The U.S. At War, CIVILIAN DEFENSE: Confused & Unprepared

Realizing for the first time the dire possibility of air raids on their country, the U.S. people acted like hens in a barnyard at the rumble of a sudden summer storm. Some were apathetic and carefree, some panic-stricken, many more earnest and eager to be helpful. Everywhere was a great cackling. Little hen-shaped Fiorello LaGuardia, head of the Office of Civilian Defense, glared out over a U.S. that was mostly confused and unprepared.

President Roosevelt flung the Little Flower into OCD last spring. Mr. LaGuardia set up regional councils, which did their best to start State and local councils. All were volunteer groups. About all OCD could do was provide blueprints and fatherly advice.

Its headquarters was in a commandeered apartment house in Washington. Last September, Mrs. Roosevelt, who had been faintly critical, moved in as assistant director. Young (21), dimpled Jane Seaver, dew-fresh out of Mt. Holyoke, was appointed to the task of organizing youth. Other lady colleagues moved in. Mrs. Henry Morgenthau Jr., perched next to Mrs. Roosevelt, mysteriously shuffled papers, kept mum. The Little Flower flapped his wings, screeched orders, left behind many a moist hanky clenched in an angry fist.

"Prolonged Study." Most apathetic spot in the country was the territory served by isolationist Chicago Tribune, where the Tribune's editorials and Charles Augustus Lindbergh's shrill "they can't touch us" had all but drowned out OCD's weak little toot. Last week the Midwest had just begun to yawn and stretch. In Wisconsin it was announced that plans for civilian defense were going to be given "prolonged study." St. Louis declared that it would get around this week to enrolling some 50,000 volunteers which it figured it might need.

The West Coast, while civilian defense was still operating, was a military area (see p. 9). Along the East Coast, where confusion was as thick as anywhere, a horrible example was Mayor LaGuardia's own New York City. City Hall, where the Little Flower was trying to be mayor of the nation's biggest city while he was also heading OCD, was in an uproar. Workmen piled into the mayor's offices, tore up floors, laid wires, erected parti tions. Women in blue-grey uniforms, brass buttons and gold epaulets snapped salutes at one another and the mayor, twinkled off in all directions with Mr. LaGuardia's orders.

Plans for blackouts were made, announced, called off. The mayor said it would "take 27,000 men or women to turn off by hand the street lights. . . . There are 27,000 separate switches." The Board of Estimate appropriated $25,000 for sirens. One horn was tried. Citizens a few blocks away, anxiously listening, heard nothing but a faint moo. Most people heard nothing.

"This is Serious." Air-raid meetings were attended by gay, lighthearted volunteers. At a meeting in an uptown Manhattan high school, citizens giggled at an expert who tried to explain how to blackout streets. Muttered a sad-faced, sad-voiced Frenchman: "How can they laugh? This is serious." Backstreet toughies kidded earnest women block wardens until the tearful and embarrassed women gave up their jobs.