Planning for the Unplannable

The fallout increases over civil defense proposals

It is late 1989. The Soviets have invaded Iran in a bid to control its oilfields. To protect American interests, the U.S. intervenes. Fighting between Soviet and American forces escalates. The U.S. threatens to use nuclear weapons unless the U.S.S.R. pulls out. The Soviets say nyet and begin to evacuate their cities.

What the U.S. would do next is the focus of a growing philosophical and budgetary debate in Washington. If the Reagan Administration gets its way, the U.S. would be able to begin a meticulously planned evacuation of its own.

According to the Administration scenario, the President and key advisers would prepare to be whisked aboard the "doomsday plane," a 747 specially fitted to serve as the nation's Emergency Airborne Command Post. Meanwhile, citizens would pack their cars with food, water, clothes, tools and important papers (Social Security card, credit cards and a will), city dwellers would head out into the countryside to take shelter in predesignated buildings. Those unable to leave would be herded into public fallout shelters. Two weeks later, survivors would come out and begin to rebuild society, guided by plans for food rationing, banking, housing, mail delivery and, naturally, taxes.

To prepare for a nuclear nightmare, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (current budget: $133.3 million) proposes to spend $252.3 million in fiscal 1983 and $4.2 billion during the next seven years. This would represent the most ambitious civil defense effort since the early 1960s. The Reagan Administration argues that the program would double the anticipated number of survivors of a nuclear attack from 40% of the population to 80%.

The Administration is concerned that the Soviets' superior civil defense system could embolden them in a nuclear showdown. According to the CIA, the Soviets spend an estimated $2 billion a year on civil defense and have 100,000 trained personnel. In addition they have 15,000 blast shelters to protect 110,000 government leaders and key industrial workers and fully developed plans to evacuate urban areas. With a week's warning of a nuclear attack, the CIA says, the Soviets could now save 90% of their population.

The cornerstone of FEMA'S response is "crisis relocation": the removal of people from 380 high-risk areas, including cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants and areas near military bases and industrial centers. Officials expect to have anywhere from a few days to a week to prepare for nuclear attack. Evacuation plans have already been placed in telephone directories in Plattsburgh, N.Y., Austin, Marquette County, Mich., and Aroostoock County, Me. By next year, 38 million Americans will have similar instructions in their phone books. FEMA also plans to restock fallout shelters and eventually train 8,200 state and local workers for emergency duty. Says FEMA Director Louis Giuffrida: "The Administration proposes to take action in a moderate, orderly, responsible and inexpensive way."

Critics, however, charge that the U.S. has grossly overrated the Soviet civil defense program, and they question some of FEMA's basic assumptions, including whether a society would really have a few days' warning of an attack--or a few minutes'. Says Jeremy Stone, director of the Federation of American Scientists: "Even if you get people out and they survive, if the cities and the economy are gone, there will be mass starvation and epidemics." City shelters, critics claim, would be subjected to temperatures of 1,472DEG F, and would become "crematoria," in which people are simultaneously "dry-roasted" and asphyxiated. Moreover, instead of acting as a deterrent, the elaborate program presents the illusion that nuclear war is survivable and winnable, thus making it more likely.

Skepticism is widespread on Capitol Hill. Though the House Armed Services Committee approved FEMA'S 1983 request, the Senate committee cut it back to $144 million. FEMA is also encountering opposition across the country. Sacramento County, Houston, Cambridge, Mass., and Boulder, Colo., have essentially stopped cooperating with FEMA in drawing up emergency plans. Misgivings about civil defense are not confined to the U.S. In the Soviet Union, the acronym for civil defense, GROB, brings rueful laughter: it also means coffin.

Beyond philosophical qualms, there are serious doubts about whether FEMA'S ambitious plans would work. Just consider what happened soon after Jimmy Carter took office. Learning that the plan for evacuating the President, a drill supposed to take a few minutes, had never been tested, Carter ordered a dry run with National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski sitting in for him. Telephones rang and aides scrambled. After 15 minutes, Brzezinski was still waiting for the helicopter to arrive. Says a former Carter aide: "He would have been left waiting at the station--so to speak."

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