Trainman News

Civil Defense Program Gets BRT's Support

CLEVELAND The Brotherhood is giving its full support to the civil defense program.

"We shall be very happy to assist you in any way within our power," President Kennedy declared in a letter to Federal Civil Defense Administrator Millard Caldwell.

In replying to the Brotherhood leader's offer of cooperation in the vital program, Mrs. John L Whitehurst, assistant administrator of the Federal Civil Defense Administration, told President Kennedy that "Yours is a distinctive organization and, as such, will be able to make a significant contribution to our current effort to interest all national organizations in the registration of their respective memberships for civil defense work."

Creation of a new Office of Volunteer Manpower recently within the Civil Defense Administration, which is directed by Mrs. Whitehurst, is the first in a series of steps taken to increase public participation in civil defense volunteer efforts throughout the nation during the early part of this year, Administrator Caldwell said.

He declared that the chief purpose of the Office of Volunteer Manpower is to "afford the necessary impetus and coordination essential to increased public participation in recruitment of additional volunteers for the growing U. S. Civil Defense Corps."

In announcing CDA's plans for building up the volunteer recruitment, Administrator Caldwell added:

"We have just completed an intensive year of public education in self-protection and the organization of a civil defense force around permanent state and municipal services. Our next job is to capitalize on the growing public awareness of the dangers of atomic attack and to expand the present 'hard-core' of volunteers to an adequate force in being. To do this we shall have to mobilize the informational and organizational resources of the country on behalf of a sustained and coordinated volunteer recruitment program.

"The centralization of our agency's volunteer manpower program activities in the new office, and the appointment of Mrs. Whitehurst, should afford the necessary impetus and coordination essential to increase public participation in the recruitment of additional volunteers for the growing U. S. Civil Defense Corps."