The problem of what students will do if and when they emerge form shelters has not yet been realistically answered. As Herman Kahn asks, "Will the survivors envy the dead?" Four Harvard physicians published a series of articles in the New England Journal of Medicine estimating that only a small percentage of the nation's doctors would survive a nuclear war and that medical supplies and hospitals would be virtually non-existent. If this is so the seriously wounded will probably die, while the rest will have to fight disease in a radioactive environment that will tend to lower their resistance.

According to Dr. H. Bentley Glass of the Atomic Energy Commission's Advisory Committee on Biology and Medicine, if the U.S. wishes to survive it will need shelters for birds, animals, and plants, as well as for people. After the battle, according to John A. McCone, an estimated 40 crops will have to be raised and discarded before the radiation in the soil can be brought within "acceptable limits." But before the 41st harvest, most people will die of starvation or radiation poisoning. The alternative, according to the federal government, is to scrape off the topsoil, with large earth moving equipment--such as motorizer scrapers and motor graders." Naturally this presupposes a plentiful supply of motor vehicles, gasoline, trained vehicle operators, food to sustain the workers, farmers to plan the new crops, crops to plant, and sufficient farming equipment. Willard F. Libby presupposes another set of circumstances when he writes, "In particular, during wartime and the years immediately following, it would be well to have the Public Health Service keep track of the radiation level in foodstuffs."

These recommendations, if not wholly ridiculous, are certainly the most optimistic views of nuclear war that one can reasonably hold. The actual situation will be far grimmer, and the federal government knows it. There is little sense in the University's shelter program if the people who use the shelters will die soon after they come out of them.

Shelters and Society

Although the discussion up to now must be recognized as being somewhat speculative, it is quite concrete when compared with the nebulous matters which must now be considered. The Faculty recognizes that any position which Harvard takes on the shelter issue will affect other institutions and the nation, and therefore the national consequences of a shelter program are relevant to the University's decision.

Believing that shelters may save lives is not sufficient grounds for building such structures; the situation is not so clear cut that one may state, "Something is better than nothing." The dangers, if any, of a shelter program must be compared with the benefits that shelters might give. The first is to decide on the probability that shelters might save lives among the members of the Harvard community. First it should be noted that most of these people will be in the vicinity of the shelters for only about one-half of the year. If one estimates the probability of a nuclear war in the next five years at one-tenth, the probability that such a war will be of the no-cities type at one-tenth the probability that a shelter will protect against the level of fallout and others effects at one-third, and the probability that post-attack survival is possible at one-fifth, then the probability that shelters will save lives in the next five years is merely one 1500. Naturally this value is strictly arbitrary, but it helps to illustrate the fact that if a shelter program could damage the community, the risks of having shelters could be greater than the risks of not having them.

But how could shelters damage the community or the nation? Unfortunately this is one of the many questions which the Faculty committee glossed over in its civil defense report. It is possible that the United States establishes a shelter program, the Soviet Union might consider this an indication that the U. S. is planning a first strike. David Riesman, Professor of Social Sciences, reports that many Japanese citizens feel that U.S. withdrawal into shelters indicates a willingness to allow the rest of the world to die. If a large shelter program were instituted in America, it could conceivably add to the present alienation that many of the West's allies feel towards the United States.

Another problem is that of drill and discipline. In order to effectively use shelters, some form of practice is necessary. Those who refuse to participate may be labeled as "shelter dodgers" and accordingly jailed (as they have been in New York City) or otherwise punished.

In an article entitled "The Moral Obligations of Civil Defense," Dr. Fred W. Kern, Director of the Religious Affairs Office of the Federal Office of Civil Defense, expounds his belief that, "Atheism has made civil defense necessary," and that by believing in God's purpose for America, the country can protect itself. Varicom, Inc., of Boulder, Colorado, manufactures a civil defense public "communications kit," a series of films that "builds within a man an appreciation of his American heritage and causes him to see civil defense as a positive way to insure that heritage." Thus a shelter program may force the government to define a national culture and morality that can hardly be accurate or desirable.

Certain moral questions also appear in this issue. Familiar to everyone is the matter of shooting the neighbor who attempts to invade the family shelter. But more pressing than this is the government's attitude that the death of one half of the country should be simply accepted while plans are made to save the other half. In Cambridge, for example, at least half the populace will be left without protection.

A final danger lies in the government's deception of the people on the matter of nuclear war. Despite the claims of some shelter supporters, the Civil Defense program has not presented Americans with an honest picture of nuclear war. Most of the literature sounds as if it were written for the London blitz, and fails to see the qualitative difference between the V-2 and ICBM. Cambridge, for example, distributes one book-let that was written in 1950 and discusses an atomic bomb the size of the ones used over Japan. Another booklet begins, "Remember grandma's pantry, its shelves loaded with food, ready for any emergency, whether it be unexpected company or roads blocked for days by a winter's storm?" Needless to say, the analogy between a thermonuclear warhead and winter storm is a poor one. And the literature is simply dripping with pictures showing a happy family scene where the mother, father, and two children are enjoying life in their family shelter, oblivious to the fallout and the odors emitted by their disposal containers. The integrity of the authorities must remain suspect until they are willing to display photographs of Hiroshima after the atomic explosion, or Dresden after a fire-storm similar to the one a thermonuclear weapon will produce.

Once again, it must be emphasized that this discussion is not meant to convey a hard and fast view of shelters and shelter society, but merely point out the areas that must be discussed and considered before one embarks on a shelter program. In the words of the Peace Research Institute, "...in virtually no society is there any precedent for maintaining a large portion of a civilian population over a long time in trained readiness for a threatening event with a low probability of occurrence."

Unfortunately the Faculty's civil defense report of last March did not discuss these matters at all, and did not fully cover the military and technical aspects of the problem. The committee submitted its report as a preliminary statement, and President Pusey dissolved the group before it could complete its final study. Harvard must not only be sure its shelter decision is correct for the University, but must also bear in mind the influence that any shelter action will have on both the Cambridge community and other institutions. The Faculty members claimed to be aware of this responsibility when they made the shelter report, but this report did not measure up to that responsibility for it was neither thorough or convincing.

At present, Harvard has not yet irrevocably committed itself to fallout shelters, and it is still possible to give the matter the study it deserves, taking into account the new research which has been done in the past year. Another Faculty committee should either reaffirm or revoke the shelter decision, but only after giving the problem the attention that its importance actually warrants.

(This is the last in a series of articles on civil defense and the problems it presents for the University.)