(a) The Department of Defense shall select, for its mobilization base, facilities which produce or are capable of producing critically important military items or components (military class A components used entirely in the production, maintenance, or repair of military items) which meet one of the following:

(1) Those items which would be so urgent to the defense of this country that utmost effort must be exerted to produce them even in case of general war involving severe damage to the facilities necessary to produce these items and the components thereof.

(2) Those items essential to survival and retaliation, maintenance of health, or combat efficiency required to support peripheral war and which meet one or more of the following criteria:

(i) Items requiring a long lead-time or long manufacturing cycle.

(ii) Items currently not in production or which are required in quantities far in excess of peacetime production.

(iii) Items requiring the conversion of an industry or a number of plants within an industry.

(iv) Items requiring materials or manufacturing processes essentially different from those in current use.

(v) Items for which industry does not have production experience.

Paragraph (a)(2) of this section is inclusive of the Department of Defense Preferential Planning List of End Items.

(b) In selecting facilities for the Department of Defense mobilization base, consideration shall be given to their vulnerability to nuclear attack, with particular attention to the possibility of (1) minimizing vulnerability of facilities producing “urgent” items under paragraph (a)(1) of this section, including the need for dispersal, protective construction, and special security measures to safeguard against sabotage of clandestine attack, and (2) reducing concentration of uncommon critical production facilities so that a productive segment of each critical industry would be likely to survive a nuclear attack.

(c) The Department of Energy and the Maritime Administration, in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, shall determine the items and facilities which meet the above criteria for their respective programs for maintaining the mobilization base.