Evening star., 1949-10-12

No Nation Will Allow
Military installations
To Be Exposed Now
By David Laurence
Will an atomic bomb explosion
hurt you If you are a mile away
Comdr. Eugene Tatom Of the Navy
stirred up quite q controversy
when he said that, although moi
an atom expert. he believed from
what he read that at q distance
OF 5000 feet or more the bomt
wouldn't injure anyone.
Exception to this point has beer
taken by Senator Mcmahon o1
Connecticut and Representative
Holif1eld Of California.
1t all depends, however. on what
kind of atomic explosion you art
talking about and what object!
intervene between the center o.
the blast and its outer radius.
DR.. R. E. Lapp, a nuclear physi.
cist who worked on the atomic
bomb project during the war anc
was former director of the Atomi,
Energy Committee of the Research
and Development Board of the
national military establishment
has written frankly about this. H,
witnessed the Bikini tests and ha!
handled A-bombs. He covered
these very points in his recen'
book. Must We Hide?" He say
that you don't have to be mil,
away-you can be only six fee
away and still be safe-providee
you are underground.
Calls Protection Easy
He declares:
Protection against the fash o.
thermal radiation is easily accom-.
plished."
Then he shows by a diagram
what is necessary at different dis.
tances from the explosion. Al
1000 feet distance, 80 inches o.
concrete is a sufficient protection
At 1000 feet only 20 inches are
required, and at 1000 feet only
six inches. At 5000 feet. he says
mo shielding Is required"
Comdr. Tatom referred to a dis
tance Of more than 5000 feet a
not requiring shielding.
DR.. Lapp says that more people
died in Tokyo as a result of the
conventional bombing and fire
than died at Nagasaki where the
A-bomb was detonated.
Let us consider" says DR.. Lapp
what an atomic bomb would dc
to midtown Manhattan If it were
burst over the intersection OF
Forty-second street and Fifth
Avenue. We shall explode our
hypothetical bomb about a thou
sand feet above the street or zoo
feet below the tip of the Empire
State Building. We must con-
slider three effects Of the bomb
the flash Of heat. the flash OF
penetrating radiation and the
blast wave.
In a city like New York, espe-
cially in the midtown area, the
heat flash would not be too i'm
portant. for more fires would
probably start from secondary
origin than from direct ignition.
Most significant to the popula-
ton would be the instantaneous
burst Of gamma rays that would
flash out from the bomb. We be-
lieve that this radiation would
give a lethal dose to a person in
the open at a distance of slightly
less than one mile.
Safety In Subways.
Directly under the center of
the blast, people In the subways
would be unaffected either by the
blast or by the radiation. They
would be perfectly safe.
People farther from the center
Of the blast would also be safe II
they were in the lower floors OF
buildings shielded from the flash
of radiation ;.
Solid earth is not as effective
as concrete in stopping gamma
rays but a thickness of six feet
will reduce even the intensities
found near ground zero to safe
values moist earth is more
effective than dry ordinary
building materials will not be
made dangerously radioactive by
exposure to bomb burst"
No nation is going to allow its
important military installations to
be exposed in the atomic age
Hitler put many Of his factories
underground and 1t is a fact that
his submarine bases were built OF
such concrete projections as to
make them absolutely invulner-
able to any kind Of bombs In the
last war.
The meaning of this in terms
Of national strategy becomes clear
No single weapon can blitz the
enemy into capitulation-and re-
lance on one weapon that ieliv-
ers the A-bomb cannot assure the
destruction Of industrial installa-
tions underground. The need for
q balanced offense and defense
becomes obvious.
Reproduction Rights ReservedD
ADVERTISEMENT.
Some Don'ts