"Right to Die"

"The evidence is overwhelming," said Director Allen Dulles of the Central Intelligence Agency, "that the Soviets intend to use nuclear blackmail as a major weapon to promote their objectives--namely, to spread Communism through out the world." Dulles' rare public statement was read to reporters as he emerged from a closed-door session with 45 U.S. Governors, meeting last week in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Behind the doors Dulles provided some classified details to back up the most serious proposal before the annual Governors' conference: U.S. Governors should take the lead in getting their citizens to build nuclear-fallout bomb shelters, since a nationwide system of private shelters would blunt the effectiveness of nuclear blackmail, would save millions of lives and ensure the survival of the U.S. itself in case of nuclear attack.

The proposal was brought to San Juan by New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who last month defied the advice of politicos and sponsored a compulsory shelter plan for all homes in New York State (TIME, July 20). In working sessions Rockefeller, backed by Civil Defense Mobilizer Leo Hoegh, got his fellow Governors to formally 1) endorse a "vigorous and continuing campaign of education" on fallout hazards and the need for privately built shelters, 2) promise to survey shelter facilities in their own state buildings and set up alternate capitols in protected spots. (Twelve states already have them.) They also cabled the House Appropriations Committee, asking for a $12 million budget item to hire state and city civil-defense experts, provided that Civil Defense Mobilizer Hoegh approves local civil-defense plans.

The Governor's resolution fell short of Rockefeller's original aim in one critical area. Not one Governor got behind Rocky's compulsory shelter idea, the strongest section in his resolution. Said Indiana Republican Harold Handley: "All we have to do is to prevent war, and then we don't have to have shelters." Added South Carolina Democrat Ernest ("Fritz") Hollings aimlessly: "There is a right to live and a right to die. Housing, highways, health, and things of the living are more important. I doubt the public would accept such a program."

In Denver's Allendale Heights suburban development this week, Homebuilder Jack C. Hoerner (rhymes with corner), World War II test pilot, put finishing touches on the demonstrator model of 40 three-bedroom houses with a unique sales gimmick: a 12-ft. by 14-ft. fallout shelter built into the basement and into the regular $17,500 price tag. The first for-sale version of the house, one of two now abuilding, sold to an about-to-retire Army major who once studied radiation effects, broke off negotiations on another house when he heard of Hoerner's shelter, said: "That's it. I'll take it."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.