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Show CIVIL DEFENSE Volunteer Army of Civilians Will Guard Us From Disaster By Walter A. Shead (This is tht first of five articles on civil defense.) K TALL, LEAN, SQUARE-JAWED, broad-shouldered man sits ina temporary office in one of the many converted govern- ment buildings, a short two blocks from the White House. His' name is destined to become well known to millions of Americans.! He is Millard F. Caldwell, former governor of Florida, who; has been handed the tremendous responsibility of the nation's civil defense and who will head up i ' a volunteer army of civilian Americans which will total some 20,000,000 men and women in every state of the union. His immediate job is to weld together to-gether a small force of approximately approxi-mately 3,000 paid employees, approximately ap-proximately 1,000 of whom will be administrative workers here in Washington, the rest field officers in various states and strategic areas. At the same time, he must start from scratch to train these people who will in turn train his 20-million-man army in an entirely new field of civilian defense warfare a type warfare new to civilization in which the mode of defense is largely over pioneer and untrod paths, and in which men, women and children, untrained, without knowledge of possible defense may be helplessly helpless-ly slaughtered by the thousands. Governor Caldwell must come up with the answers to these questions: 'What can I do to protect myself and my neighbors if an atomic bomb is dropped in or near my home? What about a hydrogen bomb? What protection do I have in case a bacteriological bomb or balloon bal-loon is loosed in my community? What defense is there against radiological ra-diological warfare? Or the dropping of insect pests or plant disease to destroy crops and animals? Governor Caldwell believes that it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the American people peo-ple face one or all of these terrible methods of modern warfare if the nation should get into a full-scale war with Russia. The extent would depend only upon the enemy's ability abil-ity to pierce our air defenses, our sea defenses and just how far the Russian's were determined to go. So a well-trained civilian army is as essential to the nation's defense de-fense as a well-trained and equipped military force; is just as essential, and possibly more so in saving the lives of American civilians civ-ilians and, without civilian all-out production our military cannot move. There are defenses to atomic bombs, to attacks against health i and crops and animals. But every j citizen must be as well educated in these defenses, as acutely aware of the danger, and as alertly con-j scious of just what action to take as he is of any chore of his daily life; for it is possible we shall be living with these dangers for many years to come if we live at all. So the job of the civilian defense administration is to educate the people, to organize defenses, to set up this volunteer army, to see that state legislatures pass such enabling legislation and appropriations ap-propriations as are necessary, and to train men and women in scores of facets incidental to a catastrophe such as certainly will happen if a bomb is dropped in their midst. These include, not only protection protec-tion against the bomb itself to minimize min-imize loss of life and injury, but efficient first aid, fire fighting, evacuation, health facilities, water supply, medical attention, food supplies, sup-plies, social services, warning signals, sig-nals, and an efficient organization for any contingency, which spreads from the cities into the small towns and rural sections of every area in the nation. The help of every organization in the nation and of every individual individ-ual will be enlisted not only to join in the civil defense, but to help make the masses of the people bomb-conscious, to prevent fear and hysteria so that a major catastrophe catas-trophe may be averted. The government has been for months making detailed studies of the bombing of European cities in World War II, of the effects of the atomic bombs at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. They have worked out pattern and effects and defenses. The public health service and the American Red Cross have worked out detailed plans for health protection. pro-tection. The bureau of animal husbandry hus-bandry and the bureau of plant industry in-dustry of the department of agriculture agri-culture have a plan of action for defense against release of gases, pests and plant disease aimed at animal and crop destruction. |