ke SESSION II! 159 FREMONT-SMITH: Do we have to consider the fact that we are just prior ta election year? The policy igs going to be influenced as much by the oncoming election as it is by national security perhape. TAYLOR: I'm surprised the fallout shelter issue haa not been brought up again. ROOT: Would this indicate that the distribution of anti-ballistic missiles had been worked out in a way that makes fallout shelter unnecessary? TAYLOR: I don't see how, because no one, I think, is arguing that any ballistic missile defense system against any threat will be perfect; therefore there will be some leakage. If there really is an attack, there will be some exposures on some U.S. cities. This will simply cut down the number. There's a huge difference in the number of casualties that would result from, let's say, a single explosion; [ mean, this works pretty well if there's only one explosion in one city. The difference between the casualties with some kind of a recovery plan and fallout shelters and no such plan ia a factor between 10 and 100 in the number of people that would be killed. FREMONT-SMITH: Do you think it's possible that those who are responsible for making policies are well aware of the fact that the public is not going to respond to the fallout shelter issue; that the whole thing has gone down, and that they just hesitate to propose a plan which is tied to a fallout shelter system? J think it would be very hard to get Congress to vote vigorously for fallout shelters now unless there was a much..... AYRES: The presumption is that the Defense Department wants ABM? ROOT: Yes. Given the credibility gap, balloon to test public reaction. it seems more like a trial DE BOER: If one looks at the development right now, I feel that the United States and Russia, whether they have agreed in principle, both know that in an all-out attack between the two big powers they would destroy each other. Let us consider China or other potential sources and this feeling of security and certainty fades away rather fast. Our Government does consider this a threat since we are planning a defense system. But what worries me is how we will retaliate when provoked by China, or even more sinister, by an unknown source, such as was