Experts Call Shelters Necessary; Compare to Surgery, Seat Belts

Shelters are a must, not a myth, according to the three experts speaking at the Dunster House Forum last night.

In the event of the maximum possible attack "we may as well forget about defense," according to Leslie Silverman, professor of Engineering in Environmental Hygiene. He added, however, that this "accident" should be treated like any other state of emergency. "We must be ready," he said.

"We must not become economically handicapped, however," he added, criticizing a national hysteria program of hasty spending. "The Russians would like nothing better."

Like Surgery and Seat-Belts

The other two speakers, Louisa P. Howe, assistant professor of Mental Health, and Marvin T. Kalkstein, research chemist from Bedford, N.Y., likened shelters to surgery and seat-belts. Although war, disease, and automobile accidents are terrible, they both said, we should not be blinded by our dislike of them into an ignorance of safety measures.

There are other alternatives beside actual all-out war which might necessitate some kind of protection, Kalkstein stated. Accidental war, an accident in our own atomic reactors, or perhaps a war strategy directed against ammunition centers rather than cities, are all possible.

Favor Community Shelters

Howe and Silverman favored carefully planned community shelters for moral, psychological, and technical reasons. "Recent unfortunate pronouncements from Washington" have started the country on a family shelter craze with unpleasant results, Silverman remarked.

Howe scored this tendency as creating "Invidious distinctions between financial resources," adding that mutual benefits would be forthcoming only if the special talents of different people could be shared.

Two way communications could also be much more easily established among large groups, she added.