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Some fanciful notions about avoiding the nuclear nightmare

WANTED: Young, fit, socially useful men and women to survive nuclear war. Must be ready to evacuate at a moment's notice. Elderly or inept need not apply.

The ad is imaginary, but the idea is real. Or at least Robert L. Kingsbury thinks so. As director of the department of military and veterans affairs Robert in Los Angeles, he has espoused a novel civil defense plan: selecting "priority evacuees" now according to "their value to the society that would sur vive a nuclear strike." Kingsbury's high-priority evacuees would include "the young and physically fit, skilled specialists of all sciences, and a well-balanced labor force." In case of an attack, the healthy and talented would hit the road, while the aging and slow-witted would presumably stay behind, making sure all the windows were closed.

High-priority and low-priority Californians alike blasted this modern-day version of Noah's Ark. Proclaimed Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman: "Preselecting people to be saved is inimical to the American way." But Kingsbury, who was one of the first American soldiers to enter Hiroshima in 1945, is undeterred. "I know it sounds hateful, but after the blast, don't we need all the possible skills and resources available for survival?" he asks. Kingsbury claims that at least his mother agrees with him. "She told me that she is far too old to be evacuated and wander around the desert. She'd rather take what comes."

The Kingsbury approach is only the latest unusual proposal for evacuating Americans in case of nuclear attack. Some ideas have come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has made ambitious plans for removing citizens from 380 high-risk areas, including cities with more than 50,000 people and areas near military bases. In Plattsburgh, N.Y., a booklet prepared with FEMA'S help advises residents to have on hand, packed and ready to go, like a giant doomsday picnic basket, some 55 items, including large supplies of tinned foods, blankets, axes, flashlights and a portable toilet. As one local skeptic noted: "We'll all need U-Hauls to take that junk along with our families."

In Baltimore, members of the city council listened last week as Civil Defense Chief William Codd outlined a proposal to move more than a million residents to West Virginia, if given 72 hours' notice of a nuclear attack. People would theoretically flee in sequence according to their zip codes; the estimated 330,000 Baltimoreans without cars would board MTA buses, already notorious for being late even on the most placid of days. Inexplicably, the proposal envisions at least 33,000 leaving the city armed with crowbars. Complained Councilman Dominic DiPietro as he stormed out of the meeting: "What a bunch of garbage."

In some cases, tiny details render grandiose plans suspect. In California, the regional headquarters of FEMA is located just a jiggle away from the San Andreas Fault. In western Missouri, the strategy currently calls for people to pass missile sites that make the area a prime target for nuclear attack. In Arizona, FEMA'S program offers elaborate details for moving 70,000 residents of Phoenix 78 miles north to Prescott, a town of 20,000. Officials have not figured out how Prescott, which barely survives the annual deluge of tourists at its July 4 Frontier Days festival, will house and feed its unexpected visitors.

Perhaps the most surrealistic vision of how to cope with a nuclear war is offered by Mark Hacker, a graduate student in architecture at Princeton University. He has designed the ultimate fallout shelter: an underground city, complete with apartments and trolley cars, for 30,000 people. The metropolis would be 300 ft. to 500 ft. underground and be able to survive any nuclear blast, save for, possibly, a direct hit. Once residents entered the city, however, the exits would be sealed, and they would never again return to the earth's surface. Robert Kingsbury take note.

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