 It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope, a television journal of the important issues of the hour brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a presentation of the Lawn Jean Wettner Watch Company, maker of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Wettner, distinguished companion to the world-honored Lawn Jean. Good evening, this is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? From the CBS television news staff, Larry LeSœur, and Griffin Bancroft, our distinguished guest for this evening is the Honorable Val Peterson, administrator of the Federal Civil Defense. Well, as you know, our concerns about civil defense go in very sharply defined ups and downs, depending, of course, on what the Russians are doing at the moment. Well, at the moment, they seem to be flying doves of pee, so we'd like to ask our guest tonight just how long he thinks we can go on postponing real civil defense? We can't afford to postpone it at all because I wouldn't want to be brash enough to try to guess what the Russian intentions are at any given moment. I assume that they've made their intentions pretty clear to the people of the United States and of the world in recent years, and of course, their literature has made their intentions clear ever since 1917. Well, Governor Peterson, we postpone it our peril. I want to say, do you think space or time is on our side? I certainly couldn't say that it is. I have no reason to believe that it is. I hope it is, but I have no reason to believe that it is. Well, Governor Peterson, I wanted to ask, to what extent is civil defense a national problem on the national level, or to what extent is it a problem for the states and local communities? Well, our civil defense law in the United States at the present time is written in such a way that civil defense is a cooperative enterprise between the national government, the states, and the localities. And I suppose I'm the only individual in the federal government whose troops, so to speak, are under the control directly of the state authorities and the local authorities. And my job, of course, at the federal level is to gather information and to disseminate that information to the people in the states and in the cities. And we have unparalleled sources of information in the scientific agencies that are organized and active in Washington, and through the Department of Defense. And we do do a job of disseminating this information to the people in the 48 states that they couldn't do for themselves locally. Also, it is our job to exercise some leadership. And we provide some money for civil defense. Well, the actual control is on the local level. Do you think that's right, or do you think there should be more concentrated federal control? Well, that's a subject that you could debate. I mean, either one of us could take either side of it with a certain amount of logic. However, I'm inclined to think, and I've thought about this a good many times, and I've operated both at the local level, you see, as the governor of a state. As a matter of fact, we drew up the Civil Defense Act in my state during the time that I was in office. And now I'm operating at the national level. But there's a great deal of sense in having civil defense a local responsibility, because if and when this attack occurs upon the United States, the bombs will fall in the localities. And the job will be so big that no country in the world will ever be able to afford the luxury of a hired civil defense, because civil defense will involve your life and mine and every man, woman and child. And you couldn't put enough people in uniform. You couldn't pay enough people to do their job. If you want to live, you'll have to do something about it. Mr. Peterson would seem to me that in a cold war of unknown duration, that a lot of the long range planning would have to be done by the government rather than the communities would take, for example, the dispersal of industry. How about that? Well, we're that's right. We are doing long range planning at the national level, and that is perfectly proper. Now in the dispersal of industry, the responsibility in that field, it happens in the federal government rests with Dr. Arthur Fleming, who is at the head of the Office of Defense Mobilization. And the way in which he's going about to get dispersal of defense industries is by offering to them certain tax benefits if they build new defense plants outside of these congested metropolitan areas. And quite a little bit of that's going on at the present time. I'm sorry that I don't have the dollar figure in mind, but more of it than you would suspect is going on right now. Mr. Peterson, what what happens to your civil defense organizations when nothing is happening? Do they deteriorate or are they valuable to the community in any other way? Well actually the the only really good thing or bright side of this whole picture is that civil defense is a very sensible peacetime every day type of an organization for a community. Now one of my jobs at the national level by presidential order is to coordinate all activities of the federal government, all units of the federal government in disaster relief. Now we're always having in the United States, because we're such a large continental area, in the 48 states in the five territories, we're always having floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, large fires and in recent weeks we've had a whole series of hurricanes and we need a civilian machinery to meet those community disasters. We're going to have them forever and the only good thing about civil defense or one of the good things about civil defense is that the techniques and the machinery that we need to meet civilian disasters, peacetime disasters is exactly, are exactly the procedures and the machinery that we need to meet an atomic disaster. Well then you think in other words that even if we don't have a war that your civil defense effort will be worthwhile? Absolutely and as a matter of fact there is a lot more civil defense in the United States than you and I might think unless we look backwards and saw how far we have come and I could name for you community after community from Honolulu to New York where civil defense in some of its components is outstanding and doing a wonderful job and let me just name two or three of them. In Kenosha, Wisconsin I found one of the best auxiliary police units in America. It's a civil defense auxiliary police force we'll have to have such forces in event of any kind of an atomic or natural disaster. In Buffalo, New York there's a wonderful civilian defense auxiliary police force. In Honolulu they have one of the best and in all of Hawaii they have one of the best medical programs in America and that's due to the fact that they saw the necessity for one in those first few minutes following the bombing bombing of Pearl Harbor. In Memphis, Tennessee you find the amateur radio people organized in a very proficient manner and in other cities in the United States you will find the fire people well organized in the rescue field and it takes specific equipment and rescue techniques to save the lives of people when you're pulling them out of debris you just can't do it with a big strong back and and a willing willing hands at the time of the emergency. Mr. Peterson you were saying before that you wouldn't care to prophesize on whether time was on our side but how about the time that we need to erect systems of warning against possible attacks isn't that uh on our side at the moment aren't we doing something there. Well we're doing a good job in the United States to the best of my knowledge in this business and creating a vast detection system that will permit us to know when and if enemy bombers intrude into our area and it would let us know some four to six hours in advance of the arrival of those bombers over our great metropolitan cities and that time is absolutely vital we can't do anything in civil defense unless we get warning time. Now that detection system will be made up of picket ships at sea carrying radar equipment, land installations, radar and other listening devices and airplanes flying in the skies and I noticed a story in the paper just recently about one of the first flights of one of those airplanes out on the pacific coast and that detection system will have to extend all the way from Hawaii up over the north lands of Alaska and Canada to Iceland and Greenland and down to the Azores and if we're ever stupid enough to let the communists get into the south of us as they tried it one time last summer you remember then we'll have to have the same thing to the south. Now those systems must be in depth and then we'll get this warning time and our plans at the present time are to request the American cities to evacuate their populations get the people out because if these hydrogen or atomic weapons are dropped on these great cities there's just no hope for life on the part of the people who remain in them. Well Mr. Peterson as I understand it this detection system that you described is part of the military establishment rather than yours what exactly is your liaison with the military and what will they do and what will you do now the military in the united states is an arm of the president of the united states the secretary of defense Mr. Wilson is a lieutenant of the president of the united states for defense purposes I'm a lieutenant of the president of the united states for civil defense purposes or passive defense purposes we're in we're in exactly the same status with respect to the place where we report obviously the military organization the department of defense is a much larger a much better established and a much more expensive operation than the one that I had I'm not trying to make any invidious comparisons here in the responsibilities of the of the two jobs but uh um that I believe that answers your question Mr. Peterson have you ever given any thought to the command decision which would call for the evacuation of cities now would you wait for a declaration of war or for the dropping of a bomb you can't wait for a declaration of war in this modern age if these russian bombers intrude into the territory of the united states and canada the minute that our american air force finds them in the air and starts shooting world war number three has started what do you mean in other words that we cannot let an unidentified aircraft appear near our cities we cannot we cannot we cannot permit an unidentified aircraft to come in anywhere at all into the north american hemisphere uh because one airplane carrying one bomb in the future will be able to carry more explosive force in terms of tnt than all of the airplanes that bombed england in the whole last war or if you want to put it the other way around all of the airplanes that bombed germany in the last war well mr. Peterson when you speak of evacuation what about this uh this fallout we heard so much of it uh in the pacific aren't people like to be heard if they're evacuated by the by the radioactive cloud coming down 80 miles away well uh you have three effects primary effects when you explode an atomic or hydrogen weapon you have the blast effect and that a blast effect depending upon the size of the weapon will create total destruction for an area of a radius of a certain number of miles then you have a fire effect now then the first job is to get people out of the area where they're going to be killed certainly by blast or by fire now when you have get them out of the out of that area you face the third effect and that's the radioactivity radiological effect now we have known all the time about radioactivity there's nothing new about this and uh the thing that has made it more difficult in recent months is the fact that it's quite likely now that these tremendously large weapons will be detonated into the ground or near the ground close enough to the ground so they will cause to rise into the air tremendous quantities of dirt and debris of various sorts you will recall that in operation ivy the picture show picture operation ivy which showed the detonation of the first high thermonuclear device in history at n we talked in November 1952 that he blew a hole in the island there 175 feet deep and big enough to hold 14 pentagon buildings now that's a whale of a big hole now if you blow a hole like that that stuff goes up into the air now where does it go in the air it goes 40 50 60 thousand feet into the air now what goes up has to come down and so uh we've been familiar with this for a long time thank you very much mr peterson is very kind of come up and tell us about there the opinions expressed on the lawn gene chronoscope were those of the speakers the editorial board for this edition of the lawn gene chronoscope was larry lasir and griffing bankcroft our distinguished guest was the honorable val peterson administrator of federal civil defense this is frank knight reminding you that lawn gene and with nor watches are sold and serviced from coast to coast my more than 4 000 leading jurors who proudly display the sample agency for lawn gene with nor watches and be with us every monday wednesday and thursday at the same time for the program of the lawn gene chronoscope