If a nuclear war ever occurs, I hope I die immediately because “the survivors will envy the dead.” We’ve all heard that sentiment spoken so often that it is seldom disputed.
Few who use that phrase have ever thought about its consequences, and fewer still know where it originated. It was spoken first by Kremlin boss Nikita Khrushchev who didn’t believe it at all. The Soviets have built elaborate, hardened shelters to enable their Communist Party hierarchy to survive a nuclear war.
Do Americans who mouth Khrushchev’s phony phrase really believe it? Probably a few do. But most people, when given the option between life under very difficult conditions or death by incineration will choose life under almost any circumstances.
If your house were to catch fire tonight, would you grab your children and run outside? Would you run outside even if you could never afford to buy another house? Even if you had to spend the next five years in a tent? Most people would answer yes.
Would you run from your burning house even if you had to spend the next two weeks in a New York subway car and then face an America on the outside roughly the equivalent of life in the mid-19th century, that is, without running water or indoor plumbing? That’s the sort of shelter Dolly Parton grew up in back in Tennessee and she survived quite well.
The reason we are asking all these hypothetical questions is that our government has falsely assumed that we would all prefer to die than to survive a nuclear attack. Those who would choose a hard life rather than death have NOT even been given a fighting chance to survive.
Other governments, on the other hand, have given their citizens protection against nuclear war. Switzerland, Sweden, Communist China, and the Soviet Union all have extensive shelter systems into which their people can go in the event of attack.
The authors of a new paperback book called “Fighting Chance” are asking the question, if they can do it, why can’t we? Why doesn’t the U.S. Government give us a fighting chance to survive a nuclear war?
In a breezy, colloquial style, authors Dr. Arthur Robinson and Dr. Gary North present an intriguing plan. Our government could buy mass-produced, highly-resistant shelters and install them ten feet underground all over the country at an average cost of $200 per person. An additional $100 per person would provide needed supplies for survival during the year after a nuclear attack.
Is this costly? Yes, but with the federal budget now at $1 trillion, what’s more important than saving the lives of American citizens?
Robinson and North propose the mass production of shelters about as comfortable as a New York subway car. Spending a week or two in a crowded subway car isn’t anybody’s idea of a vacation, but it sure beats burning in a nuclear attack. The goal is survival, not comfort.
Each shelter would hold 150 people. Each person would occupy about 2.3 square feet of floor and 21 cubic feet of space. That’s about the same as the Germans had in their bunkers during World War II. They survived and lived to rebuild their country after it was devastated by firebombs.
This amount of space per person is one-half the standard for Soviet and Swedish shelters. For an additional $50 per person, our shelters could be as comfortable as theirs.
The authors propose that we build these shelters over a two-year period, starting with shelters for the 55 million children in schools and colleges. Students are more concentrated, the space is readily available, and it would be easiest to shelter this quarter of our population. The best places to build shelters for adults would be neighborhood parks, parking lots, office buildings, and stores.
Is it the government’s responsibility to build shelters for us? The government builds street lights and roads, gives police protection, and maintains an army and navy, and it should be just as important to provide shelter for civilians against enemy attack.
The opponents of a civil defense system say that it’s too expensive. But the Red Chinese, who are some of the poorest people on earth, have built a tunnel system better and more expensive than the Robinson-North proposal. If the poverty-stricken Chinese can afford it, it is obvious that we can.
The Robinson-North proposal is a practical plan to provide shelter against nuclear war for 90 percent of our population, thereby making civilians undesirable targets for any enemy attack. This would convince the Soviets that we are determined to survive. That is the best way to discourage them from trying it.
On the other hand, the best way to encourage a nuclear attack or nuclear blackmail, or both, is to let the Soviets believe we do not even have a fighting chance to survive it.
A civil defense shelter program has one major drawback. It won’t protect us if it isn’t built.
