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IV

The Fires of Prometheus

The legend of Prometheus who sought to steal the fire from the gods and who for his presumption was forced to spend the rest of his life chained to a rock has for two millenia been the symbol of the inherent limitations of human striving. It was not understood that the punishment of Prometheus was an act of compassion; it would have been a much more severe penalty had the gods permitted their fire to be stolen. Our generation has succeeded in stealing the fire of the gods and it is doomed to live with the horror of its achievement.

Any analysis of the strategic revolution which has taken place must start with a discussion of the increased destructiveness of modern weapons. Since our strategic doctrine assumes that the targets will include industrial facilities, air bases, ports and similar installations and since most of these are located in or near big cities, the first consideration must be the effect of thermo-nuclear weapons on urban concentrations.

The growth of the city is perhaps the distinguishing characteristic of modern civilization: it is the symbol of its abstractness because in it the individual is meaningful only as a specialized skill; it is also the expression

101

of its power and its vulnerability. In a primitive society the basic unit is
the family which is largely self-sufficient; it produces its own food supply
and it contains the skills required for its survival. Its margin of subsis-
tence will generally be low, but it is more vulnerable to natural catastrophes
which affect its food supply than to events which merely affect the performance of
its neighbors.

A modern city, on the other hand, is made possible by specialization.
Because of it, the individual in modern society develops a substantially greater
proficiency in his skill; but by the same token his dependence on other units
of the society becomes more pronounced. He is less vulnerable to natural catas-
trophes, but more vulnerable to events which affect the performance of his
This specialization extends not only to individuals but to organizations as well:
fellows. Its expression professionally is in an institution which relates various
experts to each other and makes them available to the society at large; its
counterpart in business is the vertical organization which assembles highly
specialized individuals and machinery in a mechanism for the production of goods
and services. A city will, therefore, contain a great specialization in the
skills of its inhabitants and conversely most of the skilled population of
a modern country will be found in cities. Most of the leading hospitals and

102

medical schools, many of the universities, most of the banks and credit
institutions, most of the exchanges which form the essential links of modern
society are concentrated in cities. A city, therefore, exhibits highly organized
group activity, a great elaboration of mutually dependent management forms.

The city is thus the repository of most of nations' capital and skills. Since
it requires for its survival a highly articulated transportation system,
it also contains the contact-point with other countries and the hub of domestic
transport.

Specialization makes possible a greater degree of material well-being
than is even conceivable in primitive societies. But it also defines the
vulnerability of a city both physically and psychologically. Any breakdown in
one of the innumerable links of a city's "nervous system" can produce paralysis:
an elevator failure, a subway strike, even a stoppage of traffic signals, can
materially slow down the economic machine. More serious still is a failure of

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essential supplies. The whole economic life of the city is dependent on the uninterrupted supply of energy of which fuel energy is the single most important item. Finally, the life blood of a city is an intangible quality: the confidence of its inhabitants that this highly articulated mechanism will continue to function; the belief of its specialists in the meaning of their effort; the conviction of the individual that the machine will serve and not destroy him. The highest expression of this confidence is the degree to which the machine appears "natural" and it appears inconceivable that the intricate relationships which define it could ever be otherwise. The penalty of a loss of confidence is illustrated by the depression of 1929: the physical plant of our society did not shrink; the skills of the people did not grow less, yet production fell by more than 40% and millions were unemployed. It is the paradox of modern life that the greater the power, the more complex and intangible is the condition of its use.

In planning for the contingency of an attack on our cities the Federal Civil Defense Authority in 1955 made the following assumptions: (1) The U.S.S.R. has the capability of striking any target within the United States with nuclear

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weapons, including thermo-nuclear types delivered through the air and detonated above ground during normal working hours. Targets will be our centers of industry and population. (2) Initial attacks will include sufficient nuclear weapons to hit all of our critical target areas; to be followed by other less heavy attacks. (3) Bomb sizes will vary from a few thousand to millions of tons of TNT equivalent. Any city attacked, with very few exceptions, can be substantially destroyed by one bomb. (4) The principal city in each Critical Target area will be hit. The day-time centers of population will be the aiming points within the city. (5) Any city attacked will need outside help to meet the 6) A warning time of one hour in most areas is expected, but cannot be guaranteed, emergency. (7) Evacuation of people from downtown areas in cities is to commence upon the first warning. Such people are expected to have moved two miles from their offices when the attack becomes imminent.

A later chapter will discuss how realistic these assumptions are. For present purposes they suffice to describe the magnitude of the threat: The

Federal Civil Defense Authority has identified 92 critical target areas with 230 cities in the United with a population of 600 thousand or above. Some of these are in Minnesota; St. Paul is one such target, and as Minneapolis is another. A single attack on one large weapon in these cities can kill 100,000 people. The total population of 68 million in these cities is described as 170 standard metropolitan areas of 50,000 or more population. These areas contain 55% of the population and 75% of the industry of this country. An attack on

①
② Elmington, Minn., has 239 (Extraordinary) Herberttol (Bantam Books)

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the most important 50 of them would bring under fire 40 per cent of the
population, 50 per cent of the key facilities and 60 per cent of the industry
of the United States. 1) Nuclear technology, moreover, has advanced to a point where
weapons can be produced of any desired explosive power, the atomic bombs of
the Hiroshima type now range from the equivalent of below 1 kiloton TNT equiva-
lent to close to 1 million ton (megaton) TNT equivalent (or 50 times the
explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb). Thermo-nuclear weapons have no inherent
upper limit. The U.S.S.R. will therefore have the capability to strike each
standard metropolitan area in such a pattern that one or at most two nuclear
weapons would bring about its destruction. Since a 10 megaton weapon is by no
means the most powerful weapon available a description of the damage caused by
it will fall, if anywhere, on the side of conservatism. The effects of such
a weapon can be classed under three headings: blast and heat; radiation and
fall-out; genetic effects.

The destruction due to heat and blast of a 10 megaton weapon would extend
over three circles of decreasing damage: within a radius of three miles there
would occur total destruction of all buildings and a mortality rate of 75% with
1. Symington Hearings, p. 239, p. 307. (Testimony of General Pastidge)

106

all the survivors severely injured. Within a radius of 7 miles, all buildings would be heavily damaged and the most conservative estimates indicate a 30 per cent mortality rate in this area with at least 40 per cent of the remainder injured with varying degrees of severity. Heavy damage is defined by the Federal Civil Defense Authority as structural damage that would result in the collapse of the buildings. Beyond this there would extend a circle of light damage with a radius of 10 miles. At the edge of this circle the heat and radiation would be sufficiently severe to kill or injure several individuals outside of shelters and to set fire to buildings. Since the suburbs of most American cities are of wood construction, a devastated city may therefore find itself encircled by a wall of flames.

2)

The proportions of the disaster for a city thus become fairly clear.

A 10 megaton bomb exploded over New York City, at 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, would include in its three mile radius of total destruction all of Manhattan island south of 96th Street, parts of Jersey City, all of the cities on the West bank of the Hudson up to Hudson Heights, and in Queens, Long Island City, Hunter's Point and Williamsburg. The daytime working and residential population

2. It must be repeated that a 10 megaton weapon represents by no means the upper limit of possible weapons. The device set off at Eniwetok in 1954 was 20 megatons and its radius of destruction would be 4, 10 and 14 miles, respectively.

107

in this area is at least 4 million. A mortality rate of 75 per cent would
produce three million deaths and the remainder would be severely injured
that they could survive only if hospitalized immediately. The 7 mile radius
of heavy damage would include Manhattan Island to just north of the George
Washington Bridge, a third of the Bronx, half of Queens and Brooklyn and
all of Jersey City. A conservative casualties estimate would be 900,000 dead
and at least 600,000 injured. To be sure, New York is more vulnerable than
most cities (because of its great density of population). On the other hand,
it contains large unpopulated areas such as Central Park, the rivers and Upper
Bay, and the Jersey Meadows, which would be built-up areas in other cities. In any
case, the attacker can always step up the power of his weapon to cover the
desired area. The following table illustrates the vulnerability of major
U. S. cities.

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Thus a successful attack on the 50 most important urban centers listed by the Air Defense Command, containing 50 per cent of the U.S. population would by the most conservative estimates produce 15 to 20 million dead and 20 to 25 million injured. Such a casualty rate produces almost insuperable tech-

MEDICAL
nical problems.

Under normal conditions, a hospital requires five persons to care for one patient. It has been estimated that in Nagasaki under the most primitive medical conditions, each survivor required two persons to care for him. The whole surviving population of an affected area would therefore either be injured or engaged in caring for the injured or both. Even then, medical assistance to the injured will be inadequate. For most hospitals and doctors are themselves within the target area and will suffer the same proportion of damage and casualties as the rest of the population. In any case, there are in this country only 100,000 medical doctors or 160,000 medically trained personnel if one adds veterinarians and trained nurses--a number which is marginal even under peacetime conditions. Since eight nurses working under favorable conditions can administer only 10,000 infusions a month it is apparent that infusions for casualties measured in the millions would be out of the question. The medical picture is further complicated by the almost certain disappearance of

110

hygienic conditions of life, leaving survivors of the attack open to a whole
range of epidemic diseases which might be caused by the destruction of water
purification machinery, exhaustion of chlorine supplies, breakdown of sanitary
disposal systems and putrification of normally refrigerated food.

A thermo-nuclear attack on an urban center, therefore,ükxXX differs
fundamentally from World War II types of bombing. In World War II the attacks
were cumulative; one 10 megaton weapon represents five times the explosive
during four years of war,
power of all the bombs dropped on Germany and one hundred times those on Japan.
In World War II, the population could get used to the gradually increasing
tempo of bombardment; a thermo-nuclear weapon would produce all the casualties
at once.

All the raids on Germany combined killed 300 to 330 thousand people; a
single 10 megaton weapon exploded over any of the larger U.S. cities will kill
several times that number. A World War II type attack left no residual damage-
except for mines which could be identified fairly easily. A thermo-nuclear
attack will contaminate the blast area with severe radiation and thus add to
the psychological burden of survivors. A disaster of such magnitude might
prevent a trained person from responding with efficiency and organization.

111

Survivors of the raid on Nagasaki have reported the sense of shock which seized them after the attack; it was seven days before organized rescue operations began. And a 20 megaton thermo-nuclear bomb represents the same order of increase in explosive power of the atomic bomb exploded at Nagasaki as the Nagasaki bomb did over the largest blockbuster of World War II, i.e., a thousand-fold increase.

Moreover in World War II even the largest raid affected only a limited area within a city; it never paralyzed the entire urban area. The parts of the city which were not under attack could come to the assistance of the stricken portion and mitigate the worst effects of a raid often while it was in progress.

Even within the section under attack, essential services, such as hospitals could frequently be maintained. World War II, therefore, still represented the marginal case where the highly elaborated organism which is a city could profit from its specialized functions. But confronted with a thermo-nuclear attack, the modern city may carry within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

The specialization of functions presupposes a high order of managerial skill and the TECHNICAL ability to utilize the interlocking components of an organization. Since most telephone exchanges, hospitals, institutions of municipal

112

government and their administrators are within the xxty target area, however,
it may be days before any coordinated activity is technically possible. In
the meantime, the food and watersupplies will have been contaminated with
radioactive material and rescue operations for some time will be inhibited by
the fact that the zones of heaviest damage are also most heavily radioactive.

What happens to a society in such circumstances is almost unpredictable.
The specialization of functions which is the condition of high productivity may
create paralysis of high productivity when the machinery for coordinated effort
collapses. The elaboration of services which define a highly articulated city
may become a burden when the energy on which they depend suddenly is no longer
available. A city without electricity, without water supply, without communications
is a contradiction in terms; a jungle in which nature does not offer even the
barest means of survival. A country as dependent as our is on the internal
combustion engine can be paralyzed by the destruction of its oil refineries and
distribution centers, most of which are located in or near big cities. Even
our agriculture is unthinkable without tractors.

The effect of such a catastrophe cannot be measured only in the loss of
material wealth or even in the collapse of the subtle relationships which make

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up a city. The psychological impact on the country of the sudden disappearance of even 25 population centers is incalculable. Since these centers will contain most of the technically skilled and professional cadres, the engineers, the doctors, the lawyers, etc, a society can lose most of its store of capital and skills in one blow. And the psychological impact of the loss will be compounded by the fact that the radiation which produces many of the casualties cannot be seen or felt even while it is most pervasive and that the symptoms of radiation sickness may not appear for periods ranging from 1 to 3 weeks. A thermo-nuclear attack may thus turn into a symbol of the tensity of all human striving: it may shake to the core confidence in the economy, the government and the national purpose.

## II

Even should the national morale withstand the disappearance of its centers of control and of the symbols of its power, it will be put to another test. For the cities which are attacked cannot count on drawing support from the surrounding countryside, as the Federal Civil Defense Authority plan assumes. While the city is subjected to heat and blast, the surrounding countryside, for distances £x varying from 100 to 400 miles of an eliptical cone will be subjected to a

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3)

collateral effect of the explosion weapons: the radioactive fall-out.

When the first megaton weapon was exploded over Eniwetok, the degree of fall-out was unanticipated, although the phenomenon was well understood. 4)

In retrospect, it appeared inevitable. In a sense this is the dilemma of the nuclear period: each technological breakthrough liberates forces so much beyond all previous experience, that most of the experts are at a loss to interpret the consequences. Indeed, the scale of experience where their expertise was formed, may inhibit their understanding of the significance or the implications of new developments. This is the case in the military field where the addition of thermo-nuclear weapons to traditional doctrine often creates a distortion; it was so with the first explosion of the so-called hydrogen bomb in the Pacific.

The fall-out of thermo-nuclear weapons results from two factors: the power of the explosion and the nature of the weapon. The power of nuclear explosions is caused by two processes: fission which in lay terms represents the force liberated by the break-up of atoms and nuclear fusion which is the process of combining atoms.

3. For excellent technical discussions of the fall-out problem, see: Ralph E. Lapp. "Radioactive Fall-out," *Bulletin of Atomic Scientists*, Feb, 1955, p. 454; J. Rothrat. "The Hydrogen-Uranium Bomb," *ibid.*, May 1955, p. 171; Willard F. Libby. "Radioactive Fall-Out," *Ibid.*, September 1955, p. 256ff.

4. See AEC Handbook. *The Effects of Atomic Weapons*, p. 35.

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→ Fission produces highly radioactive materials; fusion yields little radioactivity. Radioactivity is the property of unstable atoms. Unlike the atoms of familiar substances such as gold or oxygen, the atoms of radioactive substances disintegrate, i.e., they change their composition. In the process they emit high energy rays capable of penetrating the human tissue and of producing a chemical, biological and genetic changes in the cells they traverse.

Radioactivity is measured in half-lives: the amount of time it takes for a given quantity of radioactive material to decay to half its initial value. Were the thermo-nuclear weapon a "real" hydrogen bomb, there would be little or no radioactivity because the fusion of hydrogen atoms produces either stable substances or radioactive particles of very short half-lives measured in seconds or minutes. But a thermo-nuclear device operates in three stages: fission which is then used to produce fusion which in turn is used to produce a much more powerful fission reaction. In colloquial terms, an atom bomb is used to trigger a hydrogen reaction, which in turn is used to trigger a super-atom bomb reaction.

Thus the thermo-nuclear bomb produces fissionable materials in the same proportion as its explosive power. The bomb exploded over Hiroshima, equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT, yielded about two pounds of radio-active material. A 10 megaton weapon will produce about 1,000 lbs. of radioactive products and a 20 megaton bomb 2,000 lbs.

116

The difference in explosive power of the two weapons accounts for the different radiological effects. The fire-ball of a 20 kiloton weapon has a diameter of 1½ miles. The fire-ball of a 10 megaton thermo-nuclear weapon has a diameter of 6 miles. Unless exploded at very high altitudes (above 16 thousand feet), it will therefore come in contact with the ground below. As it does so, the blast of the explosion dislodges millions of tons of the surface. The rising fireball sucks up this debris and coats it with the radioactive material created by the fission process. The debris is then swept up into the stratosphere and deposited downwind. As a result, there takes place over a period of hours a continual "fall-out" of radioactive material over an elliptically shaped area. The nature and distribution of the fall-out depends on meteorological conditions and the constitution of the surface above which the bomb exploded: the material will fall out according to the weight of the debris, the heavier materials falling out first, the lighter drifting further downwind, the very light material remaining in the stratosphere for some time thereby affecting the background radiation of the globe. If the target is a city where brick is a common building material, fall-out is aggravated because the silicon in the brick and the lime in the mortar will themselves become radioactive.

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exposure to radiation. Its estimates are conservative and disregard genetic effects entirely. The measurements are in Roentgen which is an absolute standard for radiation.

TABLE II
8)
Damage from Roentgen Dosage

Direct Effects of Whole Body Dose on Individual

<table><thead><tr><th>Roentgen (r) *</th><th></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>0-25</td><td>No obvious injury</td></tr><tr><td>25-50</td><td>Possible blood damages but no serious injury</td></tr><tr><td>50-100</td><td>Blood cell damages, some injury, no disability</td></tr><tr><td>100-200</td><td>Injury, possible disability</td></tr><tr><td>200-400</td><td>Injury and disability certain, death possible</td></tr><tr><td>400</td><td>Fatal to 50%</td></tr><tr><td>600</td><td>Fatal</td></tr></tbody></table>

What then will be the likely exposure to fall-out? Exposure varies of course with the degree of radioactivity and this in turn depends on the area covered by fall-out. On the basis of the figures given by Libby, the 7,000 square miles contaminated by the U.S. test of March 1, 1954, would have received an average exposure during the first 24 hours of 938 r's. Such an exposure is twice a lethal dose and even granting a falling off of radioactivity at the outer edges of the ellipse, it will still be powerful enough to produce disability. To be sure, after the first twenty-four hours, radioactivity drops rapidly: roughly tenfold for every sevenfold increase in age. Thus at the

8. Chart 11.28, Atomic Energy Commission Handbook, Effects of Atomic Weapons, p.

9. Libby assumes an average dose of 67 r's over 100 thousand square miles. This is a conservative figure. After the March 1, 1954 explosion the dosage 100 miles away was 2300 r's during the first 36 hours. See Bulletin of Atomic Scientists May 1955, p. 182 (Testimony of Dr. Bingen at Kefauver Hearings).

119

end of a week, the radioactivity assumed above would have dwindled to 93.8 r's.

This is still a dangerous dosage, however, and exposure to it over any length of time would have serious consequences. Moreover, the radioactivity is persistent: the residual dosage for the period from one week to one year would equal the dosage received during the first week or about 1500 r's.

The casualty rate will depend to a considerable extent on the awareness by the civilian population of the danger facing it. If the nature of fall-out is not understood, or if there are no preparations to deal with it, the casualty rate from the fall-out pattern will approach that produced by the heat and blast of the explosion. If precautionary measures are taken, the casualty rate will be reduced but it will still involve a significant percentage of the population of the affected area. Precautionary measures include shelter of any kind particularly underground shelters with very small openings. Basements will reduce exposure to heat and will be more effective still. As soon as radiation has dropped to a relatively safe level, say below 100 r's decontamination can be started by sweeping radioactive ash from rooftops and streets, flushing them with water or even raking the earth. If these decontamination measures are not taken, the area may become uninhabitable for several months.

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The danger from fall-out has been rather cavalierly treated. General le May at the Symington Hearings testified that a person covered by three 10) feet of dirt would be relatively safe. But the point is surely whether millions of inhabitants of a 7,000 square mile area (not to speak of a 100 thousand square mile area under a different set of meteorological conditions) can remain underground for the first 48 hours of intense radioactivity and function with proper precautions afterwards. Since the fall-out pattern is so dependent on meteorological conditions, it is relatively unpredictable in any given attack. It can be assumed for this reason that fall-out will catch a substantial proportion of the population of the affected area above ground. Given the fact that communications will probably have been destroyed by the detonation, concerted action will be extremely difficult; indeed even informing the population of radiation levels or organizing effective measures for the simplest public health function will not be an easy matter. Moreover, the fall-out will contaminate crops and water supply; and since animals will not take shelter, livestock will either be killed

10. Symington Hearings, p.

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or contaminated by eating radioactive matter. Thus even in the best cir-
cumstances, fall-out after an attack in the 50 most important metropolitan
areas in the United States is likely to produce about 30% of the casualties
produced by the explosion or 5-10 million dead and 7-15 million injured. More
importantly, very few undamaged areas would remain to give assistance to the
stricken parts of the country. Indeed, an enemy could plan to detonate his
weapons as to blanket the greatest possible area. Thus all energies of every
affected area would have to be directed toward the sheer problem of survival,
preventing epidemics, caring for the injured and avoiding in so far as possi-
ble exposure to radiation.

This will strain the recuperative powers of the country to the utmost.

Contrary to the Federal Civil Defense Authority assumption, the cities will
not be able to count on assistance from the surrounding countryside and the
effort of the surrounding area to deal with its fall-out problem will be in-
hibited by the fact that communications are likely to have been destroyed in
the explosion. Evacuation of cities even when feasible may not reduce casual-
ties for it may simply move the evacuees into a fall-out area. The fall-out
area would not be able to support a large influx of refugees in the face of the
DESTRUCTION
obstruction of all food supplies. When the question of survival is posed in

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such elementary form, organized activity will tend to be reduced to the local
level and directed to meeting immediate needs.

More refinements could be added, but at this level of catastrophe even
minimum estimates suffice to make the basic point that a society which suffers
a disaster of this magnitude would of necessity have to undergo a fundamental
transformation. If it is to survive as an organized society, it will have to
adopt the most extreme form of direction; it is equally possible that it will
break up into local units, concerned primarily with the barest problems of sur-
vival.

Europe has never recovered either from the bloodletting or from the shock
of World War I. For World War I did more than destroy an elite, it undermined
a faith. On the battlefields of France disappeared the hopes of the Golden
Age, of the inevitable Progress, of the triumphant reasonableness that were as
cardinal principles of 19th century Europe as they are of current America. Ever
since the shock of World War I, strong government in Europe has been difficult
because confidence in leadership was lacking and because the leaders themselves
had lost faith in themselves. The same reactions can be expected in a society
which has undergone a sustained thermo-nuclear attack. For a society operates

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through confidence in an ordered appearance of events either natural or social.

A catastrophe is an interruption in what has come to be considered order and
the panic it often produces is the reaction of an organism which lacks a
framework to react to an unexpected situation and which wishes to flee as
rapidly as possible into a familiar and therefore predictable environment.

If a familiar environment remains, some confidence can be restored. Most
natural catastrophes can be dealt with because they affect only a very small
geographic area or a very small proportion of the population. Thus the re-
mainder of the society can utilize its machinery for assistance; indeed such
action tends to increase its cohesiveness because it becomes a symbol of the
cohesiveness and efficiency of society. The essence of the catastrophe pro-
duced by an all-out thermo-nuclear attack, however, is the depth of the dis-
location it produces, and the consequent impossibility of escaping into familiar
relationships. When all relationships or even most relationships have to be
reconstituted, the society we know today will have been fundamentally trans-
formed.

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III

An all-out thermo-nuclear exchange as described in this chapter would, therefore, have drastic consequences for the social structure and the material well-being of the warring nations. In addition, it would produce genetic effects which might affect all humanity. 11)

The same gamma rays which in larger doses produce radiation sickness are at all levels of exposure capable of producing genetic effects. Any radiation which reaches the reproductive organs will cause changes in the cells governing heredity, called genes. A gene which becomes permanently altered is said to mutate. Since all the genes with which a person starts out are in general kept unchanged as the cells divide and the person's body is elaborated, changes in cell structure will affect not only the individual concerned, but his progeny as well.

Geneticists believe that mutations which are large enough to be measured are generally harmful. In the genetic sense, relatively minor mutations, moreover, may have as severe consequences as more drastic ones. A serious dosage of radiation may produce sterility and thus work itself out in one generation; a less critical exposure might cause the offspring to be obviously handicapped and

11. The best study of the genetic effects is the Report of the Genetics Committee of the National Academy of Sciences. See also *Bulletin of Atomic Scientists*, November 1955. Muller, "How Radiation Changes the Genetic Constitution, M. Westergaard, "Responsibility for his Genetic Heritage."

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not likely to reproduce; it would, therefore, work itself out in two generations;
other dosages might produce handicaps which are transmitted for many generations
and which become part of the biological inheritance of the <u>race</u>. Thus a
mutation need not necessarily or even usually produce freaks. The commonest
mutations, in fact, are only slightly detrimental in any one generation. As
a result, the genetic damage by radiation exposure depends on a factor produced
by multiplying the dosage rate and the number of exposed individuals. Ten
thousand individuals exposed to a dosage of 200 r might produce perhaps one
hundred substantially handicapped children. On the other hand, if the whole
population of the United States were to receive an exposure of 1 r there would
occur mutations resulting in handicaps to several thousand children although
the handicap might not be apparent in any one generation.

Of course, there are so-called spontaneous mutations not induced by
radiation, but by heat, chemical action and similar factors.

127

fall-out composed of material that remains in the air over a period of
months or even years. It is composed of very tiny radioactive particles which
are swept up into the stratosphere and dispersed by the prevailing winds.
They become, in effect, part of the background radiation. If weapons tests
were continued at the rate of the two most active years, 1953-55, they would
produce an average thirty year dose of about 0.2 roentgens in the Northern
12)
Hemisphere. While any increase in radiation should be avoided, the indi-
cated dosage from weapons tests is not of itself likely to produce statistically
significant mutations.

It would be different, however, with an all-out thermo-nuclear war.

If even present weapons tests could raise the background radiation, it is clear
that there must be a theoretical point where thermo-nuclear war could produce
a level of background radiation which would have serious genetic effects even
in the short term; indeed it is theoretically possible, although less likely,
so to contaminate the atmosphere as to wipe out life in the Northern Hemisphere.

The background radiation that is of immediate concern to geneticists is the
"doubling dosage:" the radiation which would cause the present rate of genetic

12. The Genetics Committee of the National Academy of Science estimates that this figure may be off by a factor of five. That is, it may vary from .04 r's to 1 r.

128

defects which is 2% to be doubled. Of the 100 million children which are ex-
pected to be born to the presently alive population of the United States, 4 mil-
lion would then have inherited genetic defects of which 200 thousand would ap-
pear in tangible form in the first generation. Geneticists have not agreed on
the amount of radiation required to produce a doubling dosage, estimates vary-
ing from 5 r's to 150 r's. The report of the National Academy of Science placed
the dosage at between 30-80 r's over a 30 year period. Even a 10 r exposure
would involve 500 thousand additional genetic defects to the children to be born
to the presently alive population of the United States and 50 thousand of these
would appear in the first generation in tangible form. These levels of back-
ground radiation can be produced by a relatively small number of high yield thermo-
nuclear weapons as is shown by the following table:

TABLE III

<table>
  <caption>Degree of Background Radiation<br>Produced by Different Types of Nuclear Weapons</caption>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>R</th>
      <th>50 MT</th>
      <th>20 MT</th>
      <th>10 MT</th>
      <th>1 MT</th>
      <th>50 KT</th>
      <th>20 KT</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>0.2</td>
      <td>2</td>
      <td>5</td>
      <td>10</td>
      <td>100</td>
      <td>2,000</td>
      <td>5,000</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>3</td>
      <td>30</td>
      <td>75</td>
      <td>150</td>
      <td>1,500</td>
      <td>30,000</td>
      <td>75,000</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>10</td>
      <td>100</td>
      <td>250</td>
      <td>500</td>
      <td>5,000</td>
      <td>100,000</td>
      <td>250,000</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>30</td>
      <td>300</td>
      <td>750</td>
      <td>1,500</td>
      <td>15,000</td>
      <td>300,000</td>
      <td>750,000</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>80</td>
      <td>800</td>
      <td>2,000</td>
      <td>4,000</td>
      <td>40,000</td>
      <td>800,000</td>
      <td>2,000,000</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>400</td>
      <td>4,000</td>
      <td>10,000</td>
      <td>20,000</td>
      <td>200,000</td>
      <td>4,000,000</td>
      <td>10,000,000</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

129

Thus 750 20-megaton bombs exploded in the Northern Hemisphere over a
30 year period would produce in all likelihood a doubling dosage. Even 250
such weapons -- a figure well within the combined capabilities of the United
States and the U.S.S.R.--would increase the background radiation by 10 r's.
This does not take into account the radiation produced either by close-in
fall-out or by that in the intermediary zone. Most individuals in these two
zones would suffer severe genetic damage in addition to other radiological
damage. In the 7,000 mile fall-out pattern described in the Atomic Energy
Commission release of February 12, 1955, the accumulated dosage at the end
of one week would have been close to 2,000 r's. With the best precautions,
shelter program and decontamination, it is unlikely that the exposure would
be reduced to much below 100. This would avoid the worst symptoms of radia-
tion illness; it would however almost certainly constitute a doubling dosage
genetically. Even the 100 thousand square mile fall-out pattern described by
Libby would have an accumulated dosage by the end of one week of close to
200 r's. Since decontamination of so vast an area is next to impossible, it
would even with a good shelter program be difficult to avoid a dosage which
has serious genetic consequences.

13

130

## IV.

Enough has been described to make clear that an all-out war with thermo-nuclear weapons will have consequences for transcending anything experienced previously. The blast and heat effects of thermo-nuclear explosions can paralyze the intimate interrelationships of modern urban life; the immediate fall-out can reduce large areas to subsistence levels; and the genetic effects could threaten the whole human race.

In such a situation, it is futile to speak of "purely" military considerations because the collateral effects of thermo-nuclear weapons far transcend the primary mission for which they are designed. From a purely military point of view nothing is more efficacious for cratering airfields, destroying port facilities or eliminating transportation centers than a megaton weapon. But we have seen in the previous chapter that the crucial problem of strategy is the relationship between power and the willingness to use it, between the physical and the psychological components of national security policy. Faced with the knowledge of the consequences of a counterstroke, policy makers will be reluctant to engage in a strategy the penalty for which may well be social disintegration.

131

The new technology thus increases our dangers at the precise moment when our commitments have never been greater. For the first time in our history we are vulnerable to a direct hostile attack: no remaining margin of industrial and technological superiority can remove the consciousness of our increasing vulnerability from the minds of policy-makers who have to make the decision or of peace and war. Nor can we count, henceforth on other powers to hold a line while we mobilize. The weakening of the European powers has forced us to assume the burden of maintaining the balance of power. For a two power world has little margin of safety; any relative strengthening of one side is tantamount to an absolute weakening of the other.

But perhaps our dangers offer us at the same time a way out of our dilemmas. As long as the consequences of all-out thermo-nuclear war appear as stark to the other side as to us, they may avert disaster not through a reconciliation of interests but through mutual terror. Perhaps our identification of deterrence with retaliatory power, however, faulty its historical analogies, provides the basis, after all, for achieving a durable peace? What about nuclear stalemate?