While the Carter administration is clearly paying more attention to civil defense and will undoubtedly request more funding for crisisrelocation planning, this does not yet constitute giving "major priority" to civil defense. Most policymakers seem to believe civil defense can play only a very limited role in mitigating the effects of nuclear weapons.

Many of the questions related to the desirability or undesirability of more stress on civil defense are essentially unanswerable. We simply cannot know with assurance how it will affect U.S. security or the chances of nuclear war. Plausible points can be made on both sides, but it is mostly speculation. Nobody who feels strongly one way or the other is likely to have his views changed. The debate will be predictably inconclusive.