Mock Atomic Attack To Test U.S. Cities

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27683, 13 June 1955, Page 11

Mock Atomic Attack To Test U.S. Cities

(Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON, June 11. Sirens screeching a warning of mock atomic devastation will £ send President Eisenhower i and 15,000 other government ° officials and employees heading , out of Washington on f Wednesday. ? In secret hideaways 30 to 300 miles c away, they will set up an emergency government for a nation theoretically t blasted by nuclear weapons from coast 4 to coast and as far beyond as Alaska.'s Hawaii, the Canal Zone, and Puerto Is Rico. During this “Operation Alert 1955,” I the biggest, most realistic civil defence '] test yet attempted, 49 of America’s 92 j < critical target cities—New York, js Chicago, Los Angeles. Washington l among them—supposedly will be . 1 seared and smashed. So will six others ' ( in the outside territories and posses- I < sions. 11 “Casualties and refugees” will be counted in the millions. Vital factories i will be “pulverised.” communications 1 and transportation “disrupted.” < And for three days, Mr Eisenhower. ( the Cabinet, the military and other I key officials will tackle the actual < problems expected to arise in the first month of nuclear war. In one undisclosed retreat—the President will move around to several —Mr Eisenhower will go over drafted |

copies of all the proclamations, execu- | Live orders and directives he would have had issued during such an emergency. The pattern of “Operation Alert" will vary by cities. In Washington a five-minute blast on air raid sirens at 4.5 a.m., G.M.T., will signal that ‘enemy aircraft" have been identified on the way to the capital. At 7.25 p.m.. G.M.T.. Washington will be under “attack," by 7.45 p.m., G.M.T.. 48 other United States cities will be subjected to theoretical hydrogen and atom bombs. “Guided missiles” from enemy land bases will rain down on Alaska. Imagined attacks on Hawaii, the Canal Zone and Puerto Rico will come from submarines. Wailing sirens in Washington will bring most of the 227,000 Government employees swarming out of their office buildings to remain a few minutes and then go back to work. But, the key 15.000 will set out for relocation sites scattered in an arc to the south-west, west and north-west of the city. Most will travel by motorcar. The Secretary of Defence, Mr Charles Wilson, will go by helicopter. Others will use aeroplanes and buses. Universities, public and private buildings and Government reservations will be taken over for the test, as they would be during an actual emergency. What the Government expects to

| learn from it all is the present status of civil defence operations throughout the country and how well or pocrly the Government itself would operate I if an actual nuclear attack on Wednes|day smashed the capital and the nation’s major industrial sections. Since some of the relocation sites will be used in event of actual war. a return to voluntary censorship will black out mention of them by cities. J The Government refers to them only by such code names as High Point, New Point. Low Point, and Quartcr- ! back. Mr Eisenhower will keep in touch through closed circuit television. A small knot of reporters remaining by the President’s side will file all their stories into an emergency press headquarters in one of the cities in the relocation arc. Among the 49 cities subjected to the i theoretical nuclear attack. 42 already know they will be hit. Seven others, targets for hydrogen bombs, will not t know they are on the “danger” list ’ until the alerts sound.