President Eisenhower, in addressing the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference last November, said that planning is everything but when the emergency actually occurs plans go out the window. "The definition of `emergency,'" he said, "is that it is unexpected, therefore, it is not going to happen the way you are planning."
This paradox was startling to some of us who have devoted our energies to mobilization and civil defense planning. Webster defines a paradox as "an assertion or sentiment seemingly contradictory, or opposed to common sense, but that yet may be true in fact." As we continue to try to do our part to help achieve the posture of total defense which Lewis Berry spoke to you about a year ago, we appreciate more and more the cogency of the President's paradox.
It expresses on the one hand the virtue and indeed the necessity for undergoing the planning process—not once,