I am sure we are agreed that the ultimate survival of America is dependent on intellectual vigor and on spiritual deeprooting -- not on specific devi… - Lewis Strauss

Until a system of comprehensive disarmament is achieved -- based on something more reliable than dramatic gestures and mere promises made by nations which have repeatedly violated their solemn commitments -- our national survival and the security of our homes requires that we have -- in being .. the means of defending ourselves against sudden nuclear attack. There is no other prudent course. Without the ability to defend ourselves, we could not hope to deter an enemy from making war upon us, or to retaliate effectively and decisively once we were under attack. And without that strength, we would have to speak in a small and deferential voice in our efforts to build the foundations of a durable peace. Only so long as we are strong can we negotiate; the weak can only submit.

Our civil defense efforts, as I mentioned a moment ago, have been faced with many difficult problems. These problems will continue and no doubt increase. As other nations develop and produce nuclear weapons of still greater efficiency and more destructive capabilities, our current planning for civil defense continuously requires revision lest it become outmoded. If we assume that an enemy can deliver an appreciable fraction of the weapons which we believe he can produce, the delivered cost of any one of those weapons may be almost insignificant compared with its potential damage. Also, an enemy is probably in a position to increase his destructive power of attack faster than we can hope to provide new and better civil defense measures to combat that increase. Civil defense, however efficiently organized it may be, simply cannot expect to keep ahead of the enemy's growing stockpile of more destructive, more diversified and presumably more effective nuclear weapons.

Despite all efforts to the contrary, there is still confusion in the minds of many people as to the differing and even contradictory meanings of the words "nuclear energy". I am sure that all of you have encountered, in your civil defense work, a rather widespread misunderstanding of the significance of such words as "fallout" and "radioactivity." There is a disposition among some persons to think of what might happen in event of a nuclear attack upon us in terms of what does happen when we test nuclear weapons under strictly controlled conditions affording maximum safety. There also is lack of understanding as to the true meaning of such phrases as "permissible dose levels" as applied to peacetime activities in the field of atomic energy. There is a tendency to regard these peacetime safety standards as being the limits for survival in event of actual attack. Sensational and oftentimes irresponsible articles have no doubt contributed to this confusion.