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meaningful civil defense program is somehow provocative,
When you
think of the building up firet of cur SAC farce, then al the vaet array
of missiles, the nuclear subs that are os location at all times, these
would represent fo me, ii | were sitting ina potential target country,
a@ hell of a lot more provecative posture than building some shelters,
Why this remains an influential argument { don't bnow, however, it
~
‘,
does persist.
:
BRUES: lI must say that lam becoming very disturbed to learn
that the whole question of civil defenee resets on these guessing games
Mike that of the three prisoners, ‘if ft dathia, what will somebody
elee think fam thiaking’" [Laughter}
HEMLEAR:
['m not sure that 1c wae all that, although thie may be
what it hae resulted in=thie guessing game back and forth. | suspect
fram some of my readings and from some of the epeeches made in
Congrese and by the Secretary of Delense, that thie might heve grown
out of an original economy requirement.
thie wae true bach in the
early sixties when we were first talking abuut a mavesive ICM de.
ployment coupled with a massive civil defense construction,
We
wote talking in terme of multi. billten dollar programe and just ae
late ae leat year or six months ago, if you recall, we were talking
in terma of §40 to $50 billion for defense miesiie deployment,
These
figures thrown out at the public were pictured ae being something
that wae entirely impoesible for cconamic reasons. Perhaps some
of these other arguments that we're talking about here have come
about to assist in rationalizing the bawic fact that we just didn't want
to apend the money oer can't afford to epend the money.
SPEAR- [think that’s undoubtedly true and f recall that in the
late filties=I forget the exact date=the Administrator of Federal
Civ!! Defense, having beater, hie head against the wall many times
on this, finally delivered on the administration's doorstep a package
of blaet and failout shelter programe with @ price tag estimated between $30 ar.d $50 billion,
Not long after that he was appointed our
Ambassador ta Denmark! [Laughter}
FREMONT-SMITH: ton't there ancther clement in thie thought of
Provocation with civil defense, and that is that if the government
backed a strong program of civil defense, this could be misinterpreted
&e indicating a governmens policy which expected atomic warfare and
therefore was probaodly going to be involved in one’ !t sceme to me
that this could be seen as provocative in that sense, not ditectly provocative but implying a behind-the- scenes policy of expectation which