their attitudes toward such shelters, the Civil Defense organization, and the probability of nuclear attack in case of war; and the comparison of the two panels of informants in terms of these two factors. The latter is seen as being of primary importance to -2-this study, since it indicates the extent to which the recognized leaders of the community are capable of functioning -I effectively as regards this matter of literal life or death.To assure maximum comparability with other similar studies being sponsored by Civil Defense in other portions of the nation, the schedule used in the present study was almost entirely replicated from that developed for use with community leaders.The sequences of questions designed specifically for leaders were also used with non leaders as a means of determining how much latent leadership ability might be discovered among persons not occupying leadership status in recognized institutions. Panels of 200 persons in leadership roles in recognizedinstitutions and of 300 persons chosen by random sampling methods, described later in this report, as representative of the total population of the city were interviewed, their replies were coded and transferred to IBM cards and then subjected to standard statistical techniques by use of a counter-sorter and a computer.Data from the many open-ended questionswere analyzed by identification of recurring themes, which were then tabulated and made part of the data treated statistically. In addition, much illustrative material has been combed from the free responses of the respondents.It should be said that the findings of this study can be applied with safety only to the city of Austin. This is something more than the usual formal declaration since Austin is a University -3and a Political center; and, so, has a population not representative of the state and certainly not of the nation.This essential difference appears strikingly in the make-up of the leadership sample.One other caveat must be entered. This study was done at a time when there was a very great deal of discussion of fallout in the media of mass communication. Russia had resumed aboveground testing of nuclear weapons and had startled the world by setting off its "50-megaton bomb." But even before this drama.ic event, Civil Defense and the Office of the President of the nation generally had greatly stepped up efforts to break the apathy which had marked matters of protection of the general population from the effects of nuclear warfare since the early days of our discovery that the Russians also had "The Bomb."Television, radio and the printed media all joined in this effort to alert the general population to its potential danger. In Austin, as elsewhere, an enterprising journalist had himself incarcerated in a fallout shelter--equipped for sound--for a period of two weeks and made regular reports of his state of well-being.A local newspaper ran a daily series of articles designed to convince readers that they could survive an atomic attack.Just how much effect this campaign had on...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.