Industrial Defense

Report Outline
Defense of Industrial Plants in Nuclear Age
Diverse Measures for Industrial Defense
Programs to Promote Industrial Defense

Defense of Industrial Plants in Nuclear Age

Definition and Purpose of Industrial Defense

President Eisenhower told businessmen attending a Washington conference a few months ago that an effective program for industrial defense might constitute “the most valuable investment you can make toward assuring our survival as a free nation.” The president of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored the Businessmen's Conference on Industrial Defense in the Atomic Age, said in opening the meeting on June 15 that industrial defense “really isn't a new problem but a continuing problem with a new emphasis.”

For many years industrial defense meant vigilance against sabotage. When technology made possible an air force of sufficient quantity and quality to reach our industrial centers, the term took on new meaning. And when atomic and hydrogen bombs made it possible for one plane to virtually destroy a city, we began to realize that industrial defense now means preservation of the industrial might that twice in our lifetime has enabled the free world to attain victory in war.

The purpose of industrial defense measures, in the words of Charles F. Honeywell, head of the Business and Defense Services Administration in the Department of Commerce, is to make sure “that industry can maintain essential production and deliveries in the event of a sneak atomic attack” and “that the effects of such an attack [are] kept to a minimum.” The effort to achieve those objectives takes in “the many problems of industrial dispersion, deconcentration, plant protection, protection against espionage and sabotage, providing alternate sources of supply, continuity of management, safety of personnel, and many, many other things.”