CIVIL DEFENSE AND TOCSIN

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I was very distressed by the CRIMSON'S article on the Civil Defense demonstrations and by the response of certain students to the fact that TOCSIN formally cooperated with Boston SANE on this demonstration. The article gave a very inaccurate impression of the tone of the picketing: the SANE demonstration was as well-planned and serious as the TOCSIN walk. While it is true that one sign out of the approximately fifty informed passers-by that "Man is not a mole," the placards were on the whole brief statements of issues regarding disarmament, civil defense, and the Framingham shelter program. The vignettes offerd by the CRIMSON writer ignored the fact that the demonstration was intended mainly as a symbolic gesture in front of the State House; its purpose to combat the apathy and misinformation of public and government alike. To this end, the demonstration was highly successful, though its brevity and location obviously limited its effectiveness. If the reactions and spectators revealed the apathy which traditionally greets demonstrations at first, be they at Harvard or in front of the State House, the picket line was nonetheless impressive and attracted a great deal of press, radio, and TV coverage. The SANE picketing project was not the abortive and discouraging venture implied by the CRIMSON article.

Had the demonstration been an ill-conceived and empty protest, the TOCSIN Executive Committee would not have given it formal endorsement. Contrary to the apparent impression of some students. TOCSIN does not have a policy of non-cooperation with other groups. Though differences between TOCSIN and SANE have made autonomy logical for the Harvard group, TOCSIN shares with SANE a desire to organize effective public pressure on specific political issues. In this case, it would have been foolish for TOCSIN to duplicate SANE's excellent study of the Civil Defense Issue.

There remains the question of the protest itself. The Framingham shelter is a perfect example of what Senator Young calls the Civil Defense Boondoggle.. Planned in 1955, when warning time for an attack was four to six hours, the shelter is already obsolete, unless several million more dollars are spent for a twenty-four hour helicopter alert or a private subway from the State House. At best, the shelter holds only a fraction of the State Government, and only for ninety days. Moreover, the entire concept of protective shelters in urban centers is doubtful as a measure of national security, particularly in ever-shorter warning times and the increasing perfection of chemical and biological warfare. A few isolated shelters might save a certain number of lives--but a crash program for Civil Defense shelters seems most likely to lead only to the use of increased destructive power on the part of the enemy. We are in fact capable of producing weapons of almost any magnitude, and the history of unclear armaments shows that destructive-offensive technology has consistently stayed ahead of protective-defensive measures. If Russia were to find a way to make its populations "secure" from our attack, I am reasonably sure that we would seek the weapons to undo this military advantage. There is no reason to expect that the Russians will be any more willing to see us develop the capability to absorb a major nuclear strike. Since I cannot discuss these problems in detail here; I invite the interested to read the speeches on Civil Defense of Senator Young and Governor Meyner of New Jersey and the SANE memorandum on the Framingham shelter, posted in the TOCSIN office, basement of B-entry Quincy House. (I invite them as well to join the picket line next Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. in front of the State House.) Robert Weil   Chairman of TOCSIN