A Place to Hide

In Georgetown one evening last week, wealthy Mrs. Alf Heiberg, whose second husband of four was General Douglas MacArthur, sat listening to a radio program on civil defense. The longer Mrs. Heiberg listened, the more alarmed she became. The next morning she scouted Washington, D.C. and found a contractor who could build her a bomb shelter with thick walls and heavy lead doors. Explained Mrs. Heiberg: "After all, if they attacked Washington I'm sure they'd aim a bomb at a former wife of General MacArthur, so I'm going to try to be prepared." Mrs. Heiberg, who was building her shelter large enough to accommodate 100 to 150 of her neighbors, added: "I wouldn't enjoy sealing myself up if I knew my neighbors were being blown to bits."

Some of the neighbors, who did not share Mrs. Heiberg's sense of personal involvement, were inclined to grin, but not the Federal Civil Defense Administration, which also had bomb shelters on its mind. The FCDA, not yet as sure of its plans as Mrs. Heiberg, announced last week that it planned to provide bomb shelters for 50 million people in critical target areas. For that purpose alone, it proposed to spend $2 billion of the $3.1 billion it had requested from Congress. The FCDA said it would foot 54% of the bill for the shelters, hoped the balance would be paid by state and local governments.

In Chicago, the General Assembly of States, composed of the governors and top officials of the 48 states, favored the FCDA's program in general, but was highly skeptical of the proposal for bomb shelters. The states, most of them already groaning under inflation problems, felt that the cost of constructing the shelters would be too high. Others predicted that the project would become one vast boondoggle. Governor Frank J. Lausche of Ohio and Nebraska's Governor Val Peterson wanted Congress to give FCDA's plan more thought.

In its short life, the FCDA had already come under fire from the American Municipal Association, representing 10,500 nervous U.S. cities and towns. The association wanted to put civil defense into the Defense Department and make it co-equal with the Army, Navy and Air Force. General George Marshall wasn't interested: he considers civil defense a civilian problem.

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