208

DASA 2019-2

WARREN: Which we couldn't resupply, though, once it was used
up. [don't mean to be pessimistic, I just wondered what the situation was,
AYRES:

I don’t knowthat they could or couldn't.

EISENBUD: I wonder how long our ships could continue to operate if they couldn't pet spare parte? This is where you get into trouble because noone has enough knowledge about the details of our econ-

omy.

You can imagine howimportant this is,

There will be some

small plant on Long Island that makes something about as big as your
fist and because it's destroyed the ships can't cu to sea, You see
that in strikes, A company will go on strike and its ramifications
are enormous,
AYRES: An example might be the General Motors strike, where
the Fisher Body Plant was shut down and everybody else went out.
EISENBUD: In this case it was the suppliers, you see, that went
‘out, But I'm thinking now abcut people who make small electrical
parts.

AYRES: There have been studies of this problem (Reference 52).
For example, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Emergency Planning has made quite a point out of this. They have hada
number of meetings involving reoresentatives from industry and they
have tried to think of specific vulnerabilities of this kind—bottlenecks
~whers,

for lack of a nail, the shoe is lost,

etc.

And depending on

your attitude towards these things, you may think they came up with
a lot of a little. My own feeling is they found surprisingly little.
One of the things that's often mentioned in this context is tetraethyl
lead. It happens to be made intwo or three plants. On the other
hand, we don't need it. We could operate quite well without it if
you're witling to let your engines operate inefficiently. Certain things
are crucial, but you can usually find a way arourd them, and it's very
difficult to find something that you could be confident weald really knock
you out provided you can look for alternatives, and I think probably the
lack of transportation is more crucial than the other situation.
EISENSUD: I'll wager that there isn't one or two companies in the
United States making valves for pipelines; you know, these big valves
that go into pipelines.

Select target paragraph3