\ -88— \ It would be desirable also to initiate a series of tests on the resistance of various kinds of structures to atomic bomb blast. It might be found that one type of structure has far greater resistance than another without being correspondingly more costly. If so, it would behoove the government to encourage that kind of construction in new building. Over a long period of years, the gain in resistance to attack of our urban areas might be considerable, and the costs involved wovld be marginal. So far as safeguarding the lives of uroan populations is concerned, the above suggestions are meaningful only for the initial stages of an attack, They would permit a larger number to survive the initial attacks and thereby to engage in that exodus from the cities by which alone their lives can be safeguarded. And the preparation for suck an exodus would involve a vast program for the construction of temporary shelter in the countryside and the planting of emergency stores of food. What we would then have in effectiis the dispersal not of cities but of air-raid shelters. The writer is here presenting merely some géneral principles which might be considered in any plan for reducing our general vulnerability. Obviously, the actual content of such a plan would have to be derived from the findings of intensive study by experts in a rather large number of fields. however, that such a study be got under way at once, It is imperative, The country is about to iaunch into a great construction program, both for dwellings and for expanding industries, New sources of power are to be created by new dams, The opportuni- ties thus afforded for "vulnerability control" are tremendous, and should not be permitted to slip away--at least not without intensive study of their feasibility. 3 Those who have been predicting attacks of 15,000 atomic bombs and upward will no doubt look with jaundiced eye upon these speculations. For they will say that a country so struck will not merely be overwhelmed but for all practical purposes will vanish, Those areas not directly struck will be covered with