Vol. XXXIX, No. 5
A color photograph of “the awesome fireball” from a test of a hydrogen bomb (what Edward Teller called “the Super”) appeared on the cover of the Apr 19, 1954, issue of Life magazine (20 cents). It resembles photos of the sun.
The first page of the article quotes President Dwight D. Eisenhower, concerning fears raised by the threatening aspects of the world, including the H-bomb. “The greater these apprehensions, the greater is the need that we look at them clearly, face to face, without fear, like honest, straightforward Americans….”
The editorial is titled “The Christian Hope” with subtitle “It will not save civilization except by saving the soul of the individual.” It stated that there was little evidence of desperation. The suicide rate showed no meaningful trend. “The general fear of annihilation by H bomb is not desperate; it takes the form of barking for action, as you would expect of any healthy animals whose instinct of self-preservation is unimpaired.”
It noted that “the doctrine of automatic progress, which so warped the 19th Century’s picture of itself, has all but vanished.” It quoted St. Paul’s admonition that “For when they shall say Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh.”
There was no “bombing run” or predicted casualty counts, just photographs from the tests. The rest of the magazine was a display of 1950s normality and predominantly Christian culture. There were three pages of artwork on the Easter message.
Useful innovations pictured in some of the ads, that seem unfortunately to have been lost, include a flip-over attachment for rugs or floors and a de-mothing bag for a G.E. vacuum cleaner ($89.95); a fully automatic, frost-free Philco refrigerator with a two-way door that opens from either side ($199.95); and a Duo-Therm direct-fire gas incinerator for all burnable home trash, wet or dry (use ashes to fertilize the lawn).
Americans loved household conveniences—for the ladies, and cars. There were many ads for American-made cars, and for high-octane gasoline, tires, motor oil, and spark plugs. Nothing about carbon footprints.
Massive cultural change has occurred since 1954—in family values, religion, patriotism, and sense of well-being, to be replaced by guilt and fear.
The AMA would surely like to memory-hole some ads: one on the back cover features the quality and safety of Chesterfield cigarettes, and an internal ad concerns filters on Kent cigarettes, proved best by AMA testing.
THE DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF THE SUPER BOMB
The secrets of the fission-fusion H bomb soon fell into the hands of the Soviet Union, and an arms race involving increasing megatonnage of destructive power was underway. The largest nuclear weapon ever built, the Tsar Bomba, with a 50 megaton yield (50,000 kilotons compared with the 15 kT bomb that destroyed Hiroshima), was detonated by the Soviets in 1961. A videotape was released in 2020 (NY Times 8/25/20, http://tinyurl.com/2hvchn63). The U.S. military was working on a bomb with a yield of 1,000 MT and one of 10,000 MT, but President Kennedy decided against going that route, despite the shock waves the Tsar Bomba sent through the American defense establishment (http://tinyurl.com/yuavudw8). In fact, bigger bombs are not the most efficient way to increase destructive capacity. They just “make the rubble bounce.” Much more damage could be done with smaller yield multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) on a single missile.
The destructive power of a single warhead scales approximately as the cube root of its yield, due to blast “wasted” over a roughly hemispherical blast volume, while the target covers a circular land area with limited height and depth.
The Nuclear Weapons Education Project offers a web-based calculator for determining blast, thermal, and radiation effects from ground-burst and air-burst weapons. For example, an air-burst 15 kT weapon will produce 3 psi of overpressure, enough to collapse residential structures and cause serious injuries, out to 1.9 km, compared to 7.7 km for a 1 MT (1,000 kT) weapon and 35.5 km for a 100 MT weapon (http://tinyurl.com/45ea4pa6).
This is not to minimize the complete destruction at Ground Zero; however, detonation of every existing nuclear weapon in a non-overlapping pattern could not “turn the U.S. into a parking lot.” Only a small part of the land area would be directly affected.
THE U.S. GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
The U.S. government never had a really serious civil defense program, but for 60 years has had a secret Continuity of Government (COG) program. While some material is still classified, Garrett Graff plowed through thousands of documents for his 2017 book Raven Rock: the Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself While the Rest of Us Die. There are dozens of deep, costly bunkers, some on springs to absorb the impact of an atomic explosion, with supplies to allow thousands of highly selected officials to survive for months. The most important survivor appears to be someone with the authority to launch a retaliatory strike.
The book begins with the premise that an all-out war would “almost surely destroy all human life on the planet.” But the government still had plans—what priceless artifacts would be saved, where surviving congressmen could meet to pass laws, who will have the authority to plan any surviving economic activities. The nation will have elected officials and bureaucrats in the bunkers. Maybe some farmers, engineers, and tradesmen will somehow still survive outside to follow government orders.
On 9/11, there was mass confusion. Apparently, no one knew what was actually happening. Cheyenne Mountain struggled to get news of any kind. Officials were completely unfamiliar with COG procedures, or where they were supposed to go. President Bush was eventually gotten to Air Force One, which rocketed into the sky at an impossibly steep angle—the first and only time the classified system permitting that had been activated, and zigzagged around in a Cold War evasion pattern. The men who were #2 and #3 in the presidential succession couldn’t get the secure phones to work. A FEMA official in NYC couldn’t find a working radio or satellite phone to carry, and was initially kept out of headquarters. The book details a huge number of additional snafus.
Graff concludes that: “After many decades, many billions of dollars, and countless advances in technology, the federal government’s basic plan to escape a catastrophe in Washington remains the same today as it was during…during the Eisenhower administration: run away and hide in the Appalachian Mountains”—if you can.
The government can’t even save itself. Saving ourselves and America is up to us.
DDP, 1601 N. Tucson Blvd. Suite 9, Tucson, AZ 85716, 520.325.2689, www.ddponline.org. Follow us on Twitter @d4dp.