DRAFT

June 27, 1957

Policy & Administrative

Inconvenience

Dear Mr. Spargo:

Thank you for your note of June twenty-fourth. On further
review of your request for Mr. Moses' comments out of context,
we have come to the conclusion that contrary to our earlier hope
that we might send them to you, we find it impossible to do so.

The tapes of the discussions were made with the understanding
that there would be no circulation and that transcripts, if made, would
be for staff use only. In a few instances we have sent a transcript of
the initial presentation to the individual so that it might be edited. In
no case have we sent a transcript of any general discussion which
necessarily involves others in or out of context. Therefore, we have
decided that sending you the transcript without the consent of the other
participants would be contrary to our commitment to all participants
of the Special Studies Project. I am certain you can understand
why we are not able to disregard this commitment in any instance.
In view of our limited staff, it is administratively impossible at this
time to get the transcripts and undertake clearance of them.

11/4/93

MR. MOSES: Perhaps I ought to say at the outset that I don't have
any knowledge whatever of atomic energy. You have people who are associated
with the committee who know a great deal about that. There is a very dis-
tinguished member who has been chairman of the A.E.C. My only approach
to atomic energy is in connection with its ultimate possibilities as a com-
petitor with water power, electric energy developed from water power. In
a rather roundabout way I have picked up a little information but not enough
to justify my giving any attention to it. I don't quarrel with any of the in-
formation that has been given to you about the effects of atomic bombs or
guided missiles, the amount or degree of destruction. I don't know anything
about it. I think I do know something about public works.

I'd like rather briefly to look into a few notes I've made here. I
don't argue with the conclusion that there is no civilian defense department,
certainly no effective civilian defense. People who have been running what
there is in Washington have not been competent or persuasive and they
don't seem to me to have any public standing either in Washington nor
elsewhere. I think the same thing has been true in large measure in most
of the states and cities that I know anything about and this is, I can't
emphasize this too much, primarily a municipal problem from the point of
view of its effect, and a national problem from the point of view of direction
and advancement.

The local civilian defense directors in states and municipalities are
people of just about the same standing in their states and communities as
are the Washington people in civilian defense nation-wide. Now I don't

11/4/94

know why that is. The fact is that neither the national people nor the
governors and mayors have taken this subject very seriously. Perhaps
because they haven't been educated as the previous speaker has indicated;
perhaps because they think it is hopeless anyway. But that has been the
conclusion. I have no quarrel with the conclusion that there hasn't been
much done up to now.

As for our past education -- I don't know whether it is a very com-
prehensive educational program -- we could give the people a great deal
more information than they have now. It would or would not be effective.
Since I'm not a specialist in that field, I believe in democracy in the sense
that if many people are informed they seem to know what to do about it.
I'm not at all sure that if you stress this thing too much, the dangers too
much, it will frighten people to death. Whether they are going to be more
affected taking care of themselves and others if you give them every harrowing
detail -- I just don't know.

As to the hint or indication that some entirely separate civilian
defense organization including every phase of civilian defense ought to
be set up apart from the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, I emphatically
do not believe in that. I don't think it would be effective; I don't think it
would be workable. As to multi-purpose arrangements including stockpiling,
I think if anything is going to be done on the municipal level, it should be on
a multi-purpose basis. By that I mean primarily that whatever money is spent,
will be spent in such a way, and the sums are bound to be limited, whatever
is done will be useful immediately, currently, and in the event that nothing

EYJ

11/4/95

happens as far as an attack is concerned, I would include in that category
a certain amount of underground work. Stockpiling in the sense of building
useable, immediately useable, wings of hospitals or health centers and
similar institutions, which could be used in any emergency. It could be
used by the Red Cross. It would ultimately serve for the inevitable expansion
of these institutions, notably hospitals, due to increase in population ir-
respective of whether there is an atomic attack.

As to dispersion, I regard the dispersion plans, all of them that I
have heard anything about, as being just so much hog-wash. You can't
take people in large numbers in a short time on the basis of any warning
system, however effective, you cannot get them out of town without killing
more people in the process of getting them out than would be killed in the
process of the explosion, fires, concussion, fall-out.

We haven't been entirely idle as far as this thing is concerned. When
I say "we", I mean the people involved in public works related to this
problem. Our arterial program, for example, is moving along -- moving
slowly. It is not going to be accomplished in the time outlined in Washington
or elsewhere. The difficulties in the way are formidable. In many respects
they are political. The greatest difficulty is the one that has been stressed
the least, which is moving people out of the way, the rights of way, so as to
get the highways built. They don't like to move. Politicians don't like to
move them and especially on the eve of an election; we are always on the
eve of something.

One of my hard-boiled friends mentioned the fact that this year in

11/4/96

New York City, the boys in office are getting ready for municipal election, next year Averill and all his chunks will be getting ready for state elections, so the year after that, bearing in mind that the fourth year you are going to have a national election and nearly everybody of any consequence gets elected then. So the third year is the only one when you can accomplish anything. I don't know if that is a correct analysis.

In our arterial structure, of course, we are trying to get people in and out of town. We are trying to establish a genuine national system of roads which will be used for stated purposes and also useful for defense and for war, moving military people. That is one of the reasons why the national program went through. But I tell you this, taking New York City as an illustration, and I don't say that New York is typical, probably excepting that it represents probably 10% of the problem, this entire problem to the nation. That is a very small amount. And I may add that if you are going to throw out all the cities that present problems when you get down to water six feet underground because it is on an island, or because it is inconvenient to make experiments there -- you will likely have disposed with about 80% of the entire problem. The urban problem.

Unfortunately, most of us have the practical business of getting these things done where there is more of a market place, whether you want to call it or not, in a position to dispose of a large urban population quite as likely as that.

Coming back to the arterial business, when our entire system is finished there will be no remote possibility of moving large numbers of people