Waiting for September

Governor Tom Dewey got a telephone call from "a nice young man" in Washington. The young man had heard that Dewey was appointing General Lucius D. Clay to run New York state's civilian defense, and that Clay was laying some plans. "He asked me," recounted Dewey last week, "to make no plans which would be inconsistent with those of the Federal Government. I said, 'Which plans?' He said they hoped to have some in September. I asked him whether he had an enforceable guarantee against attack in the meantime and he said 'No.' I advised him we would go ahead in doing our best to protect our own people."

The same combination of anxiety and uncertainty had driven little groups of U.S. townspeople together from Maine to California, to ponder what should be done in case of atomic attack. Few of them had either Tom Dewey's budget, General Clay, or a solicitous phone call from Washington. About the best they could do was talk it over with the police and fire departments, draw up a sheaf of diagrams, pore over what they read in the newspapers, and wait uneasily until Washington was ready to tell them what to do.

With a Chamber of Commerce faith in their city's importance as a target, most city planners were sure that their local army air base or railroad yard was uppermost in Joe Stalin's mind. Detroit was certain that its auto plants would take a hit. Los Angeles had its aircraft plants. And Boston counted itself vulnerable because of the Navy yard and the massed brain power around Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Chicago made ready to tattoo its citizens with their blood types--underneath the armpits because arms might be blown off--in case radiation sickness called for quick transfusions. St. Louis's volunteer planners first thought of using the sewers for refuge until the city pointed out that a rainstorm would drown them all, suggested three old beer storage caves instead. Boston got RFC backing for its old plan to build a garage beneath the Boston Common, on the grounds that if would be a wonderful air raid shelter too. And New York's Mayor O'Dwyer wanted to spend $450 million for civilian shelters.

None of these plans and good intentions would put a single U.S. city in shape to meet atomic attack, even if Joe Stalin mailed out a week's notice. Harry Truman's National Security Resources Board had been sitting on civil defense for 17 months, had yet to hatch anything. Its new director, energetic Stuart Symington, promised action by early September. But like Tom Dewey, the U.S. was beginning to wonder if that was soon enough.

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