Jan. 24, 1962 - Soviet Defense Minister Rodion Y. Malinovsky declared in an interview published today in Pravda, newspaper of the Soviet Communist party, that “shelters against atomic and hydrogen bombs are nothing but coffins and tombs prepared in advance.” He also asserted that the Soviet Union was able “to wipe off the face of the earth” all industrial and administrative centers of the U.S. “with a single nuclear-rocket attack.” Charging that the fall-out shelter drive in the U.S. was designed to enrich “monopolies,” the Soviet Defense Minister said it should be clear to everyone that “no shelter can save one from a nuclear bomb. Furthermore, the explosions result in radioactive contamination of the territory, atmosphere, water, everything that surrounds man.”
