Cracker Deal

In the 1960s, emergency supplies of food, toilet paper, medicines and sodium bicarbonate were stashed in more than 10,000 subterranean fallout shelter throughout New York City to support the survivors of nuclear combat with the Soviet Union. That was, of course, quite reassuring to the people of New York.

Also included in the estimated $30 million worth of supplies was a kind of supernutritious cracker that had a shel life of about five years. Inspections revealed that the crackers had become unfit for human consumption. Partly for thi: reason, the city decided to dispose of the survival rations and agreed to pay Edward Barniak, an upstate farmer, $1 a ton to haul them away. Barniak should do rather well on the deal, since he gets the medicines and other supplies, as well as 7,000 tons of crackers. Even they have a use. After being ground up, they are fed to his cattle, which so far have suffered no ill effects. Barniak's biggest problem is finding all the shelters. Not even city officials know where some of them are.

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