>>>>>>>>>>>> THE R E A L FACTS ABOUT NUCLEAR WAR <<<<<<<<<<<<<< [This short article by Peter Beckmann was originally published as a special supplement to the May 1982 issue of ACCESS TO ENERGY. Since then, many thousands of copies have been mailed out on request; it has also been reprinted by several organizations, in two cases as a special booklet.] * YES, NUCLEAR WAR WOULD BE HORRIBLE, and the facts below * * are in no way intended to belittle its horror. They are, * * however, intended to refute the myth that nuclear war means * * the end of civilization, making the defense of the Free * * World pointless. IS IT NOT TRUE THAT EACH SUPERPOWER HAS ENOUGH NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO KILL ALL MEMBERS OF MANKIND SEVERAL TIMES OVER? Yes. And the same is true for kitchen knives. BUT A SINGLE NUCLEAR BOMB CAN WIPE OUT A WHOLE CITY. No, it can't. You would need 438 one-megaton bombs (the power of 22,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs) to destroy Greater Los Angeles [1] and none of them could be "wasted" on pulverizing the rubble, or you would need more. THEN HOW COME HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI WERE EACH DESTROYED BY A SINGLE BOMB? They weren't. Earth-covered backyard shelters were undamaged at 100 yards from ground zero, and photos [2] show wood-frame houses at 1 mile from ground zero at Hiroshima badly damaged, but not beyond repair. The day after the blast the bridges were open to traf- fic, the second day trains were operating, and the third day some streetcars resumed service [3]. The people in the two cities had neither warning nor basements; yet in Dresden, where they had both, about as many were killed in the air raid of 13 February 1945 as in Nagasaki. BUT THE HIROSHIMA BOMB WAS 1,000 TIMES LESS POWERFUL THAN THE H-BOMBS USED IN TODAY'S WARHEADS. The distance of equal destruction varies as the third root of the released energy; 1000 times more powerful means the same destruction at 10 times the distance. An earth-covered shelter would be undamaged at 1000 yards from ground zero, and a wooden house as above would be comparably damaged at a distance of 10 miles rather than 1 mile. Grim, but not the end of the world. BUT THE RADIATION FROM NUCLEAR BOMBS WOULD LEAVE THE EARTH A RADIOACTIVE INFERNO FOR DECADES, AND THE SURVIVORS WOULD DIE OF CANCER, LEAVING GENETICALLY DAMAGED OFFSPRING. This, paradoxically, is wishful thinking: if it were so, no one would contemplate nuclear war. In fact, only a few hundred of Hiroshima's 70,000 dead were victims of radioactivity, and no genetic damage could be detected against the normal background among the survivors, though they (and even their chromosomes) have been examined with extraordinary thoroughness for decades. This is not surprising, since ordinarily only those who suffer unprotected exposure to the initial radiation will receive a dose high enough to be lethal (400 rems will kill half the exposed victims, 1000 rems virtually all of them). BUT THE FALL-OUT WILL EVENTUALLY KILL EVERYBODY. No, it won't. In essence, the highly radioactive isotopes will soon spend themselves, while the long-lived isotopes do not radiate intensely (though some can be dangerous if they get into the body). Shelters can protect from early fallout and filtration can prevent ingestion of radionuclides such as strontium and iodine. Iodine is typical for the scare- mongering: the defeatists fan hysteria for levels one thousand times lower than those at which radioiodine is given to healthy patients for diagnostic purposes. BUT THAT WOULD MEAN SPENDING YEARS IN SHELTERS. No, it wouldn't. Use the rule of seven: For every sevenfold increase in time, the radioactive level due to fall-out decreases by an order of 10. If the level 1 hour after detonation was 1000 units/hour, it will decline to 100 units/hr in 7 hours, and to 10 in 7 x 7 = 49 hours, or about two days. The level measured 1 day after detonation will decline to 1/10 in a week, to 1/100 in 7 weeks, and to 1/1000 in less than a year (7x7x7 = 343 days). AND HOW DOES ONE LIVE WITHOUT FOOD AND WATER FOR 343 DAYS? One does not have to. Food and water are not contaminated by fall-out radiation, only by the fall-out particles themselves. Dust-proof packed food remains uncontaminated, and radioactive particles can be filtered from contaminated water. For details, see Kearney's "Nuclear Survival Skills." BUT INSTEAD OF ALL THESE GRUESOME DETAILS, IS IT NOT BETTER TO KEEP THE PEACE BY THE "BALANCE OF TERROR" VIA "MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION"? There is nothing balanced or mutual about this doctrine; it is the root of America's present predicament. Under the MAD stra- tegy of unilateral self-deterrence, the US dismantled its anti- aircraft missile defense, canceled its anti-ballistic missile system, and deliberately let its civil defense die, all under the assumption that if the civilian populations were defenseless hostages to nuclear destruction, it would deter war. AND DIDN'T IT? To the contrary, it brought war much closer. The Soviets were not so stupid as to accept the MAD strategy. While America disarmed, they feverishly built up their forces and turned civil defense into a weapon of war: their grandiose evacuation plans would allow them a first strike against US missile silos, risking the loss of only a few million people (peanuts to the fanatics in the Polit- bureau) in a retaliatory strike by the US; but such retaliation would not come, for no US president could agree to losing more than half of America's population if the Soviets threatened a second strike in return. WHAT HAS PREVENTED THEM DOING THAT? Insufficient accuracy for pinpointing US missile silos (or oil refineries and power plants, or similar jugular points) and an unwillingness to gamble. Once they have achieved the necessary accuracy, they will believe (with good reason??) that America will give in without resistance under the Chamberlain-Carter-Kennedy mentality. What, then, WILL prevent war? What has unfailingly deterred war through the ages: the will to fight and the capacity to win. In time, America's technological superiority might let it regain the capacity to win; but it is the will to defend itself that is now being dangerously sapped by defeatists, demagogues and fear peddlers. BUT THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A WAR AS TERRIBLE AS NUCLEAR WAR. There has never been a war as terrible as the next one. Yet there have always been men and women who stood up to evil and risked their lives for their liberty. BUT THE LOSSES IN NUCLEAR WAR WOULD BE SO TERRIBLE THAT DEFENSE FOR WHATEVER REASON BECOMES IMMORAL. The morality of war does not depend on the weapons with which it is fought. You have exactly one life to risk in the defense of everything that makes it worth living, and it matters little whether you lose it to a spear, a bullet, or nuclear radiation. Your forefathers risked, and often lost, that one life for your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. You have no right to squander your heritage, to invite war by weakness, and to leave your children to the demeaning cancer of serfdom. * * * (1988-Updated) REFERENCES: [1] "Interview with Gen. J.K. Sing- laub," SURVIVE, May-June 1982. [2] THE EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS, 3rd ed., US Dept. of Defense, 1977. [3] L.W. Beilenson, SURVIVAL AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE, Regnery/Gateway, 1980. [4] DOCTORS AGAINST HEALTH and THE RADIATION BOGEY, $2 from Golem Press, Box 1342, Boulder, CO 80306. [5] C.H. Kearney, NUCLEAR SURVIVAL SKILLS, Oregon Inst. f. Science & Medicine, Box 1279, Cave Junction, OR 97523, $9.50; [6] THE EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WAR, Office of Technology Assessment, May 1979; [7] A.B. Robinson & G. North, FIGHTING CHANCE, Or. Inst. f. Sci. & Med., Box 1279, Cave Junction, OR 97523, $5.95.