Govt advice: In event of N-attack wrap your head in your jacket

Press, 6 August 1980, Page 8

Govt advice: In event of N-attack wrap your head in your jacket

NZPA ./ . London The British Government has prepared a . nation-wide propaganda campaign to be used in the event, -of ’ a threatened nuclear war.; The Home Secretary (Mr William Whitelaw) is expected to give details; in the Commons, probably tomorrow, -when he-announces an increased allocation to Civil Defence. r ' .

The campaign is based on a pamphlet, “Protect' and survive,” which says that whitewashing windows and wrapping one’s head-inside -a jacket- ;make a meaningful defence against nuclear attack, writes Martin Walker in the “Guardian.” . He adds: “The Government for the first time since nuclear warfare became a prospect 35 years ago, now also believes that, irrespective of an independent British nuclear deterrent, Britain

would still be a target for nuclear weapons. “Regrettably,. the United Kingdom has always been an obvious target in any military aggression against the West", because of its political geographic, and industrial importance rather than because of its nuclear weaponry,”'the Home:.Secretary says in a letter to the Northern Ireland Secretary (Mr Humphrey Atkins), answering expressions of concent from a constituent.

Walker understands that civil defence spending will be doubled to more than $96 million, with the bulk to be spent 1 on sub-regional headquarters from which central and local government could be administered during a muclear attack. .

“Constraints upon- public spending mean that the. Government has decided to-cop; centrate on keeping . the machinery of' government in

being' during a nuclear attack, even though the relative lack of finance for public shelters means' that the underground go ve rnors would have little left above ground to govern,” he says. “Finance is also to be made available to draw up a national register of basements, tunnels, underground transport facilities, and rural caves which could be designated as public shelters in an emergency. “There are also to be studies of the food and medical supplies to be .stockpiled to give some prospect of '- survival for those who have not died in the first few days of a major attack.” However, Walker says, the Government’s essential pessimism about survival prospects is underlined by the terms of reference given to the official'working party on nuclear-shelter design, which has not been ‘ authorised to

follow the Swedish and Swiss example of insisting that all new houses should be built with a. shelter capacity. Civil Defence in Britain, in the shape of professional Civil Defence teams and a strategy of permanent preparedness, was wound down in 1968 on the grounds that in a country as small and highly-populated, and as stuffed with military bases as Britain, there was little real chance of protection for the vast bulk of the population.

The Home Office working party estimates that the provision of private shelters for 10 million homes would cost between $144 million and $192 million. . : j Walker says this solution was rejected as too expensive, and the ", working party is now studying various shelters to see what design can best be officially

recommended to the public “for those who wish at their own expense to achieve a degree of protection greater than that afforded by the Government’s crisis measures.”

“Essentially,” Walker says, “the Government has accepted a ‘rural survival’ strategy, and by turning its back on the prospect of mass evacuations and a major programme of public shelters it accepts that Britain’s cities and main urban areas will effectively be written off.”

The “Sunday Telegraph’s” political correspondent, Peter Simmonds, says the new package of measures is certain to be condemned by Left-wing Labour members of Parliament as an attempt to fool the nation into thinking there is any real protection against nuclear war other than unilateral nuclear disarmament r