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Fallout Shelters. A decision to rely on massive retaliatory power demands some kind of program for protecting civilians against radioactive fallout. A fallout shelter program would reduce casualties in case of attack, make U.S. deterrent power more convincing to the enemy, and help safeguard against ballistic blackmail. Experts of the Air Force's think-factory, the RAND Corp., argue that even a minimal program, costing no more than $500 million, would save millions of lives in case of a nuclear attack on the U.S. in the early 1960s. The money would not go into building shelters, but into identifying and labeling existing potential shelters (caves, basements of heavy masonry buildings), educating citizens about fallout hazards, developing and distributing low-cost radiation meters, etc. With even such a program under way, state and local governments and private citizens might get going on shelter programs of their own, but they can hardly be expected to do much about civil defense as long as the Federal Government does nothing at all about it.
Vigorous pushes in these four directions, while they would not settle all doubts about the adequacy of the Administration's defense program, might go a long way toward assuring the world that the coming missile gap will not mean a gap in the power of the U.S. to protect its citizens from enemy attack and the free world from Communist domination.
* The complex needed for launching ICBMs—bases, pads, fuel, crews, communications networks, etc.—costs from three to five times as much as the missiles themselves. Because of a lag in getting launching facilities built, the Administration's 1961 goal for operational Atlases has been cut back twice in less than two years: from seven squadrons (70 missiles) to five, and then to the current 1961 goal of four squadrons.