Our Missing Shield: The U.S. Civil Defense Program in Historical Perspective

This volume, which traces the development of American CD from 1916- 1980, focuses on policies, plans, programs, budgets, organization and management, and on the central problems and critical issues in planning for survival in a nuclear attack. The study concludes that after three decades of effort, the U.S. has only a marginal CD program. Impediments to progress have been: the failure to grasp early, and to act on, implications of the experience of Britain, Germany and Japan under heavy bombing in WW II; delays in discarding outmoded concepts; difficulties in adjusting to the fast pace of weapons technology; excessive secrecy about the threat of nuclear weapons and radioactive fallout; limited Federal power in CD; confusion regarding civil- military relations in this field; ambiguity as to the strategic impact of CD; problems in designing a balanced program and strategy for survival; instability in Federal CD organization; and, of highest significance, Presidential and Congressional indifference and neglect and attendant budgetary constraints. There is an urgent need for a national commitment to a meaningful civil defense program, with strong leadership from the President to bring forth vigorous support from the Congress, State legislature and city councils, and from the public at large.