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TAYLOR; I think there's an important thing about his book and
about what he was doing, at least two years ago. I think it's a fair
statement to say that the book is essentially an anti-civil defense
book; that the purpose of it is to decrease confidence in civil defense
measures, The reason I'm eaying that so emphatically is that there
was a panel formed by the American Nuclear Society about two years
ago to discuss civil defense (Reference 51). Eugene Wigner and I
were on the side of civil defense and Stonier and someone in the
Harvard Law School, whose name I've forgotten, were opposed ta
it. We had a very informative and worthwhile debate. He said that
what he really has in mind in his writing now is to display the futility
of civil defense,
I think that's important because I think he would
be the first to agree that he feels very strongly about this and gets
emotionally involved in illustrating his point, namely, that the dis~
aster, no matter what we do, will be so complete that we should not
do anything witich will indicate that people could get sway with a
nuclear war. I think that's hie thesis.
FREMONT-SsMITH: Isn't this his point, that one thing to do is to
prevent it and that there is no use in trying to comfort ourselves by
feeling tha. we can save ourselves with civil defense?
TAYLON: I think his thesia is that if we fail to prevent nuclear
war, allis lost.
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AYRES: The one point where, in the last analysis, he thinks this
systern would fail is in the psychosocial realm.
DUNHAM: Let me back up to Frank's question. He asked why
nobody's writing books on the subject anymore. I looked at the date
of Stonier's book and it was copyrighted in 1963, Since then there has
been no major nuclear testing to keep people stirred up, The fallout,
even the rate of fallout, is such that you are actually getting a decrease
in fission products on the ground now, and the Vietnam thing has overahadowed everything.
RGOT: I think, too, maybe the detente is a barometer of how
sensitive people are to the overall situation, This great change
really runs current to political detente. People are so hopeful it
will continue, they would rather focus on that than on disaster.
FREMONT-SMITH: Are we relaxing over the fact that China has
entered into the conflict with Russia?