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DASA 2019-2
UPTON: Merril, could lL interrupt, please?
When you say decision-
makers in cur society, do you mean the world scene or the U.S. ?
Isn'tit quite conceivable that the initiative will come from outside
the United States?
EISENBUD: I'm thinking, of course, of the world scene, but the
ones that we can influence are the ones in this country. I think the
most impressive demonstration of ignorance at that level that I've
seen accurred about 3 or 4 years ago. I can date it exactly as it
was about the time that the DOD came out with their little yellow
book or pamphlet on falluut shelters. It was at a time when there
was a good deal of interest in the subject of civil defense and nuclear
war generally. For almost a year I had had an invitation to address
& very exclusive women's club in Washingtcn that some of you may
be familiar with, It is probably the most sophisticated group of
women inthe world. They cali themselves something liks World
Forum or Women's World Forum, I don't remember exactly, but
they are the wives of the cabinet members, senators, congressmen
and diplomatic corps who are banded together for a monthly luncheon.
They invite people to talk about something of interest to them at these
monthly sessions and they asked me to talk about fallout. I talked
about it in terms of nuclear war rather than the thing they were really interested in, i,e., what they should do about the strontium-90 in
their children's milk. I was impressed, first of all, by the fact that
although thia yellow pamphlet had been widely publicized and had already been out for about a month, when [ held it up out of curiosity
to see if anyone knew what it was, noone in the audience knew whatit
was.
From the guestions that were asked from the audience, although
these were the wives of the decision-makers, they really hadn't given
the subject the depth of thought that you would expect womenin that’
position to have dore. I think that many of us have seen similar examples in the men themselves, I can cite many examples and I'm sure
that many of you can, too. What can be done to upgrade the level of
education of the people that have to make the decisions and the people that influence the decision-makers, namely, people like ourselves?
I wonder if this wouldn't be worth some discussion. I think, Chuck,
you've had a good deal of experience with this.
views.
DUNHAM:
You might have some
Well, of course, I don't know that it's fair to take Cabi-
net members' wives as spending all their -ime preoccupied with highlevel policy problems of state. They obvicusly hate to go to so many
of these functions, including the Forun.. It's a prestige item to bea