OCD Reports

James M. Landis made public last week his second formal report on the thankless job he took over last February--running the Office of Civilian Defense. Six months ago he had been gaunt; now he was haggard. But after those six months of dogged work, in an office which last winter housed the worst of all Washington's administrative messes, he could report some accomplishments. OCD was now functioning up to the full measure of its authority, advising State and city defense councils how to combat gas, destruction, fire, panic, and giving them the necessary material.

Reporting to Senate Appropriations Chairman Carter Glass, he said he had marked 404 cities for first priority in the allocation of civilian-defense equipment. These 404 localities have a total population of 41,892,738.

Protective equipment was moving steadily if slowly into cities in the "target areas." Auxiliary firemen were training. Test air-raid alarms were increasing. The Civil Air Patrol, of which Landis is particularly proud, was doing a bang-up job, flying a half million miles a week on courier and scouting work, though Army censorship kept its light under a bushel.

Some of the OCDirector's statistics: national enrollment of volunteers totals more than 10,000,000; an initial lot of 5,000,000 gas masks will be manufactured; presently facilities will permit the making of 2,500,000 masks a month. Procurement directives have been issued to the Quartermaster General for 100,000 sets of firemen's turnout coats and trousers, 108,000 pairs of rubber boots, 400,000 more helmets. The Surgeon General has been asked to buy medical supplies in millions of units; more than 200,000 beds and cots.

OCD still has headaches: it lacks authority to force a community to prepare for raids (British authorities can withhold funds for equipment from a town that will not cooperate). Here & there OCD is helpless in a muddle of city politics. It suffers a shortage of certain fire-fighting paraphernalia, of gasproof and decontamination clothing.

Besides his progress report to Congress, Jim Landis could take some satisfaction last week from showing his OCD predecessor, rolypoly Mayor LaGuardia, longtime Landis critic, that the OCD-approved jet method of quenching fire bombs worked in 15 seconds (TIME, July 27), that the LaGuardia spray method took 65.

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