A Comparison of the Attitudes of Civil Defense Directors and Community Leaders

Abstract

To test the hypothesis that the relative lack of success of civil defense in the United States at the local level is due in part to differences in attitudes between those empowered to grant civil defense funds (local community leaders) and those requesting the funds (local civil defense directors), attitude questionnaires were sent to a number of civil defense directors and community leaders in three Midwestern states. Returns came from 297 civil defense directors and 70 community leaders. The returns indicated that the civil defense directors, as compared with community leaders, (x) felt that individuals could do more to control national problems, (2) distrusted Communists and "outsiders" more, (3) estimated world war as more likely, and (4) had a more positive evaluation of civil defense in general. It was also found that the most successful civil defense directors came from larger cities and were more "professionalized" (in terms of amount of past experience, tenure in civil defense, and paid full-time status) than were the less successful directors.