallout shelters, blast shelters,
etc. is "Nuclear War Survival Skills" by Cresson H. Kearny.  The original
version is in the form of an Oak Ridge National Laboratory Report ORNL-5037,
September 1979 available from NTIS in both hard copy and microfiche.
It is also available from
American Security Council Educational Foundation
Boston, Virginia 22713

for $8.95 postpaid in an edition with an introduction by Edward Teller.

It is likely to be the best, because it is a report covering experimental
research done at Oak Ridge in the design and construction of shelters
and debugging the instructions so that inexpert people can build them
with just the information provided in the book.

From my point of view, the book is a bit too woodsey, namely why are poles
from cut-down trees proposed rather than lumber bought at a lumber yard?
Nevertheless, its ideas are very well thought out.  It includes two noteworthy
inventions: a hand operated "expedient" (buildable from available
materials on short notice) shelter ventilating air pump; and an
expedient electrometer for measuring fallout intensity.

It emphasizes what an unprepared family should do given a few hours
to a few days warning at a time of crisis that may lead to war.

2. Here is are some ideas for shelters somewhat different from those
proposed by Kearny.  All Kearny's proposals are for outdoor shelters
home built.  Some of them apply to basement shelters.

This is for a shelter that a family could buy in advance, keep in
the garage and set up at home or elsewhere in an hour.  The shelter
consists is made of very strong plastic, e.g. kevlar, and is stored
collapsed and filled with water for use.  According to Lowell Wood's
reading of the Handbook of Physics, 60 to 70 centimeters of water
would reduce gamma ray fallout by a factor of 1000 and 40 centimeters
would reduce it by 100.  That's a lot of water, but we believe that
a plastic shelter strong enough to hold it can be built.  Ideally
additional reinforcement wouldn't be required, but if necessary metal
or wooden supports could be provided.  There is also a problem
of floor strength unless the floor is on grade.

The main virtue of this shelter is that it is a product; companies
could sell it and people could buy it on impulse, put it in the
garage and forget it.  Many who wouldn't build Kearny's shelter
would buy something if all they have to do is fill out a coupon
and send a check for a few hundred or even up to two thousand
dollars.  Moreover, having done that, they may be more willing
to buy further useful items like an electrometer and an air pump
and even a full kit containing many of the items Kearny
recommends.

The disadvantage of the indoor shelter is that the house might
burn down.  However, most families endangered by fallout will
not be within a distance at which fire is a danger.

The advantage of the indoor shelter is that as long as various
utilities work, they can be used.  Electricity, running water and
the telephone are important.  At the cost of some exposure to
the fallout, the toilet can be used for waste disposal.  Also if
the house is undamaged, the fallout is kept physically at a distance
and won't be tracked into the shelter.  People are more likely
to stay in the shelter if they can be more comfortable in it.

3. Another shelter that could be a product is a coffin-like
blast shelter.  It is an aluminum coffin that can stand a large
over-pressure and is to be used by one person.  The pressure
wave lasts at most a few seconds and if the shelter is available
either in a building or in an external fallout shelter, it can
be occupied after the flash of the bomb and before the pressure
wave arrives.  It can be provided with a valve that will allow
breathing outside air but will stop the pressure wave from
getting in.

This blast shelter may not be a good mate for the water-bed type
fallout shelter, because in many conditions that require a blast
shelter, the house would collapse or catch fire.  On the other
hand, it might save people from ear injury in cases when the
damage to the house was small enough so that the water bed type
shelter survived and was useful.  It would definitely be useful
in connection with some of Kearny's shelters that can stop fallout
but which aren't designed to keep blast out.
Fighting the War

	The more I think about civil defense, the more difficult it
is to keep civil defense considerations separate from considerations
of strategy and tactics of the war.  This is because I fear that
a war would not consist merely of an exchange of all available
nuclear weapons in the first day.  Instead both sides would keep
substantial quantities of nuclear weapons in reserve, and there
would be an endurance contest.

	It seems to me that an appropriate U.S. strategy would include
the following defensive components in addition to whatever offensive
components it might have.

	1. It would assume a large probability that for one reason or
another not all enemy weapons got through in the first attack.  Therefore,
there would be unexpected survival of certain targets, and it would
be important to take advantage of whatever good luck we had.

	2. It would be important to blind enemy satellites so they
wouldn't know what they had missed on the first round.

	3. It would be important to keep accurate information about
what had survived off the radio.  For this purpose it would be
important to dilute the accurate information about what survived
that got through anyway with a much larger amount of inaccurate
information.  American civilians would be hampered by this in
keeping track of relatives and in deciding where to evacuate to,
but preventing the Russians from being able to target their
remaining bombs would be of over-riding importance.

	4. It would be important to disperse surviving facilities that
should have been dispersed in advance of attack.  One can picture an
evacuation and dispersion of industrial facilities on a scale exceeding
the Russian evacuations of World War II.

	5. Because most Americans work or study in occupations that
can be suspended in wartime, there would be a mobilization of large
numbers of people to help in evacuations and dispersions.
A large reserve organization for this purpose ought to be created.
At least the armed forces should see the mobilization of survivors
as their opportunity and responsibility.

	6. All this is in support of the proposition that the
road to continued survival for the initial survivors is to
win the war - to make it possible for the armed forces to
destroy the Russian capability of launching additional nuclear
missiles accurately.

	7. Even a small ABM system would increase the amount of
survival by making it difficult for the Russians to proceed smoothly
from the higher priority targets to the lower priority targets.
Since some of the high priority targets would survive the initial
attack, to the extent that they didn't know which they were, the
Russians would have to retarget them.
THE POLITICAL PROBLEMS OF TRIAGE

	Russian strategy for World War II was based on giving up
territory for time.  This was very hard on the civilians
living in territory that was given up.  If they had Congressmen,
and these Congressmen knew about the plan, they might have
raised political obstacles to preparations for
implementing the plan.  The situation is similar in the case of
the NATO defense of Western Europe.  Plans that would involve
an initial retreat from West Germany are probably unacceptable
politically to the West Germans.

	An article by Bruce Clayton (Survive, vol. 1, no. 2, Winter
1981), criticizes present plans for relocating the population
from cities in the event of a crisis threatening nuclear war.
He argues that the areas to which evacuation is planned will
be swamped by the refugees and will perish even though they might
have survived had the evacuation not occurred.  Kearny seems to
disagree, and my preliminary calculations would also disagree on
the grounds that there is enough food and that housing can be
crowded enormously.  No source I have yet seen tells where our
food supply is mostly stored.  (Is it stored mainly in urban or
rural areas?  Is it concentrated so as to be attackable or is
it dispersed?  Are there really 19 months supplies normally
stored?  Is it well dispersed around the country?  There are
some hints that the 19 months consists mainly of grain, and it
is mainly stored in the Middle West).

	Anyway Clayton advocates triage in advance.  He argues
that rural areas nearly self-sufficient in services and not
too near major targets will mostly survive.  He also argues
that their survival can be enhanced at low cost, and this will
make it more feasible for them to extend help to harder hit
areas.  In other words, the people living nearest the prime
targets should be left to their fate, and the money should
be spent where it can be effective.

	Whether Clayton is entirely right or not, the best policy
almost certainly contains some elements of triage.  It is very
unlikely that the best policy involves spending money exactly
evenly.  It is also unlikely that inhabitants of the prime
target areas can be persuaded by any honest means that their
chances of survival are as good as anyone else's.  The New York
media community is one whose chances of survival are poor, and
whose ability to sabotage a program that will primarily benefit
others is great.

	What can be done about it is unclear.  However, it is
clear that the past discussions of civil defense may have been
made unrealistic by inhibitions against presenting to Congress
plans that have any element of triage.  Particularly politically
sensitive souls can't even think thoughts that might lead to
conclusions that are politically unpalatable.
There are several considerations:

1. Some planners can say less than they know.  If there were a
military plan that included such triage, just as the Russian
World War II defense plans included it, they would probably
want to keep the triage aspects of the plan particularly secret.
Whether such secrets, if they exist, can be kept is an other
matter.

2. To the extent that civil defense is a matter of individual
or local initiative, the triage problem doesn't have to be
faced.  Red Bluff, California may find a way of giving its
citizens a good probability of survival, when San Francisco
or Sunnyvale cannot.  The Federal Government never has to make
a decision to save Red Bluff and let Sunnyvale go.  Individuals
who can live in a rural area and build a good fallout shelter
will have a good chance of survival, while Manhattan residents
in upper floor apartments who don't own cars will have much
smaller chances.

3. Recognizing these facts, the Federal Government can still do
something.  Namely, it can offer tax subsidies and technical
information and block grants to states.

4. Better yet, a politically strong President could order military
planners to make the necessary triage decisions and take the
resulting political flak.

Admittedly, these are merely conjectures concerning the extent
to which such considerations have affected past lack of decision
and will effect future decision making processes.
Some slogans

	Admission of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.

	Products are better than systems.

	An ounce of dispersal is worth a pound of hardening.

	OCS not just basic training

	Don't get enthusiastic
What can I do now?

1. disperse.  A vacation spot out of the way.

Most people won't do much.  Don't be contemptuous of that.

2. buy Kearny's book

3. assemble materials for a shelter

4. build a shelter

5. Join or form a civil defense or survival group

6. Make the orientation expansion rather than exclusion

7. Lobby for civil defense at all levels of government.

8. Work for world peace, but don't necessarily believe everything
that is said to be working for peace.  This would be first priority
if it were clear what constitutes working for peace.