Science: Design for Survival?

Washington’s first “atom-bomb-proof” building is nearing completion just five miles north of the White House. Surprisingly, it is neither an Air Defense Command center nor a refuge for the President and his staff,* but a new laboratory for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, designed to preserve the nation’s vital file of military medical knowledge (e.g., 656,000 individual specimens, 6,000,000 pathological slides) and enable scientists to carry on their work despite atomic attack.

A grey concrete monolith, the $7,500,000 laboratory rises five stories (87 ft.) into the air; its three-story basement goes 50 ft. down. There are no windows except at the “expendable” north and south annexes (the latter facing the most probable target area), which are occupied by clerical and administrative offices. Its doors are made of thick steel, and operate as quickly and effectively as a ship’s watertight hatches. Both exterior and interior walls are of reinforced concrete; the extra-thick south wall of the main building, exposed toward the probable target point of downtown Washington, can withstand a blast pressure of 35,000 Ibs. per square yard.

Already the laboratory is probably obsolete. If a 5-megaton H-bomb like the one detonated in “Operation Ivy” (TIME, April 12) were aimed at the White House, experts calculate that the laboratory would lie within the “heavy damage” radius (three to seven miles); and the expendable south annex would be shattered. If a much larger H-bomb were dropped, the monolith’s chances of survival would be slim indeed.

* In the event of an air-raid “alert,” the President and his staff duck into an underground shelter right on the White House grounds.