(10 of 10)
As the days go by, the shelter dweller might come out for increasingly long periods. He could hose off his properties; he could start rebuilding. By the end of two weeks, civil defense, military, police and fire authorities should be back at work with fair effectiveness. Industries that have taken precautions should be moving back into business. This must necessarily be the most critical phase of the thermonuclear war—for the nation that can arise most quickly and strongly will be the nation that best survives.
Last Sept. 25. in his eloquent speech before the United Nations, President Kennedy posed a choice between disarmament and a planet turned into "a naming funeral pyre.'' But the choice is not that stark, and John Kennedy has come to realize it. Last week, speaking in North Carolina, he said that it is "a dangerous illusion" to believe "that we shall soon meet total victory or total defeat." Concluded the President: "We shall neither be Red nor dead, but alive and free." But the difference between victory and defeat might well be the effort that Americans at all levels are willing to put forth for their own survival.
*Delaware, Maryland and Hawaii.