Please also click here (text in blue typeface is hyperlinked to source documents) for more detailed key declassified nuclear testing and capability documents compilation (EM-1 related USA research reports plus UK nuclear weapon test reports on blast and radiation), from nukegate.org. A long introduction is provided above blog posts to debunk all of the populist pro-disarmament groupthink "strategic deterrence" mythology, originating from fake civilian effects data invented by falsely applying free-field effects to modern urban targets (and also from the non-inclusion of tactical nuclear weapons effects data or even the collateral damage avoidance civil defense chapter which appeared in 1957-64 editions, in the 1977 propaganda Carter era Glasstone and Dolan's Effects of nuclear weapons, due to the present world crisis). The key problem is that Russia now has relatively clean tactical neutron bombs, but we disarmed all of ours in 1992, creating a major deterrence gap against tactical nuclear warfare or similar major provocations; yes, in "theory" we could always escalate to strategic retaliation, but most people and Western leaders would certainly regard such escalation as more risky than tit-for-tat deterrence. As Kennedy put it, we need more options than humiliation or all-out counter city nuclear war. As with Russian use of Po-210 and Novichok in the UK in 2006-18, and sarin in Syria, "no first use" doctrines make no sense where the enemy refuses to admit to first use, or even to admit to illegally invading Ukraine and starting a war! Against liars, peace agreements are never worth the paper they are written on (we saw this in 1938 appeasement ego trips). Peace propaganda, where it attacks life-saving civil defense for credible war deterrence (in order to claim falsely "there is no alternative to disarmament but annihilation") is enemy supporting propaganda, and now desperately needs debunking. The sort of people indulging in this sort of lying to ensure deterrence is undermined are thugs who will not be reasoned with, but they have the ear of the Nobel Prize committee, the UN Security Council, and the mass media such as the BBC which refuses to objectively fact-check their lies on nuclear weapons, and backs their fake "news" based on outright lies. Relatively clean neutron bombs, of total yield 1 kiloton or less, can be used to avert collateral damage, either by air bursting at a height to eliminate significant blast and thermal damage, or they can be placed into earth-penetrator warheads to debunk tunnels and hard shelters: for example, 0.01 kiloton detonated at 15 metres in dry soil, which is possible by proven earth penetrator warhead delivery, is equivalent to a 15/(0.01.3) = 60 m depth when scaled up to 1 kiloton reference yield, so it AVOIDS ALL COLLATERAL DAMAGE, including thermal flash burns and fire effects entirely, all air blast damage, and trap the very small amount of radioactivity in fused silicate "glass" (like Trinitite) deep underground. This suppressed collateral damage energy is transformed into extra ground shock and cratering action, producing a crater radius of 15 metres and destruction of buried hard tunnels and bunkers to several crater radii, as explained in field manual FM 5-106. Such credible deterrents (tactical nuclear weapons) were proof tested in the first Cold War where they were USED (yes USED) to DETER enemy invasions. This is the most important USE of nuclear weapons, but is ignored in all propaganda! They are now being used by Russia to deter our decisive intervention in the Russian-Ukraine war, because we don't have W33, Mk54, W48, or W79 dedicated tactical deterrents of invasions any longer. We argue that the future of peaceful nuclear deterrence is not to ban tactical nuclear weapons of invasions that set off 100% of the world wars of history (Belgium 1914, Poland 1939), but to have these credible deterrents replace incredible "city busting" MAD policy, which failed in the 1930s despite media saturation of exaggerated effects of gas bomb knock-out blows, etc.

ABOVE: Lt.-Gen. James M. Gavin, who states in his book War and Peace in the Space Age, Hutchinson, London, 1959, pp. 102, 116-118:

"The Luftwaffe was the first to learn that there is more to air power than an all-out bombing offensive. The British had foreseen the value of the interceptor, and so the world's greatest manned aircraft battle, the Battle of Britain, was decided in their favor. ... As the war came to an end, the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey was appointed to move in the wake of the advancing armies and assess the results of our bombing effort. The findings were reported in our 200 detailed reports. They were never, in my opinion, given the recognition that they deserved. One of the most interesting aspects of our bombing effort was that German production increased in the same ratio as our bombing effort until late in 1944 - until 'well after the ground armies were ashore to make good the job at which the aeroplanes had been unsuccessful'. ... I became increasingly interested in these problems. It was with great pleasure, therefore, that I received orders to the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group [WSEG] in March of 1949. The Director of WSEG, Dr Philip Morse, assigned me the project of studying the possible tactical employment of nuclear weapons. I devoted the entire summer of 1949 to reading everything on the subject ... and talking to our scientists. ... I had become convinced that nuclear weapons had a tremendous field for tactical application, in fact, in the long run, probably the most promising field of all. One of the recommendations in the study was that we should reconsider our then current policy of allocating all fissionable material to strategic use. This recommendation was very unpopular with my air force colleagues and, for the study to be accepted, had to be striken from it. It made little difference, since the study was stamped 'Top Secret' ... Dr Oppenheimer was present at one of the conferences and he expressed a view in which I found myself in complete agreement. That is, that more important than trying to devise new ways and means of destroying a bigger portion of the human race, we should try to find ways and means of living with the powers we had already created. ...

"If the urban bombing concept were to remain policy, and thermonuclear weapons were to be added to it, and if that concept were morally and militarily unsound in the beginning, it certainly would be more so with the H-bomb added. I believed that it was unsound and that Dr Oppenheimer's views were valid. ... an increasing number of people were talking about the possible tactical uses of nuclear weapons. An advance group in the JCS headed by Brigadier General Don Zimmerman, USAF, had done particularly good work in this area. ... I recall a figure used by General Zimmerman that when we exceeded 25 B-29 bombers delivering high-explosives instead of using one carrying an atomic bomb, we were making an uneconomical use of our resources. Thus, we approached the Korean crisis ... with our newest form of firepower, nuclear fire power, packaged for strategic use. ... General Nichols and I went to the office of General Ridgway and urged that he recommend to the Chief of Staff that he in turn recommend to the President that we use nuclear weapons against the North Korean forces. It would have been militarily inexcusable to allow the 8th Army to be destroyed without even using the most powerful weapons in our arsenal. Yet, we almost did so! We had already made two combat bombing strikes of about 175 B-29s without decisive results. The situation in the summer of 1950 offered us a number of well worth-while tactical nuclear targets, if we had had the moral courage to make the decision to use them."

Due to the failure to use tactical nuclear weapons to deter escalation in the Korean War, 2,500,000 people were killed (including 36,000 Americans and 1,100 British) by conventional fighting and the key cities in Korea were flattened by 635,000 tons of conventional bombs (635 kilotons, including 32,557 tons of napalm) and half the country has had to live in a totalitarian dictatorship ever since. It is analogous to the way Hitler bombed Guernica, killing a third of the population, on 26 April 1937 supposedly to support Franco in the Spanish civil war,  but in fact sending out a message of intimidation to Britain and France! Similarly, in Vietnam the Vietcong were supplied by the 1,000 miles Ho Chi Minh Trail which was no wider than 40 miles, and used cover of rainforests (passing through Laos and Cambodia, well away from centres of population to avoid civilian casualties!). A few 99.9% clean 10 megaton air bursts like the revolutionary Dominic-Houstonic Ripple II test of 30 October 1962 would have literally "blown their cover", and allowed the trail to be shut down to win the war, as proved by the 15 megaton Bravo test, where the Pisonia forest on Victor island at 11.8 miles got 2.4 psi peak overpressure, sustaining "Moderate damage" - that photo is in the 1957 Glasstone Effects of Nuclear Weapons, page 241 (shown below). But secret "Jason" anti-nuclear propaganda enforced by anti-nuclear bigot Steven Weinberg and comrades simply lied (see declassified Jason report S-266) that the Vietcong could cut a path through a blown down rainforest with chainsaws at night without any problems moving the debris, being heard, or seen! Also, he claimed the Vietcong could then use the chainsaw-cut route without being spotted or stopped by American helicopter gunships!  Weinberg reportedly refused to sign off that secret "Jason" report unless it recommended banning tactical nuclear weapons to end the Vietnam war peacefully, by making up ridiculous lies about the efficiency of chainsaws to somehow move thousands of tons of timber. Weinberg even claims on page 13: "The main weakness of tree blowdown as a method of interdiction is that a tree can only be blown down once." It only needs to be blown down once. You're creating a barrier 20 km wide at any point along a 1,000 mile trail, which you can then focus resources on to halt supplies getting through! You don't need to blow trees down more than once! If somehow they managed to cut a path through the 20 km of blown down debris to allow any significant movement of supplies, you've got the rest of the 1,000 mile long trail to repeat the trick on! The Vietcong would cheaply be defeated this way (contrary to the lying weasel words of the thugs supporting them in secret Jason reports). RESULT: over 7.6 megatons of conventional bombs were dropped in the Vietnam War by the USAF (including botched attempts to conventionally - or chemically with Agent Orange - shut down the Ho Chi Ming Trail in Laos and Cambodia), with the result that 3,300,000 were killed, but the war of attrition was lost due to the inflation of the American economy caused by the immense expense of conventional warfare ($139 billion was spent on that war by US DOD). (No wonder, with arrogant bigoted stupidity like this, that Weinberg's Standard Model contains elementary errors in electroweak symmetry as we have pointed out, and he also promoted quack superstring theory nonsense entirely disconnected with reality in his textbook, without understanding the key quantum gravity evidence. It may not a coincidence that a lot of aloof "quantum field theory" bigots are also smug lying self-serving world war enginnering "disarmers" who don't give a damn about reality.)

By focussing exclusively on civilian (not military!) targets, but using solely free-field desert or ocean "effects data" unsuited to cities, Glasstone's data is an exaggeration of casualties by a factor of well over 100, on Hiroshima evidence for people unshielded outdoors, compared to those in lower floors of concrete buildings or simple low-cost dual-use shelters! Glasstone and Dolan 1977 actually give this evidence but only in their usual in highly abstract form that is widely ignored in Table 12.17 on p546 - though you need to square their median lethality radii to get the relative casualty areas for the open and for concrete buildings in Hiroshima - and for simple cheap British WWII type large earth covered Anderson shelters and concrete arches in Table 5.160 (collapse at 45-60 psi overpressure for 20-25 ft span Anderson type shelters with 5ft earth cover at crown; 220-280 psi for collapse of buried 8" thick 16 ft span concrete arch with 4' earth cover at crown). They also show in Table 7.35 on p287 that white cotton (8 oz per square yard) requires 32, 48 and 85 cal/cm^2 thermal exposure to ignite in nuclear bursts of 35 kt, 1.4 megaton and 20 megatons, respectively, compared to their data for bare skin blistering at 4-7 cal/cm^2 in their Figure 12.65 on p565. In Figure 12.70 on p567 they show a survivor with only burns to bare skin in Hiroshima, with no burns under a cap and clothing, at 5.5-6 cal/cm^2 (which the 1979 US Office of Technology Assessment "Effects of Nuclear War" falsely claim is "lethal"). But by removing the crucial nuclear testing photographs and the civil defense chapter evidence from the 1957 edition, the 1977 edition became a gift to anti-civil defense, nuclear disarmament fanatics (scroll down to see the original reason for this in the US Strategic Bombing Command row with Oppenheimer regarding strategic bombing deterrence failure prior to WWII and during WWII, vs tactical deterrence of the invasions that actually set off world wars).

BELOW: the June 1957 edition of Glasstone's "Effects of Nuclear Weapons" debunked firestorms using examples from Operation Castle nuclear tests 110 kt Koon and 15 megaton Bravo: no firestorms occurred in natural pisonia forests at 1.76 miles from 110 kt surface burst and at 11.8 miles from 15 megatons surface burst, contrary to that book's claims about the ignition energies of fine forest kindling at such distances from such yields! The problem is, Glasstone totally failed to point this out in the 1957 edition where he gives the photos OUT OF CONTEXT, like everything else in the book (from secret weapon test report WT-921 and the secret film "Military Effects Studies on Operation Castle")! Glasstone then deleted these vital photos from all future editions of his book, along with the Nevada bomb test 100 psi peak overpressure proved shelter design in Figure 12.54 on page 522 of the 1957 edition, the photos of blast walls protecting transformers and machinery at Nagasaki (pages 514-5) and photos of shallow trenches protecting road graders and bullzozers at 30 psi peak overpressure at the Teapot-MET nuclear test (pages 516-7)! Further, the results for civil defence from the Upshot-Knothole Encore nuclear test on thermal ignition in dry Nevada desert conditions (pages 318-321, including photos) is deleted from the 1977 edition. The result is a total disconnection with reality, removing the key nuclear test data showing factual evidence for thermal ignition and how to avoid it! This turned "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons 1977" into a left-wing bogus effects propaganda book, omitting all military effects and all key nuclear test data! In particular, the 1977 removal of the final "Principles of protection" chapter took out the vitally important data in the earlier editions. The result is a confused and misleading book, completely ignoring all tactical nuclear weapons effects experience for credibly deterring the invasions that set off both world wars (for example, the third-party invasions of Belgium in 1914 and of Poland in 1939, which both triggered World Wars; invasions which could NOT be credibly deterred by a "strategic deterrent"!). The entire "arms control and disarmament" Russian front is paranoid in censoring all the truth from public debate.

Glasstone's 1957 Effects of Nuclear Weapons (like all subsequent editions) massively exaggerated the outdoor lethal fallout areas for megaton surface bursts: Glasstone (1957) claims that the 3000 R/hr at 1 hour elliptical area under 15 miles/hour wind extends 22 miles downwind, with 3.1 miles maximum width, giving an area of (Pi/4)(Length = 22)(Width = 3.1) = 54 square miles, contrasted to just 28 square miles in Figure 4-14B of the 1957 Confidential TM 23-200 (forerunner of EM-1) Capabilities of Atomic Weapons! Similarly, for 1000 R/hr Glasstone (1957) gives an area of (Pi/4)(40)(6.8) = 212 square miles, contrasted to just 100 square miles given in the Confidential TM 23-200 (1957) Fig. 4-14B. (George R. Stanbury OBE of the UK Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch spotted this exaggeration, and compared both sets of data to Tewa nuclear test fallout pattern to ascertain that Glasstone's data was in error; he also debunked the firestorm theory by showing that shadows cast by high rise concrete buildings in modern cities shield the thermal flash, preventing firestorms and related phenomena like soot generated "nuclear winter"; Stanbury's extensive data was kept secret by the UK government, as discussed below, just as it had kept secret evidence on gas mask effectiveness in the 1920a and 1930s, allowing mad "disarmer" Lord Noel-Baker to dismiss gas masks for long enough to enable appeasers to help Hitler massacre millions.) Glasstone (1957) Table 7.65 states that shredded newspaper is ignited by 4 cal/cm^2 for 10 megatons; Glasstone (1964) Table 7.44 states it needs 11 cal/cm^2 to ignite for the same yield! Similarly, for 10 megatons, 10 oz/yard^2 blue cotton denim is stated to ignite at just 13 cal/cm^2 in Table 7.61 of Glasstone (1957), contrasted to 44 cal/cm^2 in Table 7.40 of Glasstone (1964)! No explanation is given for the massive changes, and no references are provided. However, recently declassified documents prove that the equilibrium water content at different humidity levels produces massive changes in ignition energies because it takes 540 calories to evaporate just 1 gram of boiling water (plus still more energy to get the water to 100C). No mention of this highly relevant quantitative fact is given by Glasstone, although he was a Professor of physical chemistry! Glasstone does mention on page 303 of the 1957 edition, vaguely, in connection with clothing ignition - without any numbers or even stating what humidity level his data apply to: "The moisture content is also an important factor; the larger the amount of moisture in the fabric, the greater is the energy required to ignite it." Most modern cities, including London, New York, San Francisco, and Moscow, are built beside rivers, lakes or the ocean, so have relatively higher humidity levels than specimens left to dry out in the Nevada desert at nuclear tests.

ABOVE: Confidential classified nuclear weapon test report WT-775 proves that the large effect of humidity and thus fuel water content on thermal ignition energy was known prior to the 1957 Glasstone Effects of Nuclear Weapons but, like the secret classified US Strategic Bombing Survey 6 volumes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which proved the facts of the firestorm in direct contrast to lies circulated in Glasstone's book, the data was simply excluded from publication. The equilibrium moisture content of unpainted wood or fine kindling is about 20% of the relative humidity, so at 80% humidity "dry" wood exposed to that humid air will contain 0.2*80 = 16% water. Since all common fire fuel ignites at temperatures well above the boiling point of water, each gram of water in fire fuel takes away in excess of 540 calories of energy in boiling off, and it is this fact that makes ignition energy a function of moisture content. Crumpled newspaper, outdoors with a direct view of the fireball unobscured by city buildings, or inside on the top floors of buildings with such a view, facing the fireball, could be ignited "instantly" with "flashover" firespread after drying out at the 19% humidity of the Nevada test site for the Encore nuclear test, but the ignition energy is substantially greater for typical building contents at a more typical 50-80% city humidity level. Also note that even at 19% humidity in Nevada, it took between 5 and 20 minutes for the first 10% of fences to burn in Nevada: contrary to the instantaneous flashover burning for dry crumpled newspaper. Cars only ignited in these Nevada nuclear tests at 19% humidity where the upholstry had been deliberately ripped to expose inflammable seat stuffing, and even then they burned slowly! Glasstone omits all this key evidence from Effects of Nuclear Weapons, leaving instead confusion and ignorance that was exploited by Russian fronts for Western disarmament.

Note that the secret six volumes on the nuclear strike on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which state the opposite to the USSBS's unclassified report and Glasstone's books) referred to by General Gavin - US Strategic Bombing Survey reports #92 and #93 - prove modern concrete buildings remained intact near ground zero, the vast majority of Hiroshima fires were delayed and due to overturned charcoal breakfast cooking braziers in wood frame and bamboo homes not obsolete in city centres, and only black color blackout curtains showed sustained ignition at ground zero, etc. In other words, the strategic use of nuclear weapons have always been a COMPLETE lying scam based on deliberately-misleading Glasstone style unclassified 1930s air war type propaganda, enforced by secrecy! As in the 1930s, both "military" strategic bombing propagandarists and Hitler-backing "peaceniks" combined to assert knockout blow and "end of the world" bombing obfuscations that led to appeasement and world war, not to peaceful, credible deterrence of the invasions that set off world wars. The basic problem here is that strategic bombing advocates used secrecy on the truth about Hiroshima to fake The Effects of Nuclear Weapons to suit their agenda, just as such people did with tragic results for appeasement and World War II in the 1920s and 1930s. We have to get the truth out now, against the combined "arms control and disrmament" mass media supporting Russian propaganda fronts to, as Joseph Friedlander kindly put it in a recent email to me, "get them to not use their most effective weapons"! Sam Cohen after 1977 Glasstone and Dolan's Effects of Nuclear Weapons openly published (in books) a letter he wrote to US DOD complaining that the neutron bomb wasn't in Glasstone's book Effects and the public was being allowed to remain supplied only with enemy propaganda from fake "peaceniks" like CND.  Why?  Dolan had the neutron bomb (including the calculation method for blast wave and thermal modification by high D+T neutron yield, ignored by all "peacenik" propaganda fronts) in his secret DNA-EM-1 Capabilities, published (for the reading pleasure of those with security clearance only) back in 1972!  No excuse for not having it in 1977 Glasstone and Dolan, therefore!  As "Dr Strangelove" would put it, the whole point of a deterrent is that the other side KNOWS ABOUT IT.  You don't keep a deterrent secret, unless you're playing some kind of three-card trick.  Why is there any nuclear weapons secrecy, anyway?  Plutonium isn't for sale.

Project Vista, the secret 1951 Korean War study of tactical nuclear weapons to halt or deter invasions by J. R. Oppenheimer and others (which ultimately led to Samuel Cohen's "neutron bomb" deterrent, the hard-won W79 disarmed by loons in the 1990s to encourage invasions and wars), led to the August 1953 book Atomic Weapons in Land Combat by Colonel G. C. Reinhardt and Lieutenant Colonel W. R. Kintner of the US Army. We will now quote the key findings in the second edition (August 1954) of this book. On page 22, they explain that US Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Gordon Dean stated in October 1951: "There is now a new kind of atomic warfare more promising as a means of halting aggressors without risk of destroying large parts of the world in the process." On page 107, they argue that base surge radiation from underwater bursts such as the "spectacular" 25 July 1946 Baker nuclear test under Bikini Lagoon "has produced an exaggerated fear. The truth is that no beaches suitable for amphibious operations are close enough to deep water for a nominal atomic bomb to cause a base surge." In plate 20 on page 151, they show that it took a peak overpressure of 24 psi to cause concrete building with 10" thick walls and 6" thick floors to collapse in Hiroshima, showing resistance of modern city buildings to collateral damage. On page 164 they point out that mines in a minefield with a firing pressure of 400 lbs and a solid pressure plate 5" in diameter require blast overpressures of over 20 psi to detonate: "Within that circle, tanks (yours or the enemy's) may range with comparative safety." On page 176 they point out that the Presidential "Authority to commit atomic weapons on the battlefield confers upon each general an almost magical influence over the conflict, equivalent to throwing in whole new divisions in a fraction of the time such a move would have previously entailed." (Although this can, of course, be vandalised if the President is surrounded by indecisive groupthink defeatists, who allow the enemy time to "dig in" and build hard improvised shelters, instead of stopping invasion columns quickly, when they are crossing borders and vulnerable to nuclear effects.) On page 204 they point out:

"Records of early engagements in 1914 describe the carnage in model 1870 formations on battlefields beginning to be dominated by machine gun fire [before trench warfare]. Armies were forced into trench warfare, to relearn after 50 years the lessons of the American Civil War [where 30 miles of trenches were constructed during the 292 days Siege of Petersburg, 1864-5, with machine gun emplacements, shelters and 70,000 casualties]. Almost four years of world conflict passed before World War I armies recovered the lost art of infiltration though it had been thoroughly registered in the history of Braddock's defeat and decades of Colonial-Indian fighting."

On page 213, Reinhardt and Kintner argue: "American emphasis on atomic weapons is a correct application of the principle of economy of force. ... The widespread campaign to stigmatize the use of atomic weapons as morally wrong cannot be ignored in a conflict where psychological and ideological overtones are proving almost as vital as military encounter. Ruthless aggression is inherently more reprehensible than the means to stop it. Nevertheless, emotional appeals to outlaw atomic weapons presents a problem to United States politico-military planners wich should not be underestimated." They argue on pages 219-20 that once Chinese forces had "dug in along the Korean front" they were virtually immune to conventional (or nuclear) attack: "We have not yet digested the unpalatable fact that those armies were able to operate against us for several years while our Air Force commanded the skies above the battlefield." They correctly conclude on pages 223-5 that deterrence must operate to prevent/stop against invasions while they are occurring, not after the invaders have "dug in" and are virtually immune to attack:

"Tactical atomic task forces can be hurled against local aggression anywhere in the world ... Striking before the invading armies have time to dig in and consolidate, they can quickly render them ineffective. But what, you ask, if the true sponsors of aggression then decide to come to the rescue of their trojan column? It is for this contingincy that our atomic retaliation capability should be poised. When a major power openly associates itself with aggression, America's atomic reprisal, swift and overwhelming [delivered by cruise missiles from ships or aircraft, or Trident MIRV tactical warheads from submarines, or even by ICBMs or drones], would be understood and approved throughout the world, whether it be confined to military targets or in reprisal for atomic attacks on the cities of the USA or our Allies [thus, as Herman Kahn and Samuel Cohen argued later, tactical nuclear deterrence needs to be backed up by strategic nuclear deterrence to keep escalation at bay, just as ABM and civil defense are needed against "accidental" enemy limited nuclear demonstration attacks on cities, to reduce escalation risks and casualties]. ... In a competition between atomic technologies the free world should suffer neither in numbers nor in scientific improvements. ... none save romanticists have ever discovered a battlefield lacking in horror, whether its weapons have been tomahawks or machine guns. ... If the forces of aggression dream of easy victory, won through ruthless acceptance of losses by its waves of troops, they would do well to re-evaluate their hopes in light of the development of atomic weapons and what those weapons represent in battlefield potential. Surely the free peoples, who developed them solely to protect their freedom, will - if forced to - use them with a skill and determination that cannot be overcome."

There's an excellent and very personal account of this controversy in section H, "Project Vista", of chapter 5 of Lt-General James M. Gavin's 1958 book War and Peace in the Space Age where Gavin describes in detail his involvement in the Korean War background to "Project Vista", the major 1951 study of tactical nuclear deterrence of world wars, which developed into a war between the US Air Force strategic bombing deterrence advocates like Norstad and LeMay and the former wartime Los Alamos director, J. R. Oppenheimer, who was a very hard line proponent of ending wars using tactical nuclear deterrence, which really got to people like Teller and also Generals Norstad and LeMay in the USAF, who were obsessed with strategic nuclear deterrence (bombing cities, not deterring invasions; thus the key reason why tactical nuclear effects aren't in the Glasstone book The Effects of Nuclear Weapons whose unclassified contents range in 1957 was dictated by the strategic deterrence supporter US Atomic Energy Commission Chair, Lewis Strauss):

"Unfortunately, the early enthusiasm of the Air Force began to wane when it was realised that increasing emphasis on tactical air support and tactical airlift would conflict with Air Force views on strategic air power. At the same time, the Air Force began to suspect the views of Dr Oppenheimer. Earlier he had opposed the development of the thermonuclear bomb and now he was recommending a diversion of our nuclear resources to the tactical battle. ... This ... ran contrary to the basic theory of the strategic air power enthusiasts; that an all-out air offensive was the only sound tactic, and any diversion to defense was a waste. Dr Oppenheimer's work with Vista came under close scrutiny. ... In November 1951, at a Vista conference at Caltech, Dr Dubridge presented a preliminary draft of its proposed report, including a chapter that Oppenheimer had written. It produced an explosion in the Air Force. Oppenheimer had transformed Vista into an exercise for rewriting US strategy - an exercise introduced by a veiled suggestion the Air Force doctrine was based upon the slaughter of civilians. ... Oppenheimer had proposed that a substantial part of the atomic stockpile should be diverted from SAC [LeMay's Strategic Air Command] to the direct support of the ground battle. ... The objective, as stated in Vista, was 'bringing the battle back to the battlefield.' In December of 1951, Oppenheimer, Dubridge and Lauritsen went to Paris and talked to Eisenhower. Norstad entered an uncompromising dissent to the Vista report. [Footnote reference: "The Hidden Struggle for the H-Bomb", Fortune, May 1953, p109.] About a year or so later, I mentioned the Vista report to General Norstad and he used strong langauge in his denunciation of it. ... Unfortunately, Dr Oppenheimer was in trouble, and his participation in Vista added to the aura of suspicion with which the Big Bomber advocates were now surrounding him. As The Reporter expressed it in an editorial some years later, [December 26, 1957]: [Oppenheimer's] urging that ways be found to bring war back to the battlefield was considered preposterous if not treasonable. ... There was something quite sinister in a scientist who concerned himself with defense as Oppenheimer did. ... The Vista report was submitted to the Secretaries of the several services in February of 1952. It has never been officially approved." (SOURCE: pages 133-4 of the 1959 UK edition of Gavin's War and Peace in the Space Age.)

To emphasise this point: certain well-meaning military elements (like Norstad and LeMay of SAC) and certain well-meaning scientists (like Teller) put the boot into Oppenheimer's secret plan to focus on tactical nuclear deterrence of the invasions that set off both world wars. Instead, they went along with the incredible deterrent, called by Dulles "massive retaliation," or by Herman Kahn "Type 1 Deterrence", which failed in 1914 and in 1939. What we need is a way of deterring or stopping invasions that spark wars. Merely deploying tactical W79 neutron bombs in the 1980s brought out mass protests by Russians and fellow travellers, which proved it was a credible deterrent. Russia stopped further invasions in this period, and the USSR collapsed (after a few more Western defensive kicks, including SDI/Star Wars advanced ABM defense propaganda). Massive retaliation, by contrast, was a failure in WWII according to the US Strategic Bombing Survey, and is riddled with incredible ambiguity (it's an incredible deterrent that can't credibly deter the provocations that led to both world wars). Lt General Gavin, in the US Army, along with General Maxwell D. Taylor, masterminded President Kennedy's "flexible response" deterrent policy. This was undermined by the unilateral disarmament of all dedicated tactical nuclear weapons in 1992, to appease "arms control and disarmament" lunacy, itself due to Glasstone's failure to include the neutron bomb in The Effects of Nuclear Weapons. This has to change if we are to have peace.

Just in case you think that Lt General Gavin's account of tactical nuclear weapons politics above is "theoretical opinion" by a desk-bound bureaucrat, let's add a bit more context from his book, Chapter 5: Combat is a Crucible,. Gavin on 9 July 1943, as Commander of the 505th parachute Combat Team, spearheaded a 3,000 strong airborne invasion of Sicily, which aimed to secure the airfield and beaches 6 hours prior to the main amphibious landing. At the last moment, 35 miles/hour winds scattered the paratroops over rugged landscape, their carbines jammed in combat, and the usual "fog of war" quickly descended:

"Now, 24 hours later, I surveyed the results of the first day's fighting. As well as I could tell, it had been an absolute shambles. The regiment was scattered like chaff in the wind, and possibly destroyed. ... It had been a hard day ... First, there was the inadequacy of our weapons. It is nothing short of homocidal to send American young men into combat with weapons not up to the job that confronts them. We needed a more reliable, faster-firing hand weapon than the carbine. And above all, we needed a tank killer ... Next, training had to be more realistic, so tough and exacting that combat would be a welcome relief. ... George Patton's last words to us before we left Africa came home with meaning: 'No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country." ... The bazooka rockets were bouncing off the tanks and the tanks were then chewing the troopers to pieces. The next day we actually buried some troopers with pieces of bazooka ground into them by tank tracks. We captured one tank by grenading the crew when they came out ... The tank had four bazooka hits on it, none of which penetrated. ... In their post-war account of the Sicilian fighting, the Germans reported their first capture of a bazooka. They sent it back to Germany, tested it, found its defects and corrected them, and went into production on an improved model. When we landed in Normandy less than a year later, we were met with a large bazooka, about 3.5 inches in diameter. We were still equipped with the small 2.36-inch size. As a matter of fact, our infantry was still equipped with the 2.36-inch bazooka seven years later, in July of 1950, when it was attacked by Russian T-34 tanks manned by the North Koreans. ... once again ... the rockets were bouncing off the tanks. ... There are numerous examples of weapons ... being delayed because the individuals who have funding control do not, or simply will not, understand the need of the fighting man in the field." (Quote: pages 69-75 of the 1959 UK edition of Gavin's book. I don't need to say that the final sentence here might as well have come out of President Zelensky's mouth a minute ago, regarding the supply of weapons to Ukraine after Russia's invasion. Will they ever learn?)

Regarding war crimes, Lt General Gavin also participated in the paratroop invasion of mainland Europe including the liberation of a concentration aka extermination camp near Ludwigslust, Mecklenburg (War and Peace in the Space Age, UK edition, 1959, page 197): "It seemed incredible that man could be so inhuman to his fellow man, and to all of us who liberated that camp it will remain forever in our memories as a symbol of totalitarianism. If there ever had been doubt about what we were fighting for, at that moment it was removed forever from our minds. It was to rid the earth of man's inhumanity to man, to protect and foster the way of life of free men, and, if necessary, to fight for that way of life. It is too bad that so many must see in order to believe. ... The way to freedom was not easy. Nature and recurring war combined to test our physical mettle and spiritual dedication." Gavin sums up the problem with the following very hard-hitting and politically-inexpedient quotation from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, contrasting American "freedom" to Russian "imperialism" agendas:

"The American struggles against the obstacles that nature opposes to him; the adversaries of the Russian are men. The former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization ... The conquests of the American are therefore gained by the ploughshare; those of the Russian by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people; the Russian centres all the authority of society ... The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe."

BELOW: Secret "For Official Use" and individually numbered Russian nuclear defense manual (169 pages long, T. F. Myasnikova, technical editor) entitled "КРАТКИЙ СПРАВОЧНИК ПО БОЕВЫМ СВОЙСТВАН ЯДЕРНОГО ОРУЖИЯ" [= "A Brief Guide to the Combat Properties of Nuclear Weapons"] states: "Ядерное оружие обладает значительно большей разрушительной силой по сравнению с обычными видами оружия, но существуют простые и надежные методы защиты от него. ... В этом руководстве представлен краткий обзор ядерного оружия, средств и методов защиты от ядерной угрозы, а также инструкции о том, как действовать в случае применения ядерного оружия." [= "Nuclear weapons have significantly greater destructive power than conventional weapons, but there are simple and reliable methods of protecting against them. ... This guide provides a brief overview of nuclear weapons, the means and methods of defending against a nuclear threat, and instructions on what to do in the event of a nuclear weapon being used."] The manual contains data tables on damage to Russian military equipment based on Russian nuclear weapons tests, as shown BELOW (this manual is the 2nd edition, dated 1969, but since Russian atmospheric nuclear tests ended in 1962, the data is still valid today). The Russian peak overpressure unit is the kg/cm^2 which equal to 1 atmosphere or 14.7 psi in classic American units or 101 kPa in Western SI units (1 kg/cm^2 = 10 tons/m^2 = 1 atmosphere = 14.7 psi = 101 kPa). Page 104 states that for 1 kiloton-1 megaton yields, Russian "Basement shelters for the population (type III shelters)" require 2-4 kg/cm^2 or 30-60 psi for destruction (making them harder than the concrete buildings surviving near ground zero in Hiroshima), while hydroelectric dams and underground utility pipes for water, sewage and gas supply require 10-15 kg/cm^2 or 150-225 psi for destruction. The hardest targets listed (on page 100) are the concrete runways at airports, which require in excess of 20 kg/cm^2 or 300 psi for destruction by cracking and spalling (ground shock effects). Note particularly Table 41 at pages 92-93, where severe damage (destruction) radii are given for Russian tactical nuclear missiles, cruise missiles, jet fighters, jet bombers, nuclear artillery guns, anti-aircraft guns, mortars, light and heavy machine guns, light and heavy grenade launchers, for air and surface bursts and for 13 yield classes from 1 kiloton to 1 megaton (including the calculated damage pressures in kg/cm^2, separately shown for surface and air bursts). Also, note that it compiles Russian data on measured EMP from nuclear tests in Tables 23 and 24 on page 71, showing the induced voltages as a function of weapon yield, type of conductor (aerial or underground buried power cable), and distance from ground zero. This proves Russian capabilities to use EMP effects from nuclear weapons. For example, Table 23 shows that 10 kV was induced in a 10m aerial at 3.3 km from a 1 megaton low altitude detonation. Note also that Russia found (Table 38) that forest area fires (not isolated fires) cannot occur after surface bursts in coniferous forests even at megaton yields, because of the low angle of elevation of the fireball and because the blast wave following the heat flash blows out most fires, although fire areas can occur at certain distances from ground zero in deciduous and mixed forests for higher-yield surface bursts. This detailed analysis proves Russian preparation for tactical nuclear war is true.

According to the Levada Center, 39 percent of Russians believe that the use of nuclear weapons during Russia's war against Ukraine could be justified. pic.twitter.com/H4p8OI5YbV

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) December 2, 2024

Update, November 20, 2024: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-issues-warning-us-with-new-nuclear-doctrine-2024-11-19/: "Putin issues warning to United States with new nuclear doctrine, by Guy Faulconbridge and Anton Kolodyazhnyy, November 20, 2024 12:20 AM GMT MOSCOW, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks, and Moscow said Ukraine had struck deep inside Russia with U.S.-made ATACMS missiles. Putin approved the change days after two U.S. officials and a source familiar with the decision said on Sunday that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration allowed Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike deep into Russia. Russia had been warning the West for months that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire U.S., British and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine. The updated Russian nuclear doctrine, establishing a framework for conditions under which Putin could order a strike from the world's biggest nuclear arsenal, was approved by him on Tuesday, according to a published decree. ... The U.S. National Security Council said it had not seen any reason to adjust the U.S. nuclear posture. ... Putin is the primary decision-maker on the use of Russia's nuclear arsenal. ... The doctrine said any attack by a non-nuclear power supported by a nuclear power would be considered a joint attack, and that any attack by one member of a military bloc would be considered an attack by the entire alliance ... Lavrov said Russia would do everything to avoid nuclear war, and pointed out that it was the U.S. which used nuclear weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. ... Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said ... "Nuclear deterrence is aimed at ensuring that a potential adversary understands the inevitability of retaliation in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies"."

Jerusalem Post, AUGUST 26, 2024 14:55, https://www.jpost.com/international/internationalrussia-ukraine-war/article-816333: "... Russia planned overwhelming strikes across Western Europe, with nuclear weapons intended for use in combination with other destructive weapons and means. The files show that Russia retained the capability to carry nuclear weapons on surface ships, which increases the risks of escalation or even accidents. They also suggest that Russia views tactical nuclear weapons as potentially decisive in conflicts ... Russia's military strategy is described as aiming for "total war," with tactical nuclear weapons seen as crucial for achieving war-winning objectives. The files ... also reference a "demonstration strike," or the detonation of a nuclear weapon in a remote area, "in a period of immediate threat of aggression" before an actual conflict to scare Western countries. The file said that a strike like this would show "the intention to use nuclear weapons." Recent Russian exercises have involved rehearsing the use of tactical nuclear weapons, consistent with the strategies outlined in the leaked documents. This preparation includes loading anti-ship missiles with nuclear warheads and practicing the handling and deployment of nuclear warheads, suggesting that the threat of nuclear escalation remains a significant aspect of Russia's military planning."

Max Seddon and Chris Cook, "Leaked Russian military files reveal criteria for nuclear strike", Financial Times newspaper (UK), 28 Feb 2024: "The exercises offer a rare insight into how Russia views its nuclear arsenal as a cornerstone of its defence policy — and how it trains forces to be able to carry out a nuclear first strike in some battlefield conditions. ... The slides summarise the threshold as a combination of factors where losses suffered by Russian forces “would irrevocably lead to their failure to stop major enemy aggression”, a “critical situation for the state security of Russia”. ... Russia’s military is also expected to be able to use tactical nuclear weapons for a broad array of goals, including “containing states from using aggression ... or escalating military conflicts”, “stopping aggression”, preventing Russian forces from losing battles or territory, and making Russia’s navy “more effective”. Putin said last June that he felt “negatively” about using tactical nuclear strikes, but then boasted that Russia had a larger non-strategic arsenal than NATO countries. “Screw them, you know, as people say,” Putin said. ... The documents reflect patterns seen in exercises the Russian military held regularly before and since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. ... While Russia’s president has the sole authority to launch a first nuclear strike, the low threshold for tactical nuclear use set out in the documents conforms with a doctrine some western observers refer to as “escalating to de-escalate”. Under this strategy a tactical weapon could be used to try to prevent Russia from becoming embroiled in a sprawling war, particularly one in which the US might intervene. Using what it calls “fear inducement”, Moscow would seek to end the conflict on its own terms by shocking the country’s adversary with the early use of a small nuclear weapon — or securing a settlement through the threat to do so."

Dr Mark B. Schneider, The Leaked Russian Nuclear Documents and Russian First Use of Nuclear Weapons, National Institute for Public Policy, Information Series Issue No. 579, March 18, 2024: "Typically, Western press reporting on Russian nuclear issues involves interviewing the normal coterie of left-wing “experts” who are more interested in reducing the U.S. nuclear deterrent than understanding Russian nuclear strategy and its implications. In contrast, the Financial Times presented an insightful analysis concerning the meaning of the Russian documents. Still, the analysts who historically have been most accurate in their assessment of Russian nuclear weapons policy were not among them (e.g., Dr. Stephen Blank, Dr. Keith Payne, and Mr. Dave Johnson). Russian nuclear weapons policy is very dangerous; it is closely tied to military aggression and repeated high-level nuclear threats.

"In 2015, in the time frame of the leaked Russian documents, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg observed, “Russia’s recent use of nuclear rhetoric, exercises and operations are deeply troubling ... Russia’s nuclear sabrerattling is unjustified, destabilizing and dangerous.” Since then, the situation has clearly gotten worse. The Biden Administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review also noted that: "The Russian Federation’s unprovoked and unlawful invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is a stark reminder of nuclear risk in contemporary conflict. ... In brandishing Russia’s nuclear arsenal in an attempt to intimidate Ukraine [and NATO] ... Russia’s leaders have made clear that they view these weapons as a shield behind which to wage unjustified aggression against their neighbors. Irresponsible Russian statements and actions raise the risk of deliberate or unintended escalation". ... Medvedev even threatened “the further existence of the entire human civilization” if Russia ends up defeated in Ukraine by the West ... in 2014, Russian expatriate Nikolai Sokov reported “... all large-scale military exercises that Russia conducted beginning in 2000 featured simulations of limited nuclear strikes.” The January 2016 report of NATO’s Secretary General noted that Russia “... simulated nuclear attacks on NATO Allies (e.g., ZAPAD) and on partners (e.g., March 7, 2013 simulated attacks on Sweden) ...

"Russian nuclear exercises against non-nuclear Sweden are particularly important because Sweden, like Ukraine (against which Russian nuclear threats are frequent), is not supposed to be subject to nuclear attack under Russian negative assurances (i.e., Russia’s pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.) Yet, in March 2022, “Swedish TV4 Nyheterna has reported that Russian bombers ‘armed with nuclear warheads’ entered EU airspace before being intercepted by Swedish fighter jets." ... the United States cannot depend upon Russia’s observance of the so-called “nuclear taboo” to protect the West from Russian nuclear attack. ... Only credible nuclear deterrence can safeguard the West, yet nuclear deterrence is under attack by the disarmament groups globally. The context of this is a Russian nuclear modernization program which according to Putin has already achieved 95% and will continue even after 100% is achieved. ... Despite the clear and present danger of Russian aggression and even nuclear escalation, as Dr. Keith Payne has pointed out, the Biden Administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review “appears frozen in the naively-optimistic post-Cold War years; it suggests no urgency with regard to U.S. responses to mounting threats.”

KEY FAILURES OF TODAY'S "MINIMAL DETERRENCE" (KAHN'S "TYPE 1 DETERRENT" AKA THE DREADNOUGHTS THAT FAILED TO DETER THE INVASION OF BELGIUM IN 1914 THAT TRIGGERED WWI), PROVING THE NEED FOR THE SUCCESSFUL CREDIBLE DETERRENT OF TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO DETER INVASIONS THAT SET OFF WARS:

1. It doesn't deter world war situations, which both occurred because of invasions of 3rd parties (invasion of Belgium 1914, Poland 1939), akin to the 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine by Russia. In other words, you need credible deterrence of major provocations.

2. It doesn't even deter a direct attack by fanatical opponents, such as the October 2023 Hamas surprise attack on Israel or the December 1941 Pearl Harbor surprise attack or the 9/11 attack by war-crazy thugs.

3. It assumes sanity on the enemy side, while mental pressures are brought to bear on the sanity of the opponent in response to major provocations, e.g. "sanctions" against the enemy hardens their resolve (aided by internal state propaganda of the enemy, blaming hardships on you), just as "pressure" such as napalming Vietnam failed to deter the Tet Offensive. If you ban your use of overwhelming force to credibly stop or deter an opponent, you don't end in a fairy tale land of mutual love and understanding, but with a battle-hardened opponent, with the fighting mentality of a wounded animal. In other words, you get the opposite result.

4. The only people who can be safely and credibly deterred with "minimal deterrence" are not terrorist states, but generally established democracies, who you don't have fights with anyway (see Dr Weart's "Never at War: Why Democracies will not Fight One Another"), so you've reduced deterrence down to a level where it's only credible in situations where NOT needed! Duh! Try explaining this with any hardened fanatical "pacifist" and you soon see they're fanatical ranting lunatics obsessed with moronic "taboos" or war-making eugenics "Russian communist" pseudoscience genocide schemes, and not the least interested in what they claimed they're concerned with, PEACE!

"By 2035, the same year DOD reported that the Chinese will reach rough numerical parity with U.S. deployed forces, 100% of U.S. nuclear weapons (the warheads and bombs) will have exceeded their design lives by an average of 30 years. ... The United States has agonized for years about how to sustain its nuclear weapons. During the Bush Administration, the plan was the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), which would have been a “new” weapon with a “new” design to replace the W-76 submarine-launched warhead. Its “newness” was its peril and it was cancelled before the end of the design phase of development to satisfy those who believed the U.S. shouldn’t build “new” nuclear weapons. ... Similarly, the United States is refurbishing the B-61 gravity bomb so that it may remain in service in the extended deterrence mission. ... The United States invented plutonium in 1941. Yet, it has not been able to build a plutonium pit for the nuclear weapons stockpile since 1989, when the Rocky Flats plant was shut down. ... Just consider: General Anthony Cotton, USAF, the current head of U.S. STRATCOM, informed Congress this Spring that “Russia continues to update its warhead production complex and is producing hundreds of warheads each year.” Further, he explained that Russia is exporting its Highly Enriched Uranium to the People’s Republic of China for its CFR-600 fast breeder reactors, which produce plutonium."

- Tim Morrison, There’s More than One Kind of Deterrence Failure, https://www.hudson.org/missile-defense/theres-more-one-kind-deterrence-failure-tim-morrison

John Foster Dulles, US Secretary of State, 12 January 1954 Massive Retaliation Doctrine Speech, Council of Foreign Relations, New York (published in the US Department of State Bulletin v30 n761, 25 January 1954): "We want, for ourselves and other free nations, a maximum deterrent at a bearable cost. ... Local defences must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retalitory power. ... Otherwise, for example, a potential aggressor who is glutted with manpower might be tempted to attack in confidence that resistance would be confined to manpower."

The Economist, 2 February 1954: "In a situation where war is not declared and aggression can be waged by proxy [e.g. today's USA/UK/Ukaine-Russian war], the decision for or against using atomic weapons may be far less simple in fact than it appears ... More than ever before, those who think in terms of stopping or winning wars by atomic bombing have to reckon with reprisals in kind [assuming that you do not disarm the enemy in a successful first strike to prevent retaliation, or that you or the enemy doesn't have an efficient system of ABM and civil defense to make the "retaliation" a pathetic "token gesture"] ... Against what kind of aggression is 'massive retaliatory power' to be used? ... there seems to be the risk that the strict and literal application of the Dulles doctrine could turn minor and limited hostilities into major conflict." [Therefore, to deter escalation you need a broad spectrum of credible deterrents against the full range of enemy provocations.]

Field Marshall Montgomery, British Deputy to SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe), "A Look Through a Window at World War III", Royal United Services Institute Journal, November 1954: "I want to make it absolutely clear that we at SHAPE are basing all our operational planning on using atomic and thermonuclear weapons for our defence. With us it is no longer: 'They may possibly be used.' It is very definitely: 'They will be used, if we are attacked.' The reason for this action is that we cannot match the strength that could be brought against us unless we use nuclear weapons. ... In fact, we have reached the point of no return as regards the use of atomic and thermonuclear weapons in a hot war ... The problem will be, how to force the enemy to concentrate his armed forces sufficiently to offer a worth-while nuclear target, without exposing our own forces to destruction by the enemy's nuclear attack."

Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 1 March 1955, House of Commons: "There is a widespread belief through the free world that, but for American nuclear superiority, Europe would have already been reduced to satellite status and the Iron Curtain would have reached the Atlantic and the Channel ... We, too, must possess substantial deterrent power on our own." (Churchill's Minister of Defence, Harold Macmillan, then argued for tactical nuclear weapons in the Middle East and the Far East, and stated that leaving nuclear deterrence to the USA "surrenders our power to influence American policy and then, strategically and tactically, it equally deprives us of any influence over the selection of targets and use of our vital striking forces." In the 1957 Labour Party Annual Conference at Brighton, the British Labour Party's shadow Foreign Secretary, Aneurin "Nye" Bevan, begged delegates to reject the Noel-Baker nuclear disarmament plan: "if you carry this resolution and follow out all of its implications and do not run away from it, you will send a British Foreign Secretary, whoever he may be, naked into the Conference Chamber". A more telling fact is statistical: despite all the one-sided mass-media anti-nuclear, anti-radiation and anti-civil defence propaganda, Christopher Driver's 22 March 1964 Observer newspaper article "The Rise and Fall of CND" reported that British public opinion polls showed that only 20% of people disapproved of the use of nuclear weapons in August 1945, and this percentage only increased to 33% when CND's propaganda influence peaked, in 1957-60, due to ICBM testing and and fallout news scares from tests. The problems of not having a credible deterrent were still remembered from the 1930s despite media saturation with Russian Sputnik/Comintern style "peace propaganda" lies. As Clausewitz stated in Book 6, Chapter 5 of On War: "A conqueror is always a lover of peace; he would like to make his entry into our state unopposed." Stalin also said as much when interviewed by the writer H. G. Wells in 1934: "Communists ... would be very pleased to drop violent methods if the class agreed to give way ..." Contrary to CND people there's never been the slightest problem with our nuclear weapons being too big or "nuclear overkill," since reducing nuclear yields by removing boost gas and secondary stages is the easiest thing in the world, similarly, while bleach exists to remove the colour from flags, there have never been an difficulty in having "peace conferences" and agreeing to compromise on "peace at any price" with dictators; all of the difficulties have been in the opposite direction, e.g. designing nuclear weapons as credible deterrents to stop the sorts of provocations that escalate into world wars where the democracy has to declare war first as in 1914 and 1939. It was Lenin who wrote: "As long as capitalism and socialism exist, we cannot live in peace: in the end one or the other will triumph.")

ABOVE: Time magazine of 10 November 1961, pages 19 and 25, reporting on arguments to test the "neutron bomb", also showing example of a shelter in Nagasaki and Russian civil defense. Although tested by Kennedy, the neutron bomb never made it into any edition of Glasstone's "Effects of Nuclear Weapons", any more than photos of surviving shelters in Nagasaki (which had been included the 1950 "Effects of Atomic Weapons" but were removed from "Effects of Nuclear Weapons" 1957-77, a sure proof of the use of secrecy to undermine credible nuclear deterrence: if you can't even combat enemy nuclear propaganda in peace, how can you combat the enemy on the battlefield in war?. This blog has been now updated (December 2024) to provide additional background testimonial evidence to show how secrecy was used to suppress Oppenheimer's plans for tactical nuclear deterrence, due to opposition by strategic bombing advocates who kept the Strategic Bombing Survey reports on Hiroshima and Nagasaki secret!

RAPID BLAST WAVE ATTENUATION BY WORK DONE IN CAUSING DAMAGE TO MODERN CITIES, DISPROVING STRATEGIC COUNTERVALUE DETERRENT PROPAGANDA BY GLASSTONE'S BOOK

ABOVE: weak blast waves oscillate buildings within the "elastic" deformation range, absorbing up ~1% of the intercepted blast wave energy, whereas blast waves strong enough to oscillate the building well into the "plastic" deformation range can demolish modern steel and concrete city buildings (which mostly remained standing after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki air bursts) can absorb typically 10 times more energy or ~10% of the intercepted blast wave energy. Successive interactions in a large city causes a vast amount of shielding, as compared to tests conducted over flat desert or ocean. Although blast waves last longer at higher yields, their cube-root scaled-up blast effects radii contain more buildings along any radial line than for the smaller distances of destruction at lower yields, thus offsetting the extra energy at any given scaled "free field" peak overpressure. This was demonstrated by a study comparing blast effects at Hiroshima and Nagasaki where most of the buildings were wooden to "free field" nuclear tests by Penney, but it was suppressed by Bethe and Glasstone in the American "Bible" Effects of Nuclear Weapons 1957-77, which uses energy conservation violating "free field" blast and radiation data from tests over ideal unobstructed terrain. We exposed this delusion in 1990 in Nuclear Weapons Effects Theory, which was then censored by CND liar-duped publishers. Part of our problem is that vital blast ductility data for determining blast energy absorption by city buildings (omitted from Glasstone and Dolan's book) is in Northrop's 1996 EM-1 book, which not "secret" but is still officially banned from open publication by law in the USA, because it gives some information relevant to military nuclear capabilities; similarly the unclassified but "Limited Distribution" DTRA published book by AFIT Professor Bridgman, Introduction to the Physics of Nuclear Weapons Effects which can be used to demonstrate the exaggerations in Glasstone's Effects of Nuclear Weapons when Glasstone's free-field (unobstructed terrain) nuclear effects predictions from desert and ocean nuclear tests are improperly applied to concrete cities. Bridgman, for instance, considers a building with an exposed area of 163 square metres, a mass of 455 tons and natural frequency of 5 oscillations per second, and finds that a peak overpressure of 10 psi (69 kPa) and peak dynamic pressure of 2.2 psi (15 kPa) at 4.36 km ground range from a 1 Mt air burst detonated at 2.29 km altitude, with overpressure and dynamic pressure positive durations of 2.6 and 3.6 seconds, respectively, produces a peak deflection of 19 cm in the building about 0.6 second after shock arrival. The peak deflection is computed from Bridgman's formula on p. 304. This 19 cm computed maximum deflection allows us to estimate how much energy is permanently and irreversibly absorbed from the blast wave by a building (if damaged, additional energy is absorbed and is transformed into slow-moving - relative to the shock front velocity - debris which falls to the ground and is quickly stopped after the blast has passed it) by: E = Fx, where F is force (i.e., product of total pressure and area) and x is distance moved in direction of force due to the applied force from the blast wave.

If the average pressure for the first 0.5 second is equal to 12 psi (83 kPa) then the average force on the building during this time is 13 million Newtons, and the energy absorbed is: E = Fx = 13,000,000*0.19 = 2.6 MJ, which is removed from the blast wave in the form of oscillations of the building. Successive absorption by building after building rapidly absorbs blast energy in this way.

Although you could say the blast wave from a 50% blast nuclear megaton warhead contains 2.1 x 10^15 Joules, the blast wave energy rapidly decreases as it dumps hot air behind it to form the fireball (Glasstone omits the fireball energy partition after blast breakaway, but the DELFIC mushroom cloud module shows that, to fit observed cloud parameters theoretically, fully 45% of the yield is hot air dumped behind the blast that powers the mushroom cloud rise and expansion, so 50-45 = 5% of total yield (or 1/10 of original blast yield) remains in the blast wave after the negative phase fully develops). In addition, the blast forms a 3-d hemisphere so that the percentage of the total blast energy in the Mach front intercepting buildings near the surface is small and gets smaller as the blast propagates! It is only that part which causes damage that gets attenuated; furthermore the yield scaling issue increases the building shielding effect for larger yields, because the radial distance being considered is increased. For example, in the example above, 10 psi peak overpressure (69 kPa in SI units) occurs at 4.36 km from a 1 megaton strategic bomb, but the 163 square metres of the building is only a small fraction, f, of the blast hemisphere at that range, namely f = 163/(2*Pi*4360^2) = 163/120,000,000 = 1.37*10^{-6}. So if the blast still contained 5% of the total weapon yield at this stage (1/10 of the original blast yield), the total blast energy striking the building's surface area would be just (2.1 x 10^14 )* 1.37*10^{-6} = 2.9*10^8 Joules, proving that the oscillations of the building removed 2.6MJ of 290MJ blast energy intercepted, nearly 1%, which is a similar fraction to Penney's finding in Hiroshima (below).

You get additional, greater, energy loss due to damage done to buildings close to the fireball. For n such buildings in a radial line, the cumulative removal of blast energy fraction is: exp(-2.6n/290), which is greater for the larger blast damage distances in built up areas predicted for effects of higher yields! So increasing the yield increases the shielding for any given free-field pressure (the distance of which scales up with yield)!

Even with wooden 1-storey houses predominating in Hiroshima, Lord Penney who took away the overpressure debris (crushed petrol cans, etc) for analysis in England in 1945 found the blast energy at Hiroshima decreased exponentially due to blast attenuation caused by damage done, by comparing his results to the free-field Maralinga desert values for British nuclear tests without a precursor. This was all ignored by Uncle Sam (Glasstone)!

ABOVE: error by DTRA regarding energy absorption by buildings. U.S. Government's DTRA DISPATCH magazine article "Building Effects on Airblast from Nuclear Detonations in Urban Terrain" falsely conflates the abrupt shock front with the length of the entire blast wave, claiming that since buildings are 2000 denser than blast waves: "the air will move 2000 times father than the structure in the same time interval. Thus while the building is moving 1cm. the shock has moved more than 20m, and the energy is a small fraction of 1% the blast energy." The key error here is the statement that "the shock has moved 20 m". They meant the shock front, which isn't the same thing as the entire blast wave, the thickness of which is dependent on bomb yield, and is what moves drag-sensitive buildings with large window openings where the overpressure quickly equalises. So they are totally wrong. They are absurdly arguing that only 1/2000 of the dynamic pressure (kinetic energy per unit volume of air) of air presents a force upon buildings, or presumably upon ships sails (which are denser than air), or eardrums (again which are denser than air). The shoddy, imprecise form of their statement makes it hard to understand precisely what they are saying, but it seems to be that they are assuming falsely that the blast wave consists only of a shock front, which will move 20 m past the building (without moving it significantly) before the building has moved 1 cm, but the density of the building and the location of the shock front relative to the building is IRRELEVANT while the mass of air BEHIND the shock front is delivering energy to the building, as proved by the absence from the relevant equations of both building density and shock front location after it has passed, but winds are still blowing. It's not the shock front that causes the building to oscillate, but the wind pressure behind the shock front. The building density, and the distance the shock FRONT moves beyond the building, have no relevance to thickness the layer of air BEHIND the shock front, which is what is pushing the building, and this thickness increases with bomb yield! (However, most of the push to the building occurs due to the highest dynamic pressure, i.e. the air just behind the discontinuity or "shock front".) As a result, the actual energy absorption by a building is more than 100 times greater than DTRA's ratio of densities claims. Small-scale models of buildings, whether absolutely rigid or made from glass mirrors don't in any way, shape or form model the energy captured in oscillations by thousands of tons of reinforced concrete of real buildings.

The wind (dynamic) pressure induced motion effects which have nothing to do with the relative density of the shock front compared to the building. The amount of energy picked up from either the wind pressure of normal breezes or the blast wave of a nuclear explosion, by a building in oscillatory energy is the time-integrated form of Newtonian equation E = F.x, where force F = P.A, where P is dynamic pressure and A is area, and x is the amount of displacement induced. There's no density of the building in these equations, and no dependence on the shock front, but rather the integrated dynamic pressure over the entire duration of the blast at the location of interest (if the building delays the passage of the shock front instead of letting it pass freely through windows etc, then there's an additional term for the time-integrated overpressure contribution). As dynamic pressure is removed by the building - not by the shock front but by the air behind it, lasting seconds in higher yield detonations - the overpressure also falls as the blast restores itself to the Rankine-Hugoniot conditions (overpressure energy is transformed into dynamic pressure energy, thus weakening overpressure as well as dynamic pressure). If DTRA were correct that only the front part (shock front) of a blast wave is relevant to delivery of energy and delivers only 1/2000 of the energy of the blast, then by analogy our eardrums and ship sails would be similarly so inefficient at picking up energy from the dynamic pressure of sound and the wind, respectively, that they couldn't work! Notice that their computer codes in 2013 falsely EXCLUDED any absorption of energy by the blast in oscillating thousands of tons of reinforced concrete, causing damage (much larger, huge amounts of energy are required to actually destroy reinforced concrete by permanent deformation; the springy oscillations of a building in a gale or blast wave take up far less energy than actual destruction requires), contrary to what John von Neumann pointed out (that buildings are NOT rigid but absorb energy from the blast, decreasing the blast parameters like pressures and impulses as the blast propagates through a city, unlike desert or ocean in unobstructed terrain nuclar tests!) in the 1950 Effects of Atomic Weapons (removed by Glasstone from future editions, just as he removed the civil defence chapter from the 1977 edition!).

ABOVE: Appendix A of Glasstone's 1950 Effects of Atomic Weapons gives a specific calculated example that allows the absorption of blast energy by oscillating modern concrete buildings to be calculated: a reinforced concrete building of 952 metric tons, 75x75ft, 38 ft high (thus horizontal area of 265 square metres), resisting force 4 psi, is subjected to a peak overpressure and dynamic pressure loading of 32 psi (242,000 Pascals) decaying to zero in 0.32 second. Calculated peak deflection of middle of the building was 0.88 foot or 0.27 m (the top would be deflected twice this amount). Reinforced concrete is relatively ductile, but any cracking absorbs even more energy than the simple calculation of the kinetic energy of blast-induced oscillation. So the blast wave energy absorbed from the simple physics law E = Fx = PAx where P is pressure loading, A is exposed area of building being loaded, and x is the displacement(or more precisely from the integral form of this, where energy absorbed is force integrated over displacement, as shown above) is about E = Fx = (242,000)(265)(0.27) = 17,000,000 Joules. This energy is removed from the blast wave by being transferred from the blast into the kinetic energy of oscillating the building! Hard fact!

ABOVE: The resisting force of 4 psi used in the 1950 Glasstone book can be updated with the following static yield resistances for various modern city buildings using Table 15.6 on page 525 of the 1996 Northrop Handbook of Nuclear Weapon Effects: Calculational Tools Abstracted from EM-1: 3.0 psi and 0.3 second natural period of oscillation for 3-8 story reinforced concrete buildings (type 15.2.2), 1.25 psi and 0.3 second for brick houses (type 15.2.3), 0.5 psi and 0.25 second for wooden houses (type 15.2.5), or 2.0 psi and 0.6 second for 3-10 story steel-frame office buildings (type 15.2.10). The "nominal" ductility ratios (the ratios of displacement required for collapse/severe damage to the maximum elastic response before plastic response begins) for these four types of buildings are given by Northrop as 7.5, 4, 7.5 and 10, respectively. The maximum amount of energy absorbed in destroying the buildings is simply the area under the curve of loading versus displacement before collapse. Since this relative area is 0.5 unit for the triangle shaped slope up to a ductility ratio of 1, and is roughly a constant height rectangle for the plastic zone from a ductility ratio of 1 up to the failure limit (severe damage/collapse of building), the ratio of total energy absorbed by a building in its destruction, to the maximum energy that can be absorbed in purely elastic oscillations by a buildings (up to ductility ratio of 1 unit, where the dimensionless ductility ratio u = maximum extension under applied load / extension at elastic limit of Hooke's Law) is simply [0.5 + (7.5 - 1)]/0.5, [0.5 + (4 - 1)]/0.5, [0.5 + (7.5 - 1)]/0.5, and [0.5 + (10 - 1)]/0.5, or 14, 7, 14, and 19, respectively, for those four building types. It is to be noticed that the greatest amounts of plastic range energy absorption are for the most predominant two kinds of modern city centre buildings, namely reinforced concrete and steel frame multistory buildings. These buildings, with up to 8 and 10 stories, respectively, in these calculations, also have a cumulative effect in shielding free-field thermal and nuclear radiations.

The Effects of Atomic Weapons, 1950, on page 57 has a section written by John von Neumann and Fredrick Reines of Los Alamos (it is attributed to them in a footnote) stating clearly: "the structures ... have the additional complicating property of not being rigid. This means that they do not merely deflect the shock wave, but they also absorb energy from it at each reflection. The removal of energy from the blast in this manner decreases the shock pressure at any given distance from the point of detonation to a value somewhat below that which it would have been in the absence of dissipative objects, such as buildings." Glasstone removed this from future (1957-77) editions, not because it is wrong (it isn't), but apparently because it debunks official nuclear lies used for strategic deterrence in the same way that gas and incendiary bombing effects was exaggerated in the 1930s to try to deter war!

ABOVE: The two terms for blast wave energy. It's really very simple: the first term above is the kinetic energy contained in the dynamic (wind) pressure of the blast, while the second term represents the internal energy of the blast (manifested as heat and related static overpressure). So the theoretical basis for the calculation of blast energy absorption by a city is not rocket science, and it's not based on speculations or guesswork. And this is not "new" either, since Brode's 1954 equations for calculating blast wave's with a computer include energy balance, and you can with modern computers easily incorporate the irreversible energy losses due to the blast wave successively oscillating, one after another, the buildings with with it interacts as it travels outward in a modern city. William G. Penney gives the real basis for calculating the energy loss due to blast damage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in his 1970 paper, which contains numerous detailed, precise calculations and measurements showing how the act of causing destruction to steel and concrete, in addition to the mere oscillations of buildings, reduced the energy content of the blast and thus the pressure fell more quickly with distance in those cities, than measured in unobstructed desert or ocean during his nuclear testing programme. (In 1985 John Malik of Los Alamos simply ignored in his report, LA-8819, all Penney's hard won facts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, without going into details at all. Glasstone and Dolan reference Penney's 1970 paper, but simply ignore its findings on blast attenuation in Hiroshima and Nagasak. So much for scientific progress! Note also that Penney's 12 kt yield for Hiroshima is lower than the current estimate of 16 kt, implying even more blast absorption in Hiroshima than Penney found, because the unattenuated free field pressures from 16 kt will be greater than those from 12 kt!)

Now consider the energy absorption in the plastic region for reinforced concrete. The calculations of energy absorption in oscillating a building are for the small "elastic response" region of the pressure-displacement curve. But vast amounts of energy are absorbed beyond that elastic limit, and yet at pressures lower than required to make a reinforced concrete building collapse (always ignored by ignorant shelter critics, as Lord Baker explained, for shelter design in his 1978 book which we reviewed in detail a few posts back). There is a summary of the key building parameters America uses in calculating the effects of nuclear blast on buildings of various kinds in Table 15.6 on page 525 of Northrop's 1996 Handbook of Nuclear Weapon Effects, Calculational Tools Abstracted from EM-1: building 15.2.2 (3-8 story reinforced concrete, small window area) has a severe damage ductility ratio of 7.5, i.e. it fails and collapses (severe damage) when the displacement is 7.5 times the maximum elastic response. Put another way, the plastic limit for reinforced concrete is 7.5 times the elastic displacement limit. Northrop's figure 15.7 shows the extension versus applied pressure load. The energy absorbed in the elastic limit is a triangle terminating at a displacement of 1 ductility unit (units are extension/elastic limit extension), so it has an area of 0.5 units (energy absorption for oscillating the building, see diagram below). But the plastic response is not a triangle but a unit high rectangle which starts at one unit and extends to 7.5 units (severe damage/collapse), its area is thus 7.5 - 1 = 6.5 units, so it absorbs 6.5/0.5 = 13 times as much energy as that used to oscillate the building elastically! So reinforced concrete buildings can absorb 13 times more energy in being damaged, than they can absorb in oscillating elastically. The ratio of total energy absorbed to flatten the buildings, to the maximum energy that can be absorbed elastic oscillate it, is (6.5 + 0.5)/0.5 = 14. Thus, the total energy absorption by a building can be 14 times that involved in merely oscillating it!

ABOVE: model of a building having a blast, the simple engineering graph from EM-1 showing the ratio of energy needed to total a building to that which merely oscillates it. The axes depict loading force and displacement, respectively, so the areas under the curve beautifully correspond to energy absorbed, allowing us to calculate the total energy needed to flatten a city very easily (from a simple, standard physics formula, energy E = Fx), in terms of multiples of the energy needed to just oscillate the buildings elastically. Northrop's data for other types of buildings are as follows: type 15.2.5 wood frame house has the same 7.5 ductility ratio for collapse, so it can absorb in plastic deformation 13 times the elastic oscillatory energy; type 15.2.3 brick house has a ductility ratio of 4 for severe damage, and a type 15.2.10 3-10 story steel-frame office building has a ductility ratio of 10 for severe damage. This is precisely Lord Baker's principle of the Morrison table shelter (for details, please see Lord Baker's 1978 book about the problems with explaining this to the bureaucratic nutters who don't understand the physics behind engineering, the brilliantly titled Enterprise versus Bureaucracy) where the plastic deformation of steel is used to absorb many times more energy than it can absorb elastically. In other words, it's the damage done (plastic deformation of reinforced concrete) that really absorbs vast amounts of blast energy, not the smaller energy absorption from elastic oscillations of a building! Northrop's table 15.6 shows that the reinforced concrete building, type 15.2.2, has a natural period of oscillation of about 0.3 second, and a static yield resistance of about 3 psi. Northrop's Figure 15.10 shows it has 50% probability of severe damage at 2.85 km from a 1 megaton surface burst on an ideal, unobstructed desert surface with no blast energy absorption by buildings intervening between that target and ground zero! For comparison, a similar 1 megaton surface burst in unobstructed desert is shown in Northrop's Figure 15.11 to have 50% probability of destroying a typical British brick house at 4.42 km ground range (50% severe damage probability), whereas Figure 15.18 gives a range of only 2.74 km for collapse of 3-10 story steel-frame buildings from a 1 megaton surface burst on unobstructed, open terrain.

ABOVE: Glasstone and Dolan are also completely wrong in adding scattered radiation to direct radiation exposure, because radiation-absorbing objects by definition self-shield the contributions coming from different directions, so the energy/unit-area "exposures" don't add up in the real world (unlike the "theoretical example" of an imaginary mathematical point in space). For example, if the side of a person facing the fireball receives 10 cal/cm^2 an the other side receives another 10 cal/cm^2 from cloud-scatter or air-scatter, no surface receives 10+10 = 20 cal/cm^2, which is just a mathematical fiction! Instead, scattered radiation generally exposes a larger area to similar or lower exposure than the direct exposure. This is just one of many fictions that have become groupthink religion in anti-nuclear propaganda. We have already given in many posts extensive evidence proving that concrete buildings in Hiroshima and modern cities absorb thermal, nuclear and blast effects in a way totally ignored by Glasstone's unobstructed desert analysis. Strategic nuclear deterrence is thus bunk, if based on nuclear test effects data from unobstructed desert or open ocean. We need tactical nuclear deterrence to stop invasions and the use of force, not an incredible threat of bombs on cities, which is analogous to the gas and incendiary bombing exaggerations of the 1920s and 1930s which failed to deter WWII. The exaggerations were made by both lying disarmers (to scare people into disarmament) and by lying proponents of aerial bombing in war (to scare enemies into surrender). The resulting pseudo "consensus of expert opinion" from both groups had tragic consequences. Strategic bombing, megatons of ~100 kg high explosive on Germany, equivalent to a large nuclear attack however you scale the megatonnage (by the 2/3 power of blast yield for peak overpressure over unobstructed terrain, or by an even weaker function of yield for initial nuclear radiation), also failed to produce military results when civilians were bombed. The two low yield nuclear weapons dropped over mostly wooden houses in Japan did not produce the results publically claimed (for propaganda) for modern concrete cities. We've been blogging this for years, ignored by the loons who prefer anti-nuclear lies about strategic nuclear deterrence!

So to correct Glasstone for urban areas:

(1). Simply use Lord Penney's exponential attenuation formula from Hiroshima to reduce peak overpressures in cities: exp(-R/3.25) for R being radial distance through a city in kilometres. This reduces peak overpressure by 50% at 2.2 km. (Obviously precise effects depend on details, but this is a "baseline" for minimal blast attenuation, in cities with predominantly wood frame buildings.)

(2). Simply use George R. Stanbury's formula for predicting the thermal flash shadowing, by calculating the number of exposed upper floors that can geometrically "see" the fireball as a function of range, so that the number of computed flash burns correspond to the number of windows that can see the fireball (e.g. for 50 ft wide streets, 3 miles from a 1 megaton surface burst, only the highest floor can "see" the fireball since the angle from the top of the fireball to building top artificial skyline is 13.5 degrees; if the buildings are on average 10 floors high, the percentage burns and fire risk is therefore 1/10 for one side of a building with 4 sides, i.e. 1/40 which is smaller than the 1/10 assumed by some simplistic propaganda; but you then get into the issue of the size of the windows and whether the people inside are protected by shadows from walls or furnishings or internal office cubicle partitions or even other people in between the target and the fireball in the office, all of which reduce the simplistic "theoretical" estimates of the number of people burned, instead of assuming that no buildings or screening exists at all as in anti-nuclear propaganda for so-called "arms control" (war via appeasement/disarmament as in the 1930s). Stanbury points out there, and in his August 1962 Restricted UK Home Office Scientific Advisory branch Fission Fragments article on Fires from nuclear weapons, that to produce firestorms in Germany - the allies tried hard to achieve this in 1943 to end the war (and firestorms produce the associated soot clouds for climatic "nuclear winter" effects hype) you needed 50% of buildings to be initially ignited, which was only possible in the (now burned and gone) medieval wooden areas of Hamburg and Hiroshima (due to blast-overturned charcoal braziers in wooden houses in Japan, not the thermal flash which was obstructed by rooms and other buildings). Stanbury's studies of the thermal flash shielding in Liverpool and Birmingham showed that the thermal radiation is shielded to such an extent you simply can't get to within an order of magnitude of that 50% ignition incidence needed for a Hamburg style intense firestorm (or, therefore, nuclear winter due to Hamburg type firestorm soot clouds penetrating the stratosphere)!

ABOVE: Smokescreens of both white fog smoke and black soot smoke can be seen to the right of the fireball in the 15 kiloton Grable nuclear test, Nevada, 1953. (Smokescreens were again proof tested at Operation Teapot in 1955.) The technology to lay down smokescreens is well-established, and smoke screen generators are fitted to many tanks. The same can be fitted around building windows, preventing fires, firestorms, soot cloud "nuclear winters", simply triggered by early warning radar like air raid sirens before the flash and EMP of an explosion arrive! Glasstone's mention of smokescreens is typical of the many failures of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, failing to make the nuclear test data clear (you cannot even tell from Glasstone whether smokescreens have been analysed in theory or in nuclear tests, let alone the vital details needed for this to be used for civil defense). Part of the problem here is the deceptively non-quantitative treatment of scattered radiation by Glasstone, another exercise in obfuscation.

The effect of scattered thermal radiation diffusing into shadows was insignificant at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where burns from thermal radiation were only received in an unobstructed radial line from the fireball, so that any shielding provided virtually complete protection from thermal flash. The 110 Castle-3 shot at Bikini Atoll in 1954 was fired during a moderate rainstorm to obtain data on the reduction of blast and thermal effects by rainfall. There are no films that show the fireball because the water content of the air absorbed the thermal and visible transmission. Heavy rain or fog absorbs the thermal radiation locally around the fireball, rather than creating a large amount of dangerously wide-angle scattered radiation at great distances. Northrop's 1996 Handbook of Nuclear Weapon Effects: Calculational Tools Abstracted from EM-1, gives data for Pacific test conditions in Figure 6.39 on page 248, on the effect of scattered thermal radiation from a burst at 1 km altitude, at various distances and for different fields of view:

At 10 km ground range, 43% of the thermal radiation in unobstructed terrain is direct (from the fireball), and 57% is scattered, but the angular distribution of scattering is not extreme (most of the scattering comes from air relatively near the fireball): the total (direct plus scattered) is 80% for a 30 degrees field of view (only 20% of the thermal radiation comes from angles exceeding 30 degrees from the radial line to the burst). Only 4% of the total thermal radiation at 10 km comes from angles beyond 90 degrees (i.e. 96% comes from the hemisphere around a target facing the burst).

At 30 km ground range, 16% of the thermal radiation in unobstructed terrain is direct (from the fireball), and 84% is scattered, but the angular distribution of scattering is not extreme (most of the scattering comes from air relatively near the fireball): the total (direct plus scattered) is 70% for a 40 degrees field of view (only 30% of the thermal radiation comes from angles exceeding 40 degrees from the radial line to the burst). Only 6% of the total thermal radiation at 10 km comes from angles beyond 90 degrees (i.e. 94% comes from the hemisphere around a target facing the burst).

Northrop's 1996 Handbook of Nuclear Weapon Effects: Calculational Tools Abstracted from EM-1, gives graphs of the thermal radiation spectrum, showing differences with burst altitude and yield. Figure 6.19 shows that a 1 kt surface burst gives a thermal spectrum which peaks at 1.1 micron (Planck radiating temperature = 2000 K), compared to 0.4 micron (Planck radiating temperature = 5000 K) for 1 kt air bursts at 1-30 km altitude. Figure 6.21 shows there is much less difference between the spectra for surface and air bursts for 1 megaton yield: 0.70 micron peak in the thermal spectrum (Planck radiating temperature = 3800 K) for a megaton surface burst, compared with 0.52 microns (Planck radiating temperature = 4500 K) for a 30 km altitude megaton burst.

Northrop's 1996 Handbook of Nuclear Weapon Effects: Calculational Tools Abstracted from EM-1, in Figure 16.10 uses hydrodynamic calculations to prove that the maximum fire wind velocity in a firestorm is only a weak function of the fire intensity, for example a fire with a radius of 10 km will create a maximum fire wind velocity of 17 m/s for a fire intensity of 25 kW/m2, but this only increases to 36 m/s if the fire intensity is increased to 240 kW/m2.

Remember also that nuclear test evidence shows that the risk of clothing or other items burning is less for real levels of office humidity than for target materials left to dry out in the Nevada at the lower humidity of Nevada nuclear tests like Encore; clothing shields thermal radiation and increases burns energy requirements contrary to Glasstone.

Northrop's 1996 Handbook of Nuclear Weapon Effects: Calculational Tools Abstracted from EM-1, Table 14.5 on page 501 also points out that while people standing nude 2 metres behind glass windows watching the nuclear blast approach them will receive a 50% median dose of 3 glass fragment abdominal wall penetrations at a peak overpressure of 7 psi, it takes 15 psi if they are wearing clothing! If they duck and cover, they will can avoid the directional flying glass (and the thermal burns) completely. What Northrop doesn't tell you is that in a built up city, the dynamic pressure needed to energise those glass fragments to lethal velocities don't exist 2 metres behind glass windows in general; only behind those windows facing the fireball with an unobstructed view. Other windows on all all sides of the building will certainly break if the overpressure is high enough, but the blast wind (dynamic pressure) is directional and so the windows will not be blasted inwards with the same speed (at lower pressures they can even fail in the negative phase and be sucked outwards, with no hazard whatsoever to occupants!). Northop (1996) in chapter 14 on personnel casualties gives very high mortality rates based on unprotected head impacts, particularly for standing personnel, e.g. 5 psi for 50% mortality for people standing in buildings swept through by blast winds. Again, this assumes the blast winds are not obstructed and attenuated by the other surrounding buildings in a city, but it also suggests a simple civil defense precaution to accompany duck and cover in a crisis situation: bicycle helmets can be kept under emergency table "shelters" and can be put on quickly before the blast arrives, after a nuclear explosion, to minimise head trauma from flying debris or bodily translation and impact for high dynamic pressures and long blast durations. With duck and cover, you can avoid wind drag or injury from flying debris and you can keep away from a blast reflecting surface, then Northop shows in Figures 14.2 and 14.3 that you have 50% chance of surviving 37 psi peak overpressure from 1 megaton if you are lying down perpendicular to the direction of approach of the blast wave, or 62 psi if your are lying parallel to the direction of the blast (i.e., lying down facing away from the flash). In other words, blast is then very survivable!

(3). Simply allow nuclear radiation doses in modern cities to be attenuated severely by a factor of about 100 (from the 2011 Los Alamos report unobstructed desert "free field" initial nuclear radiation dose data study for the shadowing by intervening the buildings of in New York City) - before you include the actual shielding by a building people are in, which is much better for INR than Glasstone claims, because essentially ALL of the urban area outdoor 100-fold reduced radiation dose is SCATTERED, not direct, so it is energy-degraded and not the highest-energy direct gamma and neutrons (which are attenuated severely on the transit through all the buildings in the radial line from the bomb)! Putting in "/100" to the computer formulae is not rocket-science! Simple. Nothing in the universe is perfect, but this correction is easy, and gives a minimal baseline for realism for the urban effects of nuclear weapons, lacking in all anti-nuclear diatribes. For higher yield weapons, the increased ranges for given radiation doses will lead to increased attenuation, since at increased ranges there will be more concrete buildings intervening in the the radial line from fireball to target, and although scattered radiation builds up at greater distances, it has lower energy than unscattered radiation and therefore is less penetrating (easier to shield). The most penetrating and wide-angle scattered nuclear radiation dose is from neutrons, but for the full range of 13 different nuclear weapon designs in the 1984 EM-1, the effective mean free-path for the surface burst neutron dose over the distance 1-2 km only ranges from 189 to 221 metres (the latter being weapon type 13, the neutron bomb). (The neutron dose will essentially completely arrived - except for a small portion due to delayed neutrons from fission products like bromine-90 - before blast damage occurs to those buildings lcated near the crater.) Glasstone is widely ignored when pointing out in one table in the last chapter - contrary to many free-field charts and graphs - that 50% survival in modern concrete buildings in Hiroshima occurred at 0.12 mile for the 16 kt air burst at 600 m; this scales up by the cube-root scaling law to predict 50% survival at 1.2 miles from a 16 megaton air burst at 6 km altitude; initial radiation dose distances scale as a weaker function of yield than blast.

Additionally, the blast effects data (relating say overpressure to casualties) is way off in left-wing anti-nuclear propaganda. The actual Hiroshima and Nagasaki data proves much greater survival than bogus theoretical assessments: in reality, 100% people are not nude standing behind windows facing the blast while wearing roller-skates to ensure they are frictionlessly blown straight out of the 42nd floor by a 3psi blast, and killed by the impact from the gravitational fall to the pavement 420 feet below. Instead of the 1979 US Office of technology assessment claim that 50% of people are killed at 5psi, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki more than twice this was needed for the same effect, even without effective duck and cover or taking shelter (CLICK HERE FOR REPORT CONTAINING THE EVIDENCE FOR THIS). Although blast duration increases with yield, this has no effect if the pressure is below the threshold for damage, so Glasstone's curves are wrong for not reverting to cube-root scaling at high yields (impulse rules at low yields, peak pressures rule at high yields; Glasstone ignores this transition in his nonographs for building damage, which is corrected by by the secret EM-1; report Dirkwood Corp report DC-P-1060 found that the blast mortality effect was 50% at 32 psi peak overpressure in modern non-seismic concrete buildings in Hiroshima, or 17 psi for 1 megaton, without duck-and-cover to reduce exposure to flying glass, debris and blast wind drag; contrasted to 5 psi in anti-nuclear disarmament propaganda lies). By contrast, the low yield 10 kiloton "neutron bomb" effect was even apparent with fission weapons in secret British nuclear testing in 1953 (Totem-1 shot, photos below courtesy of Charles S. Grace):

ABOVE: "nuclear war" in populist fiction = end of the world. In fact, as shown by President Kennedy's letter to Life magazine readers above, not everybody agrees that "the survivors will envy the dead". As discussed in detail below, during the 1930s "arms control and disarmament" (aka Nazi appeasement and collaboration) lying by knights and lords with Nobel Peace Prizes hanging around their necks repeatedly brainwashed (with great success) the gullible mass media that mustard gas was 360,000,000 times more lethal than it was in 1918 when simple gas masks provided protection (far greater protection is available today with more modern defense equipment than was issued in 1918). The exaggeration factor was a game-changer. Now you get a whole class of mass media liars who say things like "we must lie about nuclear weapons effects to prevent a nuclear war". The problem is, as in the 1930s, lying ends up causing war by undermining credible deterrence! Tell the truth! Kennedy in a 1961 speech on civil defense argued further that civil defense was needed to prevent WWIII due to "escalation" in a nuclear weapon accident (or apparent "demonstration" strike). If you ban civil defense and ABM because youre faked nuclear effects model show they can be overcome by a massive attack, then you have no defense against nuclear weapons "accidents" (the "fog of war" propaganda tactic in a major crisis is to use diversionary explosions and ambiguity to reduce chances of retaliation, so first the enemy says "we did not launch attack", then eventually you may get "perhaps someone exceeded their authority or some bomb fired itself", etc., etc., so there is 0% clarity and 0% immediate justification to respond, other than waving a white flag and asking for "peace talks" to "resolve the problem without escalation"). So you need civil defense and ABM to mitigate the consequences of conventional or nuclear LIMITED aka "accidental" (note the quote marks!) demonstration strikes, to avoid escalating to all-out nuclear war.

This is 100% diametrically opposed to "arms control and disarmament" (Russian-front) Western anti-civil defense and anti-ABM propaganda spin (Russia itself has both, naturally), which claims that such defenses reduce rather than increase the all-out nuclear threshold! We give many examples below disproving this gormless trash. It's based on the concept that ambulances, hospitals, doctors, car seatbelts, fire stations, first aid training etc causes more accidents than otherwise, by causing a "false sense of security and thus reckless conduct". But statistical evidence disproves this kind of gullible confidence trick. For example, the lack of any civil defense or ABM defense in the UK against "Iraq's WMD's" in 2002 did not reduce reckless conduct by the UK, but on the contrary was used to justify preventative war by Tony Blair in a now-notorious government publication called "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction"! This is what always happens when your options are limited. In October 1962, Kennedy decided to evacuate American cities within Russian IRBM range from Cuba, then invade to remove the nuclear threat; he was unable because in 1961 his advisers had cut evacuation planning out of Herman Kahn's civil defense scheme (Kennedy had only implemented the fallout basement shelter identification and stocking part of Kahn's scheme). This was due to claims that evacuation, taking time, would be no use in a surprise Russian attack (Kahn's concept in his book was based on the 1 September 1939 Operation Pied Piper evacuation of vulnerable people - kids, the pregnant, etc. - from London 48 hours before declaring war to reduce risks of a surprise attack, not evacuating after an enemy surprise attack is detected). If you can't mitigate "accidental" strikes or "demonstration" strikes, you get sucked into war very easily because even a single enemy detonation can have cause 120 times as many casualties if people are in the open than inside concrete buildings or simple shelters: this is the paucity of alternatives dilemma. There is no CND "ignorance" here; it's DELIBERATE LYING for political ends (supporting the enemy), as explained by Herman Kahn and Bruce-Briggs in their 1972 book Things to Come, where they define groupthink anti-nuclear style "educated incapacity" as:

"an acquired or learned inability to understand or see a problem, much less a solution ... when a problem or the solution lies outside the accepted framework ..."

For the correct application of Hiroshima's lessons to modern higher yield nuclear war threats from Russia, see for instance the 1970s congressional testimony of T. K. Jones of Boeing Corporation in hearings linked HERE (February-March 1976 congressional Civil Defense Review), and HERE (November 1976 Nuclear War Survival hearings). Whenever the factual evidence surfaces, it is falsely labelled "controversial" or "wrong" by lying mainstream media charlatans, fraudsters, and bigoted snake oil salesmen, and ignored for political left-wing propaganda purposes, or the "arms controllers" simply tell lies claiming falsely that civil defense is a joke, just as they did in the 1930s (when civilian gas masks were discounted as a simple solution to deter Hitler from dropping his gas bombs on cities for a knockout blow!) and 1970s, debunked by T. K. Jones' famous 1979 letter to congress, extract below, which led to his being appointed Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces on June 1, 1981 under the new Reagan Administration, which aimed to win the Cold War by science and technology, not lose freedom via Russian nuclear coercion. Note that while the ACDA - i.e. the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, whose faked nuclear weapons/war effects calculations lay behind the disastrous 1970s nuclear parity SALT farce which now results in dictators again intimidating democracies as was the case in the 1930s due to disarmament scams for "peace" which led to WWII - claimed 50% of people are killed at 5 psi peak overpressure from a megaton, while in fact U.S. classified Defense Nuclear Agency research showed that Russian public shelters were built to take 150 psi i.e. surviving within the 0.83 mile fireball radius of a 5 megaton surface burst, Russian apartment basement shelters were built to survive 60 psi, and good Russian improvised expedient shelters built outside cities survived 40 psi in American blast tests and gave upwards of 200 fallout protection factor (i.e., reducing the maximum hotspots of 20,000 rads to a survivable 100 rads and averting casualties).

ACDA disarmament bigots simply lied in the traditional "H. G. Wells" 1930s-sci-fi-style of disarmament fantasy, in testimony to congress, about the motivation and the detailed work of those people who disproved them, they ignored the classified data on blast and fallout shielding in their "effects" models, or their calculations assumed that people failed to use fallout shelters in order to deceptively "reduce" fallout protection factors by a factor of 7, by simply assuming people would go outside to be exposed to unshielded fallout (like most people, they also massively exaggerated the mean gamma ray energy of fallout during the sheltering period, as we have previously exposed, which is debunked by the measurements after the Redwing Zuni and Tewa tests) - they also lied that Jones didn't include fallout casualties when in fact he did include fallout correctly, finding that you don't get fallout casualties with the high degree of radiation shielding in shelters, an exact analogy to the situation where the 100,000 protection factor of activated charcoal gas mask filters gave no gas casualties in 1938 research, and disarmament bigots tried to claim that was some kind of ignorant dismissal of the horrors of true gas war so they would "arbitrarily" assume that only say 50% of people put on gas masks in order to then falsely claim that gas masks were somehow "calculated" to only work for 50% of people - i.e. only those assumed to be actually wearing them! - a travesty and abuse of scientific modelling (like lying that you have done detailed calculations proving that car seat belts make no difference in accidents, when in fact you have merely assumed that nobody wears the seat belts!), when in fact the true excellence of gas mask protection was proved to successfully deter Hitler from using gas on civilians with gas masks, saving millions contrary to the hate attacks on civil defence by disarmament propaganda deceivers (who recognised that civil defence made deterrence credible, and so was a threat to their bigoted plans for peace at any price):

ABOVE: extracts from the famous 1979 T. K. Jones Boeing Corporation letter, page 2, debunking "arms control" nuclear weapons effects liars in detail. This really exasperated my dad, John B. Cook, who was a Civil Defence Corps instructor in the 1950s, but was old enough to live through the 1930s appeasement era when Philip Noel-Baker repeated lied on the effects of gas bombs, claiming gas masks will never work, because babies and the elderly won't put them on properly, blah, blah, so we must ban evil civil defence and instead guarantee peace by appeasing the Nazis because of we don't, they will DEFINITELY gas us all with a massive gas bomb raid on day 1 of war. In fact, Philip Noel-Baker did this first in a BBC radio speech in 1927, 6 years before Hitler was elected. Family members who knew the truth from gas attacks in WWII - largely negated by simple gas masks and going into shelters for droplets of persistent liquids like mustard agent - had to put up with this lying BBC and other media propaganda for disarmament throughout the 1930s, to the joy of the Nazis who were secretly rearming and preparing for invasions (not necessarily war, since Hitler would have been quite happy to "peacefully" invade the world and then use efficient gas chambers to dispose of those whose race or views he found to be "offensive", like modern snowflakes today). What really irritated dad, however, was that Philip Noel-Baker, having lied about gas effects in his February 1927 BBC radio broadcast and throughout the 1930s to great applause from pacifists who effectively did Hitler's bidding, was made a Lord and a Nobel Peace prize winner for appeasement propaganda lies that led to world war, and then did the same thing all over again during the cold war, issuing nuclear weapons lies. In a 1980 House of Lords debate on Civil Defence, he lied that the air burst in Hiroshima produced lethal fallout: "It covers everything in Hiroshima not already rendered lethal, and so those who have escaped the flash, the blast, the fire, will die within a short time. The first atomic bomb weighed two kilograms. It was little larger than a cricket ball. ... In 1978, more than 2,000 died in Hiroshima from its long-term effects."

Every word here is totally untrue, and easily disproved, but nobody in the House of Lords explained the facts to him, so this he quotes on page 5 of his 1980 Ecology Party book "How to Survive the Nuclear Age", and on page 6 he adds an attack on civil defence: "I feel the same outrage in 1980 when the Home Office [UK Government civil defence] propose to circulate a a copy of a pamphlet entitled Protect and Survive to every citizen. ... To strengthen the walls and ceilings as the pamphlet suggests, he needed a garden, a spade, sandbags, and the strength to dig and transport a ton of earth." However, the infirm or elderly don't need to hire an army of helpers to make a fallout shelter, because - contrary to Philip Noel-Baker - you can simply use water from a hose to fill up water filled bags inside boxes which do the shielding, as explained in the Home Office scientific advisory branch Fission Fragments magazine article (reprinted in the Royal Observer Corps Journal, vol. 27, issue 2, February 1985, page 26, below). In any case, in actual implementation, you would have some organization for civil defence in time of crisis, with people in nighbourhoods helping one another (lending hose pipes, helping to assemble emergency shelters around tables in homes, etc). Noel-Baker ends his case by absurdly calling for disarmament as a "sure way to avoid the war", by again ignoring the lessons of his own 1930s disarmament war effects propaganda which led to appeasement and thus the encouragement of enemy aggression, triggering the Second World War: "This is not a utopian dream. It is the system by which David Lloyd George disarmed Germany in 1919..." This claim typifies Noel-Baker's absurd, self-contradictory nonsense, since DLG's 1919 "system" led to another, far worse, world war, not to peace.

In that 1980 Ecology Party book "How to Survive the nuclear age", there is after the deceptions from Labour Party Lord Noel-Baker, a summary of civil defence shelter advice, but then the book ends with the transcript of the final big speech from Lord Mountbatten to the arms control anti-nuclear propaganda institute SIPRI at Strasbourg on 11 May 1979 (the IRA tragically ended his appeasement campaign with a bomb on his boat off the coast of Sligo, Ireland, on 27 August 1979): "A military confrontation between the nuclear powers could entail the horrifying risk of nuclear warfare [hardly likely if we have overwhelming superiority for credible deterrence, as we should have had - but did not have - in the 1930s to deter Hitler]. ... A new world war can hardly fail to involve the all-out use of nuclear weapons [this is debunked by former NATO General Sir John Hackett's book "The Third World War" which shows how escalation risks will be controlled even in the event of a Russian first-strike on Britain, provided that we are prepared for nuclear war - this book will be discussed in detail later in this blog post, below]. ... Let us all resolve to take all possible practical steps to ensure that we do not, through our own folly, go over the edge."

ABOVE: the most advanced and latest American "counterforce" nuclear weapons, the oralloy (Oak Ridge Alloy, aka U235 loaded secondary stage) W88 nuclear warheads were designed to knock out the huge well shock-insulated Russian SS-18 missile silos when they had a physical vulnerability number of 52L7, corresponding to a peak overpressure of 7000 psi, which is well within the crater radius. This is highly relevant today, since ehe SS-18 (in Russian nomenclature: R-36M2) is still in service (like the American W88), and the Russians have 46 of them, each with 10 warheads of 800 kilotons each, i.e. a total of 10x46 = 460 nuclear warheads and 3680 megatons. These 211 ton SS-18s are due to be replaced with the latest 208 ton Sarmat (RS-28) missiles (which made its first test flight on 20 April 2022, during the Ukraine war), extending the range from 11,000 km for the SS-18 to 18,000 km for the Sarmat. Unfortunately, as this declassified report shows, as with the Russian civil defense shelters, the silo hardness was underrated and the physical vulnerability is not 52L7 as originally supposed. The SS-18 silos could take much higher peak overpressures than 7000 psi and related ground shock, cratering throwout, etc. (The current "best guess" - and this is not proof tested due to the ban on atmospheric nuclear testing - is that it takes a peak overpressure of 10,000 psi to blow the silo door off the SS-18 silo and wreck the missile, which occurs at a distance from the warhead similar to its inertial gyroscopic CEP targetting error if the accurate GPS satellite navigation system is taken out by high altitude bursts, so to get a high kill probability you need to target many warheads per silo, a hugely inefficient strategy when all the enemy has to do is launch the SS-18 out of the silo before your warheads arrive!) In addition to this underestimate of the hardness of vital military "counterforce" targets in Russia, the Americans also massively over-estimated the cratering and ground shock effects for high yields in ordinary soils (not easily broken coral reefs!). (For references, please see the earlier blog posts about cratering exaggerations linked here and here.) The points we want people to take away, or at least openly investigate and question are:

(1) countervalue (anti-city) effects of nuclear weapons are bunk because, aside from the mistakes and deliberate omissions Glasstone and Dolan made for propaganda purposes in their 1977 edition, if the chips really do go down, you or your opponent can simply evacuate cities - most of which self-evacuate at 5pm every weekday, anyhow - evacuation is not a miracle, despite what Scientific American or Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says - before issuing an ultimatum, just as the UK did with evacuating kids from London in Operation Pied Piper on 1 September 1939 before issuing an ultimatum and then declaring war 48 hours later,

(2) you or your opponent can not only safeguard the civilians in cities by evacuating them (or putting the people into shelters/basements etc if you have them, as the Russians do, and as thankfully the Ukrainians do which is a key reason they have been able to fight the Russian invasion, as a result of having previously been part of the civil defense obsessed USSR), but 100% of missiles in silos can also be safeguarded from destruction by simply firing them out of their silos, if seriously threatened by a counterforce (anti-silo) enemy attack. In other words, if you decide to credibly target enemy nuclear weapons (a very costly strategy in terms of the number of W88 warheads per silo for any significant chance of damaging a >7000psi peak overpressure-requiring SS-18 missile silo, which are about as well protected as the concrete and steel around most nuclear power reactor cores), your targetting policy will encourage the enemy to launch first, to save their missiles from being taken out! So using nuclear weapons to target other nuclear weapons in hardened silos (or hidden in the sea in submarines!), apart from being extremely inefficient and costly in terms of your stockpile, is also a policy that provokes the risk of enemy "launch on warning" crisis instability because you are, if "successful", removing the enemy's protected second strike retaliation capability, and once the second strike option is gone, they are pushed back into the old first-strike aka launch-on-warning policy, which is extremely dangerous if their radar operators mistake some third party's missile testing for a launch against them, etc., etc. So the obsessive "disarmament fantasy" of only using nuclear weapons to try to deter other nuclear weapons in silos by targeting them, is a dangerous illusion that provokes crisis instability and risks an accidental nuclear war, in addition to being an exceptionally ineffective deterrent! All you do with that delusion is to deter the enemy from a second-strike policy, and force the enemy into a dangerous first-strike/launch on warning policy! If you can knock out the enemy warheads in their silos, the enemy will simply ensure that there is a very high probability that their missiles have been launched out of their silos before your warheads arrive, so you will be uselessly destroying EMPTY missiles silos! (your warheads take 25 minutes to arrive for an ICBM between continents, and 10 minutes for a back door attack of an SLBM launched from a submarine; less time is required for a Russian sub to hit NY or LA because they are beside oceans, unlike Moscow and most Russian targets that are well inland!).

(3) In any case, how do you target enemy SLBMs in submarines hidden at sea? Similarly, the most numerous Russian ICBM in their stockpile is the mobile SS-27 Mod 2/RS-24, of which they have 135 missiles on 16-wheeled mobile launch vehicles which can move around, with 4 separate MIRV nuclear megaton warheads per missile and a range of 11,000 km. How do you target them as they move around during a crisis situation? They can easily move position enough to survive an nuclear warhead in the US stockpile during the 25 minutes while your missiles are on the way to hit them in a crisis situation, so you are literally trying to hit a moving target - do you really believe America will be able to reprogram the target locations for ICBM warheads in flight as they are moving? The whole idea would be amusing if it wasn't so tragic (there was an effort to create a warhead which could track its moving target and adjust its trajectory accordingly, the MARV - Maneuverable Reentry Vehicle - the only known Western MARV was the Pershing II warhead, which disarmed as part of the INF treaty to appease Russia/pro-disarmament politicians in the West). So the whole idea of using nuclear weapons to hit enemy nuclear weapons before they are launched is crazy and dangerous. It's no joke that all the disarmament propaganda claims falsely that nuclear weapons have only the purpose of targetting other nuclear weapons in silos. That policy is dangerous, because it just encourages the enemy to get the weapons out of their silos before your weapons can arrive, so you are not deterring the enemy to launch their weapons, but forcing them to launch on warning, a lunatic policy! Nuclear weapons are only effective in a counterforce operation against armies on the move, either as a deterrent or to physically stop invasions without collateral damage by air burst enhanced neutron weapons. The only real use of nuclear weapons should be, as Oppenheimer said, as a tactical threat to stop the military invasions and attacks that triggered two world wars.

Nuclear weapons are exceptionally good at deterring (or stopping) armies on the move! Not so if they are dispersed in defensive positions like hasty earth covered emergency civil defense shelters that resist 40 psi peak overpressure and give a protection factor of 200 or more against radiation; but the point is that they deter enemy military offensives and once the enemy has crossed your border you are within your rights to stop them; the credible threat will prevent invasions this way, ending world war. (Nuclear weapons are also effective at destroying enemy nuclear weapons in flight, e.g. the 2 kt W66 neutron warhead in the American Sprint ABM missile could melt down the fissile material in Russian nuclear warheads in flight in the atmosphere, and the 5 Mt W71 x-ray warhead of the Spartan ABM missile would ablate, deflect and destroy Russian warheads in space; they also knock down trees to create demilitarised zones in jungle warfare which enable easy identification of insurgents entering those zones for attacks.)

There is a compendium of classic 1960s and 1970s arguments for civil defense, and their political suppression by left-wingers and fools, in Nobel Laureate Dr Eugene P. Wigner's Collected Works, part B, volume VIII, edited by Jagdish Mehra (Springer, 1998, 258 pages). Wigner on 28 April 1976 testified before the U.S. Congressional Hearings of the Joint Committee on Defense Production (page 144 in their printed hearings, online version is LINKED HERE) that the new Russian evacuation plans - as shown in its 1969 Civil Defense Manual (translated as ORNL-TR-2306, Oak Ridge National Lab.) - are very effective (the Russian civil defense plan includes only essential workers commuting into cities for 12-hour shifts, and using shelters):

"Indeed an easy calculation shows that, if the USSR carries out its city evacuation plans, the total number of casualties that all the nuclear weapons in our missiles could cause would be a good deal less than 50% the losses they suffered in World War II. A reasonable estimate, based on the Oak Ridge [National Laboratory] test of a blast resistant 'expedient shelter', described in the USSR civil defense handbooks, gives for the loss which our missile carried nuclear weapons could cause, about 3% of the USSR population. What about our own situation? ... An evacuation plan [costs] $1.2 billion .... a blast resistant shelter system similar to that of China ... would cost around $35 billion."

In 1979, in a joint article with hydrogen bomb advocate Dr Edward Teller in the U.S. Senate Congressional Record (2 August 1979, page S-11490), Wigner points out that Kahn's Type I deterrence is inadequate to prevent war (Type I is also called "mutual assured destruction", if both sides have parity via "arms control" delusions): "... I believe that the so called Mutual Assured Destruction is nonsense, because suppose even if the attacked nation could retaliate, if the other nation pretends that it does not believe it and makes a demand, is there any point in resisting? What good does it do if it can destroy hundreds of thousands of the aggressors' lives ..."

In his 26 May 1964 address to Mercer County NJ Civil Defense organization (reprinted in his Collected Works, part B, Vol. 8, p35 et seq.), Wigner explains that "people who are against Civil Defense often have some element of frustration ... and they find more easily time for, and outlet in, their opposition," as explained by Robert Waelder's article Protest and Revolution Against Western Societies, in M.A. Kaplan (ed), The Revolution in World Politics (New York, 1962, p 18), i.e. it is the same as the mechanism for Marxist agitators, some of which are openly Marxist and others pretend to be libertarian while remaining faithful to the bigoted dictators. Wigner's address continues: "Much more literature - I think 80% - is against than for Civil Defense and much of it is completely irresponsible. A few weeks ago I read an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in which the author said that a complete fallout [cheaper than blast] shelter program would cost $50 billion. Now $50 billion is more than would be spent on the complete blast [and fallout] shelter program which I mentioned [$35 billion]. But ... who will contradict it?"

In Publication 82 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Civil Defense, 1966, edited by H. Eyring, Wigner remarks on page 121: "Dr Rapoport said, in a note to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, that it is possible that surrender to Hitler would have led to fewer deaths ... My view is the opposite in this case: I believe that if the West had shown clear resolve and determination from the start, WWII could have been averted."

After Leon Goure wrote his May 1972 report, "Soviet Civil Defense - urban Evacuation and Dispersal" (Centre for Advanced International Studies, Miami University, DTIC report AD0745136), Wigner and J. S. Gailar wrote in their joint article "Russian Evacuation Plans - the Fears they Create" in the September-October 1974 issue of Survive (v7, n5, pp 4-5): "If the leadership of the USSR should change and become more aggressive, it would have, under the present circumstances, a terribly tempting option: to stage an evacuation and to provoke a confrontation when this is completed." Wigner later testified to the U.S. Congressional Hearings of the Joint Committee on Defense Production, Civil Preparedness and Limited Nuclear War (28 April 1976, pp 143-7) that the principal danger: "is the possibility of the USSR evacuating its cities, dispersing their population, and the making demands on us, under the threat of a nuclear attack, approximating those made by Hitler on Czechoslovakia which led to the Munich Pact."

The only reply Wigner received was a nonsense filled 11-page article attacking all these lessons from Russian Civil Defense, headed "Limited Nuclear War" by Sidney D. Drell and Frank von Hippel, and published in the November 1976 issue of Scientific American, the editor of which, Dennis Flanagan, refused to publish Wigner's rebuttal, entitled "We heartily disagree", just as Kahn's rebuttal to the nonsense review of his book on Civil Defense in 1961 had been refused by Scientific American, leading Kahn to expand it into his 1962 book "Thinking about the unthinkable". Wigner's and A. A. Broyles rebuttal to Scientific American was finally published instead as "We heartily disagree" in the Journal of Civil Defense, v10, pp. 4-8, July-August 1977 issue, pointing out that the Russian casualties with civil defense would be 4% on Wigner's unclassified estimate or 2% using T. K. Jones's classified data estimate (utilizing secret data on the survival of foxholes in nuclear tests, in the 1972 DNA-EM-1 Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons), and that the Russian improvised lined, covered trench shelters survive a peak overpressure of 40 psi as well as heat flash and fallout radiation, and adds that contrary to the nonsense in Scientific American, the Russians did test their plans by evacuating the city of Sevastopol in a drill which led to improvements in their plans.

H-bomb proponent Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner, and A. A. Broyles in May 1973 had jointly authored the American Security Council report, "Without civil defense we are in a glass house", which basically argues that you can't have a deterrent for world war if you are not prepared to use that deterrent when your bluff is called. If you are in Chamberlain's position in 1938 or Baldwin's in 1935, you are scared of using the deterrent because it is like "throwing stones in glass houses", because - if you can't shelter people because you refuse to have shelters and you also won't have a plan to evacuate kids from London (Operation Pied Piper, 1939) before you declare war - then you can easily be scared and coerced by Hitler or other dictators, who can see clearly that your "deterrent" is a complete bluff and totally, pathetically useless, because a weapon you can't use is not a credible deterrent. Naturally, as we keep repeating on this blog, this is what the defeatists who love Putin and other dictators want since surrender has two vital steps: (1) get rid of the shield (civil defense) since that makes the sword credible as an alternative to disarmament, and (2) point out that a sword without a shield is an incredible deterrent that is useless, so we had better disarm (and surrender)! Arms control delusions like supposed "parity" (a balance of weapons on both sides, as if democracies need detering like dictatorships), when one side has credible civil defense and the other doesn't, is like a duel between two people, similarly armed, but with one wearing body armour and the other totally unprotected! Not on that, but the dictator is the one wearing the body armour!

ABOVE: long-haired scientist Thomas K. Jones, better known as T. K. Jones, (pictured testifying before the Joint Committee on Defense Production, in Science magazine, 10 December 1976 after his Congressional Testimony raised the wrath of crackpot Scientific American and Bulletin of Atomic Scientist fans) was the "fall guy" of Reagan's civil defense, doing the explosive tests for Boeing Corporation on Russian civil defense shelter designs and testifing on their consequences for strategic nuclear deterrence - basically debunking strategic nuclear deterrence and McNamara's/Glasstone's totally fake news on urban nuclear weapons effects entirely, since 98% of Russians would survive the US nuclear stockpile when dispersed in shelters - which inspired Cresson Kearny's Oak Ridge National Laboratory manual, Nuclear War Survival Skills. President Ronald Reagan, prior to his election as US President, was leaked secret CIA reports on Russian civil defense tests of shelters and evidence of their tests of city evacuation plans for instance by evacuating Sevastopol in Crimea and also, in 1975, Lytkarino (a suburb of Moscow containing 40,000 people). A clue to who helped him was shown by Reagan's decision to controversially appoint T. K. Jones as Under-Secretary for Defense for Research and Engineering! A book was then published called With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War, ignoring the key scientific evidence entirely, and merely trying to ridicule Reagan's appoinment of T. K. Jones (who is quoted on the front cover), as a left wing Democratic supporting political instrument - like Duncan Campbell's similarly vacuous War Plan UK. This was left-politics versus hard science. It often appears to work because Mr Joe Public loves a tall-story fairy tale!

If proof of this is needed, Robert Scheer, a fellow in arms control at Stanford University and the author of With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War, became "Truthdig" editor-in-chief, a propagandarist who claims that ending WWII with nuclear weapons made Truman guilty of "the most atrocious act of terrorism in world history", so he needs to check his facts on the numbers gassed in the Holocaust, or starved in Ukraine by Stalin, unless he denies those deliberate acts of terrorism like the other left wing Holocaust deniers who confuse racism and anti-racism, terrorism and anti-terrorism. When you actually check the facts: (1) Secretary Stimson (U.S. Secretary of War) knew he has a secret nuclear weapons program of investment of billions of dollars to justify to Congress after WWII ended and didn't want to hold back using the bomb for that reason, so he promoted Hiroshima as being a military target (it did have military bases, particularly at Hiroshima Castle just north of ground Zero, but it was also a highly populated civilian city), (2) Hiroshima's air raid shelters were unoccupied because Japanese Army officers were having breakfast when B29s were detected far away, says Yoshie Oka, the operator of the Hiroshima air raid sirens on 6 August 1945, (3) Colonel Tibbets, former bomber of Germany before becoming the Hiroshima pilot as commander of the 509th Composite Group, explains how his pilots and crew were ridiculed heavily for lack of accomplishments, while preparing for weeks on Tinian Island. According to Tibbet's own book The Tibbets Story a poem was published before Hiroshima called "Nobody knows" lampooning the 509th's results: "Nobody knows. Into the air the secret rose; Where they're going, nobody knows; Tomorrow they'll return again; But we'll never know where they've been. Don't ask us about results or such; Unless you want to get in Dutch. But take it from one who is sure of the score, the 509th is winning the war. When the other Groups are ready to go; We have a program of the whole damned show; And when Halsey's 5th shells Nippon's shore; Why, shucks, we hear about it the day before. And MacArthur and Doolittle give out in advance; But with this new bunch we haven't a chance; We should have been home a month or more; For the 509th is winning the war." Tibbets was therefore determined create maximum effects after his group had been ridiculed at Tinian Island for not attacking Japan during weeks of preparations on the island, rehearsing the secret nuclear attacks while other B29s were taking took flak trying to bomb Japan into surrender with conventional bombs. He writes in The Tibbets Story that regular morning flights of small groups of weather and phototographic survey planes that did not make significant attacks over possible nuclear target cities, helped to reduce civil defense readiness in the cities, as well as reducing the air defense risks, since Japan was rationing its use of its limited remaining air defense in 1945.

The November 1976 Scientific American anti-civil defense article claimed that civil defense was discredited since: "In the 1960s the US adopted a strategic policy giving top priority to the prevention of nuclear war through deterrence ...", to which Wigner and Broyles responded to this claim in "We heartily disagree" in the July-August 1977 Journal of Civil Defense: "How do you deter an attack unless you convince an enemy that you will fight the war that he is starting?"

Dictators often start wars which their people don't need: the Persian war against the Greeks, Hannibal's war against Rome, the Tartar's invasions of Europe, the Turks' invasion of Hungary, the invasions of Napoleon. You have to accept that aggression is not necessarily a completely rational activity! All that counts for deterrence is that it is credible. If you don't prepare to fight with strategic nuclear weapons, then they are just a pointless bluff, a paper tiger as the Chinese put it, not a credible deterrent. Which is precisely what the disarmers want, of course, since nuclear parity, with the shift away from credible nuclear deterrence to incredible foolery, is only one step away from admitting the uselessness of the strategic nuclear stockpile, disarming and surrendering!

ABOVE: the 11 October 1952 cover of Picture Post showed clearly the "separation of effects" in an air burst (31 kiloton air burst at 3,440 ft, the Charlie shot of 22 April 1952, Nevada test site), where the fireball cools and forms into toroidal shape (with the radioactivity in the ring) before the "stem" of popcorned dust from the desert is sucked through the middle, before cascading harmlessly around the periphery without mixing with the fission products in the toroidal ring. Despite the visual proof that intense radioactive fallout can be avoided by air bursts, anti-nuclear propaganda helped by Russian fronts continued to raise fallout fears to promote Western arms control and disarmament, leaving the field clear for undeterred Russian conventional invasions and wars.

Professor John J. Mearsheimer, "The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Summer, 1993), pp. 50-66 (FULL ARTICLE LINKED HERE):

"The conventional wisdom about Ukraine's nuclear weapons is wrong. In fact, as soon as it declared independence, Ukraine should have been quietly encouraged to fashion its own nuclear deterrent. Even now, pressing Ukraine to become a nonnuclear state is a mistake. A nuclear Ukraine makes sense for two reasons. First, it is imperative to maintain peace between Russia and Ukraine. That means ensuring that the Russians, who have a history of bad relations with Ukraine, do not move to reconquer it. ... Ukrainian nuclear weapons are the only reliable deterrent to Russian aggression. ... A conventional war between Russia and Ukraine would entail vast military casualties and the possible murder of many thousands of civilians. Russians and Ukrainians have a history of mutual enmity; this hostility, combined with the intermixing of their populations, raises the possibility that war between them could entail Bosnian style ethnic cleansing and mass murder. This war could produce millions of refugees clamoring at the borders of Western Europe. ... There is also the threat of escalation beyond the borders of Russia and Ukraine. For example, the Russians might decide to reconquer other parts of the former Soviet Union in the midst of a war, or might try to take back some of Eastern Europe. Poland and Belarus might join forces with Russia against Ukraine or gang up with Ukraine to prevent a Russian resurgence. The Germans, Americans or Chinese could get pulled in by their fear of a Russian victory. (Doubters should remember that the United States had no intention of fighting in Europe when war broke out in 1914 and again in 1939.) ...

"Russia has dominated an unwilling and angry Ukraine for more than two centuries, and has attempted to crush Ukraine's sense of self-identity. Recent history witnessed the greatest horrors in this relationship: Stalins government murdered an astounding 12 million Ukrainians during the 1930s. ... A Ukrainian conventional deterrent is not a viable option because Ukraine cannot build an army powerful enough to stop a Russian attack. Ukraine's army might put up dogged resistance, but it would eventually be defeated. Russia is simply too powerful. ... Conventional military power is significantly more expensive than nuclear military power and requires a larger military; hence it requires far more popular mobilization. ... A security guarantee from the West is theoretically possible but not a practical strategy for maintaining Ukrainian sovereignty. Extending deterrence to Germany during the Cold War was a demanding and expensive job; extending deterrence further east to Ukraine would be even more difficult. ... Vilifying nuclear weapons is a fashionable sport in the West. ... This view of nuclear weapons is simplistic and flies in the face of the inherent logic of nuclear deterrence, as well as the history of the Cold War. In fact, nuclear weapons often diminish international violence, and Ukrainian nuclear weapons would be an effective deterrent against a Russian conventional attack or nuclear blackmail. In the pre-nuclear world of industrialized great powers, there were two world wars between 1900 and 1945 in which some 50 million Europeans died. In the nuclear age, the story is very different. Only some 15,000 Europeans were killed in minor wars between 1945 and 1990, and there was a stable peace between the superpowers that became increasingly robust over time. ... Moreover, there is always the possibility that nuclear weapons might be used inadvertently or accidentally in the course of a conventional war, which provides further incentives for caution."

Professor Cyril Joad, "Why War?", Penguin Special book, August 1939, page 71: "Mr. Churchill and Sir Norman Angell ... The most convincing comment that I have heard on the whole lunatic business was made at a meeting which I attended as an undergraduate at Oxford in the year before the war. The meeting was addressed by a Cabinet Minister. "There is," he said, "just one way in which you can make your country secure and have peace, and that is to be so much stronger than any prospective enemy that he dare not attack you, and this is, I submit to you, gentlemen, a self-evident proposition." A small man got up at the back of the hall and asked him whether the advice he had just given was the advice he would give to Germany. ... the questioner proceeded to drive home the moral which his question had implied. "Here," he pointed out, "are two nations or groups of nations likely to quarrel. How shall each be secure and keep the peace? Our Cabinet Minister tells us in the profundity of his wisdom, that both will be secure, both will keep the peace when each is stronger than the other. And this, he thinks, is a self-evident proposition." This time there was loud applause. It remains to add that the Cabinet Minister was Winston Churchill, his questioner Sir Norman Angell [author of the 1908 anti-deterrence book, The Great Illusion and winner of the 1933 Nobel Peace Prize]."

Notice the point that Angell fails to explain why mutual deterrence won't keep the peace! If any mass-media "nuclear overkill" lies were true and we only needed 0.02 kiloton W54 sized nuclear warheads, we'd have 0.02 kiloton nuclear weapons. The reason why we have higher yields is lying isn't a credible deterrent when the chips go down, and what we have is a bare minimum to carry out a minimal deterrent function. It's easy to reduce nuclear weapon yields by removing boost gas, secondary stages, etc. The actual problem is the exact opposite of what 100% of quack mass media liars rant: if actually we want to reduce the risk of war including escalation to nuclear war, we need a credible deterrent which we don't have (see facts below). As regards huge stockpiles, this bankrupts the dictatorship as seen in the 1980s. It's a small price to pay, compared to the cost of a world war. Angell simply sneers at mutual deterrence, without (1) saying what's wrong with it, (2) investigating how to make it stable, (3) explaining why there's something wrong with "Si vis Pacem, para Bellum". Herman Kahn in his 1960 On Thermonuclear War discovered these pseudo-pacifists were key to starting WWII by duping the public with the illusion of security through disarmament (using itallics to emphasise this point!). What's actually needed, Kahn showed is credible deterrence including civil defence in order to reduce collateral damage such as radiation exposure to civilians (this is discussed in detail below, with quotations from Kahn's various books). This quotation of Angell versus Churchill in a 1913 deterrence debate is important because Churchill's pre-WWI naval Dreadnought deterrence ("We need eight, and we won't wait!") proved an incredible deterrent against the invasion of Belgium in 1914 which triggered WWI! So deterrence must be credible against the spectrum of provocations that result in wars, not just against a subset of the spectrum of possible provocations!

But Churchill's so-called "brilliant oratory" during the 1930s again failed to sway public opinion early enough to credible deter the Nazis from invading Poland in 1939 and triggering WWII. He failed to defeat the anti-deterrence movement led by Norman Angell and Philip Noel-Baker. So there are important lessons to learn here. In the end, the "anti-war movement" - which had become by 1939 a Nazi Fifth Column in the UK - had to be forceably shut down (with oppressive press censorship) once war broke out, as enemy collaboration or defeatism. However, they re-started again in 1945 when wartime censorship was lifted, and were never debunked by scientists, historians or journalists who could see the dangers from attacking them, i.e. the fascist mentality of such self-righteous lying quacks and charlatans, which were identical to the pseudo-scientist mindsets of Nazi eugenics pseudoscience and Marxism pseudoscience. The anti-nuclear quacks immediately focussed on nuclear weapons radiation, just as they had focussed on gas fear-mongering in the 1920s and 1930s! The journalists, historians and scientists who should have called out the liars instead backed anti-nuclear liars, instead of repudiating them and using nuclear weapons to deter war! Historians like AJP Taylor were accused by Herman Kahn of fiddling their analysis of Hitler and war origins, simply in order to "justify" a delusional anti-nuclear agenda (e.g., AJP Taylor was a founder of unilateral nuclear disarmament organisation "CND"!). There is still a taboo on mentioning the fact that Glasstone's and Dolan's 1977 Effects of Nuclear Weapons states in Table 5.160 that a large cheap WWII Anderson shelter (light 10-gage corrugated steel hemispherical arch with 20-25 ft span and 5 ft earth cover at the crown) requires 45-60 psi peak overpressure for collapse, while an 8" thick reinforced hemispherical buried concrete arch with 16 ft span and 4 ft earth cover at the crown requires 220-280 psi peak overpressure for collapse, i.e. survival within half-a-mile from a one megaton surface burst, proving relatively cheap, credible, effective civil defence (Glasstone's book, however, generally is misleading "free field" effects data from nuclear tests in deserts, omitting the blast and radiation shielding caused by energy absorption by concrete building skylines in cities; the only parts of Glasstone quoted by the CND people are the falsehoods; the media let them get away with it!).

"Who in Europe does not know that one more war in the West and the civilisation of the ages will fall with as great a shock as that of Rome? ... all gas experts are agreed that it would be impossible to devise means to protect the civil population from this form of attack [gas attacks]."

- Professor Philip Noel-Baker, "Foreign Affairs and How They Affect Us", BBC Radio, February 1927 (false claim, repudiated in secret discussions by UK Government Chemical Warfare Research Department, but not in public, thus enabling this form of "pacifist" lying to be used by Nazis to engineer appeasement leading to World War II; see also p31 of T. H. O'Brien's appalling UK official WWII history "Civil Defence" which dumbly mentions this episode without following up the implications for fascist appeasement!).

"Any use of nuclear weapons will escalate into a general war. There is no defence against such weapons ... nuclear warfare will destroy civilsation, and perhaps exterminate mankind. To hope for salvation from Civil Defence is a dangerous self-deluding pipe dream."

- Lord Noel-Baker (yes, the same liar quoted above, whose BBC radio show propaganda in February 1927 helped the Nazis kill 40 million people, unopposed by UK government secrecy obsessed "expert" thugs who refused to say anything in response to tell the public the facts they had that debunked Noel-Baker!), The Times, 25 January 1980.

(Thus, the same anti-civil defence "pacifists" who laid the seeds for WWII in 1927 were at it in 1980, simply changing "gas" to "nuclear"! The thug was allowed to go on a Nobel Peace Prize winning anti-civil defence lying crusade because the "journalists", "historians", and "scientists" didn't want to upset the apple cart by telling the public the truth in time to credibly deter another war, exactly what also happened with lying war-mongering appeaser and BBC Brains Trust radio "expert" Professor Cyril Joad who recommended a peace deal with the Nazis in his August 1939 book "Why War?" which on p71 quoted Normal Angell before WWI allegedly "debunking" Winston Churchill as a war-monger responsible for WWI via the old pre-WWI naval arms race, viz "We want eight [Dreadnoughts] and we won't wait!" Joad was eventually kicked out of the BBC for being convicted of dodging his rail fare, not kicked out for helping Hitler's fascist "peace" propaganda - something that has also proved true for many other "untouchable stars" like Sir Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, et al. Journalism, the legal profession, scientific principles, etc., having first made heroes of liars who "filter out the unpleasant facts the public don't want to be concerned with", then always get to cover-up ahem "set aside" 100% of "issues" in their support of big pseudo-pacifist "star" liars, until the problem is so out of control they finally have to publish it, when they "switch over" and start saying the exact opposite about the "star", usually when the star is dead and it's too late, making believe that they did their best to oppose the liars, when in fact the evidence proves the exact opposite: they make as much money out of the star as they can, appeasing the thug in the process. The problem is that quacks and charlatans have always filled the BBC and other mass media outlets and pumped out endless lying about weapons effects, without any competent opposition whatsoever. You have to appreciate that this is simply because "war news" sells better on TV, than "deterrence evidence"! So today you have endless TV "history" shows about Hitler starting WWII, but none about the cause in the gas knockout blow esaggerations and gas mask lying or Anderson shelter lying by pseudo-pacifists, or even the lying origins of Hitler's eugenics in British pseudo-scientists like Darwin's cousin, eugenicist Sir Francis Galton, or his fan club - including the French Nobel Medical Laureate Dr Alexis Carrell who proposed to Hitler the use of gas chambers for "peaceful" mass murder of "state enemies" in his eugenics pseudoscience Nazi bestseller, "Man the Unknown". It's nearly all pathetic propaganda to enforce the false AJP Taylor style orthodoxy that there are no lessons about civil defence and pseudoscience lying from "expert conssensus" to be learned to ensure peace!)

Prof. P. J. Noel Baker: "Foreign Affairs and How They Affect Us - How Nations Settle Their Quarrels" BBC radio 7pm Tue 15th Feb 1927, Radio Times program advert: "At any period in history between the fall of the old Roman Empire and the present century, there was only one answer to the question, 'How do nations settle their quarrels?' It was by war or the threat of war. Now, in the League of Nations, the world has a tribunal before which such quarrels can be judged from the point of view of right rather than might. It would be useless to pretend that the Council of the League is a purely judicial body untouched by political considerations, but at least it contains in every case enough disinterested opinion to ensure that the moral view gets representation, and the sanction behind its decisions is international opinion, and not merely the big battalions of any one Power or group of Powers. Professor Noel Baker was one of the British delegation in Paris when the League was established, and he worked for several years subsequently in the League Secretariat, so he is qualified to speak with knowledge of both the ideal and the actual character of the League."

Eventually - far too late to help deter a war - in 1938, when the war threat induced appeasement and coercion situation was way out of control, some scientists began popular books debunking gas knockout blow liars, but all in a very weak, very gentle way that has been widely ignored. For example, Professor Kendall FRS wrote Breathe Freely! The Truth about Poison Gas which contained key facts but was poorly organized, like Herman Kahn's 1960 On Thermonuclear War. Kendall pointed out on page 52 that with proper defences (gas masks and training) in 1918 it took 4,000 tons of German mustard gas to kill 540 British troops: "Gas defence had progressed to the point where it took nearly 8 tons of mustard gas to kill a single man [with modern NBC clothing and modern respirators etc, even fewer casualties would occur]," and on page 110 he points out that popular mass media gas-knockout-blow hysteria "loved to quote the fact that 1 ton of mustard gas is sufficient to kill 45,000,000 people". If you compare the truth, 1/8 killed per ton with simple 1918 gas masks to 45,000,000 per ton killed in propaganda (for no protection), the exaggeration factor by the mass media was 45,000,000/(1/8) = 360,000,000. This 360,000,000 protection factor is so large that it makes civil defense into a game changer. In other words, giving out gas masks totally eliminates the naive toxicity "overkill" exaggerations at the basis of anti-deterrence propaganda that leads to virtue-signalling disarmament propaganda spin, and thus war. Very large reductions occur with civil defence in nuclear warfare, when you properly take account of city skyline blast and radiation absorption and the actual protection afforded by low cost modern concrete buildings and dual-use underground car park basement shelters. The point is, the 1920s and 1930s lying opposition to WMD deterrence made credible by civil defence against "limited/accidental attacks" etc, by "internationalists" aka appeasers/defeatists, is central to the entire problem of foreign affairs and maintaining a peaceful world. By lying about gas/nuclear knockout blows, you get a Nobel Peace Prize for removing credible deterrence and allowing the invasions that set off major wars, which risks nuclear escalation against battle-hardened opponents once the economic and human costs of conventional war spiral out of control. This key lesson still goes unheeded due to fake news mass media scams! Russia has always recognised the truth about the power of nuclear weapons when the chips go down:

Ministry of Defense of the USSR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS - MANUAL FOR OFFICERS, "FOR PERSONAL USE" (i.e. CONFIDENTIAL) (individually numbered), CHAPTER ONE, NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THEIR MEANS OF USE, p3: "A nuclear explosion can inflict heavy losses on the enemy in manpower and military equipment, destroy lower structures over large areas, have a strong moral impact on the enemy's troops, and create favorable conditions for the side using nuclear weapons, to achieve success in battle."

Below: 13 July 2024 Russian State TV Channel 1 (Putin's Kremlin controlled Russian language propaganda channel for the Russian people): "Any confrontation with the NATO bloc is possible only with the use of nuclear weapons. There is simply no other option. If NATO's military organization surpasses us, it is absolutely futile for us to enter into such an armed confrontation with conventional means of destruction only."

NO: this is not "just a bluff". Putin has over 2000 tactical neutron bombs; we have damn all now. OK? We DID have dedicated tactical nuclear weapons until 1992, and they deterred Russian invasions, but since then we have cut back our deterrence to a bare minimum which excludes the deterrence of conventional wars which risk escalating (like the invasions of Belgium in 1914 and Poland in 1939) into a World War, despite Herman Kahn's warnings of the dangers from minimum deterrence in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War.

Russian propagandists:

"Any confrontation with the NATO bloc is possible only with the use of nuclear weapons. There is simply no other option. If NATO's military organization surpasses us, it is absolutely futile for us to enter into such an armed confrontation with… pic.twitter.com/LYIRrj17Ig

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 13, 2024

"If we are able to use these weapons, and the enemy does not have them, their military effect can only be matched by his use of larger-yield dirty weapons - with the political and propaganda penalties their use implies. Of course the converse will also be true." - Samuel T. Cohen, Low-yield fusion weapons for limited wars, RAND report R-347, 1 June 1959, Secret - Restricted Data classified, p.2 (note this report is based on Livermore laboratory's very clean low yield Dove and Starling devices, developed after the successful testing of 95% clean 4.5 megaton Navajo and 85% clean 3.53 megaton Zuni at Bikini Atoll in 1956 which had lead pushers; Cohen's declassified paper is now in Eisenhower's Presidential Library with annotation on the front cover proving President Eisenhower was briefed on it in 1959!).

"There is another way in which we can have too narrow a focus. We can refuse to entertain or consider seriously ideas which seem to be 'crackpot' or unrealistic, but which are really just unfamiliar. In more casual days one could dismiss a bizarre-sounding notion with a snort or comment about it being impractical or implausible. Things moved slowly, and no real harm was done if a new idea took several years to prove itself. Indeed, allowing a notion to stay around for several years before giving it serious intellectual attention meant that most of the 'half-baked' ones got scuttled and never had to be considered seriously at all." - H. Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, p125.

"At times, the costs and risks of trying to shift the balance of power are too great, forcing great powers to wait for more favorable circumstances. But the desire for more power does not go away, unless a state achieves the ultimate of hegemony. Since no state is likely to achieve global hegemony, however, the world is condemned to perpetual great-power competition. ... They will seize these opportunities if they have the necessary capability. Simply put, great powers are primed for offense. ... a great power will defend the balance of power when looming change favors another state ... states recognise that the more powerful they are relative to their rivals, the better their chances of survival. Indeed, the best guarantee of survival is to be a hegemon ... Great powers ... have little choice but to pursue power and to seek to dominate the other states in the system. This dilemma is captured in brutally frank comments that Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck made during the early 1860s, when it appeared that Poland, which was not an independent state at the time, might regain its sovereignty. 'Restoring the Kingdom of Poland in any shape or form is tantamount to creating an ally for any enemy that chooses to attack us,' he believed, and therefore he advocated that Prussia [today, North East Germany] should 'smash those Poles till, losing all hope, they lie down and die; I have every sympathy for their situation, but if we wish to survive we have no choice but to wipe them out'." - Professor John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 2001, chapter 1.

According to the 1984 Guinness Book of Records (published for sale at Christmas 1983), page 219: "Mass killings ....The greatest massacre ever imputed by the government of one sovereign nation against the government of another is that of 26,300,000 Chinese during the regime of Mao Tse-tung between 1959 and May 1965. This accusation was made by an agency of the USSR Government in a radio broadcast on 7 Apr 1969. ... The Walker Report published by the US Senage Committee of the Judiciary in July 1971 placed the parameters of the total death roll within China since 1949 between 32.25 and 61.7 million. An estimate of 63.7 million was published by Jean-Pierre Dujardin in Figaro magazine of 19-25 Nov 1979. USSR The total death roll in the Great Purge or Yezhovshchina, in the USSR, in 1936-8 ... was administered by the Narodny Kommissariat Vnutrennykh Del (NKVD), or People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, the Soviet security service ... On 17 Aug 1942, Stalin indicated to Churchill in Moscow that 10 million kulaks had been liquidated for resisting the collectivization of their farms. ... Genocide ... It has been estimated that 35,000,000 Chinese were wiped out in the Mongolian invasion of 1210-19." This information about Chinese and Russian socialism mass killing of resistance in the 20th century is also given on pages 193-4 the 1975 Guinness Book of Records, 22nd edition issued in October 1975, which also points out on pages 187-8 that over a million were killed during the 1st Battle of the Somme in 1916 France, 1.3-1.5 million were killed during the 880 days siege of Leningrad in WWII. (These horrific war casualties are dwarfed by the natural disasters table on page 212, giving 75 million dead of plague in 1347-51, 21.64 million dead of flu pandemic in 1918, 9.5 million dead from famine in China in 1877-8, 3.7 million dead in a flood in China in 1931, and 1.5 million dead from famine and typhus in Ireland in 1846-51.) So much for propaganda that nuclear deterrence "risks" are particularly horrific statistics in history! Tens of millions were killed by socialist dictators in modern times, without nuclear bombs. Similarly huge numbers were killed by natural disease pandemics and extreme weather. The key difference is that we can now deter invasions.

"Any of our contemporaries readily identifies two world powers, each of them already capable of utterly destroying the other. However, the understanding of the split too often is limited to this political conception: the illusion according to which danger may be abolished through successful diplomatic negotiations or by achieving a balance of armed forces. The truth is that the split is both more profound and more alienating, that the rifts are more numerous than one can see at first glance. ... Every ancient and deeply rooted self-contained culture, especially if it is spread over a wide part of the earth’s surface, constitutes a self-contained world, full of riddles and surprises to Western thinking. ... But the persisting blindness of superiority continues to hold the belief that all the vast regions of our planet should develop and mature to the level of contemporary Western systems, the best in theory and the most attractive in practice; that all those other worlds are but temporarily prevented (by wicked leaders or by severe crises or by their own barbarity and incomprehension) from pursuing Western pluralistic democracy and adopting the Western way of life. Countries are judged on the merit of their progress in that direction. But in fact such a conception is a fruit of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, a result of mistakenly measuring them all with a Western yardstick. The real picture of our planet’s development bears little resemblance to all this. ...

"Every conflict is solved according to the letter of the law and this is considered to be the ultimate solution. ... A statesman who wants to achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly; thousands of hasty (and irresponsible) critics cling to him at all times; he is constantly rebuffed by parliament and the press. He has to prove that his every step is well-founded and absolutely flawless. Indeed, an outstanding, truly great person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind does not get any chance to assert himself; dozens of traps will be set for him from the beginning. Thus mediocrity triumphs under the guise of democratic restraints. ... When a government earnestly undertakes to root out terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of violating the terrorists’ civil rights. ... If they have misled public opinion by inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, even if they have contributed to mistakes on a state level, do we know of any case of open regret voiced by the same journalist or the same newspaper? No; this would damage sales. A nation may be the worse for such a mistake, but the journalist always gets away with it. It is most likely that he will start writing the exact opposite to his previous statements with renewed aplomb. Because instant and credible information is required, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumors, and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none of them will ever be refuted; they settle into the readers’ memory.

"How many hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, and are then left hanging? The press can act the role of public opinion or miseducate it. ... In the Communist East, a journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. But who has voted Western journalists into their positions of power, for how long a time, and with what prerogatives? ... A Fashion in Thinking. Without any [objective] censorship in the West, fashionable trends of thought and ideas are fastidiously separated from those that are not fashionable, and the latter, without ever being forbidden, have little chance of finding their way into periodicals or books or being heard in colleges. Your scholars are free in the legal sense, but they are hemmed in by the idols of the prevailing fad. There is no open violence, as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to accommodate mass standards frequently prevents the most independent-minded persons from contributing to public life and gives rise to dangerous herd instincts that block successful development. In America, I have received letters from highly intelligent persons—maybe a teacher in a faraway small college who could do much for the renewal and salvation of his country, but the country cannot hear him because the media will not provide him with a forum. ...

"The mathematician Igor Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliantly argued book entitled Socialism; this is a penetrating historical analysis demonstrating that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death. ... [George] Kennan’s advice to his own country—to begin unilateral disarmament—belongs to the same category. If you only knew how the youngest of the officials in Moscow’s Old Square roar with laughter at your political wizards! ... But in fact, members of the US antiwar movement became accomplices in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in the genocide and the suffering today imposed on thirty million people there. Do these convinced pacifists now hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear? ... To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being. Nothing is left, in this case, but concessions, attempts to gain time, and betrayal. ... Liberalism was inevitably pushed aside by radicalism, radicalism had to surrender to socialism, and socialism could not stand up to communism. The Communist regime in the East could endure and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who (feeling the kinship!) refused to see communism’s crimes, and when they no longer could do so, they tried to justify these crimes."

- Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Commencement Address at Harvard University, A World Split Apart, June 8, 1978.

ABOVE: as Herman Kahn predicted in his 1960 On Thermonuclear War, the paranoid anti-arms race groupthink mob insanity of "disarmament and arms control" public coercion after the first World War was not a fluke, but instead was a standard human reaction to the end of a war. It sowed the seeds of another war! Similarly, after Cold War 1.0 ended in 1991, opposition to disarmament and arms control virtually disappeared, so enhanced neutron tactical nuclear weapons (which deterred the kind of invasions and conventional warfare that led to both World Wars, including nuclear weapons use twice in the second one), were removed unilaterally by the West, allowing Russian aggression to trigger Cold War 2.0. This is basically a repetition of the way fake "pacifist" disarmament propaganda lying by Lord Noel-Baker (who in a BBC radio broadcast in February 1927 first claimed that there was no defense against gas WMD except disarmament) and Sir Norman Angell (who had been at it since 1908 with his "Great Illusion" anti-deterrence book, see his pre-WWI argument with Churchill reported by Professor Cyril Joad in the latter's 1939 book "Why War?"), engineered disaster via populist weapons effects lying, "knockout blow" deceptions, and lying denials of civil defense effectiveness to negate threats (all the lessons of these lies have NOT been learned, and people like Lord Noel-Baker, who lied about gas knockout blows on BBC radio in February 1927, were still doing exactly the same thing with nuclear weapons fallout lies in 1980 in response to "Protect and Survive"!).

You won't find any objective analysis of this in any "history book", all of which follow left wing Marxism propaganda or the anti-nuclear biased CND bigot AJP Taylor, in denying the facts using a data-dump of horseshit propaganda to bury the truth. In reality, as the cartoon published in the 17 May 1919 Daily Herald by Will Dyson shows, people did predict another war by 1940 as a result of the 1919 "peace deal" by Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and Baron Sonnino. But most people prefer to believe lies, a fact shown clearly by an unbiased view of history, or even by an unbiased view of "superstring theory" in physics. But don't dare to stand up for truth, because you'll be subject to lying ad hominem attacks and denied a right to reply and debunk the liars. Power corrupts absolutely because the cowardly crowd backs "fashion", not fact.

This was explained back in 1532 by Machiavelli in The Prince: “It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”

It was also later explained by John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859: “A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind ...”

And don't forget Professor F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1960, p. 379: “The very magnitude of the power over men’s minds that a highly centralised and government-dominated system of education places in the hands of the authorities ought to make one hesitant before accepting it too readily.”

This attitude encourages the mainstream media or "liberals" to censor anything that debunks their agenda. To recap, anti-deterrence propaganda from bigoted liars is the orthodoxy, and infects nuclear weapons discussions, deterrence discussions, and the entire "arms control and disarmament" movement with crap. Mainstream media would shut down the internet to "protect" people from potential "error". It's all Stalinist censorship, made plain by Orwell's book 1984, but ignored as "taboo" by thug censors masquerading as "liberals".

Kahn made the following point about disarmament and arms control: reducing nuclear stockpiles and unilaterally eliminating Type II Deterrence (i.e. deterrence of the provocations that cause war, e.g., disarming in 1992 the West's W79 neutron bombs to deter the invasions that set off both World Wars) doesn't make you safer, because it increases the risk of war as proved by history. Reducing the risk of an "accidental" nuclear war is best done using ABM, civil defense, plus safeguards inside nuclear weapons, than by disarmanent which increases the risk of war by reducing credible deterrence of war. The idea that unilateral disarmament protects you is like saying that nuclear-unarmed Hiroshima and Nagasaki were safe from nuclear attack in August 1945 because they were so-called "Nuclear Free Zones"! Similarly, the fact the world was non-nuclear in 1939 didn't stop nuclear weapons being manufactured and used to end that war! All of the CND arguments are fake news, just as all the arguments by Angell in 1908 against deterrence were fake news. Fakes news sells - as proved by the sale of fairy tales and "fiction". Even if you don't like particular uses or yields of nuclear weapons, there is a choice of tailored nuclear warhead yields and designs, and types of employment to produce different effects, with widely variable cleanliness, neutron output, EMP output, and the separation of heat, blast and fallout effects in air and subsurface bursts, to deter invasions without the collateral damage that accompanies conventional warfare.

"It is entirely plausible that the Nobel Peace Prize [albeit on a more rational and honest planet] should have been awarded to the designers of the first SLBM (submarine launched ballistic missile) systems, for in being so well hidden under the seas, this kind of weapon has made war much less likely during these years and, further, let each side relax somewhat more in the knowledge that such war was unlikely." - George H. Quester, "Maritime Issues In Avoiding Nuclear War", Armed Forces and Society, v13, issue 2, Winter 1987, p. 199.

ABOVE: the Russians have recently released a PDF of their detailed technical nuclear effects analysis of the survival of their cheap civil defense dual-use style (basement car park etc in peacetime) nuclear war shelters: "Civil defense shelters. Designs and calculations" by VA Kotlyarevsky, VI Ganushkin, AA Kostin, et al.; edited by VA Kotlyarevsky. - M.: Stroyizdat, 1989 (607 pages long, 144 references, full of equations and graphs). (Russian: "Убежища гражданской обороны. Проекты и расчеты" / В.А. Котляревский, В.И. Ганушкин, А.А. Костин и др.; под редакцией В. А. Котляревского. - М.: Стройиздат, 1989. https://tehne.com/library/ubezhishcha-grazhdanskoy-oborony-konstrukcii-i-raschet-moskva-1989 ) This tells you that these are not "just for show", but are blast and radiation hardened double-blast door, very high overpressure surviving, very intense fallout surviving protection that fundamentally alters the strategic balance and undermines our nuclear deterrent. This should nukegate the "Scientific American" and other pro-Russian, Western deterrent undermining thugs.

ABOVE: Kahn pointed out in On Thermonuclear War 1960 that the way to prevent invasions and wars in the Middle East is nuclear proliferation of CREDIBLE deterrents (not just nuclear weapons, but also ABM and civil defense shelters to mitigate the civilian collateral damage) that really DETER/HALT INVASIONS (the key is to focus on the 1914 invasion of Belgium by mobilization and concentrated force, triggering WWI and the same for Poland in 1939, triggering WWII): if both sides have a credible, stable nuclear deterrent against INVASIONS (i.e., stable = safe from destruction in an enemy 1st strike, so that nuclear retaliation is guaranteed), you get mutual deterrence and thus peace, not war. And even if one side DOES try an attack, a neutron bomb air burst can discriminately halt the aggression, without any collateral damage (of the sort caused by conventional warfare such as the invasions by the Russians in Ukraine and by Hamas in Israel). Conventional weapons are not a substitute because their mobilization along frontiers causes "crisis instability" as occurred in 1914, leading to war. This is why compact, long-range nuclear weapons to prevent this kind of 1914 mobilization "crisis instability" trigger problem, are required. Nuclear escalation can be deterred, just as gas war escalation was deterred against terrorist states successfully in WWII, by a combination of credible civil defense plus retaliation threats capability. The "all out" use of nuclear weapons is simply a form of nuclear disarmament, that leaves the aggressor open to retaliation by the other side's protected 2nd strike (retaliation) force. We have to get this message out past the fake news and "taboo" superstitions of anti-deterrent warmongering paranoid disarmament quacks and charlatans masquerading as "peace advocates". If you want a "two-state solution" and one of those two states is intent on the racist extermination of the other, it shouldn't require Einstein to declare that pressurised "peace talks" are going to be "double-talk"; the slavery issue of 1861 in America wasn't resolved by a "two-state solution" with the southern Confederacy one state and the northern Union the other, nor was the protestant-catholic conflict in Northern Ireland resolved by a "two-state solution", but by a single-state solution with power sharing. You don't resolve a conflict by pressurised "peace talks" or "declarations" between leading opponents in bad faith, but only by genuine accommodation of differences at grass roots or street level. This is why conflicts and wars come before peace settlements. If you really want a "two-state solution" between bitter rivals, you need a credible deterrent to keep the peace. Machiavelli or Marx? Truth or lying? That's the choice.

Glasstone and Dolan stated in The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (1977), Table 12.17 on page 546, that the median distance in Hiroshima for survival after 20 days was 0.12 miles for people in concrete buildings and 1.3 miles for people standing outdoors. Therefore the median distances for survival in modern city buildings and in the open differed by a factor of 11 for Hiroshima; the difference in areas was thus a factor of 112 or about 120. Hence, taking cover in modern city buildings reduces the casualty rates and the risks of being killed by a factor of 120 for Hiroshima conditions, contrary to popular media presented political propaganda that civil defence is hopeless. This would reduce 500,000 casualties for people unprotected in the open (assumed generally throughout Glasstone's book and about 100% of anti-nuclear propaganda) to 4,000 casualties, if people are on the lower floors of concrete buildings.

(NOTE: back in 1990, I completed the unpublished book Nuclear Weapons Effects Theory, debunking Glasstone's "free fields" blast and radiation calculations for modern cities. Basically, the oscillation of, and at higher pressures the plastic zone damage of, modern reinforced concrete city buildings by blast waves is easy to calculate, and irreversibly absorbs free-field blast energy, quickly lowering the overpressure and dynamic pressure to values way lower than measured over unobstructed desert and ocean at nuclear weapons tests and reported by Glasstone. Penney measured this blast energy absorption effect at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the majority of buildings were single storey wood-frame, not concrete. Dr John von Neuman predicted this blast energy attenuation by causing destruction in Los Alamos blast wave secret reports LA-1020/LA-1021, from which it entered Glasstone's 1950 Effects of Atomic Weapons, but Dr Bethe deleted this information from the unclassified summary version, LA-2000, and it was deleted from the later Glasstone Effects of Nuclear Weapons 1957-77, and replaced with a denial of this fact, despite the fact it is a consequence from the principle of conservation of energy, and the exclusion of the effect makes the blast treatment wrong. Similarly, throughout the 1950s the UK Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch calculated thermal effects allowing for skyline shadowing, disproving firestorms and related nuclear winter using this mechanism, but secrecy was used to prevent the information getting wide coverage. Glasstone also mis-calculates all other nuclear effects, for example fallout and cratering are both based on debunked simplifications, exaggerating the effects by large factors. Glasstone entirely ignores all political and military effects of nuclear weapons, as well as the influence of clean secondary stages on the effects of nuclear weapons, e.g. the separation of effects for the air burst neutron bomb. Glasstone's book is really: "The fake effects of nuclear weapons on civilian targets, ignoring the blast and radiation skyline shielding"! Some declassified exaggerations in nuclear threats from Russian tactical nuclear weapons, debunking populist CND/Nukemap nuclear weapons effects propaganda, are presented in NUCLEAR WEAPONS COLLATERAL DAMAGE EXAGGERATIONS: IMPLICATIONS FOR CIVIL DEFENSE. This is treated as "heresy" by the deluded quacks and charlatans of war-making "disarmament" taboos.).

"The critical point is whether the Soviets and the Europeans believe that we can keep our casualties to a level we would find acceptable ... In such an eventuality, the Soviets would be deterred from such provocative acts as a ground attack on Europe ... But if they do not believe that we can keep casualties to a level we would find acceptable, the Soviets may feel safe in undertakng these extremely provocative adventures ... this in itself creates an extremely dangerous negotiating situation - one in which the possibility of extreme pressure and blackmail will always be in the background, if not the foreground. ... 'Will the survivors envy the dead?' Unless the President believes that the postwar world will be worth living in, he will in all likelihood be deterred from living up to our alliance obligations." - Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, Princeton Uni. Press, 1960, page 35. This is Kahn's key argument, explaining the Ukraine war today; a fact always ignored by 100% of "nuclear critics". On page 34, Kahn gives a "notorious" table relating casualties to calculated recovery times for GDP; the GDP recovers in one year if 1% are killed, 100 years if 90% are killed. This difference is similar to the observed 120-fold difference in risk of being killed in Hiroshima if people are outdoors and totally unshielded, to the risk when shielded by the lower floors of modern city concrete buildings. So efficient civil defense warnings make nuclear deterrence over 100 times more credible, reducing casualties and the time taken for economic recovery from 100 years to under 1 year!

Kahn on page 48 of On Thermonuclear War easily debunks J. B. S. Haldane's genetic defects naive propaganda lie for nuclear war, because spreading out damage in time allows survival, whereas having all the damage kill 100% immediately doesn't permit survival. Kahn considers two nuclear attacks (Table 8): an initial 1,500 megatons on 150 targets, and a later wargasm of 20,000 megatons on 400 targets. He then goes into radiation effects lying propaganda by left-wing anti-nuclear disarmament fanatics, before giving the fallout gamma radiation effects much later on, in Tables 23 and 24. For the 1,500 megaton attack, only 1% of the area of the USA gets 6000-10,000R in the first 48 hours outdoors, requiring shelter protection factors of 40-65; for the 20,000 megaton attack, 50% of the area gets this radiation so you need 50 times more good shelter. As a result of these calculations, Kahn argues on p111: "we recommend that about $150 million be spent on identifying, counting, labelling and improving the best radiation protection in every neighbourhood so that people will know where to go...", adding that radiation meters are needed to enable people to go outdoors after 48 hours briefly to decontaminate or evacuate heavy fallout areas before getting a lethal radiation dose in structures offering poor protection. All this was, Kahn points out, published in a 1958 RAND Corp report ignored by President Eisenhower to save a few bucks (it was mostly implemented by Kennedy in 1961). In Tables 12, 13 and 14 Kahn shows how to deal with strontium-90 fallout contaminated food: on page 65 he points out that the linear no-threshold radiation effects theory is fake news for civil defense since the radium dial painters required 20,000 - 30,000 strontium units equivalent to get bone cancer, whereas the official safety limit is just 67 units! So simply by kicking out bad "science" (political "theory" standards) and keeping to actual radiation effects data, you resolve a problem by feeding food with over 25,000 strontium units to animals, and reserving less contaminated food for human consumption. Commenting generally on this kind of fashionable nuclear exaggeration mentality, Kahn explains on p160:

"... we are likely to suffer from the same movement towards 'responsible' budgets, pacifism, and unilateral and universal disarmament that swept through England in the 1920s and 1930s. The effect then was that England prematurely disarmed herself to such an extent that she first lost her voice in world affairs, and later her independence in a war that was caused as much by English weakness as by anything else."

Kahn adds to this on page 568:

"It is difficult and even impossible for most Americans to believe that they have an enemy. This is particularly true of intellectuals and 'men of good will'. ... that all sane men are reasonable and it ought to be easy to clear up misunderstandings by a few meetings and agreements (that is, they believe in what the psychiatrist calls a 'self-fulfilling prophecy' in the sense that 'good will generates good will' ..." Kahn testified to congress that Newman hadn't read his book!

Russian propagandists threaten with tactical nuclear strikes on Ukraine. They think that after that, Europe will immediately stop "demonizing and isolating Russia" and will immediately "line up at our door to say hello." pic.twitter.com/6kgmkMc5p3

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) June 4, 2024

Senator John F. Kennedy forecast in a speech to the Senate on 14 August 1958: "... the deterrent ratio might well shift to the Soviets so heavily, during the years of the gap, as to open to them a shortcut to world domination ... Their missile power will be the shield from behind which they will slowly, but surely, advance - through Sputnik diplomacy, limited 'brush fire' wars, indirect non-overt aggression, intimidation and subversion, increased prestige or influence, and the vicious blackmail of our allies. The periphery of the free world will shift against us." (If the Russians have 2,000 to 10,000 tactical neutron bombs and we have none, our "strategic balance" of ICBMs etc will be incredible retaliation, so our tactical deterrent "gap" in defenses puts us into the situation that Kennedy forecast.)

Kennedy's 1961 decision to back Kahn's crash civil defense program was apparently due to his attending the June 1959 nuclear war hearings (at which Herman Kahn first found fame); yet even earlier Kennedy had observed first-hand the appeasement of the Nazis while working for his father, the US Ambassador, for 6 months in 1939, writing his 150-pages thesis on "Appeasement at Munich: The inevitable result of the slowness of the British democracy to change from a disarmament policy"! This thesis was edited into the 1940 UK bestselling book "Why England Slept" by the New York Times journalist Arthur Krock (with a foreword by Henry Luce), in which Kennedy pointed out that the refusal of pro-disarmament northern left-wing councils to instigate civil defence (then called air raid precautions) supported fascist appeasement! However, Kennedy's interest in arms race, disarmament, and war issues goes back even further, to the year 1932, when he was 15 and in hospital, according to the author Kay Halle: "Joseph Kennedy Sr asked me if I would stop with him while we were in the hospital to see his young son who was in there quite ill. ... We went into his bedroom, his room at the hospital, and you could hardly see him, he was so buried in the bed under masses of books. ... I was awfully interested because the book he was reading was World Crisis by Winston Churchill [the book recommended as the best study of war and deterrence and its failure, by Herman Kahn in On Thermonuclear War]."

(Kay Halle quote source: Robin Cross, "JFK: A Hidden Life", Bloomsbury, London, 1992. Robin Cross's JFK book also points out that Kennedy "had always been a supporter of a vigorous defense policy. In 1948-9 he had attacked the Truman administration over the economies it had made in the defense establishment, advocating an air force of 70 groups, rather than the 55 groups proposed ... in the 1950s, he had urged the re-arming of Europe, if necessary with US help ... In the Senate in the summer of 1954 he had opposed the Eisenhower administration's reduction in the size of the army ... In May 1955 ... he claimed that the administration had 'guessed short' on the military strength of the Soviet Union ... It was by this consistent route that in 1958 Jack Kennedy arrived at the momentous discovery of the 'missile gap', which was to provide one of the principal themes of his 1960 presidential campaign." Kennedy was on the same page as Kahn. In 1957, America had no proof-tested ICBM, just the 3,000 mile range Jupiter IRBM, while the Russians had successfully tested ICBMs the rockets of which successfully launched the first satellite, Sputnik, on 4 October 1957. Although by putting Jupiter IRBMs into Turkey America could cancel out the small ICBM "missile gap", there was concern that just a few Russian ICBM nuclear blasts over American cities could wipe out Western Cold War resolve, as had happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When elected, Kennedy reversed Eisenhower's civil defense policy, as well as increasing the Minuteman ICBM order by 75%, the Western Europe tactical nuclear weapon stockpile by 60%, and the total number of American nuclear weapons by 100%, in an early effort at bankrupting the Russians with an arms race; a policy abandoned for a time after the Vietnam disaster, but re-instigated in the 1980s by Reagan with the desired effects.)

Nicola Smith and Susie Coen in the Telegraph, 21 August 2024: "US prepares for threat of joint Chinese, Russian and North Korean nuclear strike. Joe Biden secretly approved change to America’s nuclear defence plan in March... The United States is making plans to counter the… pic.twitter.com/jXWnTBijZC

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) August 22, 2024

"Most people, not unreasonably, think of conventional weapons as being less escalatory and thus more usable than nuclear ones. But today’s low-yield nukes—20 kilotonnes of explosive power, roughly Hiroshima-size—can be delivered with extreme precision and less collateral damage. “The line between low-yield tactical nuclear weapons and precision-guided conventional weapons in terms of both their operational effects and perceived impact is blurring,” says CNAS." - If a China and America war went nuclear, who would win? After 45 days of conventional fighting nukes would be tempting, wargamers suggest, The Economist, Aug 22nd 2024, https://www.economist.com/asia/2024/08/22/if-a-china-and-america-war-went-nuclear-who-would-win

"People May Not Care Simply Because They Do Not care. ... The following (paraphrased) quotations are typical of the bureaucrat or decision maker who simply cannot imagine that his safe, snug world can really be dangerous. (The quotations are not exclusive. The determined do-nothing advocate will go through each in turn.)

1. The problem is hypothetical. You cannot prove that it exists. There is no need to get hysterical.

2. The problem is there, but there are many other problems. In your parochialism [limited views] and naivety, you have gotten hysterical. We have known about this problem for some time and we are not excited. Why are you?

3. The problem is there. It is insoluble. (Or, it is too late to do anything.) For God's sake don't rock the (political or public relations) boat. [This is based on Kahn's dealings with people like his boss at RAND Corporation, just prior to his leaving to found the Hudson Institute.]

The key words in the above are hypothetical, parochial, naive, and hysterical. That is, any specialist who raises a problem in his specialty is accused of being hypothetical and parochial, of not taking a practical over-all view. ... I can remember an occasion when I was discussing with one of these critics what seemed to me like a problem approaching potentially crisis proportions. He insisted that I was comparing hypothetical Soviet programs with hard American programs. I pointed out with some asperity that the Soviets up to that time had refused to allow our staff access to their records; naturally we would have some trouble proving that these programs existed and would actually meet the hypothetical dates. On the other hand, our staff did have access to U.S. data, so it was easy to show that our counter programs were not as firm as advertised. ... A typical hypothetical possibility is illustrated by the ominous possibilities for Hitler-type blackmail tactics created by the waning of our Type II and Type III Deterrence capability" - H. Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, pp347-8.

"There is a great deal of worry today that the Russians may make impressive gains utilizing only 'ambiguous challenges', without presenting us with any direct challenges. ... Their success to date in using 'ambiguous challenges' should be nothing to what they could do if they could afford and desired to be unambiguous. ... I think we can expect much firmer, confident and imaginative behavor, if not audacious and reckless conduct, from Khrushchev and his successors that we had from Stalin [a prediction that was confirmed by the 1961 Berlin Wall, 50 megaton test and the 1962 Cuban missiles crisis, etc.]" - H. Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, 1960, p348

"As the picture of horror of a modern thermonuclear war grows, we tend to ... we emphasise the impact of our capabilities on the enemy's mind rather than on his body [italic emphasis is Kahn's own]. ... Type I Deterrence is the deterrence of a direct attack [Dulles' massive retaliation]. ... Type II Deterrence is defined as using strategic threats to deter an enemy from engaging in very provocative acts [e.g. invasion of Poland 1939, invasion of Belgium 1914, invasion of Ukraine 2022] ... Type III Deterrence might be called 'tit-for-tat' [e.g. Kennedy's decision to resume USA nuclear tests in 1962 in response to Russia's 50 megaton test in late 1961, etc.]." - Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, 1960, p126. Regarding "knockout blow" propaganda scams in the media/politics, Kahn on p350 argues that the same delusional lie occurred before each major war, including WWI and WWII, both to sell the war to the public and to justify not planning for a long-duration war of attrition which seemed "defeatist". For example, mass media "pacifist" morons believed and hyped that, prior to WWI: "interdependence of nations was so great that the sheer interruption of normal commerce would cause a collapse after a few weeks or months in much the same way that people argue today that if the A country (big cities) is destroyed, the B country (small cities, rural areas) must also necessarily collapse [after a countervalue nuclear strike on cities]. Therefore, almost everybody expected the war of 1914 to be short ... the famous Schlieffen Plan ... called for them to destroy the French in about 6 weeks, then move their army to the Russian front and destroy the Russians in the next few weeks... [Hitler in 1939 simply aimed to repeat this, dismissing Schlieffen Plan's failure in WWI as sabotage from internal enemies of the state]." (Quote from Kahn, OTW, p350.)

"To understand this attitude ... in 1961 Herman Kahn’s 1960 radically innovative book on the nuclear deterrence of war in general (not merely “massive retaliation” to deter all-out “doomsday” attacks, as was the previous policy by Dulles) was “reviewed” by controversial lawyer James Roy Newman in Scientific American. Newman, a complete bastard to Britain - he drafted the notorious and paranoid McMahon 1946 US Atomic Energy Act, which illegally and unilaterally ended Britain’s wartime agreement to continue postwar collaboration on nuclear energy - hadn’t read Kahn’s book (any more than he had read the vital Churchill-Roosevelt Hyde Park agreement for post-war continuation of nuclear collaboration of September 19, 1944 or consulted the UK government on the topic, when drafting the quack Atomic Energy Act passed by Congress in 1946!), and just scanned the first part of Kahn’s On Thermonuclear War briefly and taken some quotes and tables out of context to criticise (despite the title, its purpose is the credible deterrence of major provocations, not just the fighting of WWIII if deterrence fails). Moreover, he denied the existence of the author, because the publisher hadn’t provided much biography! We don’t need that kind of abuse from such bigots, do we?" - https://nigecook.substack.com/p/coming-soon

Anti-civil defense fanatic Lawrence Freedman (the guy who got the Sunday Express by drop my feature on the exaggerated collateral damage from nuclear weapons in 1995) has a new article in the New York Times (3 October 2024): "Putin Keeps Threatening to Use Nuclear Weapons. Would…

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) October 4, 2024

The explanation of the neutron bomb's invasion deterrent history in the 1958 low yield relatively clean "peaceful" Livermore nuclear explosives Dove and Starling is given by Samuel Cohen in his 6 December 1984 interview, conducted by Robert Del Tredici in Beverley Hills, California (published on pages 157-9 of his 1987 book, At Work in the Fields of the Bomb,):

"I was in the Efficiency Group at Los Alamos. Our job was to figure out the yield of the bomb that was burst over Nagasaki. ... On the evening of Hiroshima, when Oppenheimer was describing in very crude terms the catastrophe that had taken place over that city, the scientists who were listening to him were a bunch of howling savages, embullient beyond imagination, as pleased as punch ... Oppenheimer is rightfully called the father of the atomic bomb, but equally rightfully he could be called the father of the tactical nuclear weapon because he did the first conceptual spadework for using nuclear weapons strictly in a battlefield way instead of just decimating cities in a holocaust [thus led to his legendary dispute with Teller who just wanted massive retaliation H-bombs as a deterrent and bargaining chip for peace with Russia] ... He professed to be sufficiently guilt-ridden and aghast and appalled over the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that he never wanted that to happen again. So he recommended we design lower-yield weapons that wouldn't wipe out cities ... The basic concept is to be able to have a battlefield nuclear weapon that won't have all these nasty side effects ... If it's going to be used to get what we call the 'separation of effects', in other words, to get rid of the blast and heat [collateral damage to civilians], it not only has to be air burst, but it has to be burst high ... between 2,000 and 3,000 feet. ... it's a kind of micro-mini hydrogen bomb. ...

"I'd had the idea for the neutron bomb about 8 years before I figured out how to put it together. I put together the actual concept in the summer of 1958. It came about purely by accident when I visited the Livermore Laboratory in the spring of 1958. I asked if anyone had any new ideas going around, and they said they really didn't, though they had begun work on some peaceful nuclear explosives. And the head of the division said, 'Before you go home, you ought to take a look at these', and he showed me designs for some of the peaceful devices. And there they were: the neutron bomb characteristics. One of those designs was called Dove. Dove, by the way, for 'Dove of Peace'. ... Well, there were two, Dove and Starling; both derived the major share of their energy from fusing deuterium and tritium. ... The question I asked was, 'How many neutrons come out of this thing?' They made a few back-of-the-envelope calculations and the answer was: a hell of a lot. Then I took these calculations home and made my own calculations about the military effects of such a weapon, and, voila, the neutron bomb! Then I put together the military concept of how to use this bomb and went off on a big sales campaign. ...

"Ever since Day 1 we've patterned our nuclear war-fighting strategies after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ... So what we're basically proposing here [using conventional Teller or Dulles "massive retaliation" MAD mutual-assured-destruction H bombs-on-cities crap] to deter war is the threat of our own suicide. ... it's all based on the premise that if we cross that nuclear threshold one more time, we'll bring on the beginning of the end. So you get people like Jonathan Schell [author of "Fate of the Earth" which lies that the 15 megaton Bravo test blinded everyone at Rongelap and that radiation can't be stopped easily by simple earth covered shelters proved at nuclear tests] and Carl Sagan with the idea of nuclear winter and everything else. It's Armageddon. I don't find their ideas credible, and I'll tell you why: because in order to get these results from using nuclear weapons against cities, you have to have nations willing to use them that way. ... You know what the United States has to do if it wants to survive? It has to accept the fact that there will probably be a nuclear war, and it has to prepare to fight it and win it. ... It's been U.S. national policy for more than a quarter of a century that nuclear weapons are actually unusable weapons. That's horseshit, and you can quote me on that. ... Let the allies develop their own neutron bomb. As a matter of fact, let's sell it to them! They should have discriminate weapons for their own self-defense. The United States doesn't need to take on the burden of defending all the rest of the world. That [the UK policy of 1914 regarding Belgium's invasion and 1939 regarding Poland's invasion, not to mention 2022 regarding Ukraine's invasion] is in fact the best way of getting into a nuclear war ..."

The technical history of Livermore's development of enhanced-neutron tactical nuclear weapons goes back to a study of lightweight, thin H-bomb casings by Dr Herbert York, discussed in detail below with regard to recently declassified data on the designs of two American H-bombs of roughly similar physical size but different mass, composition and yield: the W47 and the B28. York showed that the pressure and duration of the x-ray energy coupling causing the fusion stage's compression force are both functions of the case thickness. So if you reduce the outer casing thickness to make the bomb lighter, you have less compression force and it lasts a shorter period of time. To ensure a successful fusion burn in this situation, you have to reduce the amount of dense material like uranium in the fusion stage and replace it with easier to compress fusion fuel. This occurred in progressive Livermore designs with smaller sizes and lighter casings during the 1950s, starting with a device called Linda, then Flute, then Piccolo. These had thin oralloy (highly enriched U235) pushers (3.8mm thick for Piccolo), but clean versions with lead pushers in place of U235 were designed, and the combination of the high percentage of fusion yield with the thin pusher and outer casing gave the enhanced neutron Dove design.

(The paragraph above about the link between speed of fusion burn and tamper thickness in low yield neutron bomb design is not speculative, and is confirmed not just by the recent book by Tom Ramos, but earlier by nuclear weapons effects expert Charles S. Grace of the Royal Military College of Science in his 1994 Nuclear Weapons Principles, Effects and Survivability on 23: "It is possible to produce comparatively low-yield weapons with only a small fission trigger to initiate a fusion stage. If it is designed so that the nuclear reactions proceed as fast as possible, the tamper need not be very thick, and a large proportion of the energetic fusion neutrons will escape." Grace around that time very kindly responded to a letter from me and provided photos of British military equipment exposed at the UK nuclear tests for my book, Nuclear Weapons Effects Theory, as well as telephoning me, which was helpful. He was a very powerful advocate of the neutron bomb to deter invasions, writing a letter to the New Scientist to debunk anti-nuclear bomb propaganda. He did a lot of research using Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston facilities on simple protection against nuclear attack, and his book also points out that Glasstone and Dolan are completely misleading regarding thermal effects, stating on page 41: "Adequate protection for the skin greatly reduces the risk of thermal casualties. ... wearing a well-designed NBC suit over combat clothing, and a respirator and gloves ... the thermal energy from [1 kiloton yield] tactical weapons needed to cause extensive second-degree burns is about 1.3 MJ/m^2 [i.e., 31 cal/cm^2 since 4.186 J = 1 Calorie, and 1 m^2 = 10^4 cm^2; for bare skin only 160 kJ/m^2 or 3.8 cal/cm^2 is needed; thus there is a huge difference between Glasstone and Dolan and the actual risk, and Grace points out that if clothing ignites, people can simply roll out the flames on the ground, without getting burned!]." Grace's book also gives the military effects of nuclear weapons - ignored entirely by Glasstone and Dolan - including photos of vehicles exposed at 370 m range to 10 kiloton Totem-1 nuclear test on a 100 ft high tower in Australia in 1953. A side-on tank was not overturned by 230 kPa peak overpressure, but was displaced 2.5 m with a peak acceleration of 30g. The mudguards and trailer were damaged, but: "After the burst the tank was able to be driven off, and its gun was fired after sand and debris had been removed from the barrel. The lighter scout car was beyond repair. Had crews been in the vehicles they would have received a radiation dose of around 100,000 cGy [R] ... they would have been incapacitated virtually instantaneously.")

BBC won't report Reuters any more than USA news will, sad yet what happens in corrupt despotic regimes claiming that lying is "free speech on nuclear weapons": Russian nuclear test chief says Moscow is ready to resume testing 'at any moment' https://t.co/SYlfwJXHan

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) September 18, 2024

This Russian State TV Channel 1 broadcast on a proposed nuclear test on a fake "plywood" based city to make the fake plywood burn for YouTube viewers, is a load of complete CND anti-nuclear propaganda crap. George R Stanbury of UK Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch civil… https://t.co/ustSLjl1SN

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) September 16, 2024

"Foreign politics demand scarcely any of those qualities which are peculiar to a democracy; they require, on the contrary, the perfect use of almost all those in which it is deficient. ... a democracy can only with great difficulty regulate the details of an important undertaking, persevere in a fixed design, and work out its execution in spite of serious obstacles. It cannot combine its measures with secrecy [spying problem plus whole notion of democracy requiring voters to be informed] or await their consequences with patience. These are qualities which more especially belong to an individual or an aristocracy; and they are precisely the qualities by which a nation, like an individual, attains a dominant position. ... The mass of the people may be led astray by ignorance or passion ..." - Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America 1835 (Vintage NT 1954 ed, v1, pp243-5, as quoted by H. Kahn, OTW, p579; note that Kahn's full quotation backs the notion of elitism aristocracy as the solution, aka the clan dynasties in USA politics such as the Kennedy and Bush political families. On page 407 of OTW, Kahn also appears to back elitism in discussing how von Mannstein was able to bypass jobsworths in the General Staff and get a direct meeting with Hitler to modify the Schlieffen Plan's to outflank the new French Magoniot Line defenses by invading through the Ardennes Forest with the latest Panzer tanks; Hitler had many defects but at least he was prepared to listen seriously to "crackpot" sounding ideas from the lower ranks and implement them, unlike so many openly fascist "top dogs" today).

"There seems to be little point in discussing the view that finds a solution in a totally disarmed world. ... The violator would then have an incredible advantage if the agreement ever broke down ..." - Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, Princeton Uni. Press, 1960, page 5. Kahn adds added that the world of 1914 and 1939 was non-nuclear, there was an international ban on chemical weapons (the Hague Convention of 1899) prior to WWI in which chemical weapons were used without restraint, and that there was agreement amongst experts that WWII would start with a gas knockout blow against cities, when in fact no gas was ever dropped on cities during WWII (pesticide Zyklon B, crystals which emits non-persistent hydrogen cyanide gas on exposure to the air, was used in gas chambers but the Nazis never dropped any of their 12,000 tons of tabun nerve agent on cities thanks to retaliation risks and the universal issue of gas masks). So disarmament propaganda was just that, lying blathering by politicians to earn "peace prizes".

"It would be disastrous to have a conspicious gap in the spectrum of deterrents and capabilities [strategic and tactical to cover all kinds of dangerous provocations]. For example, when President Eisenhower remarked at a press conference that it was unthinkable that he would call out federal troops to enforce federal law ... some Southerners immediately did something to make it thinkable [Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army to Little Rock's Central High School to reinforce Arkansas' National Guard in allowing 9 black students to enroll at the school in 1957]." - Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, p286. The point is, saying something is "unthinkable so we don't need to prepare for it" is not cost-effective when it encourages and invites the enemy to invade and provoke you. Lying blathering peacenik enemy collaboration always backfires by inviting aggression. (Even Trump had this problem, when some of his supporters misinterpreted his peaceful speech - questioning why the postal ballots showed higher support for Biden than the polling station in-person votes - and invaded the Capitol on 6 January 2021.) If you want to deter evil, you have to avoid ambiguity and to be open and also clear that nothing is "unthinkable" and state in advance precisely what you will do in any eventuality, so as to make deterrence unequivocally effective. You want the enemy to be clear what they will have coming to them if they provoke you: "with the record of the 1930s plainly before us, we should all be able to realise that it is possible for all these kinds of deterrence to be strained." - Kahn, OTW, p286.

No wonder the Leninist lawyer James Roy Newman of the "elitist communist" Scientific American hated Kahn in his "review"! I first read Kahn's On Thermonuclear War in 1990, and have just finished re-reading it in September 2024 due to the Ukraine war. My view of the book is now very different to the notes I made in 1990 when reading Kahn during the writing of my own unpublished August 1990 dated manuscript Nuclear Weapons Effects Theory. The basic problem is that Kahn has two theses in one volume. The first 310 pages of On Thermonuclear War debunks populist nuclear weapons and war myths, such as fallout gamma rays and strontium-90 in food killing everyone; the second part, pages 311-651 is an analysis of the history of war and extrapolations of that history to various kinds of deterrence and nuclear war. As his preface says (page x): "This book is dedicated to the goal of anticipating, avoiding, and alleviating crises." (Italic emphasis is Kahn's own.) The problem with Kahn's On Thermonuclear War is precisely the same as that with Glasstone's Effects of Nuclear Weapons: jumbled up presentation (if you are discussing one type of nuclear explosion, you need to discuss the effects that type produces, not separate effects into different chapters, so readers are misled and think heavy fallout occurs from air bursts, etc.,) and you need to show how deterrence of certain kinds of nuclear attack even within a nuclear war is necessary to retain "bargaining chips", "cities as hostages", etc. Otherwise 100% of readers do what journalists do with "Nukemap" and simply assume the entire enemy stickpile is used in a single knockout blow on cities, in which 100% of people unprotected, by even "duck and cover"! This increased casualties by a factor of 120 in Hiroshima, and is where you get the 120 fold exaggerations of nuclear war casualty predictions from. By the omission of key (secret classified) data on neutron bombs to deter invasions in the first place, or survival of people and vehicles in simple, cheap trench shelters at nuclear tests, for example, you depart 180 degrees from reality.

"But how many murders are they [lying journalists, politicians, fellow-travelling Western nuke designers who won't disclose the truth to the media] responsible for? Basically, nuclear deterrence using tactical nuclear weapons to deter the invasions that set off both World Wars, i.e. the invasion of Belgium in 1914 by concentrated force and of Poland in 1939 by concentrated force (from the East by Russia and from the West by Germany), could have prevented many millions of deaths since 1945, but evil folk prevented this, wanting war to continue. ... Hiroshima was entirely vaporized by a nuclear explosion on 6 August 1945, says CND. In that case, this US Air Force film of the slight scorching on otherwise undamaged materials, proving the effectiveness of “duck and cover” for shielding, is fake news. But it’s not. What’s fake news is everything every published on nuclear weapons effects by Bulletin of Atomic scientists, Scientific American, all newspapers, and all TV shows on the subject ... In fact, Hiroshima casualty data published [in the massively-effects-exaggerating] Glasstone book “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons” (1962-77 editions) proves that being indoors in the lower floors of a concrete building reduces the LD50 radius from 1.3 miles in the open to 0.12 miles for lower floors of concrete buildings. Since area is proportional to radius squared, this means a protection factor of 120 for Hiroshima burst conditions (16 kt, 600m altitude). This shielding factor would for a densely populated modern city reduce 500,000 (half a million) killed for people outdoors totally unshielded to “just” 4,000 killed indoors on the lower floors of modern city concrete buildings! Er, this result of 4,000 killed just happens to be precisely the number mentioned by the Independent newspaper article (quote above!) of pensioners murdered by cold and starvation due to financial destitution due to Sir Keir Starmer’s “tough decision” to end winter fuel allowances, in order to pay massive salary rises to public sector employees." - https://nigecook.substack.com/p/another-assassination-attempt-on

Kahn makes a further essential point about "secrecy" (there ain't any secrecy when the other side has spies like Fuchs) covering up alleged gross delusional failings in Western nuclear weapons design, effects and capabilities on page 384 of On Thermonuclear War, where he quotes extensively from chapter 6 "Torpedoes" of Rowland and Boyd's US Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II (published by the US Navy), proving how the secrecy of US torpedo design, development, testing and stockpiling led to tragic groupthink delusions of supremacy and of having the best torpedoes in the world, that were only debunked in actual combat during the 1941-3 period of WWII: "As each defect was exposed, the morale of the submariners who risked their lives to take the war to the enemy suffered, the enemy was given further respite ... the problem was compounded by the Bureau's reluctance to accept the fleet evaluation of its weapon. This reluctance was born ... from misplaced confidence in its own past work. ... Security, a necessary concern of the armed forces, became such a fetish that measures designed to protect a device from enemy eyes actually hid its defects from those who made the regulations. Ironically, some of those defects were already known to the foreign powers who later became our allies or enemies. ... even when the torpedo exploded properly, it lacked the punch submariners desired. ... each defect concealed another ... The Bureau was reluctant to believe that the secret weapon long regarded as one of our greatest assets should turn out to be a liability." (Kahn gives many other similar examples of bureaucratic secretive nonsense backfiring even in WWI, in Chapter 8 of OTW. American Colonel Billy Mitchell of the American Air Force was the first to suggest paratroopers to get over enemy lines, and predicted a Japanese attack on Pearl harbor (he was demoted and then court martialled on the direct orders of President Calvin Coolidge). Tanks and gas are both treated in detail by Kahn: both were kept so secret that the military didn't have a clue about them when first used on the battlefield so their initial "factor of surprise" was lost and the enemy was given the chance to negate them after bungled first-use:

"The first use of tanks in September 1916 completely ignored the tactical and strategic ideas of the innovators and was carried out as a sort of field trial. ... The German poison gas story has some interesting analogies with the British tank story. This too had an uphill fight with the authorities. Again, even after the weapon had been developed the command did not wish to take the risk of using the untried weapon on a large scale, though the inventors urged it, until the military had developed some experience on the capabilities and limitations of gas warfare. It was first tried on April 22, 1915 and proved a tremendous tactical success. In fact, a five-mile gap was opened in the Allied lines, but the Germans were not prepared to exploit the opportinity. They were not really making an attack, they were just trying an experiment. The British reaction ... was very fast. ... Sir William Ramsay had guessed from the description of the battle reports that chlorine had been used and came to the War Office with a protective measure, some sample mouth-pads made of flannel or wool soaked in hyposulphite of soda. British women were asked to furnish 1,000,000 at once. Thanks to their help and Red Cross efforts, the necessary quantity came in several days. Within a fortnight, every man in the British army at the front was supplied with a rudimentary respirator. ... History is full of examples of impractical notions, or, equally important, notions that proved to be just fine but which were tested prematurely. ... The most spectacular military event of World War I, the development of two parallel lines of trenches ... while predicted by Bloch, came as a complete surprise. ... given the examples of such warfare in the American Civil War and the Sino-Japanese War - it is hard to see how military experts could have overlooked the possibility that the widespread availability of machine guns and barbed wire might result in static trench warfare, but the military planners on both sides completely overlooked the possibility [as they did for submarines blocking logistics supplies, depth charges, and particularly SAS type infiltration tactics to overcome trench warfare: French Captain Laffargue wrote a proposal for this which the Allies laughed at, but when a copy of the proposal fell into German hands, Ludendorff at once (quote from Captain G. C. Wynne on p357 of Kahn's OTW): "translated into German and issued as an official German training manual, eventually becoming the basis of General Ludendorff's textbook ... [leading to German implementation of the enemy's plan so] the Germans so effectively broke through the British position in March 1918, and the Chemin des Dames position in May ...". SO, UNLESS WE ARE TO REPEAT SUCH MISTAKES, WE MUST NOT ALLOW PETTY HUBRIS OF "JOBSWORTH BUREAUCRATS" TO BLOCK INNOVATIONS NEEDED TO WIN WARS!

ABOVE: Kahn was treated with the "shoot the messenger" reaction against Machiavelli, merely for speaking truth to power in 1960: "If the above deterrents are to work reliably, there must always be in the background the knowledge that if they did not, other kinds of deterrents or corrections would come in. It could be disastrous to have a conspicuous gap in the spectrum of deterrents and capabilities. For example, when President Eisenhower remarked at a press conference that it was unthinkable that he would call out federal troops to enforce federal law in the Southern states, some Southerners immediately did something to make it thinkable. Something similar may happen if he convinces the Soviets that he means what he says when he says that "war is preposterous." I suspect that many in the West are guilty of the worst kind of wishful thinking when, in discussing deterrence, they identify the unpleasant with the impossible. It is particularly hard to understand why this is so when almost all who write on this subject were adults during the later part of the Hitler era and presumably were educated in some of the ways in which all these types of deterrence can be strained." - Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, page 286. Will the left ever learn facts from history?

ABOVE: Nazi supporting "peace" propaganda flooded the UK and USA in the 1930s, as it still does. Comintern's legacy is a repetition of the 1920s and 1930s anti-deterrent mindset, falsely portrayed by Russian "Fifth Column" propaganda fronts as "pacifism" or "peace" arguments. When communists were rejected as unpopular at the election polls, they adopted subversive methods, trying to undermine war readiness (deterrence) to help Russia get in a position to start WWIII, just as they had helped the Nazis in the 1930s do exactly the same thing (while being awarded "Nobel Peace Prizes" for their propaganda; look at the history of 1920s and 1930s gas war anninilation "Nobel peace Prize" liars Lord Noel-Baker, Sir Norman Angell et al.). The result wasn't an end to the arms race or militarism, but an escalation on the enemy side, and an erosion of technical competence and military preparedness on the side of the democracies. Banning the TV transmission of classic "Tom and Jerry" cartoons for "portraying violence as normal to kids" and banning "Action Man" style toy guns for "encouraging deterrence of dictators to kids" in the West, didn't stop Russia's Hitler Youth movement from preparing for war. All this just helped the enemy prepare for WWIII. The paranoid conspiracies aren't the supposed "war mongers" on the side of the democracies, but by the real war mongers on the side of the dictatorships and their fellow travelling "Sputniks", in infiltrating the Western political systems, mass media, and educational establishments with delusional fanatical anti-Western-nuclear bias. Numerous articles sent to "New Scientist" in the 1990s proving the errors in popular propaganda it published by anti-nuclear fanatics like "Rob Edwards" (co-author of the 1982 book "Fuelling the nuclear arms race: the links between nuclear power and nuclear weapons") were simply rejected because they contradicted populist lies "New Scientist" published weekly from such people! This made it appear that there was no opposition to such Russian Fifth Column propaganda lies! Result: no civil defence option and no tactical nuclear deterrent option against "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction" in 2002, and instead WAR. Which is precisely what these lying thugs want. Once the press, the teachers, and the corrupt pseudo-liberal MPs or Lords use enforced "speech filtering" to completely corrupt free debate (it's not that much different to a dictatorship, except that "no platforming censorship" is used in the West, while bullets and poison is used in the dictatorships), you have crackpots and quacks in charge of "democracy", which is a travesty of the term!

If you ban civil defense and nuclear deterrence of dictatorships, then you are left only with the option of WAR against every invasion or WMD threat which your delusional censorship encourages and promotes!

That's not pacifism. On the contrary, it's needless fascist based genocidal war that could be stopped!

As regards "child soldiers": we're constantly reminded of the plight of kids in wars, so why should they be denied the right to defend democracy in countries with ageing populations, when a failure of deterrence and dictatorial occupation will ruin the lives of kids?

All these fanatically anti-civil defense, anti-deterrent so-called "pacifists" - when pressed for their solution to terrorism - claim we can use "non-violent opposition" to enemy attacks; but we saw what happens to kids in this situation in the Holocaust and wars! If we're not going to have a nuclear deterrent, and we're not going to allow kids to learn how to protect themselves, the results are evil and immoral. These facts are conveniently declared to be "taboo"!

"... in letters to me dated April 10, 1979, and June 18, 1979, representatives of the DOE stated that my open research, and a national contest that I conducted, would lead to the generation and transmission of classified data - this in spite of the fact that all of the information that I was seeking would come from unclassified published sources. It has also become obvious that at least one of the three concepts discussed in the disputed Morland article is currently unclassified in the Soviet Union, and that when it was discussed openly here in 1976 by a Soviet scientist, the U.S. government, acting through the Energy Research and Development Agency, classified his speeches (Morland might have stood a better chance of publishing his article in the USSR).

"The concepts discussed in the Morland article deal with basic applied physics, and they are certainly no longer 'secret' - if they were, four other nations would not now have operating thermonuclear weapons. Even though the DOE now admits that this type of information is in the public domain, it is still trying to suppress the circulation of this data, in order to maintain a false illusion of secrecy, and to maintain a real monopoly over the dissemination of weapons-related information, and over the public discussion of American nuclear policies, policies which affect nuclear reactors as well as nuclear weapons. ... What happened next will be discussed in the description of the accompanying diagram, when the concept of isentropic compression is explained. ... As can be seen from the enclosed diagram, the basic bomb consists of two boosted fission triggers at opposite ends of a mass of lithium-6 deuteride fusion fuel, all contained in an outer casing of uranium-238. ... This arrangement requires that the outer weapon casing play an essential role (as medium to absorb x-rays and re-emit them into the fuel mass) ... there are two triggers in the bomb. The purpose of this is to allow a symmetrical compression of the fusion fuel between them, as well as allowing an x-ray source at each end of the bomb. These two fission triggers must fire simultaneously, or no fusion will occur. ... This sudden elevation in temperature of the fusion fuel, following the isentropic compression, begins the larger main fusion reaction in the weapon. ... " [Emphasis added.]

- Chuck Hansen, August 27, 1979 letter to Senator Charles Percy, published in full in the Sunday, September 16, 1979 special edition of the Madison Press Connection.

It must be emphasised (see the latest blog post here for the physical and mathematical details) that adiabatic "non-shock isentropic compression" of low density fusion fuel was first suggested during the April 1946 Los Alamos Super Conference, but was ignored by Teller and the American mainstream until investigated and tested by Nuckolls during totally clean secondary tests (including a 99.9% clean Ripple II 10 megaton test on 30 October 1962). Isentropic compression is compression without heat transfer between the fusion fuel and its surroundings, involving a gradually increasing compression - more like the pressure variations in a sound wave than the pressure discontinuity at a shock front. Shock waves involve "isothermal compression" at the shock front, which radiates wasted energy as heat in all directions, reducing the kinetic energy used to compress the fusion fuel. The key thing to focus on is the fact that you want to compress fusion fuel to cause fusion, and the fusion then releases heat which opposes compression, dispersing the remaining fusion fuel, and ending fusion. What you are trying to do is to compress fusion fuel so it releases nuclear energy (including heat) as a result of nuclear fusion, not waste energy radiating heat into the surroundings before you compress the fuel (such heat waste opposes compression of the fusion fuel). To the extent that you heat the fuel and cause it to radiate energy during compression, you defeat your purpose and get an inefficient compression (akin to pre-initiation in primary stage fission weapons if they are pre-heated by neutron induced fissions).

Teller ignored all this, and indeed until March 1951 he claimed to have a "no go theorem" against compression, and then he used ablative recoil exploding pushers to give relatively ineffective shock compression of fusion stages in his "Sausage" design, the standard 1950s thermonuclear system. Nuckolls and the Russians, however, used gentler isentropic compression (by using a low-density pusher like beryllium on a clean LiD fusion fuel capsule; with any dense U238 placed in the outer casing of the bomb, rather than used as the pusher in contact with the fusion fuel), which enabled more of the primary stage x-ray energy to be used to compress the fusion stage to high density, with less energy being wasted on heat transfer during compression. If you do any sort of work, e.g. hammering nails into wood, charging a battery, or running an engine, some energy will be used in achieving the objective, and some will be wasted as heat. If you want maximum work efficiency, you need to minimise waste heat (i.e. you want to reduce the rise in entropy S, so that the change in entropy dS ~ 0, which is the definition of the ideal of "isentropic compression"), which means losing the shock wave-producing dense ablative shell on the fusion fuel in the "Sausage" designs tested in the 1950s by the USA, which resists isentropic compression. With a dense pusher, you get shock compression which radiates heat before the shock even reaches the core and compresses it, so you only get core compression factor of 20-30, whereas if you use a low-density ablator like beryllium, aluminium or plastic on the fusion fuel, you can achieve nearly isentropic compression factors of 1,000 or more! I.e.. the core density is increased by a factor of 1,000, so that the fusion rate is much faster and more efficient (more fusion is accomplished before the bomb blows itself apart). The latter compression is even sufficient to ignite deuterium fusion, according to Russian claims about their 1960s-1970s cleaner isentropic bomb tests for "peaceful uses" (and tactical nuclear weapons), giving a far cheaper and longer-life warhead than the deuterium-tritium fuel used in the low yield American "Dove" and "Starling" designs of neutron bombs! ("Isotropic compression" just means equal from all directions, and has nothing to do with "isentropic compression".) Similarly, the first implosion bombs used dense U238 neutron reflectors around the core, requiring inefficient shock compression, whereas lower density beryllium reflectors allowed greater efficiency quasi-isentropic compression in fission designs.

A great deal of the popular media's confusion over thermonuclear weapons designs is down to misunderstanding the nature of the x-ray pulse from the fission primary stage. Glasstone and Dolan's 1977 Effects of Nuclear Weapons usefully explains that most (over 80%) of the energy can be released x-rays generated by inelastic fission fragment collisions, on a time scale of the order 1 shake or 10 nanoseconds. However, that is only true for a bare fissile metal core, so in reality the considerable mass of chemical implosion debris (mainly carbon, oxygen and hydrogen ions) around that core diffuses the x-rays with a random-walk that slows the x-ray emission into typicaly a 100-times longer pulse than 10 nanoseconds, i.e. around 1 microsecond. It is for this reason that early thermonuclear weapons had heavy outer cases, to contain the diffusive x-ray emission pulse from the fission primary stage's ionized low-Z element fireball, enabling more of that energy to be coupled into fusion stage before the outer casing is destroyed and the coupling ends. Because of this, the fusion stage is not abruptly compressed over a 10 nanosecond time period as implied by Glasstone's unclassified statement that most of the fission energy is emitted in the last shake, but more gradually over a time of up to 1 microsecond. The design of the fission primary stage therefore determines the nature of the x-ray pulse waveform. This problem has been known since the beginning, which is why a gun-type fission weapon was selected in 1946 for the fusion "Super" primary stage, because it would eliminate the implosion debris fireball x-ray diffusion problem, and also why Gamow designed a cylindrical implosion "Greenhouse-George" primary, to enable x-rays from a bare side of a fissile core to initiate fusion without the complexity of x-ray shielding and transport through low-Z barriers, as occurs with spherical implosion primary stages.

Above: the Russian compact (e.g. MIRV or tactical neutron) nuclear bomb concept is simply to use two small fission devices to compress a relative low-density prolate-spheroid shaped secondary stage (e.g. LiD fusion fuel, rather than U235 pusher with fusion boosting, as used in the American W88 warhead), a concept illustrated in Russian military books by reprinting a full-page nuclear weapon design diagram on page 54 of the 5 December 1955 Life magazine! Using two primaries to compress a prolate spheroid charge of low-density fusion fuel (one at each end) means you don't have to disperse x-rays from a single primary uniformly (for isotropic compression) around the secondary stage using "reflective focussing" from the inside of a massive pear shaped casing (as for their 1.6 megaton 1955 RDS37 design) or a massive egg shaped casing (as for the 250 kt Los Alamos Redwing-Huron "Egg" design with a spherical secondary, tested at Bikini in 1956), or even to use a low-density "foam x-ray disperser" as used in British two-stage thermonuclear Grapple tests (and later Livermore compact spherical secondary stage designs for MIRV missiles). Also, by not having a dense pusher on the secondary stage (you can add U238 to the outer casing if you want to boost the fission yield, as shown above), it is easier to compress it, so you get greater compression than is the case for the inclusion of dense metal in the secondary, giving far more efficient ("nearly isentropic") compression for a very efficient fusion burn which can use cheap deuterium to initiate it, rather than requiring costly tritium-deuterium fusion (needed for the smaller compressions achieved in modern Western secondaries with dense metal pushers), thus not only miniaturizing the H bomb but also enabling nearly clean tactical neutron bombs to be produced very cheaply, without needing large amounts of costly tritium (which has a half life of only 12.3 years, so has to be regularly produced by the costly irradiation of lithium, placed in gas proof capsules inside the core of a nuclear reactor).

Ironically, Chuck Hansen, the author of US Nuclear Weapons, re-invented the Russian "Project 49" double-primary H-bomb independently in a 27 August 1979 letter to Senator Charles Percy of Illinois, only to have this double-primary design dismissed as "wrong" by American nuclear weaponeers, some of whom didn't even know that: (a) Teller and Ulam had stated that one or more primary stages could be used to ignite a H-bomb in their 1951 breakthrought paper, and (b) you can get both primary stages to detonate simultaneously by simply wiring up the electronic neutron guns for each primary into a parallel circuit, and doing the same for their electrical detonators and x-unit capacitors and krytron switches. Hardened groupthink dogma orthodoxy is is hard to debunk! (The Russian double primary idea was even earlier suggested by journalist John McPhee to nuclear weaponeer Dr Ted Taylor with this dismissive result, as reported in McPhee's 1974 book, The Curve of Binding Energy. Note that Howard Morland's design relied on Edward Teller's single-primary H-bomb illustration in his article "Hydrogen Bomb", in the Encyclopedia Americana, v14.)

GEORGE GAMOW'S ASYMMETRIC-IMPLOSION FISSION BOMB DESIGN FOR USE AS AN EFFICIENT DIRECTED X-RAY SOURCE FOR RUSSIAN PROJECT 49 DOUBLE PRIMARY NEUTRON BOMBS

ABOVE: declassified originally "TOP SECRET" 1946 nuclear weapons design study for Dr von Karman, General Considerations of Explosives and Explosions of fission and thermonuclear weapons by Los Alamos nuclear weaponeer Dr George Gamow (he designed the "Greenhouse-George" 1951 radiation imploded fusion capsule using a special cylinder implosion fission primary to allow x-rays to escape from the sides) throws light on the Russian fission primary stage designs used in their very compact neutron bombs. In the West, spherical or prolate spheroid shaped linear implosion primaries are used, but the Russian language Wikipedia and other Russian language military internet pages (which are completely separate from Western Wikipedia, not simply translations!) for years have contained diagrams of a special single-detonation point implosion lens system, which is now revealed to be due to George Gamow (full declassified report is LINKED HERE). The key benefits for this revolutionary Gamow design in tactical neutron bomb design are:

(a) the fissile mass is off-centre, so x-rays escape in a preferential direction with little shielding by chemical explosive debris, thus maximising the exposure of a fusion fuel capsule to x-rays from an implosion fission primary, and

(b) the fact

only one detonation point is required

(which can be shielded by a steel cover to protect that point from accidental impact etc), minimises the size of the x-unit capacitor, battery, etc, as compared to spherical implosions where a lot of points need simultaneous ignition for successful implosion (see French nuclear test flash x-ray photos below!). The West uses a "no-go theorem" to rule out this design called "one-point safety", whereby the implosion system must be safe from effective compression of the fissile core occurring from a detonation at any single point on the outside. However, for such very low yield (sub kiloton) fission weapons, safety concerns can be relaxed in a world war situation where mass production of nuclear shells is required, and the neutron gun must be fired at the optimum compression time to achieve a significant nuclear yield. The single point of detonation can be protected both (a) mechanically by a steel impact cap over it (so if dropped, any impact detonation will occur at the wrong point, and (b) electrically by a fuse in series with the detonator which will blow at a current rating below that required to fire the detonator. When the weapon's detonation is actually required, the fuse can be mechanically changed for a high-current conductor just before detonation.

A feature of this Gamow design is that although the off-centre fissile core is simultaneously compressed in time, the force is anisotropic (being naturally greater on the side with the most explosives), so the hollows in the fissile cores need to be displaced similarly to compensate (so that side of the fissile core with weaker implosion pressure is thinner). Although you would expect the ansiotropy of implosion to physically shift the core towards the fusion capsule and thus block the x-ray channel, this doesn't happen in reality because the time scale of the macroscopic acceleration of the core (taking many microseconds) is massive, compared to the relatively trivial timescale of the very fast nuclear reactions such as fission and x-ray ablation phenomena! It appears from Russian information that they use this kind of fission primary to massively reduce the mass and firing circuit complexity of their double-primary ignited neutron bombs. Dr Gamow illustrated technical reports himself, as he did for his wonderful kid's physics books on a big bang, etc.

ABOVE: note that a single Gamow asymmetric implosion fission stage can also be used to enhance the neutrons and prompt gamma rays in a preferential direction, for use in either ABM defensive neutron warheads (to take out incoming MIRV warheads), or to create a directed prompt gamma ray and prompt Compton current, for a non-lethal localized and directed EMP collateral-damage-averting nuclear weapon (as described using old tech, 3 decades ago in the November 1994 issue of Electronics World, by yours truly), and this Gamow off-centre implosion is depicted in an August 6, 2015-uploaded animated video and labelled "Swan" by Russian Wikipedia user "Guga50", which is currently displayed on the Russian Wikipedia article "Nuclear Weapons" (this Russian "Nuclear Weapons" Wikipedia article is not just a translation of the Western Wikipedia "Nuclear Weapons" article, which shows an entirely different "Swan"-labelled design; a symmetric prolate spheroid with 2-point detonation, not an asymmetric 1-point detonation implosive; my point here is just to point out a discrepancy rather than to say "one is right and one is wrong", since both types are certainly possible from the pure scientific standpoint and it is likely the American "Swan" design is the two-point implosion system, but the Russian Wikipedia design is backed by the design Western nuclear weaponeer Gamow explains in detail in his originally top secret 1946 report and the general Russian custom to take short cuts for cheapness that are "ruled out" by Western bureaucrats with bigger weapons budgets to blow at the taxpayers expense), which states: "... the 1st fission stage cannot provide a sufficient amount of X-ray radiation energy, which is necessary to ensure the explosion of "large" thermonuclear stages. In three-stage devices, the 1st fission stage (with an explosion power of up to tens of kilotons) is used for the radiation implosion of the 2nd ("small") thermonuclear stage (with an explosion power of several hundred kilotons), and the radiation of this 2nd thermonuclear stage (together with the radiation of the 1st stage) is used for the radiation implosion of the 3rd ("large") thermonuclear stage ... In "Tsar Bomba" (AN-602), the first two and the second two stages were placed symmetrically on 2 sides of the third ("large") thermonuclear stage, according to the so-called "bifilar" scheme." (Note: the Russian Wikipedia page on the neutron bomb points out that the casing is composed of "transparent" elements, i.e. those with small cross sections for 14.1 Mev neutron reactions, such as nickel, chromium and tungsten.)

Russian language Wikipedia https://ru.wikipedia.org "Nuclear Weapons" page, section on "Swan" (translated from Russian into English; 14 October 2024): "The described scheme of spherical implosion is archaic and has hardly been used since the mid-1950s. The principle of operation of the “Swan” type design (English: swan) is based on the use of a fissile assembly of a special shape, which, in the process of implosion initiated at one point by one fuse, is compressed in the longitudinal direction and turns into a supercritical sphere. The shell itself consists of several layers of explosive with different detonation rates, which is made on the basis of an alloy of octogen and plastic in the required proportion and filler - polystyrene foam, so that between it and the nuclear assembly located inside there remains a space filled with polystyrene foam. This space introduces the necessary delay due to the fact that the speed of detonation of the explosive exceeds the speed of the shock wave in the polystyrene foam. The shape of the charge strongly depends on the detonation speed of the shell layers and the speed of propagation of the shock wave in polystyrene, which is hypersonic under these conditions. The shock wave from the outer layer of explosive reaches the inner spherical layer simultaneously over the entire surface. A significantly lighter tamper is made not from 238U, but from beryllium, which reflects neutrons well. It can be assumed that the unusual name of this design - "Swan" (first tested by Inca in 1956) was suggested by the shape of the swan's neck. Thus, it was possible to abandon the spherical implosion and, thereby, solve the extremely difficult problem of sub-microsecond synchronization of fuses on a spherical assembly and thus simplify and reduce the diameter of the implosion nuclear weapon from 2 m in the “Fat Man” to 30 cm or less in modern nuclear weapons."

[Original Russian: "Описанная схема сферической имплозии архаична и с середины 1950-х годов почти не применяется. Принцип действия конструкции типа «Swan» ( англ. swan — лебедь), основан на использовании делящейся сборки особой формы, которая в процессе инициированной в одной точке одним взрывателем имплозии, сжимается в продольном направлении и превращается в надкритическую сферу. Сама оболочка состоит из нескольких слоёв взрывчатого вещества с разной скоростью детонации, которую изготавливают на основе сплава октогена и пластика в нужной пропорции и наполнителя — пенополистирола, так что между ним и находящейся внутри ядерной сборкой остаётся заполненное пенополистиролом пространство. Это пространство вносит нужную задержку за счёт того, что скорость детонации взрывчатки превышает скорость движения ударной волны в пенополистироле. Форма заряда сильно зависит от скоростей детонации слоёв оболочки и скоростью распространения ударной волны в полистироле, которая в данных условиях гиперзвуковая. Ударная волна от внешнего слоя взрывчатки достигает внутреннего сферического слоя одновременно по всей поверхности. Существенно более лёгкий тампер выполняется не из 238U, а из хорошо отражающего нейтроны бериллия. Можно предположить, что необычное название данной конструкции — «Лебедь» (первое испытание — Inca в 1956 г.) было подсказано формой шеи лебедя. Таким образом оказалось возможным отказаться от сферической имплозии и, тем самым, решить крайне сложную проблему субмикросекундной синхронизации взрывателей на сферической сборке и таким образом упростить и уменьшить диаметр имплозивного ядерного боеприпаса с 2 м у «Толстяка» до 30 см и менее в современных ядерных боеприпасах."]

Nuclear war threat discussion efforts in the Presidential Election Debate on TV in September 2024, Trump v. Harris, note only Trump was concerned with nuclear war (Harris was in the Democratic party, whose president on 6 and 9 August 1945 used two nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state, which explains this clearly):

Key part of US presidential debate, ignored by left wing BBC excerpts. Trump on Putin nuclear threat being ignored by left wingers: pic.twitter.com/p13yNTRz9C

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) September 11, 2024

Key part of US presidential debate, ignored by left wing BBC excerpts. Trump on need for America to get tough not appease dictatorial terrorists like Harris did which started and sustained the Vietnam style massacres of Ukraine and Gaza wars instead of DETERRING WAR USING… pic.twitter.com/av9rfK2CPK

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) September 11, 2024

Key part of US presidential debate, ignored by left wing BBC excerpts. Trump on how Biden Admin destroyed American military credibility, thus WWIII risks now in Ukraine war plus Gaza war: pic.twitter.com/zUM62ADTdB

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) September 11, 2024

Key part of US presidential debate, ignored by left wing BBC excerpts. Trump debate biased by moderators trying to shut off Trump responses to liar: pic.twitter.com/JwKkFPub9h

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) September 11, 2024

Key part of US presidential debate, ignored by left wing BBC excerpts. Trump on Biden Admin deliberately left-wing pandering appeasement show-off crass method pulling out from Afghanistan and its effects on Putin: pic.twitter.com/cGpTU82bxn

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) September 11, 2024

Key part of US presidential debate, ignored by left wing BBC excerpts. Trump on how Democrats engineered the riots in Washington DC then tried to blame Trump: pic.twitter.com/g75NdMturH

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) September 11, 2024

Key part of US presidential debate ignored by left wing BBC excerpts. Trump 10 September 2024 presidential election debate on HYPOCRISY OF LAW use by pseudo "Democrats": pic.twitter.com/QaCNxD5CW9

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) September 11, 2024

Herman Kahn is clear, in On Thermonuclear War, about the mobilization problem for bulky conventional weapons (unlike compact nukes out of sight in subs, ICBMs or airfield igloos) triggering off wars such as WWI, quoting on page 359 the assistant chief of the French General Staff, General Boisdeffre's explanation to Russian Tsar Nicholas: "The mobilization is the declaration of war. To mobilize is to oblige one's neighbor to do the same. ... Otherwise, to leave a million men on one's frontier, without doing the same simultaneously, is to deprive oneself of all possibility of moving later; it is placing oneself in a situation of an individual who, with a pistol in his pocket, should should let his neighbor put a weapon to his forehead without drawing his own." Kahn also emphasises the ironic pacifism of the Liberal Party Cabinet of the UK Government which set off WWI by declaring war on Germany (which had not declared war on Britain and did not want war with Britain):

"The [August 1914 WWI-declaring British Liberal Party government] Cabinet was overwhelmingly pacific. At least three-quarters of its members were determined not to be drawn into a European quarrel, unless Great Britain were herself attacked, which was not likely. ... They did not believe that if Germany attacked France, she would attack her through Belgium [triggering WWI via the 1839 Treaty of London, an analogy to our guarantee to defend Ukraine in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum]..." - Churchill, The World Crisis, v1, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923, p211 (quoted by Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, p387). Winston Churchill, himself a Liberal government minister when war was declared in 1914 (he had to rejoin the Conservatives after the Liberal Party was run-over by its role in declaring WWI) was anti-militarism expenditure in general, like his father Lord Randolph Churchill (who in 1886 resigned as Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, in an effort to reduce arms expenditure). On 13 May 1901, Winston Churchill, Boer War hero and newly elected Conservative MP, took up his late father's anti-militarism position in his speech to the House of Commons: "I regard it as a grave mistake in Imperial policy to spend thirty millions a year on the Army. I hold that the continued increase in Army expenditure cannot be viewed by supporters of the Government without the greatest alarm and apprehension, and by Members who represent working class constituencies without extreme dislike. I desire to urge considerations of economy on His Majesty’s Government, and as a practical step that the number of soldiers which they propose to keep ready for expeditionary purposes should be substantially reduced. ... Once you are so unfortunate as to be drawn into a war, no price is too great to pay for an early and victorious peace. All economy of soldiers or supplies is the worst extravagance in war. I am concerned only with the Estimates for the ordinary service of the year, which are increasing at such a rate that it is impossible to view them without alarm. Does the House realise what British expenditure on armaments amounts to? See how our Army Estimates have grown - seventeen millions in 1894, eighteen in 1897, nineteen in 1899, twenty-four in 1900, and finally in the present year no less than twenty-nine millions eight hundred thousand." However, by 1908 Churchillhad reversed this, in the light of Germany militarism, which required British expenditure on an arms race to maintain credible deterrence. Churchill was a realistic, deterrence-supporting pacifist, not a warmonger. Conventional weapons only failed as a credible deterrent in 1914 because of the instability caused by the need to mobilize them along frontiers, something not needed with long-range nuclear weapons now!

Herman Kahn on p371 states of Churchill's The World Crisis, volume 1: "I know of no better textbook on the subject of war, prewar preparations, and peacetime risks. ... Let me now quote Churchill on the possibility of a surprise attack. He is discussing the tension during the 1911 Agadir crisis. Lloyd George had just made a speech with the idea of forcing the German government to back down. The Germans did not like it ... 'It is too foolish, too fantastic to be thought of ... No one would do such things. Civilisation has climbed above such perils. The interdependence of nations in trade and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention, Liberal principles, the Labour Party, high finance, Christian charity, common sense have rendered such nightmares impossible. Are you quite sure? It would be a pity to be wrong.' (W. S. Churchill, The World Crisis, v1, Charles Scribner's Sons, NY, 1923, p45)." Kahn then explains the analogy of 1930s fears of gas annihilation to thermonuclear ignorance and propaganda:

"War, unrestricted war, seemed like an unbelievable nightmare and therefore somehow unreal. The very terror of war [annihilation by exaggerated gas or incendiary or high explosive bombing on cities] powerfully reinforced all those who wished to reject military solutions or palliatives in favor of much more attractive schemes for world government or universal disarmament or some major step in that direction.[Italics are Herman Kahn's own.] ... In fact it was not until April 1939, after the second invasion of Czechoslovakia, that the British went all out ... It was by that time far too late." - Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, p377. When Kahn was writing, the USA had massive nuclear superiority in both tactical and strategic weapons. Today, however, the situation is reversed and Kahn's warning is pertinent again: Russia and its allies China, North Korea and Iran have superiority. (We also need to remember the 1939-40 phoney war; it was Churchill not Hitler who initiated city bombing in 1940, deliberately in order to divert enemy bombing from RAF airfields that were needed to retain air superiority and prevent an invasion succeeding. Churchill was only able to do this because Britain had civil defense to mitigate the effects of the retaliation when the RAF were unable to entirely stop enemy attacks. Without civil defense, either Churchill wouldn't have been able to do this, so the airfields might have been put out and an invasion done, or else casualty rates 60 times higher could have resulted in the Blitz (the ratio of WWI bombing casualties per ton of bombs on unprotected civilians, to WWII, when people had shelters).

On page 378 of On Thermonuclear War, Herman Kahn emphasises (italics are Kahn's own): "The whole history of the 1933-1939 period is a clear example of the failure of Type II [deterrence of major provocations like invasion of an ally] and Type III Deterrence [deterrence of minor provocations like rearmament, militarization, etc.]. These failures occurred because neither the British nor the French [don't forget the USA which passed its Neutrality Act in 1935!] had the resolve to use their superior military power or their superior resources to check German aggression until it was too late. ... The longer they put off using their superior power the less credible it became that it would ever be used. Finally their power itself became inferior so that even when its use was seriously threatened, the German government was no longer impressed." Kahn quotes Churchill: "We had been reduced in those five years [of anti-war disarmament and then anti-war appeasement propaganda about gas knockout blow escalations wiping out humanity, 1933-1938, cumulating in the worthless piece of paper signed by Adolf Hitler on 30 September 1938 promising peace for our time] from a position of security so overwhelming and so unchallengable that we never cared to think about it. We have been reduced from a position where the very word 'war' was considered one which would be used only by persons qualifying for a lunatic asylum." - Winston Churchill, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, G. P. Putnam's Sons, NY, 1941, p60 (quoted by Herman Kahn on page 379 of On Thermonuclear War, where Kahn comments: "Hitler and some of his staff were victims of overconfidence. By the time the war started, they felt that they had more than enough of a lead to win. ... the war would doubtless be short [precisely the delusion of Russia when invading Ukraine, in 2022] ..."

Herman Kahn on page 378 of On Thermonuclear War quotes Air Marshall Sir John Slessor's Central Blue Praeger, NY, 1957, which states the reality on page 161: by 1938 Britain was spending £300 million a year on arms, contrasted to well over £1000 million a year then being spent on arms by the Nazis. Thus, the Nazis were far outrunning Britain so that every day of peace that "Chamberlain bought with his peace agreements" actually gave the Nazis a bigger lead; Britain was not "buying time for rearmament to fight" contrary to financially illiterate historians, journalists and other Chamberlain "pacifism" fans to this day, rather, Chamberlain was helping the Nazis prepare better than the UK by delaying war! If the enemy is getting way bigger than you by the day, you don't do yourself any favours by delaying the fight. The fact that this is still "disputed" by left wing historians to back disarmament in the face of Russia today just demonstrates how Comintern's legacy of infiltration of the Western universities and mass media continues to this day.

One final thought from Kahn's On Thermonuclear War is his Figure 8 on page 469, showing the relationship between missile accuracy, warhead yield, and the 50% probable target peak overpressure at the intended ground zero (the intended ground zero never debunked with 100% probability in reality, due to inaccuracies in the missile guidance system, never mind the risk of warhead malfunction/ABM interception): in 1960 American 10 megaton warheads were placed on missiles with good accuracy gyroscopes, CEP = 1 mile, which gave 50% probability of delivering 100 psi peak overpressure to the intended ground zero, destroying typical 1960 era primitive (not shock protected) missile silos. So the USA could take out hard Russian ICBMs at that time. But the corresponding 10 megaton Russian warheads were (supposedly) on less accurate missiles, CEP = 5 miles, which would only deliver about average 4 psi peak overpressure at the intended "ground zero" (because they would on average miss targets by miles), so Russia couldn't in 1960 usefully target American ICBM's in their silos! If they did so, they would fail with high probability, because the hard targets would on average receive only 4 psi, not the 100 psi needed to wreck them. Thus, Russia had to target wood-frame American houses with ICBM's in 1960, the only yank assets that could be wrecked by 4 psi, not missile silos. In effect, missile accuracy forced America and Russia to have different nuclear war strategies: America could use "counterforce" targetting on hard Russian silos, but the less accurate Russian missiles of the same yield class would have to be targetted on "soft countervalue" targets, like residential areas. This asymmetry in USA and Russian targetting was often promoted by "arms control and disarmament" promoters like Hans Bethe as preventing a direct comparison; Bethe wrote articles in journals denying Russian superiority in megatonnage because they had less accurate missiles. But this is fake news, because Russia's a dictatorship, America isn't. Which is more dangerous, Russia wiping out American civilians or America wiping out Russian ICBMs? Duh. One strategy is evil, the other is just war.

Kahn also went into the problem with populist notions of "knockout blow" 1st strikes, versus 2nd strikes in nuclear war. In summary, Russia now has superiority in tactical neutron weapons, protected deep shelters and the secret Metro 2 underground railway to evacuate the dictators from the Kremlin to safe rural bunkers in the event of a nuclear strike on Moscow (as well as many dual-purpose cheap but hard underground car parks/shelters and tube stations/shelters and basement cafes/shelters, with double blast doors fitted for civilians), and it has placed a large number of ICBMs on mobile launchers which can move around (out of the 4 psi damage zone) while USA ICBMs are inflight. So, since America doesn't have such civil defense or mobile ICBM launchers or neutron bombs, it doesn't really have a credible deterrent against Russia, but Russia has a credible deterrent against American nuclear leverage. This was claimed to reduce nclear war risks by demonstrating to Russia that it has nothing to fear from America unless Russia launches a first strike on America, when what survived of American military assets (e.g. some Trident SLBMs) could disarm themselves by setting off a firework display over the Kremlin (while the Russians survive in hard double-blast doored shelters). This limited American "second strike capability" was supposed to be "safe deterrence". However, as we have seen, it hasn't stopped Russia invading Ukraine, using Novichok and Polonium-210 in the UK, etc. In other words, it's "minimal deterrence" that leaves open the key risk Kahn warned about, a repetition of the 1930s fiasco that was designed to minimise the risk of "accidental war" by peace treaties with dictators (who interpreted them as signs of virtual signalling weakness to be laughed at and ignored), but did the opposite, causing WWII. Mathematically, the error is that the Iwo Jima proved Lanchester Equations of war are being disregarded in preference to Morgenstern and von Neumann's "Minimax theorem" of game theory. The Lanchester Equations prove that the probability of victory in war (i.e. the rate of disarmament of the weaker side) is proportional to the square of the ratio of forces (surviving a 1st strike) and you need thus to risk using as much force as you can; the Minimax theorem by contrast says that to win a rule-abided game you should take minimal risks and not "escalate to win". The Minimax theorem is disproved by the US Strategic Bomb Survey WWII pre-nuclear attacks data, as well as the results in Vietnam and other wars of "gradual punishment" to try to coerce the enemy into defeat. The Lanchester equations model the history of victorious combats. All current Western nuclear policy is based on Minimax (the McNamara legacy), not Lanchester!

To recap for clarity in the reader's mind: Kahn's 1960 On Thermonuclear War was written while Eisenhower/Dulles "Massive retaliation" (aka "MAD" = Musual Assured Destruction, aka "Type 1 Deterrence") was in play, although General Maxwell D. Taylor (later Kennedy's limited nuclear war adviser), Henry Kissinger (in his 1957 "Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy"), and people like Kahn's childhood friend and RAND Corporation colleague, physicist Samuel Cohen, were already advocating cleaner enhanced neutron weapons to credibly deter the invasions that triggered terrible conventional wars like WWI, WWII, the 1950-53 Korean War, etc. (note that contrary to "arms control and disarmament" liars, the "neutron bomb" is not limited to low kiloton yields, but can be used as a 10 megaton Ripple II 99.9% clean device for the case of wide area fronts of tanks crossing borders, provided a precursor burst of similar yield is detonated 5-25 seconds in advance, in order to reduce air density in the target area behind the shock front of the first burst, and so provide hydrodynamic enhancement of neutrons from the second explosion). Kahn considered a wide range of deterrent postures and kinds of wars in his book, and countermeasures in excruciating detail and cold-bloodedness, which put off many idealists from even bothering to read it carefully, let alone implement all of its recommendations! The key problem Kahn found for today's "minimal deterrence policy" was that arms control plus Russian tactical nuclear weapons and shelters superiority, kills off any hope deterring the kinds of "Type II deterrence" needed to prevent enemies from invading 3rd parties, i.e. the invasion of Ukraine 2022 couldn't be credibly deterred by saying "if you do that, Putin, I'll kill myself by disarming my country by firing all my weapons at you for an imaginary knockout blow" (most of which will be negated by Russian ABM, or negated by Russian shelters, or negated by Russian mobile ICBM's simply starting their engines and driving outside the 4psi blast overturning radius while the pre-programmed ICBM's are in flight from USA to their previous locations in Russia identified on satellite photos prior to pressing the button)!" This simply isn't a credible deterrent to kind of situations which have initiated 100% of the world wars in history! WTF has gone wrong with these people? Comintern propaganda has infected top dogs for decades with "Jaw, jaw, not war, war" appeasement crap (Winston Churchill was the only person in human history in the Cabinet of the country triggering BOTH World Wars, tried to deter BOTH, and FAILED both times, but is somehow remembered in propaganda history as a "great orator" despite failing to sway public opinion pre-WWI and pre-WWII to deter the wars; he may have been the most sensible person on both occasions but the result was still a World War each time!). Maybe it's partly down to luddite opposition to progress (the sin of nuclear technology stagnation caused by decades of bans of tests for improved, more credible nuclear deterrent warhead options), and partly down to nostalgic "last war" style military inertia, of the kind that sent Polish horse mounted (cavalry) divisions into battle with Panzer tanks in 1939. The key problem is that the current "protected second strike capability" ("we will never strike first!") is that the enemy leadership may develop the mentality of Hamas in October 2023. If so, that very limited "minimum deterrence" will fail, and there will be a nuclear war. Also, Russia has threatened to nuke non-nuclear Sweden and non-nuclear Ukraine, just as America nuked non-nuclear Japan in 1945 twice, so the CND fantasy of securing a "nuclear free zone" by unilateral disarmament is just a pipe dream. If we continue as we have done until now, Russia and other enemy states will become an ever more war-minded alliance intent on our nuclear annihilation.

"Russia has launched several air attacks on Ukraine this week, costing Moscow a reported £1.1bn. Last night, Kyiv came under drone attack for the third night in four days, with debris injuring people and damaging buildings." - https://t.co/oNs8lwTTmZ And when the Roubles run out,…

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) August 29, 2024

"The threat of Russian escalation is almost absent in the conversation. It is as if the limit of their conventional powers has been exposed by the humiliation of Kursk, along with the emptiness of their nuclear rhetoric. The latter cannot be entirely ignored, if the Kremlin feels…

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) August 29, 2024

Democrats in 2021 accelerated the pull out from Afghanistan to the extent that people flooded runways and later fell off undercarriages of the escaping aircraft (worse than the organized rooftop queue for the last Helicopters leaving Saigon, in 1975!), to pacify disarmers, peace protestors, liberals etc., like Putin and Hamas, then Putin and Hamas realise they can invade Ukraine (2022) and Israel (2023) with impunity. INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE KILLED WHEN YOU GIVE A GREEN LIGHT TO DICTATORS. We need credible deterrence. Like, NOW, to stop these invasions. Duh. The entire problem is down to the lying left wing Lenin lawyer "virtual signalling" political tactic lampooned years ago by Bob Monkhouse's advice to succeed by "faking sincerity" ("Nukemap" lying crap is an excellent example of how the old 1930s "guaranteed gas knockout blow annihilation within hours of war being declared" propaganda horsecrap is resurrected for mainstream media lying fake "pacicism" today). That deliberate abusive lying propaganda by the herd mentality "autistic groupthink" thugs of left wing bigots backfires, just as with right wing thugs, and costs lives.

Tip for deluded and lazy journalists who don't have time to check the full facts below: there's a very brief summary of deliberate fake news and nuclear weapons lying ("Nukemap liars etc") effects evidence debunking CND and other pro-Russian nuclear superiority (unilateral Western disarmament/arms control) "elitist virtual signalling" fascism linked here. It's about time for the fashion obsessed mass media to stop repeating 1930s lying propaganda (with "gas escalation annihilation" changed to "nuclear escalation annihilation" by paranoid lying pseudo-pacifists who engineer every invasion, every war, every massacre and ban civil defense shelters into the bargain, using lying to win so-called "Nobel peace prizes" from charlatans dressed up as celebrity elitists with pseudo Communist political cards on open display): "there is no way to prevent immediate gas annihilation of humanity due to aerial war escalation in a war, so we must disarm to prevent disaster and accommodate the Nazi terrorists as friends and collaborators in the name of God". Maybe it's about time, too, for those claiming to be "PhD historians" and "PhD physicists" to get out of their ivory towers of elitist fascist "communism" (i.e. the deliberate "pipe dream" of equality of money, not the achievable reality of equality of freedom of speech, the kind of humane decency no card-carrying/BBC supporting, elitist "Communist" will ever support in any way, shape or form, because they know their lies will instantly be exposed as such in free debate) and start to tell the truth, not one-sided pro-eugenics or other pseudoscience crap that panders to mass delusions like fairy tales.

The UK and France are eager to allow Ukraine to strike military targets deep within Russian territory, while the US and Germany are opposed - Financial Times

The reason for Germany and the US reluctance is that the Biden administration and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are…

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 28, 2024

It's impossible to tell precisely why this 1930s "gas war will escalate within hours and wipe out everybody" pro-Nazi appeasement escalation-doomsday lying and Vietnam era "don't escalate to win" anti-military lunacy is still prevailing in America and Germany, but nuclear heebie jeebies based on fake "Nukemap" style crap is certainly a big factor, plus the fact that both countries lost major wars with costly financial and psychosis implications (Germany lost WWI and WWII; America lost Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan). Someday victory may become fashionable again, probably only after "virtue signalling faked pacifist sincerity" is debunked by Putin.

Looks like the commie Russian siding thug Joseph Rotblat, a Nobel Peace Laureate for giving the green card to Putin like fellow "pacifists" did to the Kaiser to begin WWI and to Hitler, starting WWII. But from his "diplomacy" he wants WWIII by provoking war, not Western… https://t.co/jfs2CEe2KV

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) August 29, 2024

The Russian multistaged 1000 megaton (1 Gt) bomb design goes back to Leo Szilard's anti-H bomb "doomsday machine" propaganda news conference of 1950. As Herman Kahn argued, it's not a credible deterrent, is hard to deliver (it would be the size of a large submarine), and the… https://t.co/zgErh5mnVN

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) August 22, 2024

Russian state TV channel 1 admits invasion causin pain, but then adds that Russia is a nuclear state. Get prepared for possible Putin resumption of nuclear weapons coercion, or other nuclear saber rattling such as an EMP test as occurred on 22 October 1962, during Cuban crisis! https://t.co/I0gtQpb8OI

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) August 15, 2024

“We are ready to use weapons, including any weapons — including the weapons you mentioned — if it is a question of the existence of the Russian state or damage to our sovereignty and independence,” Putin added in the interview ... - https://www.news18.com/world/putin-says-russian-nuclear-weapons-more-advanced-than-in-us-8814525.html

"For Russia, the strategic defeat means the end of its statehood and thousand-year history. Then the question arises - why should we be afraid? Isn't it better to go to the end?" - Putin

He says it's logical.
Following formal logic, that means the end of Putin. pic.twitter.com/XpJTzWQH9c

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) June 20, 2024

Are you a retired NATO F-16 pilot? Then you are needed to help defend liberty against the Ruskies. Ukraine doesn't have enough F-16 pilots available. https://t.co/Mdto9HhPMc

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) August 15, 2024

I arrived in Moscow for the BBC in 2000 on the day Russia admitted to the Kursk submarine disaster. Now, in Kursk, Putin’s struggling with new disaster - as his war vs Ukraine rebounds

I’ve witnessed Russia’s long slide to this point, close-up. It’s all in my book - out today 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/VREwcF6R4m

— Sarah Rainsford (@sarahrainsford) August 15, 2024

Offensive is usually the best form of defence - looks like AFU really understand combined arms manoeuvre warfare ⁦@HamishDBG⁩ ⁦@Barnes_Joe⁩ https://t.co/7yrqb3FN5Y

— Hamish DBG (@HamishDBG) August 27, 2024

"The incursion into Kursk region by the AFU is in favor of Russia," Russians are told by their TV channels, because an attack on Russian territory closes the possibility of negotiations with Ukraine.

And what else would be in Russia's favor? pic.twitter.com/q2a8FkD0nR

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 28, 2024

Answer: in case Putin at some point hits the vodka, sees red at the invasion of Russia, and presses a button. Hitler had 12,000 tons of tabun by 1945 - equivalent to Russia's nuclear stockpile in terms of killing potential - but never used a drop of it. But the RISK was… https://t.co/eHzQLYxY8x

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) August 15, 2024

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on Putin's (aka Russian State TV Channel 1's) recent nuclear war threats: Zelenskyy thinks that Putin loves life too much to start a nuclear war. True, up to a point, but: (1) Putin could escalate nuclear threats without much risk of being wiped out… pic.twitter.com/9wTNFVKUaT

— nukegate.org (@Nukegate) August 27, 2024

ABOVE: The 1996 Northrop EM-1 (see extracts below showing protection by modern buildings and also simple shelters very close to nuclear tests; note that Northrop's entire set of damage ranges as a function of yield for underground shelters, tunnels, silos are based on two contained deep underground nuclear tests of different yield scaled to surface burst using the assumption of 5% yield ground coupling relative to the underground shots; this 5% equivalence figure appears to be an exaggeration for compact modern warheads, e.g. the paper “Comparison of Surface and Sub-Surface Nuclear Bursts,” from Steven Hatch, Sandia National Laboratories, to Jonathan Medalia, October 30, 2000, shows a 2% equivalence, e.g. Hatch shows that 1 megaton surface burst produces identical ranges to underground targets as a 20 kt burst at >20m depth of burst, whereas Northrop would require 50kt) has not been openly published, despite such protection being used in Russia! This proves heavy bias against credible tactical nuclear deterrence of the invasions that trigger major wars that could escalate into nuclear war (Russia has 2000+ dedicated neutron bombs; we don't!) and against simple nuclear proof tested civil defence which makes such deterrence credible and of course is also of validity against conventional wars, severe weather, peacetime disasters, etc.

The basic fact is that nuclear weapons can deter/stop invasions unlike the conventional weapons that cause mass destruction, and nuclear collateral damage is eliminated easily for nuclear weapons by using them on military targets, since for high yields at collateral damage distances all the effects are sufficiently delayed in arrival to allow duck and cover to avoid radiation and blast wind/flying debris injuries (unlike the case for the smaller areas affected by smaller yield conventional weapons, where there is little time on seeing the flash to duck and cover to avoid injury), and as the original 1951 SECRET American Government "Handbook on Capabilities of Atomic Weapons" (limited report AD511880L, forerunner to today's still secret EM-1) stated in Section 10.32:

"PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT ITEM TO BE REMEMBERED WHEN ESTIMATING EFFECTS ON PERSONNEL IS THE AMOUNT OF COVER ACTUALLY INVOLVED. ... IT IS OBVIOUS THAT ONLY A FEW SECONDS WARNING IS NECESSARY UNDER MOST CONDITIONS TO TAKE FAIRLY EFFECTIVE COVER. THE LARGE NUMBER OF CASUALTIES IN JAPAN RESULTED FOR THE MOST PART FROM THE LACK OF WARNING."

As for Hitler's stockpile of 12,000 tons of tabun nerve gas, whose strategic and also tactical use was deterred by proper defences (gas masks for all civilians and soldiers, as well as UK stockpiles of fully trial-tested deliverable biological agent anthrax and mustard gas retaliation capacity), it is possible to deter strategic nuclear escalation to city bombing, even within a world war with a crazy terrorist, if all the people are protected by both defence and deterrence.

We have uploaded an online-viewable version of the full text of the 1982 edition of the UK Goverment's Domestic Nuclear Shelters - Technical Guidance, including secret UK and USA nuclear test report references and extracts proving protection against collateral damage, for credible deterrence (linked here).

For a review of this site see: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/02/are-nuclear-weapons-100-times-less.html which states: "Cook is a master researcher who digs up incredible piles of research on all topics nuclear and the following is digest of various writings of his gathered for easy access centered on the remarkable thesis that the effects of nuclear weapons, while literally awesome, have been exaggerated or misunderstood to an even greater extent, with perhaps very considerable military consequences." Also see some key extracts from this blog published over at http://www.militarystory.org/nuclear-detonations-in-urban-and-suburban-areas/ and blog statistics (over 2.3 million views) linked here (populist pseudo-critics love to falsely claim that "nobody takes any notice of the truth, justifying their decision to ignore the facts by following the fake fashion herd groupthink agenda"). (Or, for Field Marshall Slim's "the more you use, fewer you lose" success formula for ending war by winning in Burma against Japan - where physicist Herman Kahn served while his friend Sam Cohen was calculating nuclear weapon efficiencies at the Los Alamos Manhattan Project, which again used "overkill" to convince the opponent to throw in the towel - please see my post on the practicalities of really DETERRING WWIII linked here; this is the opposite of the failure to escalate formula used to drag out war until bankrupcy aka the Vietnam effect.)

This blog's url is now "www.nukegate.org". When this nuclear effects blog began in 2006, "glasstone.blogspot.com" was used to signify the key issue of Glasstone's obfuscating Effects of Nuclear Weapons, specifically the final 1977 edition, which omitted not just the credible deterrent "use" of nuclear weapons but the key final "Principles of protection" chapter that had been present in all previous editions, and it also ignored the relatively clean neutron bombs which had been developed in the intervening years, as a credible deterrent to the concentrations of force needed for aggressive invasions, such as the 1914 invasion of Belgium and the 1939 invasion of Poland; both of which triggered world wars. Those editors themselves were not subversives, but both had nuclear weapons security clearances which constituted political groupthink censorship control, regarding which designs of nuclear weapons they could discuss and the level of technical data (they include basically zero information on their sources and the "bibliographies" are in most cases not to their classified nuclear testing sources but merely further reading); the 1977 edition had been initially drafted in 1974 solely by EM-1 editor Dolan at SRI International, and was then submitted to Glasstone who made further changes. The persistent and hypocritical Russian World Peace Council's and also hardline arms controllers propaganda tactic - supported by some arms industry loons who have a vested interest in conventional war - has been to try to promote lies on nuclear weapons effects to get rid of credible Western nuclear deterrence of provocations that start war. Naturally, the Russians have now stocked 2000+ tactical neutron weapons of the sort they get the West to disarm.

This means that they can invade territory with relative impunity, since the West won't deter such provocations by flexible response - the aim of Russia is to push the West into a policy of massive retaliation of direct attacks only, and then use smaller provocations instead - and Russia can then use its tactical nuclear weapons to "defend" its newly invaded territories by declaring them to now be part of Mother Russia and under Moscow's nuclear umbrella. Russia has repeatedly made it clear - for decades - that it expects a direct war with NATO to rapidly escalate into nuclear WWIII and it has prepared civil defense shelters and evacuation tactics to enable it. Herman Kahn's public warnings of this date back to his testimony to the June 1959 Congressional Hearings on the Biological and Environmental Effects of Nuclear War, but for decades were deliberately misrepresented by most media outlets. President Kennedy's book "Why England Slept" makes it crystal clear how exactly the same "pacifist" propaganda tactics in the 1930s (that time it was the "gas bomb knockout blow has no defense so disarm, disarm, disarm" lie) caused war, by using fear to slow credible rearmament in the face of state terrorism. By the time democracies finally decided to issue an ultimatum, Hitler had been converted - by pacifist appeasement - from a cautious tester of Western indecision, into an overconfident aggressor who simply ignored last-minute ultimatums.

Glasstone and Dolan's 1977 Effects of Nuclear Weapons (US Government) is written in a highly ambiguous fashion (negating nearly every definite statement with a deliberately obfuscating contrary statement to leave a smokescreen legacy of needless confusion, obscurity and obfuscation), omits nearly all key nuclear test data and provides instead misleading generalizations of data from generally unspecified weapon designs tested over 60 years ago which apply to freefield measurements on unobstructed radial lines in deserts and oceans. It makes ZERO analysis of the overall shielding of radiation and blast by their energy attenuation in modern steel and concrete cities, and even falsely denies such factors in its discussion of blast in cities and in its naive chart for predicting the percentage of burns types as a function of freefield outdoor thermal radiation, totally ignoring skyline shielding geometry (similar effects apply to freefield nuclear radiation exposure, despite vague attempts to dismiss this by non-quantitative talk about some scattered radiation arriving from all angles). It omits the huge variations in effects due to weapon design e.g. cleaner warhead designs and the tactical neutron bomb. It omits quantitative data on EMP as a function of burst yield, height and weapon design.

It omits most of the detailed data collected from Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the casualty rates as a function of type of building or shelter and blast pressure. It fails to analyse overall standardized casualty rates for different kinds of burst (e.g. shallow underground earth penetrators convert radiation and blast energy into ground shock and cratering against hard targets like silos or enemy bunkers). It omits a detailed analysis of blast precursor effects. It omits a detailed analysis of fallout beta and gamma spectra, fractionation, specific activity (determining the visibility of the fallout as a function of radiation hazard, and the mass of material to be removed for effective decontamination), and data which does exist on the effect of crater soil size distribution upon the fused fallout particle size distribution (e.g. tests like Small Boy in 1962 on the very fine particles at Frenchman Flats gave mean fallout particle sizes far bigger than the pre-shot soil, proving that - as for Trinitite - melted small soil particles fuse together in the fireball to produce larger fallout particles, so the pre-shot soil size distribution is irrelevant for fallout analysis).

By generally (with few exceptions) lumping "effects" of all types of bursts together into chapters dedicated to specific effects, it falsely gives the impression that all types of nuclear explosions produce similar effects with merely "quantitative differences". This is untrue because air bursts eliminate fallout casualties entirely, while slight burial (e.g. earth penetrating warheads) eliminates thermal (including fires and dust "climatic nuclear winter" BS), the initial radiation and severe blast effects, while massively increasing ground shock, and the same applies to shallow underwater bursts. So a more objective treatment to credibly deter all aggression MUST emphasise the totally different collateral damage effects, by dedicating chapters to different kinds of burst (high altitude/space bursts, free air bursts, surface bursts, underground bursts, underwater bursts), and would include bomb design implications on these effects in detail. A great deal of previously secret and limited distributed nuclear effects data has been declassified since 1977, and new research has been done. Our objectives in this review are: (a) to ensure that an objective independent analysis of the relevant nuclear weapons effects facts is placed on the record in case the currently, increasingly vicious Cold War 2.0 escalates into some kind of limited "nuclear demonstration" by aggressors to try to end a conventional war by using coercive threats, (b) to ensure the lessons of tactical nuclear weapon design for deterring large scale provocations (like the invasions of Belgium in 1914 and Poland in 1939 which triggered world wars) are re-learned in contrast to Dulles "massive retaliation" (incredible deterrent) nonsense, and finally (c) to provide some push to Western governments to "get real" with our civil defense, to try to make credible our ageing "strategic nuclear deterrent". We have also provided a detailed analysis of recently declassified Russian nuclear warhead design data, shelter data, effects data, tactical nuclear weapons employment manuals, and some suggestions for improving Western thermonuclear warheads to improve deterrence.

‘The evidence from Hiroshima indicates that blast survivors, both injured and uninjured, in buildings later consumed by fire [caused by the blast overturning charcoal braziers used for breakfast in inflammable wooden houses filled with easily ignitable bamboo furnishings and paper screens] were generally able to move to safe areas following the explosion. Of 130 major buildings studied by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey ... 107 were ultimately burned out ... Of those suffering fire, about 20 percent were burning after the first half hour. The remainder were consumed by fire spread, some as late as 15 hours after the blast. This situation is not unlike the one our computer-based fire spread model described for Detroit.’

- Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, U.S. Department of Defense, DCPA Attack Environment Manual, Chapter 3: What the Planner Needs to Know About Fire Ignition and Spread, report CPG 2-1A3, June 1973, Panel 27.

The Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, US Strategic Bombing Survey, Pacific Theatre, report 92, volume 2 (May 1947, secret):

Volume one, page 14:

“... the city lacked buildings with fire-protective features such as automatic fire doors and automatic sprinkler systems”, and pages 26-28 state the heat flash in Hiroshima was only:

“... capable of starting primary fires in exposed, easily combustible materials such as dark cloth, thin paper, or dry rotted wood exposed to direct radiation at distances usually within 4,000 feet of the point of detonation (AZ).”

Volume two examines the firestorm and the ignition of clothing by the thermal radiation flash in Hiroshima:

Page 24:

“Scores of persons throughout all sections of the city were questioned concerning the ignition of clothing by the flash from the bomb. ... Ten school boys were located during the study who had been in school yards about 6,200 feet east and 7,000 feet west, respectively, from AZ [air zero]. These boys had flash burns on the portions of their faces which had been directly exposed to rays of the bomb. The boys’ stories were consistent to the effect that their clothing, apparently of cotton materials, ‘smoked,’ but did not burst into flame. ... a boy’s coat ... started to smoulder from heat rays at 3,800 feet from AZ.” [Contrast this to the obfuscation and vagueness in Glasstone, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons!]

Page 88:

“Ignition of the City. ... Only directly exposed surfaces were flash burned. Measured from GZ, flash burns on wood poles were observed at 13,000 feet, granite was roughened or spalled by heat at 1,300 feet, and vitreous tiles on roofs were blistered at 4,000 feet. ... six persons who had been in reinforced-concrete buildings within 3,200 feet of air zero stated that black cotton blackout curtains were ignited by radiant heat ... dark clothing was scorched and, in some cases, reported to have burst into flame from flash heat [although as the 1946 unclassified USSBS report admits, most immediately beat the flames out with their hands without sustaining injury, because the clothing was not drenched in gasoline, unlike peacetime gasoline tanker road accident victims]

“... but a large proportion of over 1,000 persons questioned was in agreement that a great majority of the original fires was started by debris falling on kitchen charcoal fires, by industrial process fires, or by electric short circuits. Hundreds of fires were reported to have started in the centre of the city within 10 minutes after the explosion. Of the total number of buildings investigated [135 buildings are listed] 107 caught fire, and in 69 instances, the probable cause of initial ignition of the buildings or their contents was as follows: (1) 8 by direct radiated heat from the bomb (primary fire), (2) 8 by secondary sources, and (3) 53 by fire spread from exposed [wooden] buildings.”

There is now a relatively long introduction at the top of this blog, due to the present nuclear threat caused by disarmament and arms control propaganda, and the dire need to get the facts out past pro-Russian media influencers or loony mass media which has never cared about nuclear and radiation effects facts, so please scroll down to see blog posts. The text below in blue is hyperlinked (direct to reference source materials, rather than numbered and linked to reference at the end of the page) so you can right-click on it and open in a new tab to see the source. This page is not about opinions, it provides censored out facts that debunk propaganda, but for those who require background "authority" nonsense on censored physics facts, see stuff here or here. Regarding calling war-mongering, world war causing, terrorism-regime-supporting UK disarmers of the 20th century "thugs" instead of "kind language": I was put through the Christianity grinder as a kid so will quote Jesus (whom I'm instructed to follow), Matthew 23:33: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell?" The fake "pacifist" thugs will respond with some kindly suggestion that this is "paranoid" and that "Jesus was rightfully no-platformed for his inappropriate language"! Yeah, you guys would say that, wouldn't ya. Genuine pacifism requires credible deterrence! Decent people seem to be very confused about the facts of this. Jesus did not say "disarm to invite your annihilation by terrorists". You can't "forgive and forget" when the enemy is still on the warpath. They have to be stopped, either by deterrence, force, defense, or a combination of all these.

Above: Edward Leader-Williams on the basis for UK civil defence shelters in SECRET 1949 Royal Society's London Symposium on physical effects of atomic weapons, a study that was kept secret by the Attlee Government and subsequent UK governments, instead of being openly published to enhance public knowledge of civil defence effectiveness against nuclear attack. Leader-Williams also produced the vital civil defence report seven years later (published below for the first time on this blog), proving civil defence sheltering and city centre evacuation is effective against 20 megaton thermonuclear weapons. Also published in the same secret symposium, which was introduced by Penney, was Penney's own Hiroshima visit analysis of the percentage volume reduction in overpressure-crushed empty petrol cans, blueprint containers, etc., which gave a blast partition yield of 7 kilotons (or 15.6 kt total yield, if taking the nuclear blast as 45% of total yield, i.e. 7/0.45 = 15.6, as done in later AWRE nuclear weapons test blast data reports). Penney in a 1970 updated paper allowed for blast reduction due to the damage done in the city bursts.

ABOVE: The June 1957 edition of Glasstone's Effects of Nuclear Weapons was the first to include the effects of blast duration (which increases with the cube-root of weapon yield) on blast damage from nuclear weapons. This is very important for wind drag loading to drag-sensitive targets, but has less effect for diffraction-sensitive targets which respond to peak pressures, especially where the blast pressure rapidly equalizes around the structure (e.g. utility poles or buildings with large expanses of glass which shatters, allowing rapid pressure equalization). For example, Glasstone 1957, Fig. 6.41b (p253, using Fig. 3.94a on p109 to convert scaled distances to overpressures from a surface burst on open deserted terrain) shows that for yields of 1 kt, 20 kt (approximately the 16 kt Hiroshima and 21 kt Nagasaki yields), and 1 megaton, peak overpressures of 55, 23 and 15 psi, respectively, are required for collapse (severe damage) to modern multistory reinforced concrete buildings with light walls (Fig. 6.41a shows that about 5 psi will demolish a wood frame house - no longer in modern city centres - regardless of yield). Notice that this means that modern cities are extremely resistant to blast from ~1 kt neutron bombs, requiring more than twice the peak overpressure for collapse than was needed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Also notice that very large amounts of energy are absorbed from the blast in causing severe damage to modern reinforced concrete city buildings, causing rapid attenuation of free-field pressure so that ocean and desert test validated cube-root damage scaling laws break down for high yield bursts in modern cities (see latest blog post here for examples of calculations of this energy absorption in both oscillating a building in the elastic deflection engineering graph zone, and the much larger energy absorption in causing plastic zone distortion to reinforced concrete - basically the former typically absorbs about 1% of blast energy, whereas the latter takes up something like 10 times more energy, or 10%, a factor entirely dismissed by Glasstone and Dolan but analyzed by Penney). Above a megaton or so, the increasing blast duration has less and less effect on the peak overpressure required for severe damage, because for destruction a threshold blast loading exists, regardless of the blast duration. (A 1 mile/hour wind will not blow a wall down, regardless of how long it lasts. In other words, large impulses cease to be damage criteria if the blast pressure drops below a threshold needed for damage.) Glasstone 1957 Fig 6.41c on p255 shows that automobiles suffer severe damage 36 psi peak overpressure for 1 kt, 18 psi for 20 kt, and 12 psi for 1 megaton. These pressures for destruction of automobiles are similar to the severe damage data given for multistorey steel frame office buildings with light walls. The key point here is that low-yield (around 1 kt) tactical nuclear weapons produce far less collateral damage to civilian infrastructure than high yield bursts, and even the effects of the latter are exaggerated severely for modern cities when using wooden house data in unobstructed terrain at ocean or desert terrain nuclear tests. Collateral damage is eliminated by exploiting the fact that higher pressures are needed for air blast damage at lower yields, and using earth penetrator warheads or air bursts to constrain air blast pressures to civilian infrastructure, ensuring that they are not collapsed (causing casualties in modern steel or concrete buildings).

Note that the later (1962/4 and 1977) editions of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons replace the correct (curved line conversion) blast duration nomographs in the 1957 edition with simplistic Wn yield scaling (where n = 0.4 for drag sensitive targets), which is a simplification which fails to correctly model the fact that blast duration effects on overpressures are eliminated at very high yields because a minimum threshold blast pressure is needed to cause damage.

J. R. Oppenheimer (opposing Teller), February 1951: "It is clear that they can be used only as adjuncts in a military campaign which has some other components, and whose purpose is a military victory. They are not primarily weapons of totality or terror, but weapons used to give combat forces help they would otherwise lack. They are an integral part of military operations. Only when the atomic bomb is recognized as useful insofar as it is an integral part of military operations, will it really be of much help in the fighting of a war, rather than in warning all mankind to avert it." (Quotation: Samuel Cohen, Shame, 2nd ed., 2005, page 99.)

‘The Hungarian revolution of October and November 1956 demonstrated the difficulty faced even by a vastly superior army in attempting to dominate hostile territory. The [Soviet Union] Red Army finally had to concentrate twenty-two divisions in order to crush a practically unarmed population. ... With proper tactics, nuclear war need not be as destructive as it appears when we think of [World War II nuclear city bombing like Hiroshima]. The high casualty estimates for nuclear war are based on the assumption that the most suitable targets are those of conventional warfare: cities to interdict communications ... With cities no longer serving as key elements in the communications system of the military forces, the risks of initiating city bombing may outweigh the gains which can be achieved. ...

‘The elimination of area targets will place an upper limit on the size of weapons it will be profitable to use. Since fall-out becomes a serious problem [i.e. fallout contaminated areas which are so large that thousands of people would need to evacuate or shelter indoors for up to two weeks] only in the range of explosive power of 500 kilotons and above, it could be proposed that no weapon larger than 500 kilotons will be employed unless the enemy uses it first. Concurrently, the United States could take advantage of a new development which significantly reduces fall-out by eliminating the last stage of the fission-fusion-fission process.’

- Dr Henry Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, Harper, New York, 1957, pp. 180-3, 228-9.

Note that sometimes the "nuclear taboo" issue is raised against this analysis by Kissenger: if anti-nuclear lying propaganda on weapons effects makes it apparently taboo in the Western pro-Russian disarmament lobbies to escalate from conventional to tactical nuclear weapons to end war as on 6 and 9 August 1945, then this "nuclear taboo" can be relied upon to guarantee peace for our time. However, this was not only disproved by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but by the Russian tactical nuclear weapons reliance today, the Russian civil defense shelter system detailed on this blog which showed they believed a nuclear war survivable based on the results of their own nuclear tests, and the use of Russian nuclear weapons years after Kissinger's analysis was published and criticised, for example their 50 megaton test in 1961 and their supply of IRBM's capable of reaching East Coast mainland USA targets to the fanatical Cuban dictatorship in 1962. So much for the "nuclear taboo" as being any more reliable than Chamberlain's "peace for our time" document, co-signed by Hitler on 30 September 1938! We furthermore saw how Russia respected President Obama's "red line" for the "chemical weapons taboo": Russia didn't give a toss about Western disarmament thugs prattle about what they think is a "taboo", Russia used chlorine and sarin in Syria to keep Assad the dictator and they used Novichok to attack and kill in the UK in 2018, with only diplomatic expulsions in response. "Taboos" are no more valid to restrain madmen than peace treaties, disarmament agreements, Western CND books attacking civil defense or claiming that nuclear war is the new 1930s gas war bogyman, or "secret" stamps on scientific facts. In a word, they're crazy superstitions.)

(Quoted in 2006 on this blog here.

All of this data should have been published to inform public debate on the basis for credible nuclear deterrence of war and civil defense, PREVENTING MILLIONS OF DEATHS SINCE WWII, instead of DELIBERATELY allowing enemy anti-nuclear and anti-civil defence lying propaganda from Russian supporting evil fascists to fill the public data vacuum, killing millions by allowing civil defence and war deterrence to be dismissed by ignorant "politicians" in the West, so that wars triggered by invasions with mass civilian casualties continue today for no purpose other than to promote terrorist agendas of hate and evil arrogance and lying for war, falsely labelled "arms control and disarmament for peace":

"Controlling escalation is really an exercise in deterrence, which means providing effective disincentives to unwanted enemy actions. Contrary to widely endorsed opinion, the use or threat of nuclear weapons in tactical operations seems at least as likely to check [as Hiroshima and Nagasaki] as to promote the expansion of hostilities [providing we're not in a situation of Russian biased arms control and disarmament whereby we've no tactical weapons while the enemy has over 2000 neutron bombs thanks to "peace" propaganda from Russian thugs]." - Bernard Brodie, pvi of Escalation and the nuclear option, RAND Corp memo RM-5444-PR, June 1965.

ABOVE: Why didn't Britain declare war on Russia when it jointly invaded Poland with the Nazis, or even later when Russia invaded Finland single-handed? Answer: Comintern had stuffed the British mass media, British universities, and even the Labour Party with Russian stooges! Barrister Denis Pritt, Labour MP, simply blamed the British government for not cosying up to Communist dictatorial Russia (in the same way Chamberlain had cosied up to Adolf Hitler's Nazis)! Pritt in 1936 went to watch the "Trial of the Sixteen" in Moscow, a show trial purge of Stalin's criticis that made a mockery of the law, but be defended Stalinism in his tract, "The Zinoviev Trial". He was only finally kicked out of the Labour Party after he defended Russia's invasion of Finland in popular Penguin Book Specials. But he wasn't alone. The communists of the British media used the same tactics as the Nazis to undermine or destroy critics, so they managed to churn out one-sided propaganda nearly as bad as the media saturation with anti-nuclear, anti-CO2 crap today.

Russian project 49 dual-primary thermonuclear weaponeer Dr Yuri Trutnev has an officially "proatom.ru"-published technical history of the design of the Russian nuclear weapons (which differ from UK-USA designs fundamentally) here (extracted from Russian "Atomic Strategy" No. 18, August 2005): "the problem of ensuring spherically symmetric compression of the secondary module was radically solved, since the time of “symmetrization” of the energy around the secondary module was much less than the time of compression of this module. ... The first two-stage thermonuclear charge, designated RDS-37, was developed in 1955 and successfully tested on November 22, 1955. The energy release of the charge in the experiment was 1.6 Mt, and since for safety reasons at the Semipalatinsk test site the charge was tested at partial power, the predicted full-scale energy release of the charge was ~ 3 Mt. The energy release amplification factor in RDS-37 was about two orders of magnitude, the charge did not use tritium, the thermonuclear fuel was lithium deuteride, and the main fissile material was U-238. ... Particular attention should be paid to the works of 1958. This year, a new type of thermonuclear charge, “product 49,” was tested [the double-primary H-bomb], which was the next step in the formation of a standard for thermonuclear charges (its development was completed in 1957, but testing on the SIP did not take place). The ideologists of this project and the developers of the physical charge circuit were Yu. N. Babaev and I. The peculiarity of the new charge was that, using the basic principles of the RDS-37, it was possible to: • significantly reduce overall parameters due to a new bold solution to the problem of transfer of X-ray radiation, which determines implosion; • simplify the layered structure of the secondary module, which turned out to be an extremely important practical decision. According to the conditions of adaptation to specific carriers, “product 49” was developed in a smaller overall weight category compared to the RDS-37 charge, but its specific volumetric energy release turned out to be 2.4 times greater.

"The physical design of the charge turned out to be extremely successful; the charge was transferred to service and subsequently underwent modernization associated with the replacement of primary energy sources. In 1958, together with Yu. N. Babaev, we managed to develop 4 thermonuclear charges, which were tested on the field in 7 full-scale tests, and all of them were successful. This work was practically implemented within 8 months of 1958. All of these charges used a new circuit, first introduced in Product 49. Their energy release ranged from 0.3 to 2.8 Mt. In addition, in 1958, under my leadership M. V. Fedulov also developed the lightest thermonuclear charge at that time according to the “product 49” design, which was also successfully tested. Work on the miniaturization of thermonuclear weapons was new at that time, and it was met with a certain misunderstanding and resistance. ... One of the well-known pages in the history of work on thermonuclear weapons of the USSR is the creation of a superbomb - the most powerful thermonuclear charge. I will dwell on some points of this development. ... Among the features of this charge, it should be noted that the large volume of the charge (due to its high energy release) required significant amounts of X-ray energy to carry out implosion. The developed nuclear charges did not satisfy this condition, and therefore, a previously developed two-stage thermonuclear charge with a relatively low energy release was used as the primary source of the “super-powerful charge”. This charge was developed by me and Yu. N. Babaev. ... In the next project (a return to the untested 1958 system) that I supervised, every effort was made to ensure near-perfect implosion symmetry. This brilliant work led to success, and in 1962, the problem of implementing thermonuclear ignition was solved in a special device. In other full-scale tests that followed, this success was consolidated, and as a result, thermonuclear ignition provided the calculated combustion of the secondary module with an energy release of 1 Mt. My co-authors in this development were V.B. Adamsky, Yu.N. Babaev, V.G. Zagrafov and V.N. Mokhov. ... This principle has found a variety of applications in the creation of fundamentally new types of thermonuclear charges, from special devices for the use of nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes to significant military applications." (Note there is a 2017 filmed interview of Trutnev - in Russian - linked here.)

This is the basis for both the Russian isentropic-compressed pure fusion secondary (99.85% clean) neutron bomb and related progress with strategic warheads:

“In 1966, VNIIEF conducted a successful test of the second generation charge, in which an almost doubling of the power density was achieved by increasing the contribution of fission reactions in the thermonuclear module. These results were subsequently used to create new third-generation products.” - A. A. Greshilov, N. D. Egupov and A. M. Matushchenko, Nuclear shield (official Russian nuclear weapons history), 2008, p171 (linked here: https://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/greshilov_yaderny-schit_2008/p171/ ). Note that first double-primary Project 49 Russian test on 23 February 1958 was rapidly weaponised as the 1364 kg 8F12/8F12N warhead for the 8K63 missile in 1959, according to http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/index-0-5.html which also gives a table of yields and masses of other Russian warheads: the 2.3 megaton warhead 8K15 for the 8K65 missile had a mass of 1546 kg; the 5 megaton 8F116 warhead for the 8K64 and 8K65 missiles had a mass of 2175 kg; the 6 megaton 8F117 for the 8K64 and other missiles had a mass of 2200 kg, etc. The diagram below shows a cut-away through the shells in the isentropically-compressed megaton secondary stage of the first Russian weapon without a central fission neutron-producing sparkplug (1.1 megaton Russian test number 218 at Novaya Zemlya on 24 December 1962, an air drop detonating at 1320 m altitude). This diagram was declassified in the official Russian "History of the domestic nuclear project - Report by the scientific director of RFNC-VNIIEF, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences R.I. Ilkaeva at the General Meeting, Department of Physical Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences December 17, 2012, RAS", after John H. Nuckolls' summary of the similar, 99.9% clean 10 megaton Ripple-2, tested 30 October 1962 as detailed in posts below (the detailed interior design analysis of the Russian megaton nuclear warhead for the R13 - which is on display in a Russian nuclear warhead design museum - is from the Russian sites here and here).

"... it is an important defect of 'arms control' agreements that the punishment or correction of even outright violation is not done automatically ... [in 1934 Ramsay] MacDonald and his supporters urged one of the least aggressive nations in Europe to disarm itself to a level equal with their potential attackers ... Probably as much as any other single group I think that these men of good will can be charged with causing World War II. [Italics are Kahn's own.] ... In March 1934, Stanley Baldwin, in answer to a statement by Winston Churchill to the effect that Germany was rearming and growing stronger than Great Britain, made his famous statement: 'If all our efforts at agreement fail [why 'all' and how do you define 'failure' until after the enemy secretly breaks the agreement and enemy starts a war, when it is too late?] ... in air strength and air power this country shall no longer be inferior to any country within striking distance of its shores'. In spite of this pledge, by 1935 the Germans had achieved parity or even air superiority and their rate of expansion was much larger than that of the British; thus the disparity grew with the years. ... On March 16, 1935, Hitler decreed conscription ... In April, the League [of Nations, the old version of the UN] ... unanimously voted that treaties should not be broken by unilateral action. ... At no time did Hitler threaten to initiate war against France and England. He simply threatened to 'retaliate' if they attacked him. ... The technique he used is such an obvious prototype for a future aggressor armed with H-bombs that it is of extreme value to all who are concerned with the problem of maintaining a peaceful and secure world to go over the story in some detail." - Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, pp. 390-392, 403. (Kahn then gives a long discussion of the "you have the choice"-way Hitler blackmailed President Hacha into signing over his country to the Nazis in March 1939, despite the worthless Munich agreement of 1938, using first-hand testimony from Hitler's translator at the 14 March 1939 Hitler-Hacha meeting, Paul Schmidt: "There were, said Hitler, 'two possibilities. The first was that the invasion of the German troops might develop into a battle. The resistance would then be broken down by force of arms with all available means. The other was that the entry of the German troops should take place in a peaceable manner ...'." Now the issue is this: Hitler used "peace" as an option to get what he wanted without violence. But populist propaganda claims Hitler was "violent". Nope: Hitler preferred to "peacefully" invade, "peacefully" gas opponents in gas chambers with musicians playing classical music at the deportation camp railway stations to prevent violence starting, etc. Reagan made the point in his March 1983 "evil empire" speech that the most evil thugs of all that instigate genocide hide behind the cloak of spurious pacifism!)

https://hbr.org/1995/05/why-the-news-is-not-the-truth/ (Peter Vanderwicken in the Harvard Business Review Magazine, May-June 1995): "The news media and the government are entwined in a vicious circle of mutual manipulation, mythmaking, and self-interest. Journalists need crises to dramatize news, and government officials need to appear to be responding to crises. Too often, the crises are not really crises but joint fabrications. The two institutions have become so ensnared in a symbiotic web of lies that the news media are unable to tell the public what is true and the government is unable to govern effectively. That is the thesis advanced by Paul H. Weaver, a former political scientist (at Harvard University), journalist (at Fortune magazine), and corporate communications executive (at Ford Motor Company), in his provocative analysis entitled News and the Culture of Lying: How Journalism Really Works ... The news media and the government have created a charade that serves their own interests but misleads the public. Officials oblige the media’s need for drama by fabricating crises and stage-managing their responses, thereby enhancing their own prestige and power. Journalists dutifully report those fabrications. Both parties know the articles are self-aggrandizing manipulations and fail to inform the public about the more complex but boring issues of government policy and activity. What has emerged, Weaver argues, is a culture of lying. ... The architect of the transformation was not a political leader or a constitutional convention but Joseph Pulitzer, who in 1883 bought the sleepy New York World and in 20 years made it the country’s largest newspaper. Pulitzer accomplished that by bringing drama to news—by turning news articles into stories ... His journalism took events out of their dry, institutional contexts and made them emotional rather than rational, immediate rather than considered, and sensational rather than informative. The press became a stage on which the actions of government were a series of dramas. ... The press swarmed on the story, which had all the necessary dramatic elements: a foot-dragging bureaucracy, a study finding that the country’s favorite fruit was poisoning its children, and movie stars opposing the pesticide. Sales of apples collapsed. Within months, Alar’s manufacturer withdrew it from the market, although both the EPA and the Food and Drug Administration stated that they believed Alar levels on apples were safe. The outcry simply overwhelmed scientific evidence. That happens all too often, Cynthia Crossen argues in her book Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America. ... Crossen writes, “more and more of the information we use to buy, elect, advise, acquit and heal has been created not to expand our knowledge but to sell a product or advance a cause.” “Most members of the media are ill-equipped to judge a technical study,” Crossen correctly points out. “Even if the science hasn’t been explained or published in a U.S. journal, the media may jump on a study if it promises entertainment for readers or viewers. And if the media jump, that is good enough for many Americans.” ... A press driven by drama and crises creates a government driven by response to crises. Such an “emergency government can’t govern,” Weaver concludes. “Not only does public support for emergency policies evaporate the minute they’re in place and the crisis passes, but officials acting in the emergency mode can’t make meaningful public policies. According to the classic textbook definition, government is the authoritative allocation of values, and emergency government doesn’t authoritatively allocate values.” (Note that Richard Rhodes' Pulitzer prize winning books such as The making of the atomic bomb which uncritically quote Hiroshima firestorm lies and survivors nonsense about people running around without feet, play to this kind of emotional fantasy mythology of nuclear deterrence obfuscation so loved by the mass media.)

“... Freedom is the right to question, and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuing revolution ... It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions. It is the right to put forth an idea ....” – Ronald Reagan, Moscow State University, May 31, 1988 (quoted at our physics site, www.quantumfieldtheory.org). Text in blue on this blog is hyperlinked directly to reference material (so can be opened in another tab by right-clicking on it):

ABOVE: "missile gap" propaganda debunked by secret 1970s data; Kennedy relied on US nuclear superiority. Using a flawed analysis of nuclear weapons effects on Hiroshima - based on lying unclassified propaganda reports and ignorant dismissals of civil defense shelters in Russia (again based on Hiroshima propaganda by groves in 1945) - America allowed Russian nuclear superiority in the 1970s. Increasingly, the nuclear deterrent was used by Russia to stop the West from "interfering" with its aggressive invasions and wars, precisely Hitler's 1930s strategy with gas bombing knockout-blow threats used to engineer appeasement. BELOW: H-bomb effects and design secrecy led to tragic mass media delusions, such as the 18 February 1950 Picture Post claim that the H-bomb can devastate Australia (inspiring the Shute novel and movie "On the Beach" and also other radiation scams like "Dr Strangelove" to be used by Russia to stir up anti Western disarmament movement to help Russia win WWIII). Dad was a Civil Defense Corps Instructor in the UK when this was done (the civil defense effectiveness and weapon effects facts on shelters at UK and USA nuclear tests were kept secret and not used to debunk lying political appeasement propaganda tricks in the mass media by sensationalist "journalists" and Russian "sputniks"):

Message to mass-media journalists: please don't indulge in lying "no defence" propaganda as was done by most of the media in previous pre-war crises!

ABOVE: Russian State TV Channel 1 on the nuclear threat, 4 June 2024. This is not a matter of unthinkable escalation or a knockout blow that will disarm Russia entirely (by firing all its weapons at the West!). It is a matter of coercive threats, which may or may not be accompanied by "demonstration strikes". Putin knows that unlike former USSR territories (e.g. Ukraine) which have heavy duty shelters in cities, the West doesn't have such civil defense to make its nuclear deterrent credible, so there is an exploitable asymmetry for Putin. This Russian state TV Channel 1 "propaganda" is Russian language: it's not aimed at the West, but at Russians, to prepare the road for possible nuclear warfare with the West. This is not about the usual image of an escalatory WWIII, but about establishing Russian hegemony, by making the West back down! As in the 1930s, popular media "selective journalism" (mainstream fake/fashionable fairy tale news) ignores real threats, by using the trick of hyping up deception (knockout blows, escalation, etc.) to make reality appear "unthinkable". Don't be taken in again by this mass media scam, please!

Again, to recap: the biggest threat is nuclear coercion as occurred when Russia broke a ceasefire and resumed nuclear testing in 1961, and built the Berlin Wall, then in 1962 put nuclear weapons into Cuba's fanatical dictatorship. This is not the mainstream media portrayal of the "nuclear threat" (immediate knockout blow, total disarmament in a few seconds by exploding everything in the stockpile, which is loved by TV, newspapers, magazines, and films and which - like the gas bomb knockout blow hype of the 1930s - makes war appear "unthinkable" to support appeasement, disarmament and arms control delusions which are bits of paper that simply can't stop the real threats from dictatorships). At some point there may be a serious deliberate escalation to end the war, and we need to be prepared and ready to step up deterrence against this, or to respond rationally in some other way. The supply of F16s by NATO members to Ukraine to bomb targets in Russia will allow Putin the excuse he feels he needs to escalate nuclear threats further, so we must prepare. This is not "defeatism", but preparing for freedom to prevail, to win the war, to deter escalation, and to survive.

ABOVE: Example of a possible Russian 1985 1st Cold War SLBM first strike plan. The initial use of Russian SLBM launched nuclear missiles from off-coast against command and control centres (i.e. nuclear explosions to destroy warning satellite communications centres by radiation on satellites as well as EMP against ground targets, rather than missiles launched from Russia against cities, as assumed by 100% of the Cold War left-wing propaganda) is allegedly a Russian "fog of war" strategy. Such a "demonstration strike" is aimed essentially at causing confusion about what is going on, who is responsible - it is not quick or easy to finger-print high altitude bursts fired by SLBM's from submerged submarines to a particular country because you don't get fallout samples to identify isotopic plutonium composition. Russia could immediately deny the attack (implying, probably to the applause of the left-wingers that this was some kind of American training exercise or computer based nuclear weapons "accident", similar to those depicted in numerous anti-nuclear Cold War propaganda films). Thinly-veiled ultimatums and blackmail follow. America would not lose its population or even key cities in such a first strike (contrary to left-wing propaganda fiction), as with Pearl Harbor in 1941; it would lose its complacency and its sense of security through isolationism, and would either be forced into a humiliating defeat or a major war.

Before 1941, many warned of the risks but were dismissed on the basis that Japan was a smaller country with a smaller economy than the USA and war was therefore absurd (similar to the way Churchill's warnings about European dictators were dismissed by "arms-race opposing pacifists" not only in the 1930s, but even before WWI; for example Professor Cyril Joad documents in the 1939 book "Why War?" his first hand witnessing of Winston Churchill's pre-WWI warning and call for an arms-race to deter that war, as dismissed by the sneering Norman Angell who claimed an arms race would cause a war rather than avert one by bankrupting the terrorist state). It is vital to note that there is an immense pressure against warnings of Russian nuclear superiority even today, most of it contradictory. E.g. the left wing and Russian-biased "experts" whose voices are the only ones reported in the Western media (traditionally led by "Scientific American" and "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists"), simultaneously claim Russia imposes such a terrible SLBM and ICBM nuclear threat that we must desperately disarm now, while also claiming that Russian tactical nuclear weapons probably won't work so aren't a threat that needs to be credibly deterred! This only makes sense as Russian siding propaganda. In similar vein, Teller-critic Hans Bethe also used to falsely "dismiss" Russian nuclear superiority by claiming (with quotes from Brezhnev about the peaceful intentions of Russia) that Russian delivery systems are "less accurate" than Western missiles (as if accuracy has anything to do with high altitude EMP strikes, where the effects cover huge areas, or large city targets. Such claims would then by repeatedly endlessly in the Western media by Russian biased "journalists" or agents of influence, and any attempt to point out the propaganda (i.e. he real world asymmetry: Russia uses cheap countervalue targetting on folk that don't have civil defense, whereas we need costly, accurate counterforce targetting because Russia has civil defense shelters that we don't have) became a "Reds under beds" argument, implying that the truth is dangerous to "peaceful coexistence"!

“Free peoples ... will make war only when driven to it by tyrants. ... there have been no wars between well-established democracies. ... the probability ... that the absence of wars between well-established democracies is a mere accident [is] less than one chance in a thousand. ... there have been more than enough to provide robust statistics ... When toleration of dissent has persisted for three years, but not until then, we can call a new republic ‘well established.’ ... Time and again we observe authoritarian leaders ... using coercion rather than seeking mutual accommodation ... Republican behaviour ... in quite a few cases ... created an ‘appeasement trap.’ The republic tried to accommodate a tyrant as if he were a fellow republican; the tyrant concluded that he could safely make an aggressive response; eventually the republic replied furiously with war. The frequency of such errors on both sides is evidence that negotiating styles are not based strictly on sound reasoning.” - Spencer Weart, Never at War: Why Democracies Will Not Fight One Another (Yale University Press)

The Top Secret American intelligency report NIE 11-3/8-74 "Soviet Forces for Intercontinental Conflict" warned on page 6: "the USSR has largely eliminated previous US quantitative advantages in strategic offensive forces." page 9 of the report estimated that the Russian's ICBM and SLBM launchers exceed the USAs 1,700 during 1970, while Russia's on-line missile throw weight had exceeded the USA's one thousand tons back in 1967! Because the USA had more long-range bombers which can carry high-yield bombs than Russia (bombers are more vulnerable to air defences so were not Russia's priority), it took a little longer for Russia to exceed the USA in equivalent megatons, but the 1976 Top Secret American report NIE 11-3/8-76 at page 17 shows that in 1974 Russia exceeded the 4,000 equivalent-megatons payload of USA missiles and aircraft (with less vulnerability for Russia, since most of Russia's nuclear weapons were on missiles not in SAM-vulnerable aircraft), amd by 1976 Russia could deliver 7,000 tons of payload by missiles compared to just 4,000 tons on the USA side. These reports were kept secret for decades to protect the intelligence sources, but they were based on hard evidence. For example, in August 1974 the Hughes Aircraft Company used a specially designed ship (Glomar Explorer, 618 feet long, developed under a secret CIA contract) to recover nuclear weapons and their secret manuals from a Russian submarine which sank in 16,000 feet of water, while in 1976 America was able to take apart the electronics systems in a state-of-the-art Russian MIG-25 fighter which was flown to Japan by defector Viktor Belenko, discovering that it used exclusively EMP-hard miniature vacuum tubes with no EMP-vulnerable solid state components.

There are four ways of dealing with aggressors: conquest (fight them), intimidation (deter them), fortification (shelter against their attacks; historically used as castles, walled cities and even walled countries in the case of China's 1,100 mile long Great Wall and Hadrian's Wall, while the USA has used the Pacific and Atlantic as successful moats against invasion, at least since Britain invaded Washington D.C. back in 1812), and friendship (which if you are too weak to fight, means appeasing them, as Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler for worthless peace promises). These are not mutually exclusive: you can use combinations. If you are very strong in offensive capability and also have walls to protect you while your back is turned, you can - as Teddy Roosevelt put it (quoting a West African proverb): "Speak softly and carry a big stick." But if you are weak, speaking softly makes you a target, vulnerable to coercion. This is why we don't send troops directly to Ukraine. When elected in 1960, Kennedy introduced "flexible response" to replace Dulles' "massive retaliation", by addressing the need to deter large provocations without being forced to decide between the unwelcome options of "surrender or all-out nuclear war" (Herman Kahn called this flexible response "Type 2 Deterrence"). This was eroded by both Russian civil defense and their emerging superiority in the 1970s: a real missiles and bombers gap emerged in 1972 when the USSR reached and then exceeded the 2,200 of the USA, while in 1974 the USSR achieve parity at 3,500 equivalent megatons (then exceeded the USA), and finally today Russia has over 2,000 dedicated clean enhanced neutron tactical nuclear weapons and we have none (except low-neutron output B61 multipurpose bombs). (Robert Jastrow's 1985 book How to make nuclear Weapons obsolete was the first to have graphs showing the downward trend in nuclear weapon yields created by the development of miniaturized MIRV warheads for missiles and tactical weapons: he shows that the average size of US warheads fell from 3 megatons in 1960 to 200 kilotons in 1980, and from a total of 12,000 megatons in 1960 to 3,000 megatons in 1980.)

The term "equivalent megatons" roughly takes account of the fact that the areas of cratering, blast and radiation damage scale not linearly with energy but as something like the 2/3 power of energy release; but note that close-in cratering scales as a significantly smaller power of energy than 2/3, while blast wind drag displacement of jeeps in open desert scales as a larger power of energy than 2/3. Comparisons of equivalent megatonnage shows, for example, that WWII's 2 megatons of TNT in the form of about 20,000,000 separate conventional 100 kg (0.1 ton) explosives is equivalent to 20,000,000 x (10-7)2/3 = 431 separate 1 megaton explosions! The point is, nuclear weapons are not of a different order of magnitude to conventional warfare, because: (1) devastated areas don't scale in proportion to energy release, (2) the number of nuclear weapons is very much smaller than the number of conventional bombs dropped in conventional war, (3) because of radiation effects like neutrons and intense EMP, it is possible to eliminate physical destruction by nuclear weapons by a combination of weapon design (e.g. very clean bombs like 99.9% fusion Dominic-Housatonic, or 95% fusion Redwing-Navajo) and burst altitude or depth for hard targets, and create a weapon that deters invasions credibly (without lying local fallout radiation hazards), something none of the biased "pacifist disarmament" lobbies (which attract Russian support) tell you, and (4) people at collateral damage distances have time to take cover from radiation and flying glass, blast winds, etc from nuclear explosions (which they don't in Ukraine and Gaza where similar blast pressures arrive more rapidly from smaller conventional explosions). There's a big problem with propaganda here.

(These calculations, showing that even if strategic bombing had worked in WWII - and the US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded it failed, thus the early Cold War effort to develop and test tactical nuclear weapons and train for tactical nuclear war in Nevada field exercises - you need over 400 megaton weapons to give the equivalent of WWII city destruction in Europe and Japan, are often inverted by anti-nuclear bigots to try to obfuscate the truth. What we're driving at is that nuclear weapons give you the ability to DETER the invasions that set off such wars, regardless of whether they escalate from poison gas - as feared in the 20s and 30s thus appeasement and WWII - or nuclear. Escalation was debunked in WWII where the only use of poison gases were in "peaceful" gas chambers, not dropped on cities. Rather than justifying appeasement, the "peaceful" massacre of millions in gas chambers justified war. But evil could and should have been deterred. The "anti-war" propagandarists like Lord Noel-Baker and pals who guaranteed immediate gas knockout blows in the 30s if we didn't appease evil dictators were never held to account and properly debunked by historians after the war, so they converted from gas liars to nuclear liars in the Cold War and went on winning "peace" prices for their lies, which multiplied up over the years, to keep getting news media headlines and Nobel Peace Prizes for starting and sustaining unnecessary wars and massacres by dictators. There's also a military side to this, with Field Marshall's Lord Mountbatten, Lord Carver and War Office scientific adviser Lord Zuckerman in the Cold War arguing for UK nuclear disarmament and a re-introduction of conscription instead. These guys were not pacifist CND thugs who wanted Moscow to rule the world, but they were quoted by them attacking the deterrent, but not of course quoting them calling for conscription instead. The abolishment of UK conscription for national service announced in 1960 was due to the H-bomb, and was a political money-saving plot by Macmillan. If we disarmed our nuclear deterrent and spend the money on conscription plus underground shelters, we might well be able to resist Russia as Ukraine does, until we run out of ammunition etc. However, the cheapest and most credible deterrent is tactical nuclear weapons to prevent the concentration of aggressive force by terrorist states..)

Britain was initially in a better position with regards to civil defense than the USA, because in WWII Britain had built sufficient shelters (of various types, but all tested against blast intense enough to demolish brick houses, and later also tested them at various nuclear weapon trials in Monte Bello and Maralinga, Australia) and respirators for the entire civilian population. However, Britain also tried to keep the proof testing data secret from Russia (which tested their own shelters at their own nuclear tests anyway) and this meant it appeared that civil defense advice was unproved and would not work, an illusion exploited especially for communist propaganda in the UK via CND. To give just one example, CND and most of the UK media still rely on Duncan Campbell's pseudo-journalism book War Plan UK since it is based entirely on fake news about UK civil defense, nuclear weapons, Hiroshima, fallout, blast, etc. He takes for granted that - just because the UK Government kept the facts secret - the facts don't exist, and to him any use of nuclear weapons which spread any radioactivity whatsoever will make life totally impossible: "What matters 'freedom' or 'a way of life' in a radioactive wasteland?" (Quote from D. Campbell, War Plan UK, Paladin Books, May 1983, p387.) The problem here is the well known fallout decay rate; Trinity nuclear test ground zero was reported by Glasstone (Effects of Atomic Weapons, 1950) to be at 8,000 R/hr at 1 hour after burst, yet just 57 days later, on September 11, 1945, General Groves, Robert Oppenheimer, and a large group of journalists safely visited it and took their time inspecting the surviving tower legs, when the gamma dose rate was down to little more than 1 R/hr! So fission products decay fast: 1,000 R/hr at 1 hour decays to 100 at 7 hours, 10 at 2 days, and just 1 at 2 weeks. So the "radioactive wasteland" is just as much a myth as any other nuclear "doomsday" fictional headline in the media. Nuclear weapons effects have always been fake news in the mainstream media: editors have always regarded facts as "boring copy". Higher yield tests showed that even the ground zero crater "hot spots" were generally lower, due to dispersal by the larger mushroom cloud. If you're far downwind, you can simply walk cross-wind, or prepare an improvised shelter while the dust is blowing. But point any such errors out to fanatical bigots and they will just keep making up more nonsense.

Duncan Campbell's War Plan UK relies on the contradiction of claiming that the deliberately exaggerated UK Government worst-case civil defense "exercises" for training purposes are "realistic scenarios" (e.g. 1975 Inside Right, 1978 Scrum Half, 1980 Square Leg, 1982 Hard Rock planning), while simultaneously claiming the very opposite about reliable UK Government nuclear effects and sheltering effectiveness data, and hoping nobody would spot his contradictory tactics. He quotes extensively from these lurid worst-case scenario UK civil defense exercises ,as if they are factually defensible rather than imaginary fiction to put planners under the maximum possible stress (standard UK military policy of “Train hard to fight easy”), while ignoring the far more likely limited nuclear uses scenario of Sir John Hackett's Third World War. His real worry is the 1977 UK Government Training Manual for Scientific Advisers which War Plan UK quotes on p14: "a potential threat to the security of the United Kingdom arising from acts of sabotage by enemy agents, possibly assisted by dissident groups. ... Their aim would be to weaken the national will and ability to fight. ... Their significance should not be underestimated." On the next page, War Plan UK quotes J. B. S. Haldane's 1938 book Air Raid Precautions (ARP) on the terrible destruction Haldane witnessed on unprotected people in the Spanish civil war, without even mentioning that Haldane's point is pro-civil defense, pro-shelters, and anti-appeasement of dictatorship, the exact opposite of War Plan UK which wants Russia to run the world. On page 124 War Plan UK the false assertion is made that USA nuclear casualty data is "widely accepted" and true (declassified Hiroshima casaulty data for people in modern concrete buildings proves it to be lies) while the correct UK nuclear casualty data is "inaccurate", and on page 126, Duncan Campbell simply lies that the UK Government's Domestic Nuclear Shelters- Technical Guidance "ended up offering the public a selection of shelters half of which were invented in the Blitz ... None of the designs was ever tested." In fact, Frank Pavry (who studied similar shelters surviving near ground zero at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 with the British Mission to Japan_ and George R. Stanbury tested 15 Anderson shelters at the first UK nuclear explosion, Operation Hurricane in 1952, together with concrete structures, and many other improvised trench and earth-covered shelters were nuclear tested by USA and UK at trials in 1955, 1956, 1957, and 1958, and later at simulated nuclear explosions by Cresson Kearny of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA, having also earlier been exposed to early Russian nuclear tests (scroll down to see the evidence of this). Improved versions of war tested and nuclear weapons tested shelters! So war Plan UK makes no effort whatsoever to dig up the facts, and instead falsely claims the exact opposite of the plain unvarnished truth! War Plan UK shows its hypocrisy on page 383 in enthusiastically praising Russian civil defense:

"Training in elementary civil defence is given to everyone, at school, in industry or collective farms. A basic handbook of precautionary measures, Everybody must know this!, is the Russian Protect and Survive. The national civil defence corps is extensive, and is organized along military lines. Over 200,000 civil defence troops would be mobilized for rescue work in war. There are said to be extensive, dispersed and 'untouchable' food stockpiles; industrial workers are issued with kits of personal protection apparatus, said to include nerve gas counteragents such as atropine. Fallout and blast shelters are provided in the cities and in industrial complexes, and new buildings have been required to have shelters since the 1950s. ... They suggest that less than 10% - even as little as 5% - of the Soviet population would die in a major attack. [Less than Russia's loss of 12% of its population in WWII.]"

'LLNL achieved fusion ignition for the first time on Dec. 5, 2022. The second time came on July 30, 2023, when in a controlled fusion experiment, the NIF laser delivered 2.05 MJ of energy to the target, resulting in 3.88 MJ of fusion energy output, the highest yield achieved to date. On Oct. 8, 2023, the NIF laser achieved fusion ignition for the third time with 1.9 MJ of laser energy resulting in 2.4 MJ of fusion energy yield. “We’re on a steep performance curve,” said Jean-Michel Di Nicola, co-program director for the NIF and Photon Science’s Laser Science and Systems Engineering organization. “Increasing laser energy can give us more margin against issues like imperfections in the fuel capsule or asymmetry in the fuel hot spot. Higher laser energy can help achieve a more stable implosion, resulting in higher yields.” ... “The laser itself is capable of higher energy without fundamental changes to the laser,” said NIF operations manager Bruno Van Wonterghem. “It’s all about the control of the damage. Too much energy without proper protection, and your optics blow to pieces.” ' - https://lasers.llnl.gov/news/llnls-nif-delivers-record-laser-energy

NOTE: the "problem" very large lasers "required" to deliver ~2MJ (roughly 0.5 kg of TNT energy) to cause larger fusion explosions of 2mm diameter capsules of frozen D+T inside a 1 cm diameter energy reflecting hohlraum, and the "problem" of damage to the equipment caused by the explosions, is immaterial to clean nuclear deterrent development based on this technology, because in a clean nuclear weapon, whatever laser or other power ignition system is used only has to be fired once, so it needs to be less robust than the NIF lasers which are used repeatedly. Similarly, damage done to the system by the explosion is also immaterial for a clean nuclear weapon, in which the weapon is detonated once only! This is exactly the same point which finally occurred during a critical review of the first gun-type assembly nuclear weapon, in which the fact it would only ever be fired once (unlike a field artillery gun) enabled huge reductions in the size of the device, into a practical weapon, as described by General Leslie M. Groves on p163 of his 1962 book Now it can be told: the story of the Manhattan Project:

"Out of the Review Committee's work came one important technical contribution when Rose pointed out ... that the durability of the gun was quite immaterial to success, since it would be destroyed in the explosion anyway. Self-evident as this seemed once it was mentioned, it had not previously occurred to us. Now we could make drastic reductions in ... weight and size."

This principle also applies to weaponizing NIF clean fusion explosion technology. General Groves' book was reprinted in 1982 with a useful Introduction by Edward Teller on the nature of nuclear weapons history: "History in some ways resembles the relativity principle in science. What is observed depends on the observer. Only when the perspective of the observer is known, can proper corrections be made. ... The general ... very often managed to ignore complexity and arrive at a result which, if not ideal, at least worked. ... For Groves, the Manhattan project seemed a minor assignment, less significant than the construction of the Pentagon. He was deeply disappointed at being given the job of supervising the development of an atomic weapon, since it deprived him of combat duty. ... We must find ways to encourage mutual understanding and significant collaboration between those who defend their nation with their lives and those who can contribute the ideas to make that defense successful. Only by such cooperation can we hope that freedom will survive, that peace will be preserved."

General Groves similarly comments in Chapter 31, "A Final Word" of Now it can be told:

"No man can say what would have been the result if we had not taken the steps ... Yet, one thing seems certain - atomic energy would have been developed somewhere in the world ... I do not believe the United States ever would have undertaken it in time of peace. Most probably, the first developer would have been a power-hungry nation, which would then have dominated the world completely ... it is fortunate indeed for humanity that the initiative in this field was gained and kept by the United States. That we were successful was due entirely to the hard work and dedication of the more than 600,000 Americans who comprised and directly supported the Manhattan Project. ... we had the full backing of our government, combined with the nearly infinite potential of American science, engineering and industry, and an almost unlimited supply of people endowed with ingenuity and determination."

Update: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's $3.5 billion National Ignition Facility, NIF, using ultraviolet wavelength laser beam pulses of 2MJ on to a 2mm diameter spherical beryllium shell of frozen D+T inside a 1 cm-long hollow gold cylinder "hohlraum" (which is heated to a temperature where it then re-radiates energy at much higher frequency, x-rays, on to the surface of the beryllium ablator of the central fusion capsule, which ablates causing it to recoil inward (as for the 1962 Ripple II nuclear weapon's secondary stage, the capsule is compressed efficiently, mimicking the isentropic compression mechanism of a miniature Ripple II clean nuclear weapon secondary stage), has now repeatedly achieved nuclear fusion explosions of over 3MJ, equivalent to nearly 1 kg of TNT explosive. According to a Time article (linked her) about fusion system designer Annie Kritcher, the recent breakthrough was in part due to using a ramping input energy waveform: "success that came thanks to tweaks including shifting more of the input energy to the later part of the laser shot", a feature that minimises the rise in entropy due to shock shock wave generation (which heats the capsule, causing it to expand and resist compression) and increases isentropic compression which was the principle used by LLNL's J. H. Nuckolls to achieve the 99.9% clean Ripple II 9.96 megaton nuclear test success in Dominic-Housatonic on 30 October 1962. Nuckolls in 1972 published the equation for the idealized input power waveform required for isentropic, optimized compression of fusion fuel (Nature, v239, p139): P ~ (1 - t)-1.875, where t is time in units of the transit time (the time taken for the shock to travel to the centre of the fusion capsule), and -1.875 a constant based on the specific heat of the ionized fuel (Nuckolls has provided the basic declassified principles, see extract linked here). To be clear, the energy reliably released by the 2mm diameter capsule of fusion fuel was roughly a 1 kg TNT explosion. 80% of this is in the form of 14.1 MeV neutrons (ideal for fissioning lithium-7 in LiD to yield more tritium), and 20% is the kinetic energy of fused nuclei (which is quickly converted into x-rays radiation energy by collisions). Nuckolls' 9.96 megaton Housatonic (10 kt Kinglet primary and 9.95 Mt Ripple II 100% clean isentropically compressed secondary) of 1962 proved that it is possible to use multiplicative staging whereby lower yield primary nuclear explosions trigger off a fusion stage 1,000 times more powerful than its initiator. Another key factor, as shown on our ggraph linked here, is that you can use cheap natural LiD as fuel once you have a successful D+T reaction, because naturally abundant, cheap Li-7 more readily fissions to yield tritium with the 14.1 MeV neutrons from D+T fusion, than expensively enriched Li-6, which is needed to make tritium in nuclear reactors where the fission neutron energy of around 1 MeV is too low to to fission Li-7. It should also be noted that despite an openly published paper about Nuckolls' Ripple II success being stymied in 2021 by Jon Grams, the subject is still being covered up/ignored by the anti-nuclear biased Western media! Grams article fails to contain the design details such as the isentropic power delivery curve etc from Nuckolls' declassified articles that we include in the latest blog post here. One problem regarding "data" causing continuing confusion about the Dominic-Housatonic 30 October 1962 Ripple II test at Christmas Island, is made clear in the DASA-1211 report's declassified summary of the sizes, weights and yields of those tests: Housatonic was Nuckolls' fourth and final isentropic test, with the nuclear system inserted into a heavy steel Mk36 drop case, making the overall size 57.2 inches in diameter, 147.9 long and 7,139.55 lb mass, i.e. 1.4 kt/lb or 3.0 kt/kg yield-to-mass ratio for 9.96 Mt yield, which is not impressive for that yield range until you consider (a) that it was 99.9% fusion and (b) the isentropic design required a heavy holhraum around the large Ripple II fusion secondary stage to confine x-rays for relatively long time during which a slowly rising pulse of x-rays were delivered from the primary to secondary via a very large areas of foam elsewhere in the weapon, to produce isentropic compression.

Additionally, the test was made in a hurry before an atmospheric teat ban treaty, and this rushed use of a standard air drop steel casing made the tested weapon much heavier than a properly weaponized Ripple II. The key point is that a 10 kt fission device set off a ~10 Mt fusion explosion, a very clean deterrent. Applying this Ripple II 1,000-factor multiplicative staging figure directly to this technology for clean nuclear warheads, a 0.5 kg TNT D+T fusion capsule would set off a 0.5 ton TNT 2nd stage of LiD, which would then set off a 0.5 kt 3rd stage "neutron bomb", which could then be used to set off a 500 kt 4th stage or "strategic nuclear weapon". In practice, this multiplication factor of 1,000 given by Ripple II in 1962 from 10 kt to 10 Mt may not be immediately achievable to get from ~1 kg TNT yield to 1 ton TNT, so a few more tiny stages may be needed for the lower yield. But there is every reason to forecast that with enough research, improvements will be possible and the device will become a reality. It is therefore now possible not just in "theory" or in principle, but with evidence obtained from practical experimentation, using suitable already-proved technical staging systems used in 1960s nuclear weapon tests successfully, to design 100% clean fusion nuclear warheads! Yes, the details have been worked out, yes the technology has been tested in piecemeal fashion. All that is now needed is a new, but quicker and cheaper, Star Wars program or Manhattan Project style effort to pull the components together. This will constitute a major leap forward in the credibility of the deterrence of aggressors.

ABOVE: as predicted, the higher the input laser pulse for the D+T initiator of a clean multiplicatively-staged nuclear deterrent, the lower the effect of plasma instabilities and asymmetries and the greater the fusion burn. To get ignition (where the x-ray energy injected into the fusion hohlraum by the laser is less than the energy released in the D+T fusion burn) they have had to use about 2 MJ delivered in 10 ns or so, equivalent to 0.5 kg of TNT equivalent. But for deterrent use, why use such expensive, delicate lasers? Why not just use one-shot miniaturised x-ray tubes with megavolt electron acceleration, powered a suitably ramped pulse from a chemical explosion for magnetic flux compression current generation? At 10% efficiency, you need 0.5 x 10 = 5 kg of TNT! Even at 1% efficiency, 50 kg of TNT will do. Once the D+T gas capsule's hohlraum is well over 1 cm in size, to minimise the risk of imperfections that cause asymmetries, you don't any longer need focussed laser beams to enter tiny apertures. You might even be able to integrate many miniature flash x-ray tubes (each designed to burn out when firing one pulse of a MJ or so) into a special hohlraum. Humanity urgently needs a technological arms race akin to Reagan's Star Wars project, to deter the dictators from invasions and WWIII. In the conference video above, a question was asked about the real efficiency of the enormous repeat-pulse capable laser system's efficiency (not required for a nuclear weapon whose components only require the capability to be used once, unlike lab equipment): the answer is that 300 MJ was required by the lab lasers to fire a 2 MJ pulse into the D+T capsule's x-ray hohlraum, i.e. their lasers are only 0.7% efficient! So why bother? We know - from the practical use of incoherent fission primary stage x-rays to compress and ignite fusion capsules in nuclear weapons - that you simply don't need coherent photons from a laser for this purpose. The sole reason they are approaching the problem with lasers is that they began their lab experiments decades ago with microscopic sized fusion capsules and for those you need a tightly focussed beam to insert energy through a tiny hohlraum aperture. But now they are finally achieving success with much larger fusion capsules (to minimise instabilities that caused the early failures), it may be time to change direction. A whole array of false "no-go theorems" can and will be raised by ignorant charlatan "authorities" against any innovation; this is the nature of the political world. There is some interesting discussion of why clean bombs aren't in existence today, basically the idealized theory (which works fine for big H-bombs but ignores small-scale asymmetry problems which are important only at low ignition energy) understimated the input energy required for fusion ignition by a factor of 2000:

The early calculations on ICF (inertial-confinement fusion) by John Nuckolls in 1972 had estimated that ICF might be achieved with a driver energy as low as 1 kJ. ... In order to provide reliable experimental data on the minimum energy required for ignition, a series of secret experiments—known as Halite at Livermore and Centurion at Los Alamos—was carried out at the nuclear weapons test site in Nevada between 1978 and 1988. The experiments used small underground nuclear explosions to provide X-rays of sufficiently high intensity to implode ICF capsules, simulating the manner in which they would be compressed in a hohlraum. ... the Halite/Centurion results predicted values for the required laser energy in the range 20 to 100MJ—higher than the predictions ..." - Garry McCracken and Peter Stott, Fusion, Elsevier, 2nd ed., p149.

In the final diagram above, we illustrate an example of what could very well occur in the near future, just to really poke a stick into the wheels of "orthodoxy" in nuclear weapons design: is it possible to just use a lot of (perhaps hardened for higher currents, perhaps no) pulsed current driven microwave tubes from kitchen microwave ovens, channelling their energy using waveguides (simply metal tubes, i.e. electrical Faraday cages, which reflect and thus contain microwaves) into the hohlraum, and make the pusher of dipole molecules (like common salt, NaCl) which is a good absorber of microwaves (as everybody knows from cooking in microwave ovens)? It would be extremely dangerous, not to mention embarrassing, if this worked, but nobody had done any detailed research into the possibility due to groupthink orthodoxy and conventional boxed in thinking! Remember, the D+T capsule just needs extreme compression and this can be done by any means that works. Microwave technology is now very well-established. It's no good trying to keep anything of this sort "secret" (either officially or unofficially) since as history shows, dictatorships are the places where "crackpot"-sounding ideas (such as douple-primary Project "49" Russian thermonuclear weapon designs, Russian Sputnik satellites, Russian Novichok nerve agent, Nazi V1 cruise missiles, Nazi V2 IRBM's, etc.) can be given priority by loony dictators. We have to avoid, as Edward Teller put it (in his secret commentary debunking Bethe's false history of the H-bomb, written AFTER the Teller-Ulam breakthrough), "too-narrow" thinking (which Teller said was still in force on H-bomb design even then). Fashionable hardened orthodoxy is the soft underbelly of "democracy" (a dictatorship by the majority, which is always too focussed on fashionable ideas and dismissive of alternative approaches in science and technology). Dictatorships (minorities against majorities) have repeatedly demonstrated a lack of concern for the fake "no-go theorems" used by Western anti-nuclear "authorities" to ban anything but fashionable groupthink science.

ABOVE: 1944-dated film of the Head of the British Mission to Los Alamos, neutron discoverer James Chadwick, explaining in detail to American how hard it was for him to discover the neutron, taking 10 years on a shoe-string budget, mostly due to having insufficiently strong sources of alpha particles to bombard nuclei in a cloud chamber! The idea of the neutron came from his colleague Rutherford. Chadwick reads his explanation while rapidly rotating a pencil in his right hand, perhaps indicating the stress he was under in 1944. In 1946, when British participation at Los Alamos ended, Chadwick wrote the first detailed secret British report on the design of a three-stage hydrogen bomb, another project that took over a decade. In the diagram below, it appears that the American Mk17 only had a single secondary stage like the similar yield 1952 Mike design. The point here is that popular misunderstanding of the simple mechanism of x-ray energy transfer for higher yield weapons may be creating a dogmatic attitude even in secret nuclear weaponeer design labs, where orthodoxy is followed too rigorously. The Russians (see quotes on the latest blog post here) state they used two entire two-stage thermonuclear weapons with a combined yield of 1 megaton to set off their 50 megaton test in 1961. If true, you can indeed use two-stage hydrogen bombs as an "effective primary" to set off another secondary stage, of much higher yield. Can this be reversed in the sense of scaling it down so you have several bombs-within-bombs, all triggered by a really tiny first stage? In other words, can it be applied to neutron bomb design?

ABOVE: 16 kt at 600m altitude nuclear explosion on a city, Hiroshima ground zero (in foreground) showing modern concrete buildings surviving nearby (unlike the wooden ones that mostly burned at the peak of the firestorm 2-3 hours after survivors had evacuated), in which people were shielded from most of the radiation and blast winds, as they were in simple shelters.

The 1946 Report of the British Mission to Japan, The Effects of the Atomic Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, compiled by a team of 16 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during November 1945, which included 10 UK Home Office civil defence experts (W. N. Thomas, J. Bronowski, D. C. Burn, J. B. Hawker, H. Elder, P. A. Badland, R. W. Bevan, F. H. Pavry, F. Walley, O. C. Young, S. Parthasarathy, A. D. Evans, O. M. Solandt, A. E. Dark, R. G. Whitehead and F. G. S. Mitchell) found: "Para. 26. Reinforced concrete buildings of very heavy construction in Hiroshima, even when within 200 yards of the centre of damage, remained structurally undamaged. ... Para 28. These observations make it plain that reinforced concrete framed buildings can resist a bomb of the same power detonated at these heights, without employing fantastic thicknesses of concrete. ... Para 40. The provision of air raid shelters throughout Japan was much below European standards. ... in Hiroshima ... they were semi-sunk, about 20 feet long, had wooden frames, and 1.5-2 feet of earth cover. ... Exploding so high above them, the bomb damaged none of these shelters. ... Para 42. These observations show that the standard British shelters would have performed well against a bomb of the same power exploded at such a height. Anderson shelters, properly erected and covered, would have given protection. Brick or concrete surfac shelters with adequate reinforcement would have remained safe from collapse. The Morrison shelter is designed only to protect its occupants from the refuge load of a house, and this it would have done. Deep shelters such as the refuge provided by the London Underground would have given complete protection. ... Para 60. Buildings and walls gave complete protection from flashburn."

Glasstone and Dolan's 1977 Effects of Nuclear Weapons in Table 12.21 on p547 flunks making this point by giving data without citing its source to make it credible to readers: it correlated 14% mortality (106 killed out of 775 people in Hiroshima's Telegraph Office) to "moderate damage" at 500m in Hiroshima (the uncited "secret" source was NP-3041, Table 12, applying to unwarned people inside modern concrete buildings).

"A weapon whose basic design would seem to provide the essence of what Western morality has long sought for waging classical battlefield warfare - to keep the war to a struggle between the warriors and exclude the non-combatants and their physical assets - has been violently denounced, precisely because it achieves this objective." - Samuel T. Cohen (quoted in Chapman Pincher, The secret offensive, Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1985, Chapter 15: The Neutron Bomb Offensive, p210).

The reality is, dedicated enhanced neutron tactical nuclear weapons were used to credibly deter the concentrations of force required for triggering of WWIII during the 1st Cold War, and the thugs who support Russian propaganda for Western disarmament got rid of them on our side, but not on the Russian side. Air burst neutron bombs or even as subsurface earth penetrators of relatively low fission yield (where the soil converts energy that would otherwise escape as blast and radiation into ground shock for destroying buried tunnels - new research on cratering shows that a 20 kt subsurface burst creates similar effects on buried hard targets as a 1 Mt surface burst), they cause none of the vast collateral damage to civilians that we see now in Ukraine and Gaza, or that we saw in WWII and the wars in Korea and Vietnam. This is 100% contrary to CND propaganda which is a mixture of lying on nuclear explosion collateral damage, escalation/knockout blow propaganda (of the type used to start WWII by appeasers) and lying on the designs of nuclear weapons in order to ensure the Western side (but not the thugs) gets only incredible "strategic deterrence" that can't deter the invasions that start world wars (e.g. Belgium in 1914 and Poland in 1939.) "Our country entered into an agreement in Budapest, Hungary when the Soviet Union was breaking up that we would guarantee the independence of Ukraine." - Tom Ramos. There really is phoney nuclear groupthink left agenda politics at work here: credible relatively clean tactical nuclear weapons are banned in the West but stocked by Russia, which has civil defense shelters to make its threats far more credible than ours! We need low-collateral damage enhanced-neutron and earth-penetrator options for the new Western W93 warhead, or we remain vulnerable to aggressive coercion by thugs, and invite invasions. Ambiguity, the current policy ("justifying" secrecy on just what we would do in any scenario) actually encourages experimental provocations by enemies to test what we are prepared to do (if anything), just as it did in 1914 and the 1930s.

ABOVE: 0.2 kt (tactical yield range) Ruth nuclear test debris, with lower 200 feet of the 300 ft steel tower surviving in Nevada, 1953. Note that the yield of the tactical invasion-deterrent Mk54 Davy Crockett was only 0.02 kt, 10 times less than than 0.2 kt Ruth.

It should be noted that cheap and naive "alternatives" to credible deterrence of war were tried in the 1930s and during the Cold War and afterwards, with disastrous consequences. Heavy "peaceful" oil sanctions and other embargoes against Japan for its invasion of China between 1931-7 resulted in the plan for the Pearl Harbor surprise attack of 7 December 1941, with subsequent escalation to incendiary city bombing followed nuclear warfare against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Attlee's pressure on Truman to guarantee no use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Korean War (leaked straight to Stalin by the Cambridge Spy Ring), led to an escalation of that war causing the total devastation of the cities of that country by conventional bombing (a sight witnessed by Sam Cohen, that motivated his neutron bomb deterrent of invasions), until Eisenhower was elected and reversed Truman's decision, leading not to the "escalatory Armageddon" assertions of Attlee, but to instead to a peaceful armistice! Similarly, as Tom Ramos argues in From Berkeley to Berlin: How the Rad Lab Helped Avert Nuclear War, Kennedy's advisers who convinced him to go ahead with the moonlit 17 April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba without any USAF air support, which led to precisely what they claimed they would avoid: an escalation of aggression from Russia in Berlin, with the Berlin Wall going up on 17 August 1961 because any showing weakness to an enemy, as in the bungled invasion of Cuba, is always a green light to dictators to go ahead with revolutions, invasions and provocations everywhere else. Rather than the widely hyped autistic claims from disarmers and appeasers about "weakness bringing peace by demonstrating to the enemy that they have nothing to fear from you", the opposite result always occurs. The paranoid dictator seizes the opportunity to strike first. Similarly, withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2021 was a clear green light to Russia to go ahead with a full scale invasion of Ukraine, reigniting the Cold War. von Neumann and Morgenstein's Minimax theorem for winning games - minimise the maximum possible loss - fails with offensive action in war because it sends a signal of weakness to the enemy, which does not treat war as a game with rules to be obeyed. Minimax is only valid for defense, such as civil defense shelters used by Russia to make their threats more credible than ours. The sad truth is that cheap fixes don't work, no matter how much propaganda is behind them. You either need to militarily defeat the enemy or at least economically defeat them using proven Cold War arms race techniques (not merely ineffective sanctions, which they can bypass by making alliances with Iran, North Korea, and China). Otherwise, you are negotiating peace from a position of weakness, which is called appeasement, or collaboration with terrorism.

"Following the war, the Navy Department was intent to see the effects of an atomic blast on naval warships ... the press was invited to witness this one [Crossroads-Able, 23.5 kt at 520 feet altitude, 1 July 1946, Bikini Atoll]. ... The buildup had been too extravagant. Goats that had been tethered on warship decks were still munching their feed, and the atoll's palm trees remained standing, unscathed. The Bikini test changed public attitudes. Before July 1, the world stood in awe of a weapon that had devastated two cities and forced the Japanese Empire to surrender. After that date, the bomb was still a terrible weapon, but a limited one." - Tom Ramos (LLNL nuclear weaponeer and nuclear pumped X-ray laser developer), From Berkeley to Berlin: How the Rad Lab Helped Prevent Nuclear War, Naval Institute Press, 2022, pp43-4.

ABOVE: 16 February 1950 Daily Express editorial on H Bomb problem due to the fact that the UN is another virtue signalling but really war mongering League of Nations (which oversaw Nazi appeasement and the outbreak of WWII); however Fuchs had attended the April 1946 Super Conference during which the Russian version of the H-bomb involving isentropic radiation implosion of a separate low-density fusion stage (unlike Teller's later dense metal ablation rocket implosion secondary TX14 Alarm Clock and Sausage designs) were discussed and then given to Russia. The media was made aware only that Fuchs hade given the fission bomb to Russia. The FBI later visited Fuchs in British jail, showed him a film of Harry Gold (whom Fuchs identified as his contact while at Los Alamos) and also gave Fuchs a long list of secret reports to mark off individually so that they knew precisely what Stalin had been given. Truman didn't order H-bomb research and development because Fuchs gave Stalin the A-bomb, but because he gave them the H-bomb. The details of the Russian H-bomb are still being covered up by those who want a repetition of 1930s appeasement, or indeed the deliberate ambiguity of the UK Cabinet in 1914 which made it unclear what the UK would do if Germany invaded Belgium, allowing the enemy to exploit that ambiguity, starting a world war. The key fact usually covered up (Richard Rhodes, Chuck Hansen, and the whole American "expert nuclear arms community" all misleadingly claim that Teller's Sausage H-bomb design with a single primary and a dense ablator around a cylindrical secondary stage - uranium, lead or tungsten - is the "hydrogen bomb design") here is that two attendees of the April 1946 Super Conference, the report author Egon Bretscher and the radiation implosion discoverer Klaus Fuchs - were British, and both contributed key H-bomb design principles to the Russian and British weapons (discarded for years by America). Egon Bretscher for example wrote up the Super Conference report, during which attendees suggested various ways to try to achieve isentropic compression of low-density fusion fuel (a concept discarded by Teller's 1951 Sausage design, but used by Russia and re-developed in America on Nuckolls 1962 Ripple tests), and after Teller left Los Alamos, Bretscher took over work on Teller's Alarm Clock layered fission-fusion spherical hybrid device before Bretscher himself left Los Alamos and became head of nuclear physics at Harwell, UK,, submitting UK report together with Fuchs (head of theoretical physics at Harwell) which led to Sir James Chadwick's UK paper on a three-stage thermonuclear Super bomb which formed the basis of Penney's work at the UK Atomic Weapons Research Establishment. While Bretscher had worked on Teller's hybrid Alarm Clock (which originated two months after Fuchs left Los Alamos), Fuchs co-authored a hydrogen bomb patent with John von Neumann, in which radiation implosion and ionization implosion was used. Between them, Bretscher and Fuchs had all the key ingredients. Fuchs leaked them to Russia and the problem persists today in international relations.

ILLUSTRATION: the threat of WWII and the need to deter it was massively derided by popular pacifism which tended to make "jokes" of the Nazi threat until too late (example of 1938 UK fiction on this above; Charlie Chaplin's film "The Great Dictator" is another example), so three years after the Nuremberg Laws and five years after illegal rearmament was begun by the Nazis, in the UK crowds of "pacifists" in Downing Street, London, support friendship with the top racist, dictatorial Nazis in the name of "world peace". The Prime Minister used underhand techniques to try to undermine appeasement critics like Churchill and also later to get W. E. Johns fired from both editorships of Flying (weekly) and Popular Flying (monthly) to make it appear everybody "in the know" agreed with his actions, hence the contrived "popular support" for collaborating with terrorists depicted in these photos. The same thing persists today; the 1920s and 1930s "pacifist" was also driven by "escalation" and "annihilation" claims explosions, fire and WMD poison gas will kill everybody in a "knockout blow", immediately any war breaks out.

Update (4 January 2024): on the important world crisis, https://vixra.org/abs/2312.0155 gives a detailed review of "Britain and the H-bomb" (linked here), and why the "nuclear deterrence issue" isn't about "whether we should deter evil", but precisely what design of nuclear warhead we should have in order to do that cheaply, credibly, safely, and efficiently without guaranteeing either escalation or the failure of deterrence. When we disarmed our chemical and biological weapons, it was claimed that the West could easily deter those weapons using strategic nuclear weapons to bomb Moscow (which has shelters, unlike us). That failed when Putin used sarin and chlorine to prop up Assad in Syria, and Novichok in the UK to kill Dawn Sturgess in 2018. So it's just not a credible deterrent to say you will bomb Moscow if Putin invades Europe or uses his 2000 tactical nuclear weapons. An even more advanced deterrent, the 100% clean very low yield (or any yield) multiplicative staged design without any fissile material whatsoever, just around the corner. Clean secondary stages have been proof-tested successfully for example in the 100% clean Los Alamos Redwing Navajo secondary, and the 100% clean Ripple II secondary tested 30 October 1962, and the laser ignition of very tiny fusion capsules to yield more energy than supplied has been done on 5 December 2022 when a NIF test delivered 2.05 MJ (the energy of about 0.5 kg of TNT) to a fusion capsule which yielded 3.15 MJ, so all that is needed is to combine both ideas in a system whereby suitably sized second stages - ignited in the first place by a capacitative charged circuit sending a pulse of energy to a suitable laser system (the schematic shown is just a sketch of principle - more than one laser would possibly be required for reliability of fusion ignition) acting on tiny fusion capsule as shown - are encased to two-stage "effective primaries" which each become effective primaries of bigger systems, thus a geometric series of multiplicative staging until the desired yield is reached. Note that the actual tiny first T+D capsule can be compressed by one-shot lasers - compact lasers used way beyond their traditional upper power limit and burned out in a firing a single pulse - in the same way the gun assembly of the Hiroshima bomb was based on a one-shot gun. In other words, forget all about textbook gun design. The Hiroshima bomb gun assembly system only had to be fired once, unlike a field artillery piece which has to be ready to be fired many thousands of times (before metal fatigue/cracks set in). Thus, by analogy, the lasers - which can be powered by ramping current pulses from magnetic flux compressor systems - for use in a clean bomb will be much smaller and lighter than current lab gear which is designed to be used thousands of times in repeated experiments. The diagram below shows cylindrical Li6D stages throughout for a compact bomb shape, but spherical stages can be used, and once a few stages get fired, the flux of 14 MeV neutrons is sufficient to go to cheap natural LiD. To fit it into a MIRV warhead, the low density of LiD constrains such a clean warhead will have a low nuclear yield, which means a tactical neutron deterrent of the invasions that cause big wars; a conversion of incredible strategic deterrence into a more credible combined strategic-tactical deterrent of major provocations, not just direct attacks. It should also be noted that in 1944 von Neumann suggested that T + D inside the core of the fission weapon would be compressed by "ionization compression" during fission (where a higher density ionized plasma compresses a lower density ionized plasma, i.e. the D + T plasma), an idea that was - years later - named the Internal Booster principle by Teller; see Frank Close, "Trinity", Allen Lane, London, 2019, pp158-159 where Close argues that during the April 1946 Superbomb Conference, Fuchs extended von Neumann's 1944 internal fusion boosting idea to an external D + T filled BeO walled capsule:

"Fuchs reasoned that [the very low energy, 1-10 kev, approximately 10-100 lower energy than medical] x-rays from the [physically separated] uranium explosion would reach the tamper of beryllium oxide, heat it, ionize the constituents and cause them to implode - the 'ionization implosion' concept of von Neumann but now applied to deuterium and tritium contained within beryllium oxide. To keep the radiation inside the tamper, Fuchs proposed to enclose the device inside a casing impervious to radiation. The implosion induced by the radiation would amplify the compression ... and increase the chance of the fusion bomb igniting. The key here is 'separation of the atomic charge and thermonuclear fuel, and compression of the latter by radiation travelling from the former', which constitutes 'radiation implosion'." (This distinction between von Neumann's "ionization implosion" INSIDE the tamper, of denser tamper expanding and thus compressing lower density fusion fuel inside, and Fuchs' OUTSIDE capsule "radiation implosion", is key even today for isentropic H-bomb design; it seems Teller's key breakthroughs were not separate stages or implosion but rather radiation mirrors and ablative recoil shock compression, where radiation is used to ablate a dense pusher of Sausage designs like Mike in 1952 etc., a distinction not to be confused for the 1944 von Neumann and 1946 Fuchs implosion mechanisms!

It appears Russian H-bombs used von Neumann's "ionization implosion" and Fuchs's "radiation implosion" for RDS-37 on 22 November 1955 and also in their double-primary 23 February 1958 test and subsequently, where their fusion capsules reportedly contained a BeO or other low-density outer coating, which would lead to quasi-isentropic compression, more effective for low density secondary stages than purely ablative recoil shock compression. This accounts for the continuing classification of the April 1946 Superbomb Conference (the extract of 32 pages linked here is so severely redacted that it is less helpful than the brief but very lucid summary of its technical content, in the declassified FBI compilation of reports concerning data Klaus Fuchs sent to Stalin, linked here!). Teller had all the knowledge he needed in 1946, but didn't go ahead because he made the stupid error of killing progress off by his own "no-go theorem" against compression of fusion fuel. Teller did a "theoretical" calculation in which he claimed that compression has no effect on the amount of fusion burn because the compressed system is simply scaled down in size so that the same efficiency of fusion burn occurs, albeit faster, and then stops as the fuel thermally expands. This was wrong. Teller discusses the reason for his great error in technical detail during his tape-recorded interview by Chuck Hansen at Los Alamos on 7 June 1993 (C. Hansen, Swords of Armageddon, 2nd ed., pp. II-176-7):

"Now every one of these [fusion] processes varied with the square of density. If you compress the thing, then in one unit's volume, each of the 3 important processes increased by the same factor ... Therefore, compression (seemed to be) useless. Now when ... it seemed clear that we were in trouble, then I wanted very badly to find a way out. And it occurred to be than an unprecedentedly strong compression will just not allow much energy to go into radiation. Therefore, something had to be wrong with my argument and then, you know, within minutes, I knew what must be wrong ... [energy] emission occurs when an electron and a nucleus collide. Absorption does not occur when a light quantum and a nucleus ... or ... electron collide; it occurs when a light quantum finds an electron and a nucleus together ... it does not go with the square of the density, it goes with the cube of the density." (This very costly theoretical error, wasting five years 1946-51, could have been resolved by experimental nuclear testing. There is always a risk of this in theoretical physics, which is why experiments are done to check calculations before prizes are handed out. The ban on nuclear testing is a luddite opposition to technological progress in improving deterrence.)

(This 1946-51 theoretical "no-go theorem" anti-compression error of Teller's, which was contrary to the suggestion of compression at the April 1946 superbomb conference as Teller himself refers to on 14 August 1952, and which was corrected only by comparison of the facts about compression validity in pure fission cores in Feb '51 after Ulam's argument that month for fission core compression by lens focussed primary stage shock waves, did not merely lead to Teller's dismissal of vital compression ideas. It also led to his false equations - exaggerating the cooling effect of radiation emission - causing underestimates of fusion efficiency in all theoretical calculations done of fusion until 1951! For this reason, Teller later repudiated the calculations that allegedly showed his Superbomb would fizzle; he argued that if it had been tested in 1946, the detailed data obtained - regardless of whatever happened - would have at least tested the theory which would have led to rapid progress, because the theory was wrong. The entire basis of the cooling of fusion fuel by radiation leaking out was massively exaggerated until Lawrence Livermore weaponeer John Nuckolls showed that there is a very simple solution: use baffle re-radiated, softened x-rays for isentropic compression of low-density fusion fuel, e.g. very cold 0.3 kev x-rays rather than the usual 1-10 kev cold-warm x-rays emitted directly from the fission primary. Since the radiation losses are proportional to the fourth-power of the x-ray energy or temperature, losses are virtually eliminated, allowing very efficient staging as for Nuckolls' 99.9% 10 Mt clean Ripple II, detonated on 30 October 1962 at Christmas Island. Teller's classical Superbomb was actually analyzed by John C. Solem in a 15 December 1978 report, A modern analysis of Classical Super, LA-07615, according to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by mainstream historian Alex Wellerstein, FOIA 17-00131-H, 12 June 2017; according to a list of FOIA requests at https://www.governmentattic.org/46docs/NNSAfoiaLogs_2016-2020.pdf. However, a google search for the documents Dr Wellerstein requested shows only a few at the US Gov DOE Opennet OSTI database or otherwise online yet e.g. LA-643 by Teller, On the development of Thermonuclear Bombs dated 16 Feb. 1950. The page linked here stating that report was "never classified" is mistaken! One oddity about Teller's anti-compression "no-go theorem" is that the even if fusion rates were independent of density, you would still want compression of fissile material in a secondary stage such as a radiation imploded Alarm Clock, because the whole basis of implosion fission bombs is the benefit of compression; another issue is that even if fusion rates are unaffected by density, inward compression would still help to delay the expansion of the fusion system which leads to cooling and quenching of the fusion burn.)

ABOVE: the FBI file on Klaus Fuchs contains a brief summary of the secret April 1946 Super Conference at Los Alamos which Fuchs attended, noting that compression of fusion fuel was discussed by Lansdorf during the morning session on 19 April, attended by Fuchs, and that: "Suggestions were made by various people in attendance as to the manner of minimizing the rise in entropy during compression." This fact is vitally interesting, since it proves that an effort was being made then to secure isentropic compression of low-density fusion fuel in April 1946, sixteen years before John H. Nuckolls tested the isentropically compressed Ripple II device on 30 October 1962, giving a 99.9% clean 10 megaton real H-bomb! So the Russians were given a massive head start on this isentropic compression of low-density fusion fuel for hydrogen bombs, used (according to Trutnev) in both the single primary tests like RDS-37 in November 1955 and also in the double-primary designs which were 2.5 times more efficient on a yield-to-mass basis, tested first on 23 February 1958! According to the FBI report, the key documents Fuchs gave to Russia were LA-551, Prima facie proof of the feasibility of the Super, 15 Apr 1946 and the LA-575 Report of conference on the Super, 12 June 1946. Fuchs also handed over to Russia his own secret Los Alamos reports, such as LA-325, Initiator Theory, III. Jet Formation by the Collision of Two Surfaces, 11 July 1945, Jet Formation in Cylindrical lmplosion with 16 Detonation Points, Secret, 6 February 1945, and Theory of Initiators II, Melon Seed, Secret, 6 January 1945. Note the reference to Bretscher attending the Super Conference with Fuchs; Teller in a classified 50th anniversary conference at Los Alamos on the H-bomb claimed that after he (Teller) left Los Alamos for Chicago Uni in 1946, Bretscher continued work on Teller's 31 August 1946 "Alarm Clock" nuclear weapon (precursor of the Mike sausage concept etc) at Los Alamos; it was this layered uranium and fusion fuel "Alarm Clock" concept which led to the departure of Russian H-bomb design from American H-bomb design, simply because Fuchs left Los Alamos in June 1946, well before Teller invented the Alarm Clock concept on 31 August 1946 (Teller remembered the date precisely simply because he invented the Alarm Clock on the day his daughter was born, 31 August 1946! Teller and Richtmyer also developed a variant called "Swiss Cheese", with small pockets or bubbles of expensive fusion fuels, dispersed throughout cheaper fuel, in order to kinder a more cost-effective thermonuclear reaction; this later inspired the fission and fusion boosted "spark plug" ideas in later Sausage designs; e.g. security cleared Los Alamos historian Anne Fitzpatrick stated during her 4 March 1997 interview with Robert Richtmyer, who co-invented the Alarm Clock with Teller, that the Alarm Clock evolved into the spherical secondary stage of the 6.9 megaton Castle-Union TX-14 nuclear weapon!).

In fact (see Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory nuclear warhead designer Nuckolls' explanation in report UCRL-74345): "The rates of burn, energy deposition by charged reaction products, and electron-ion heating are proportional to the density, and the inertial confinement time is proportional to the radius. ... The burn efficiency is proportional to the product of the burn rate and the inertial confinement time ...", i.e. the fusion burn rate is directly proportional to the fuel density, which in turn is of course inversely proportional to the cube of its radius. But the inertial confinement time for fusion to occur is proportional to the radius, so the fusion stage efficiency in a nuclear weapon is the product of the burn rate (i.e., 1/radius^3) and time (i.e., radius), so efficiency ~ radius/(radius^3) ~ 1/radius^2. Therefore, for a given fuel temperature, the total fusion burn, or the efficiency of the fusion stage, is inversely proportional to the square of the compressed radius of the fuel! (Those condemning Teller's theoretical errors or "arrogance" should be aware that he pushed hard all the time for experimental nuclear tests of his ideas, to check if they were correct, exactly the right thing to do scientifically and others who read his papers had the opportunity to point out any theoretical errors, but was rebuffed by those in power, who used a series of contrived arguments to deny progress, based upon what Harry would call "subconscious bias", if not arrogant, damning, overt bigotry against the kind of credible, overwhelming deterrence which had proved lacking a decade earlier, leading to WWII. This callousness towards human suffering in war and under dictatorship existed in some UK physicists too: Joseph Rotblat's hatred of anything to deter Russia be it civil defense or tactical neutron bombs of the West - he had no problem smiling and patting Russia's neutron bomb when visiting their labs during cosy groupthink deluded Pugwash campaigns for Russian-style "peaceful collaboration" - came from deep family communist convictions, since his brother was serving in the Red Army in 1944 when he alleged he heard General Groves declare that the bomb must deter Russia! Rotblat stated he left Los Alamos as a result. The actions of these groups are analogous to the "Cambridge Scientists Anti-War Group" in the 1930s. After Truman ordered a H-bomb, Bradbury at Los Alamos had to start a "Family Committee" because Teller had a whole "family" of H-bomb designs, ranging from the biggest, "Daddy", through various "Alarm Clocks", all the way down to small internally-boosted fission tactical weapons. From Teller's perspective, he wasn't putting all eggs in one basket.)

Above: declassified illustration from a January 1949 secret report by the popular physics author and Los Alamos nuclear weapons design consultant George Gamow, showing his suggestion of using x-rays from both sides of a cylindrically imploded fission device to expose two fusion capsules to x-rays to test whether compression (fusion in BeO box on right side) helps, or is unnecessary (capsule on left side). Neutron counters detect 14.1 Mev T+D neutrons using time-of-flight method (higher energy neutrons traver faster than ~1 Mev fission stage neutrons, arriving at detectors first, allowing discrimination of the neutron energy spectrum by time of arrival). It took over two years to actually fire this 225 kt shot (8 May 1951)! No wonder Teller was outraged. A few interesting reports by Teller and also Oppenheimer's secret 1949 report opposing the H bomb project as it then stood on the grounds of low damage per dollar - precisely the exact opposite of the "interpretation" the media and gormless fools will assert until the cows come home - are linked here. The most interesting is Teller's 14 August 1952 Top Secret paper debunking Hans Bethe's propaganda, by explaining that contrary to Bethe's claims, Stalin's spy Klaus Fuch had the key "radiation implosion"- see second para on p2 - secret of the H-bomb because he attended the April 1946 Superbomb Conference which was not even attended by Bethe!  It was this very fact in April 1946, noted by two British attendees of the 1946 Superbomb Conference before collaboration was ended later in the year by the 1946 Atomic Energy Act, statement that led to Sir James Cladwick's secret use of "radiation implosion" for stages 2 and 3 of his triple staged H-bomb report the next month, "The Superbomb", a still secret document that inspired Penney's original Tom/Dick/Harry staged and radiation imploded H-bomb thinking, which is summarized by security cleared official historian Arnold's Britain and the H-Bomb.  Teller's 24 March 1951 letter to Los Alamos director Bradbury was written just 15 days after his historic Teller-Ulam 9 March 1951 report on radiation coupling and "radiation mirrors" (i.e. plastic casing lining to re-radiate soft x-rays on to the thermonuclear stage to ablate and thus compress it), and states: "Among the tests which seem to be of importance at the present time are those concerned with boosted weapons. Another is connected vith the possibility of a heterocatalytic explosion, that is, implosion of a bomb using the energy from another, auxiliary bomb. A third concerns itself with tests on mixing during atomic explosions, which question is of particular importance in connection with the Alarm Clock."

There is more to Fuchs' influence on the UK H-bomb than I go into that paper; Chapman Pincher alleged that Fuchs was treated with special leniency at his trial and later he was given early release in 1959 because of his contributions and help with the UK H-bomb as author of the key Fuchs-von Neumann x-ray compression mechanism patent. For example, Penney visited Fuchs in June 1952 in Stafford Prison; see pp309-310 of Frank Close's 2019 book "Trinity". Close argues that Fuchs gave Penney a vital tutorial on the H-bomb mechanism during that prison visit. That wasn't the last help, either, since the UK Controller for Atomic Energy Sir Freddie Morgan wrote Penney on 9 February 1953 that Fuchs was continuing to help. Another gem: Close gives, on p396, the story of how the FBI became suspicious of Edward Teller, after finding a man of his name teaching at the NY Communist Workers School in 1941 - the wrong Edward Teller, of course - yet Teller's wife was indeed a member of the Communist-front "League of women shoppers" in Washington, DC.

Chapman Pincher, who attended the Fuchs trial, writes about Fuchs hydrogen bomb lectures to prisoners in chapter 19 of his 2014 autobiography, Dangerous to know (Biteback, London, pp217-8): "... Donald Hume ... in prison had become a close friend of Fuchs ... Hume had repaid Fuchs' friendship by organising the smuggling in of new scientific books ... Hume had a mass of notes ... I secured Fuchs's copious notes for a course of 17 lectures ... including how the H-bomb works, which he had given to his fellow prisoners ... My editor agreed to buy Hume's story so long as we could keep the papers as proof of its authenticity ... Fuchs was soon due for release ..."

Chapman Pincher wrote about this as the front page exclusive of the 11 June 1952 Daily Express, "Fuchs: New Sensation", the very month Penney visited Fuchs in prison to receive his H-bomb tutorial! UK media insisted this was evidence that UK security still wasn't really serious about deterring further nuclear spies, and the revelations finally culminated in the allegations that the MI5 chief 1956-65 Roger Hollis was a Russian fellow-traveller (Hollis was descended from Peter the Great, according to his elder brother Chris Hollis' 1958 book Along the Road to Frome) and GRU agent of influence, codenamed "Elli". Pincher's 2014 book, written aged 100, explains that former MI5 agent Peter Wright suspected Hollis was Elli after evidence collected by MI6 agent Stephen de Mowbray was reported to the Cabinet Secretary. Hollis is alleged to have deliberately fiddled his report of interviewing GRU defector Igor Gouzenko on 21 November 1945 in Canada. Gouzenko had exposed the spy and Groucho Marx lookalike Dr Alan Nunn May (photo below), and also a GRU spy in MI5 codenamed Elli, who used only duboks (dead letter boxes), but Gouzenko told Pincher that when Hollis interviewed him in 1945 he wrote up a lengthy false report claiming to discredit many statements by Gouzenko: "I could not understand how Hollis had written so much when he had asked me so little. The report was full of nonsense and lies. As [MI5 agent Patrick] Stewart read the report to me [during the 1972 investigation of Hollis], it became clear that it had been faked to destroy my credibility so that my information about the spy in MI5 called Elli could be ignored. I suspect that Hollis was Elli." (Source: Pincher, 2014, p320.) Christopher Andrew claimed Hollis couldn't have been GRU spy Elli because KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky suggested it was the KGB spy Leo Long (sub-agent of KGB spy Anthony Blunt). However, Gouzenko was GRU, not KGB like Long and Gordievsky! Gordievsky's claim that "Elli" was on the cover of Long's KGB file was debunked by KGB officer Oleg Tsarev, who found that Long's codename was actually Ralph! Another declassified Russian document, from General V. Merkulov to Stalin dated 24 Nov 1945, confirmed Elli was a GRU agent inside british intelligence, whose existence was betrayed by Gouzenko. In Chapter 30 of Dangerous to Know, Pincher related how he was given a Russian suitcase sized microfilm enlarger by 1959 Hollis spying eyewitness Michael J. Butt, doorman for secret communist meetings in London. According to Butt, Hollis delivered documents to Brigitte Kuczynski, younger sister of Klaus Fuchs' original handler, the notorious Sonia aka Ursula. Hollis allegedly provided Minox films to Brigitte discretely when walking through Hyde Park at 8pm after work. Brigitte gave her Russian made Minox film enlarger to Butt to dispose of, but he kept it in his loft as evidence. (Pincher later donated it to King's College.) Other more circumstantial evidence is that Hollis recruited the spy Philby, Hollis secured spy Blunt immunity from prosecution, Hollis cleared Fuchs in 1943, and MI5 allegedly destroyed Hollis' 1945 interrogation report on Gouzenko, to prevent the airing of the scandal that it was fake after checking it with Gouzenko in 1972.

It should be noted that the very small number of Russian GRU illegal agents in the UK and the very small communist party membership had a relatively large influence on nuclear policy via infiltration of unions which had block votes in the Labour Party, as well the indirect CND and "peace movement" lobbies saturating the popular press with anti-civil defence propaganda to make the nuclear deterrent totally incredible for any provocation short of a direct all-out countervalue attack. Under such pressure, UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson's government abolished the UK Civil Defence Corps, making the UK nuclear deterrent totally incredible against major provocations, in March 1968. While there was some opposition to Wilson, it was focussed on his profligate nationalisation policies which were undermining the economy and thus destabilizing military expenditure for national security. Peter Wright’s 1987 book Spycatcher and various other sources, including Daily Mirror editor Hugh Cudlipp's book Walking on Water, documented that on 8 May 1968, the Bank of England's director Cecil King, who was also Chairman of Daily Mirror newspapers, Mirror editor Cudlipp and the UK Ministry of Defence's anti-nuclear Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Solly Zuckerman, met at Lord Mountbatten's house in Kinnerton Street, London, to discuss a coup e'tat to overthrow Wilson and make Mountbatten the UK President, a new position. King's position, according to Cudlipp - quite correctly as revealed by the UK economic crises of the 1970s when the UK was effectively bankrupt - was that Wilson was setting the UK on the road to financial ruin and thus military decay. Zuckerman and Mountbatten refused to take part in a revolution, however Wilson's government was attacked by the Daily Mirror in a front page editorial by Cecil King two days later, on 10 May 1968, headlined "Enough is enough ... Mr Wilson and his Government have lost all credibility, all authority." According to Wilson's secretary Lady Falkender, Wilson was only told of the coup discussions in March 1976.

CND and the UK communist party alternatively tried to claim, in a contradictory way, that they were (a) too small in numbers to have any influence on politics, and (b) they were leading the country towards utopia via unilateral nuclear disarmament saturation propaganda about nuclear weapons annihilation (totally ignoring essential data on different nuclear weapon designs, yields, heights of burst, the "use" of a weapon as a deterrent to PREVENT an invasion of concentrated force, etc.) via the infiltrated BBC and most other media. Critics pointed out that Nazi Party membership in Germany was only 5% when Hitler became dictator in 1933, while in Russia there were only 200,000 Bolsheviks in September 1917, out of 125 million, i.e. 0.16%. Therefore, the whole threat of such dictatorships is a minority seizing power beyond it justifiable numbers, and controlling a majority which has different views. Traditional democracy itself is a dictatorship of the majority (via the ballot box, a popularity contest); minority-dictatorship by contrast is a dictatorship by the fanatically motivated minority by force and fear (coercion) to control the majority. The coercion tactics used by foreign dictators to control the press in free countries are well documented, but never publicised widely. Hitler put pressure on Nazi-critics in the UK "free press" via UK Government appeasers Halifax, Chamberlain and particularly the loathsome UK ambassador to Nazi Germany, Sir Neville Henderson, for example trying to censor or ridicule appeasement critics David Low, to fire Captain W. E. Johns (editor of both Flying and Popular Flying, which had huge circulations and attacked appeasement as a threat to national security in order to reduce rearmament expenditure), and to try to get Winston Churchill deselected. These were all sneaky "back door" pressure-on-publishers tactics, dressed up as efforts to "ease international tensions"! The same occurred during the Cold War, with personal attacks in Scientific American and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and by fellow travellers on Herman Kahn, Eugene Wigner, and others who warned we need civil defence to make a deterrent of large provocations credible in the eyes of an aggressor.

Chapman Pincher summarises the vast hypocritical Russian expenditure on anti-Western propaganda against the neutron bomb in Chapter 15, "The Neutron Bomb Offensive" of his 1985 book The Secret Offensive: "Such a device ... carries three major advantages over Hiroshima-type weapons, particularly for civilians caught up in a battle ... against the massed tanks which the Soviet Union would undoubtedly use ... by exploding these warheads some 100 feet or so above the massed tanks, the blast and fire ... would be greatly reduced ... the neutron weapon produces little radioactive fall-out so the long-term danger to civilians would be very much lower ... the weapon was of no value for attacking cities and the avoidance of damage to property can hardly be rated as of interest only to 'capitalists' ... As so often happens, the constant repetition of the lie had its effects on the gullible ... In August 1977, the [Russian] World Peace Council ... declared an international 'Week of action' against the neutron bomb. ... Under this propaganda Carter delayed his decision, in September ... a Sunday service being attended by Carter and his family on 16 October 1977 was disrupted by American demonstrators shouting slogans against the neutron bomb [see the 17 October 1977 Washington Post] ... Lawrence Eagleburger, when US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, remarked, 'We consider it probably that the Soviet campaign against the 'neutron bomb cost some $100 million'. ... Even the Politburo must have been surprised at the size of what it could regard as a Fifth Column in almost every country." [Unfortunately, Pincher himself had contributed to the anti-nuclear nonsense in his 1965 novel "Not with a bang" in which small amounts of radioactivity from nuclear fallout combine with medicine to exterminate humanity! The allure of anti-nuclear propaganda extends to all who which to sell "doomsday fiction", not just Russian dictators but mainstream media story tellers in the West. By contrast, Glasstone and Dolan's 1977 Effects of Nuclear Weapons doesn't even mention the neutron bomb, so there was no scientific and technical effort whatsoever by the West to make it a credible deterrent even in the minds of the public it had to protect from WWIII!]

"The Lance warhead is the first in a new generation of tactical mini-nukes that have been sought by Army field leading advocates: the series of American generals who have commanded the North Atlantic Treaty organization theater. They have argued that the 7,000 unclear warheads now in Europe are old, have too large a nuclear yield and thus would not be used in a war. With lower yields and therefore less possible collateral damage to civilian populated areas, these commanders have argued, the new mini-nukes are more credible as deterrents because they just might be used on the battlefield without leading to automatic nuclear escalation. Under the nuclear warhead production system, a President must personally give the production order. President Ford, according to informed sources, signed the order for the enhanced-radiation Lance warhead. The Lance already has regular nuclear warheads and it deployed with NATO forces in Europe. In addition to the Lance warhead, other new production starts include: An 8-inch artillery-fired nuclear warhead to replace those now in Europe. This shell had been blocked for almost eight years by Sen. Stuart Symington (D-Mo.), who had argued that it was not needed. Symington retired last year. The Pentagon and ERDA say the new nuclear 8-inch warhead would be safer from stealing by terrorists. Starbird testified. It will be "a command disable system" to melt its inner workings if necessary. ... In longer-term research, the bill contains money to finance an enhanced-radiational bomb to the dropped from aircraft." - Washington post, 5 June 1977.

This debunks fake news that Teller's and Ulam's 9 March 1951 report LAMS-1225 itself gave Los Alamos the Mike H-bomb design, ready for testing! Teller was proposing a series of nuclear tests of the basic principles, not 10Mt Ivy-Mike which was based on a report the next month by Teller alone, LA-1230, "The Sausage: a New Thermonuclear System". When you figure that, what did Ulam actually contribute to the hydrogen bomb? Nothing about implosion, compression or separate stages - all already done by von Neumann and Fuchs five years earlier - and just a lot of drivel about trying to channel material shock waves from a primary to compress another fissile core, a real dead end. What Ulam did was to kick Teller out of his self-imposed mental objection to compression devices. Everything else was Teller's; the radiation mirrors, the Sausage with its outer ablation pusher and its inner spark plug. Note also that contrary to official historian Arnold's book (which claims due to a misleading statement by Dr Corner that all the original 1946 UK copies of Superbomb Conference documentation were destroyed after being sent from AWRE Aldermaston to London between 1955-63), all the documents did exist in the AWRE TPN (theoretical physics notes, 100% of which have been perserved) and are at the UK National Archives, e.g. AWRE-TPN 5/54 is listed in National Archives discovery catalogue ref ES 10/5: "Miscellaneous super bomb notes by Klaus Fuchs", see also the 1954 report AWRE-TPN 6/54, "Implosion super bomb: substitution of U235 for plutonium" ES 10/6, the 1954 report AWRE-TPN 39/54 is "Development of the American thermonuclear bomb: implosion super bomb" ES 10/39, see also ES 10/21 "Collected notes on Fermi's super bomb lectures", ES 10/51 "Revised reconstruction of the development of the American thermonuclear bombs", ES 1/548 and ES 1/461 "Superbomb Papers", etc. Many reports are secret and retained, despite containing "obsolete" designs (although UK report titles are generally unredacted, such as: "Storage of 6kg Delta (Phase) -Plutonium Red Beard (tactical bomb) cores in ships")! It should also be noted that the Livermore Laboatory's 1958 TUBA spherical secondary with an oralloy (enriched U235) outer pusher was just a reversion from Teller's 1951 core spark plug idea in the middle of the fusion fuel, back to the 1944 von Neumann scheme of having fission material surrounding the fusion fuel. In other words, the TUBA was just a radiation and ionization imploded, internally fusion-boosted, second fission stage which could have been accomplished a decade earlier if the will existed, when all of the relevant ideas were already known. The declassified UK spherical secondary-stage alternatives linked here (tested as Grapple X, Y and Z with varying yields but similar size, since all used the 5 ft diameter Blue Danube drop casing) clearly show that a far more efficient fusion burn occurs by minimising the mass of hard-to-compress U235 (oralloy) sparkplug/pusher, but maximising the amount of lithium-7, not lithium-6. Such a secondary with minimal fissionable material also automatically has minimal neutron ABM vulnerability (i.e., "Radiation Immunity", RI). This is the current cheap Russian neutron weapon design, but not the current Western design of warheads like the W78, W88 and bomb B61.

So why on earth doesn't the West take the cheap efficient option of cutting expensive oralloy and maximising cheap natural (mostly lithium-7) LiD in the secondary? Even Glasstone's 1957 Effects of Nuclear Weapons on p17 (para 1.55) states that "Weight for weight ... fusion of deuterium nuclei would produce nearly 3 times as much energy as the fission of uranium or plutonium"! The sad answer is "density"! Natural LiD (containing 7.42% Li6 abundance) is a low density white/grey crystalline solid like salt that actually floats on water (lithium deuteroxide would be formed on exposure to water), since its density is just 820 kg/m^3. Since the ratio of mass of Li6D to Li7D is 8/9, it would be expected that the density of highly enriched 95% Li6D is 739 kg/m^3, while for 36% enriched Li6D it is 793 kg/m^3. Uranium metal has a density of 19,000 kg/m^3, i.e. 25.7 times greater than 95% enriched li6D or 24 times greater than 36% enriched Li6D. Compactness, i.e. volume is more important in a Western MIRV warhead than mass/weight! In the West, it's best to have a tiny-volume, very heavy, very expensive warhead. In Russia, cheapness outweights volume considerations. The Russians in some cases simply allowed their more bulky warheads to protrude from the missile bus (see photo below), or compensated for lower yields at the same volume using clean LiD by using the savings in costs to build more warheads. (The West doubles the fission yield/mass ratio of some warheads by using U235/oralloy pushers in place of U238, which suffers from the problem that about half the neutrons it interacts with result in non-fission capture, as explained below. Note that the 720 kiloton UK nuclear test Orange Herald device contained a hollow shell of 117 kg of U235 surrounded by a what Lorna Arnold's book quotes John Corner referring to a "very thin" layer of high explosive, and was compact, unboosted - the boosted failed to work - and gave 6.2 kt/kg of U235, whereas the first version of the 2-stage W47 Polaris warhead contained 60 kg of U235 which produced most of the secondary stage yield of about 400 kt, i.e. 6.7 kt/kg of U235. Little difference - but because perhaps 50% of the total yield of the W47 was fusion, its efficiency of use of U235 must have actually been less than the Orange Herald device, around 3 kt/kg of U235 which indicates design efficiency limits to "hydrogen bombs"! Yet anti-nuclear charlatans claimed that the Orange Herald bomb was a con!)

ABOVE: USA nuclear weapons data declassified by UK Government in 2010 (the information was originally acquired due to the 1958 UK-USA Act for Cooperation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes, in exchange for UK nuclear weapons data) as published at http://nuclear-weapons.info/images/tna-ab16-4675p63.jpg. This single table summarizes all key tactical and strategic nuclear weapons secret results from 1950s testing! (In order to analyze the warhead pusher thicknesses and very basic schematics from this table it is necessary to supplement it with the 1950s warhead design data declassified in other documents, particularly some of the data from Tom Ramos and Chuck Hansen, as quoted in some detail below.) The data on the mass of special nuclear materials in each of the different weapons argues strongly that the entire load of Pu239 and U235 in the 1.1 megaton B28 was in the primary stage, so that weapon could not have had a fissile spark plug in the centre let alone a fissile ablator (unlike Teller's Sausage design of 1951), and so the B28 it appears had no need whatsoever of a beryllium neutron radiation shield to prevent pre-initiation of the secondary stage prior to its compression (on the contrary, such neutron exposure of the lithium deuteride in the secondary stage would be VITAL to produce some tritium in it prior to compression, to spark fusion when it was compressed). Arnold's book indeed explains that UK AWE physicists found the B28 to be an excellent, highly optimised, cheap design, unlike the later W47 which was extremely costly. The masses of U235 and Li6 in the W47 shows the difficulties of trying to maintain efficiency while scaling down the mass of a two-stage warhead for SLBM delivery: much larger quantities of Li6 and U235 must be used to achieve a LOWER yield! To achieve thermonuclear warheads of low mass at sub-megaton yields, both the outer bomb casing and the pusher around the the fusion fuel must be reduced:

"York ... studied the Los Alamos tests in Castle and noted most of the weight in thermonuclear devices was in their massive cases. Get rid of the case .... On June 12, 1953, York had presented a novel concept ... It radically altered the way radiative transport was used to ignite a secondary - and his concept did not require a weighty case ... they had taken the Teller-Ulam concept and turned it on its head ... the collapse time for the new device - that is, the amount of time it took for an atomic blast to compress the secondary - was favorable compared to older ones tested in Castle. Brown ... gave a female name to the new device, calling it the Linda." - Dr Tom Ramos (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory nuclear weapon designer), From Berkeley to Berlin: How the Rad Lab Helped Avert Nuclear War, Naval Institute press, 2022, pp137-8. (So if you reduce the outer casing thickness to reduce warhead weight, you must complete the pusher ablation/compression faster, before the thinner outer casing is blown off, and stops reflecting/channelling x-rays on the secondary stage. Making the radiation channel smaller and ablative pusher thinner helps to speed up the process. Because the ablative pusher is thinner, there is relatively less blown-off debris to block the narrower radiation channel before the burn ends.)

"Brown's third warhead, the Flute, brought the Linda concept down to a smaller size. The Linda had done away with a lot of material in a standard thermonuclear warhead. Now the Flute tested how well designers could take the Linda's conceptual design to substantially reduce not only the weight but also the size of a thermonuclear warhead. ... The Flute's small size - it was the smallest thermonuclear device yet tested - became an incentive to improve codes. Characteristics marginally important in a larger device were now crucially important. For instance, the reduced size of the Flute's radiation channel could cause it to close early [with ablation blow-off debris], which would prematurely shut off the radiation flow. The code had to accurately predict if such a disaster would occur before the device was even tested ... the calculations showed changes had to be made from the Linda's design for the Flute to perform correctly." - Dr Tom Ramos (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory nuclear weapon designer), From Berkeley to Berlin: How the Rad Lab Helped Avert Nuclear War, Naval Institute press, 2022, pp153-4. Note that the piccolo (the W47 secondary) is a half-sized flute, so it appears that the W47's secondary stage design miniaturization history was: Linda -> Flute -> Piccolo:

"A Division's third challenge was a small thermonuclear warhead for Polaris [the nuclear SLBM submarine that preceeded today's Trident system]. The starting point was the Flute, that revolutionary secondary that had performed so well the previous year. Its successor was called the Piccolo. For Plumbbob [Nevada, 1957], the design team tested three variations of the Piccolo as a parameter test. One of the variants outperformed the others ... which set the stage for the Hardtack [Nevada and Pacific, 1958] tests. Three additional variations for the Piccolo ... were tested then, and again an optimum candidate was selected. ... Human intuition as well as computer calculations played crucial roles ... Finally, a revolutionary device was completed and tested ... the Navy now had a viable warhead for its Polaris missile. From the time Brown gave Haussmann the assignment to develop this secondary until the time they tested the device in the Pacific, only 90 days had passed. As a parallel to the Robin atomic device, this secondary for Polaris laid the foundation for modern thermonuclear weapons in the United States." - Dr Tom Ramos (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory nuclear weapon designer), From Berkeley to Berlin: How the Rad Lab Helped Avert Nuclear War, Naval Institute press, 2022, pp177-8. (Ramos is very useful in explaining that many of the 1950s weapons with complex non-spherical, non-cylindrical shaped primaries and secondaries were simply far too complex to fully simulate on the really pathetic computers they had - Livermore got a 4,000 vacuum tubes-based IBM 701 with 2 kB memory in 1956, AWRE Aldermaston in the Uk had to wait another year for theirs - so they instead did huge numbers of experimental explosive tests. For instance, on p173, Ramos discloses that the Swan primary which developed into the 155mm tactical shell, "went through over 100 hydrotests", non-nuclear tests in which fissile material is replaced with U238 or other substitutes, and the implosion is filmed with flash x-ray camera systems.)

"An integral feature of the W47, from the very start of the program, was the use of an enriched uranium-235 pusher around the cylindrical secondary." - Chuck Hansen, Swords 2.0, p. VI-375 (Hansen's source is his own notes taken during a 19-21 February 1992 nuclear weapons history conference he attended; if you remember the context, "Nuclear Glasnost" became fashionable after the Cold War ended, enabling Hansen to acquire almost unredacted historical materials for a few years until nuclear proliferation became a concern in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea). The key test of the original (Robin primary and Piccolo secondary) Livermore W47 was 412 kt Hardtack-Redwood on 28 June 1958. Since Li6D utilized at 100% efficiency would yield 66 kt/kg, the W47 fusion efficiency was only about 6%; since 100% fission of u235 yields 17 kt/kg, the W47's Piccolo fission (the u235 pusher) efficiency was about 20%; the comparable figures for secondary stage fission and fusion fuel burn efficiencies in the heavy B28 are about 7% and 15%, respectively:

ABOVE: the heavy B28 gave a very "big bang for the buck": it was cheap in terms of expensive Pu, U235 and Li6, and this was the sort of deterrent which was wanted by General LeMay for the USAF, which wanted as many weapons as possible, within the context of Eisenhower's budgetary concerns. But its weight (not its physical size) made it unsuitable for SLBM Polaris warheads. The first SLBM warhead, the W47, was almost the same size as the B28 weapon package, but much lighter due to having a much thinner "pusher" on the secondary, and casing. But this came at a large financial cost in terms of the quantities of special nuclear materials required to get such a lightweight design to work, and also a large loss of total yield. The fusion fuel burn efficiency ranges from 6% for the 400 kt W47 to 15% for the 1.1 megaton B28 (note that for very heavy cased 11-15 megaton yield tests at Castle, up to 40% fusion fuel burn efficiency was achieved), whereas the secondary stage ablative pusher fission efficiency ranged from 7% for a 1.1 inch thick natural uranium (99.3% U238) ablator to 20% for a 0.15 inch thick highly enriched oralloy (U235) ablator. From the brief description of the design evolution given by Dr Tom Ramos (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), it appears that when the x-ray channelling outer case thickness of the weapon is reduced to save weight, the duration of the x-ray coupling is reduced, so the dense metal pusher thickness must be reduced if the same compression factor (approximately 20) for the secondary stage is to be accomplished (lithium deuteride, being of low density, is far more compressable by a given pressure, than dense metal). In both examples, the secondary stage is physically a boosted fission stage. (If you are wondering why the hell the designers don't simply use a hollow core U235 bomb like Orange Herald instead of bothering with such inefficient x-ray coupled two-stage designs as these, the answer is straightforward: the risk of large fissile core meltdown by neutrons Moscow ABM defensive nuclear warheads, neutron bombs.)

The overall weight of the W47 was minimized by replacing the usual thick layer of U238 pusher with a very thin layer of fissile U235 (supposedly Teller's suggestion), which is more efficient for fission, but is limited by critical mass issues. The W47 used a 95% enriched Li6D cylinder with a 3.8mm thick U235 pusher; the B28 secondary was 36% enriched Li6D, with a very heavy 3cm thick U238 pusher. As shown below, it appears the B28 was related to the Los Alamos clean design of the TX21C tested as 95% clean 4.5 megatons Redwing-Navajo in 1956 and did not have a central fissile spark plug. From the declassified fallout composition, it is known the Los Alamos designers replaced the outer U238 pusher of Castle secondaries with lead in Navajo. Livermore did the same for their 85% clean 3.53 megatons Redwing-Zuni test, but Livermore left the central fission spark plug, which contributed 10% of its 15% fission yield, instead of removing the neutron shield, using foam channel filler for slowing down the x-ray compression, and thereby using primary stage neutrons to split lithium-6 giving tritium prior to compression. Our point is that Los Alamos got it wrong in sticking too conservatively to ideology: for clean weapons they should have got rid of the dense lead pusher and gone for John H. Nuckolls idea (also used by Fuchs in 1946 and the Russians in 1955 and 1958) of a low-density pusher for isentropic compression of low-density fusion fuel. This error is the reason why those early cleaner weapons were extremely heavy due to unnecessary 2" thick lead or tungsten pushers around the fusion fuel, which massively reduced their yield-to-weight ratios, so that LeMay rejected them!

Compare these data for the 20 inch diameter, 49 inch, 1600 lb, 1.1 megaton bomb B28 to the 18 inch diameter, 47 inch, 700 lb, 400 kt Mk47/W47 Polaris SLBM warhead (this is the correct yield for the first version of the W47 confirmed by UK data in Lorna Arnold Britain and the H-bomb 2001 and AB 16/3240; Wikipedia wrongly gives the 600 kt figure in Hansen, which was a speculation or a later upgrade). The key difference is that the W47 is much lighter, and thus suitable for the Polaris SLBM unlike the heavier, higher yield B28. Both B28 and W47 used cylindrical sausages, but they are very different in composition; the B28 used a huge mass of U238 in its ablative sausage outer shell or pusher, while the W47 used oralloy/U235 in the pusher. The table shows the total amounts of Pu, Oralloy (U235), Lithium-6 (excluding cheaper lithium-7, which is also present in varying amounts in different thermonuclear weapons), and tritium (which is used for boosting inside fissile material, essentially to reduce the amount of Pu and therefore the vulnerability of the weapon to Russian enhanced neutron ABM warhead meltdown). The B28 also has an external dense natural U (99.3% U238) "ablative pusher shell" whose mass is not listed in this table. The table shows that the 400 kt W47 Polaris SLBM warhead contains 60 kg of U235 (nearly as much as the 500 kt pure fission Mk18), which is in an ablative pusher shell around the lithium deuteride, so that the cylinder of neutron-absorbing lithium-6 deuteride within it keeps that mass of U235 subcritical, until compressed. So the 400 kt W47 contains far more Pu, U235, Li6 and T than the higher yield 1.1 megaton B28: this is the big $ price you pay for reducing the mass of the warhead; the total mass of the W47 is reduced to 44% of the mass of the B28, since the huge mass of cheap U238 pusher in the B28 is replaced by a smaller mass of U235, which is more efficient because (as Dr Carl F. Miller reveals in USNRDL-466, Table 6), about half of the neutrons hitting U238 don't cause fission but instead non-fission capture reactions which produce U239, plus the n,2n reaction that produces U237, emitting a lot of very low energy gamma rays in the fallout. For example, in the 1954 Romeo nuclear test (which, for simplicity, we quote since it used entirely natural LiD, with no expensive enrichment of the Li6 isotope whatsoever), the U238 jacket fission efficiency was reduced by capture as follows: 0.66 atom/fission of U239, 0.10 atom/fission of U237 and 0.23 atom/fission of U240 produced by fission, a total of 0.66 + 0.10 + 0.23 ~ 1 atom/fission, i.e. 50% fission in the U238 pusher, versus 50% non-fission neutron captures. So by using U235 in place of U238, you virtually eliminate the non-fission capture (see UK Atomic Weapons Establishment graph of fission and capture cross-sections for U235, shown below), which roughly halves the mass of the warhead, for a given fission yield. This same principle of using an outer U235/oralloy pusher instead of U238 to reduce mass - albeit with the secondary cylindrical "Sausage" shape now changed to a sphere - applies to today's miniaturised, high yield, low mass "MIRV" warheads. Just as the lower-yield W47 counter-intuitively used more expensive ingredients than the bulkier higher-yield B28, modern compact, high-yield oralloy-loaded warheads literally cost a bomb, just to keep the mass down! There is evidence Russia uses alternative ideas.

This is justified by the data given for a total U238 capture-to-fission ratio of 1 in the 11 megaton Romeo test and also the cross-sections for U235 capture and fission on the AWE graph for relevant neutron energy range of about 1-14 Mev. If half the neutrons are captured in U238 without fission, then the maximum fission yield you can possibly get from "x" kg of U238 pusher is HALF the energy obtained from 100% fission of "x" kg of U238. Since with U238 only about half the atoms can undergo fission by thermonuclear neutrons (because the other half undergo non-fission capture), the energy density (i.e., the Joules/kg produced by the fission explosion of the pusher) reached by an exploding U238 pusher is only half that reached by U235 (in which there is less non-fission capture of neutrons, which doubles the pusher mass without doubling the fission energy release). So a U235 pusher will reach twice the temperature of a U238 pusher, doubling its material heating of fusion fuel within, prolonging the fusion burn and thus increasing fusion burn efficiency. 10 MeV neutron energy is important since it allows for likely average scattering of 14.1 MeV D+T fusion neutrons and it is also the energy at which the most important capture reaction, the (n,2n) cross-section peaks for both U235 (peak of 0.88 barn at 10 Mev) and U238 (peak of 1.4 barns at 10 Mev). For 10 Mev neutrons, U235 and U238 have fission cross-sections of 1.8 and 1 barn, respectively. For 14 Mev neutrons, U238 has a (n,2n) cross section of 0.97 barn for U237 production. So ignoring non-fission captures, you need 1.8/1 = 1.8 times greater thickness of pusher for U238 than for U235, to achieve the same amount of fission. But this simple consideration ignores the x-ray ablation requirement of the explosing pusher, so there are several factors requiring detailed computer calculations, and/or nuclear testing.

Note: there is an extensive collection of declassified documents released after Chuck Hansen's final edition, Swords 2.0, which are now available at https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.nnsa.energy.gov/sites/default/files/nnsa/foiareadingroom/*, being an internet-archive back-up of a now-removed US Government Freedom of Information Act Reading Room. Unfortunately they were only identified by number sequence, not by report title or content, in that reeding room, and so failed to achieve wide attention when originally released! (This includes extensive "Family Committee" H-bomb documentation and many long-delayed FOIA requests submitted originally by Hansen, but not released in time for inclusion in Swords 2.0.) As the extract below - from declassified document RR00132 - shows, some declassified documents contained very detailed information or typewriter spaces that could only be filled by a single specific secret word (in this example, details of the W48 linear implosion tactical nuclear warhead, including the fact that it used PBX9404 plastic bonded explosive glued to the brittle beryllium neutron reflector around the plutonium core using Adiprene L100 adhesive!).

ABOVE: Declassified data on the radiation flow analysis for the 10 megaton Mike sausage: http://nnsa.energy.gov/sites/default/files/nnsa/foiareadingroom/RR00198.pdf Note that the simplistic "no-go theorem" given in this extract, against any effect from varying the temperature to help the radiation channelling, was later proved false by John H. Nuckolls (like Teller's anti-compression "no-go theorem" was later proved false), since lowered temperature delivers energy where it is needed while massively reducing radiation losses (which go as the fourth power of temperature/x-ray energy in kev).

ABOVE: Hans A. Bethe's disastrous back-of-the-envelope nonsense "non-go theorem" against lithium-7 fission into tritium by 14.1 Mev D+T neutrons in Bravo (which contained 40% lithium-6 and 60% lithium-7; unnecessarily enriched - at great expense and effort - from the natural 7.42% lithum-6 abundance). It was Bethe's nonsense "physics" speculation, unbacked by serious calculation, who caused Bravo to go off at 2.5 times the expected 6 megatons and therefore for the Japanese Lucky Dragon tuna trawler crew in the maximum fallout hotspot area 80 miles downwind to be contaminated by fallout, and also for Rongelap's people to be contaminated ("accidents" that inevitably kickstarted the originally limited early 1950s USSR funded Communist Party anti-nuclear deterrence movements in the West into mainstream media and thus politics). There was simply no solid basis for assuming that the highly penetrating 14.1 Mev neutrons would be significantly slowed by scattering in the fuel before hitting lithium-7 nuclei. Even teller's 1950 report LA-643 at page 17 estimated that in a fission-fusion Alarm Clock, the ratio of 14 Mev to 2.5 Mev neutrons was 0.7/0.2 = 3.5. Bethe's complacently bad guesswork-based physics also led to the EMP fiasco for high altitude bursts, after he failed to predict the geomagnetic field deflection of Compton electrons at high altitude in his secret report “Electromagnetic Signal Expected from High-Altitude Test”, Los Alamos report LA-2173, October 1957, Secret. He repeatedly caused nuclear weapons effects study disasters. For the true utility of lithium-7, which is actually BETTER than lithum-6 at tritium production when struck by 14.1 Mev D+T fusion neutrons, and its consequences for cheap isentropically compressed fusion capsules in Russian neutron bombs, please see my paper here which gives a graph of lithium isotopic cross section versus neutron energy, plus the results when Britain used cheap lithium-7 in Grapple Y to yield 3 megatons (having got lower yields with costly lithium-6 in previous tests!).

Update (15 Dec 2023): PDF uploaded of UK DAMAGE BY NUCLEAR WEAPONS (linked here on Internet Archive) - secret 1000 pages UK and USA nuclear weapon test effects analysis, and protective measures determined at those tests (not guesswork) relevant to escalation threats by Russia for EU invasion (linked here at wordpress) in response to Ukraine potentially joining the EU (this is now fully declassified without deletions, and in the UK National Archives at Kew):

Hiroshima and Nagasaki terrorist liars debunked by secret American government evidence that simple shelters worked, REPORT LINKED HERE (this was restricted from public view and never published by the American government, and Glasstone's lying Effects of Nuclear Weapons book reversed its evidence for propaganda purposes, a fact still covered by all the lying cold war pseudo "historians" today), Operation Hurricane 1952 declassified nuclear weapon test data (here), declassified UK nuclear tested shelter research reports (here), declassified EMP nuclear test research data (here), declassified clandestine nuclear bombs in ships attack on Liverpool study (here), declassified fallout decontamination study for UK recovery from nuclear attack (here), declassified Operation Buffalo surface burst and near surface burst fallout patterns, water decontamination, initial radiation shielding at Antler nuclear tests, and resuspension of deposited fallout dust into the air (inhalation hazard) at different British nuclear tests, plus Operation Totem nuclear tests crater region radiation surveys (here), declassified Operation Antler nuclear blast precursor waveforms (here), declassified Operation Buffalo nuclear blast precursor waveforms (here), declassified UK Atomic Weapons Establishment nuclear weapons effects symposium (here), and declassified UK Atomic Weapons Establishment paper on the gamma radiation versus time at Crossroads tests Able and Baker (here, paper by inventor of lenses in implosion weapons, James L. Tuck of the British Mission to Los Alamos and Operation Crossroads, clearly showing how initial gamma shielding in an air burst can be achieved with a few seconds warning and giving the much greater escape times available for residual radiation dose accumulations in an underwater burst; key anti-nuclear hysteria data kept covered up by Glasstone and the USA book Effects of Nuclear Weapons), and Penney and Hicks paper on the base surge contamination mechanism (here), and Russian nuclear warhead design evidence covered-up by both America and the so-called arms control and disarmament "experts" who always lie and distort the facts to suit their own agenda to try to start a nuclear war (linked here). If they wanted "peace" they'd support the proved facts, available on this blog nukegate.org since 2006, and seek international agreement to replace the incredible, NON-war deterring strategic nuclear weapons with safe tactical neutron warheads which collateral damage averting and invasion-deterring (thus war deterring in all its forms, not only nuclear), plus civil defence against all forms of collateral damage from war, which reduces escalation risks during terrorist actions, as proved in wars which don't escalate because of effective civil defence and credible deterrence (see below). Instead, they support policies designed to maximise civilian casualties and to deliberately escalate war, to profit "politically" from the disasters caused which they blame falsely on nuclear weapons, as if deterrence causes war! (Another lie believed by mad/evil/gullible mainstream media/political loons in "authority".) A good summary of the fake news basis of "escalation" blather against credible tactical nuclear deterrence of the invasions that set off wars is inadvertently provided by Lord David Owen's 2009 "Nuclear Papers" (Liverpool Uni Press), compiling his declassified nuclear disarmament propaganda reports written while he was UK Foreign Secretary 1977-9. It's all Carter era appeasement nonsense. For example, on pp158-8 he reprints his Top Secret 19 Dec 1978 "Future of the British Deterrent" report to the Prime Minister which states that "I am not convinced by the contention ... that the ability to destroy at least 10 major cities, or inflict damage on 30 major targets ... is the minimum criterion for a British deterrent." (He actually thinks this is too strong a deterrent, despite the fact it is incredible for the realpolitik tactics of dictators who make indirect provocations like invading their neighbours!) The reality Owens ignores is that Russia had and still has civil defence shelters and evacuation plans, so threatening some damage in retaliation is not a credible deterrent against the invasions that set off both world wars. On page 196, he gives a Secret 18 April 1978 paper stating that NATO then had 1000 nuclear artillery pieces (8" and 155mm), 200 Lance and Honest John tactical nuclear missile systems, 135 Pershing; all now long ago disarmed and destroyed while Russian now has over 2000 dedicated tactical nuclear weapons of high neutron output (unlike EM1's data for the low yield option of the multipurpose NATO B61). Owen proudly self-congratulates on his Brezhnev supporting anti-neutron bomb ranting 1978 book, "Human Rights", pp. 136-7. If Owen really wants "Human Rights", he needs to back the neutron bomb now to deter the dictatorships which destroy human rights! His 2009 "Nuclear Papers" at p287 gives the usual completely distorted analysis of the Cuban missiles crisis, claiming that despite the overwhelming American tactical and strategic nuclear superiority for credible deterrence in 1962, the world came "close" to a nuclear war. It's closer now, mate, when thanks to your propaganda we no longer have a credible deterrent, civil defence, tactical neutron warheads. Pathetic.

ABOVE secret reports on Australian-British nuclear test operations at Maralinga in 1956 and 1957, Buffalo and Antler, proved that even at 10 psi peak overpressure for the 15 kt Buffalo-1 shot, the dummy lying prone facing the blast was hardly moved due to the low cross-sectional area exposed to the blast winds, relative to standing dummies which were severely displaced and damaged. The value of trenches in protecting personnel against blast winds and radiation was also proved in tests (gamma radiation shielding of trenches had been proved at an earlier nuclear test in Australia, Operation Hurricane in 1952). (Antler report linked here; Buffalo report linked here.) This debunks the US Department of Defense models claiming that people will automatically be blown out of the upper floors of modern city buildings at very low pressures, and killed by the gravitational impact with the pavement below! In reality, tall buildings mutually shield one another from the blast winds, not to mention the radiation (proven in the latest post on this blog), and on seeing the flash most people will have time to lie down on typical surfaces like carpet which give a frictional resistance to displacement, ignored in fiddled models which assume surfaces have less friction than a skating rink; all of this was omitted from the American 1977 Glasstone and Dolan book "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons". As Tuck's paper below on the gamma radiation dose rate measurements on ships at Operation Crossroads, July 1946 nuclear tests proved, contrary to Glasstone and Dolan, scattered radiation contributions are small, so buildings or ships gun turrets provided excellent radiation "shadows" to protect personnel. This effect was then calculated by UK civil defence weapons effects expert Edward Leader-Williams in his paper presented at the UK's secret London Royal Society Symposium on the Physical Effects of Atomic Weapons, but the nuclear test data as always was excluded from the American Glasstone book published the next year, The Effects of Atomic Weapons in deference to lies about the effects in Hiroshima, including an "average" casualty curve which deliberately obfuscated huge differences in survival rates in different types of buildings and shelters, or simply in shadows!

Note: the DELFIC, SIMFIC and other computer predicted fallout area comparisons for the 110 kt Bikini Atoll Castle-Koon land surface burst nuclear test are false since the distance scale of Bikini Atoll is massively exaggerated on many maps, e.g. in the Secret January 1955 AFSWP "Fall-out Symposium", the Castle fallout report WT-915, and the fallout patterns compendium DASA-1251! The Western side of the Bikini Atoll reef is at 165.2 degrees East, while the most eastern island in the Bikini Atoll, Enyu, is at 165.567 degrees East: since there are 60 nautical miles per degree by definition, the width of Bikini Atoll is therefore (165.567-165.2)(60) = 22 nautical miles, approximately half the distance shown in the Castle-Koon fallout patterns. Since area is proportional to the square of the distance scale, this constitutes a serious exaggeration in fallout casualty calculations, before you get into the issue of the low energy (0.1-0.2 MeV) gamma rays from neutron induced Np239 and U237 in the fallout enhancing the protection factor of shelters (usually calculated assuming hard 1.17 and 1.33 MeV gamma rads from Co60), during the sheltering period of approximately 1-14 days after detonation.

"Since the nuclear stalemate became apparent, the Governments of East and West have adopted the policy which Mr Dulles calls 'brinkmanship'. This is a policy adopted from a sport ... called 'Chicken!' ... If one side is unwilling to risk global war, while the other side is willing to risk it, the side which is willing to run the risk will be victorious in all negotiations and will ultimately reduce the other side to complete impotence. 'Perhaps' - so the practical politician will argue - 'it might be ideally wise for the sane party to yield to the insane party in view of the dreadful nature of the alternative, but, whether wise or not, no proud nation will long acquiesce in such an ignominious role. We are, therefore, faced, quite inevitably, with the choice between brinkmanship and surrender." - Bertrand Russell, Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1959, pp30-31.

Emphasis added. Note that Russell accepts lying about nuclear weapons just as gas weapons had been lied about in the 1920s-30s by "arms controllers" to start WWII, then he simply falls into the 1930s Cambridge Scientists Antiwar Group delusional propaganda fraud of assuming that any attempt to credibly deter fascism is immoral because it will automatically result in escalatory retaliation with Herman Goering's Luftwaffe drenching London with "overkill" by poison gas WMDs etc. In particular, he forgets that general disarmament pursued in the West until 1935 - when Baldwin suddenly announced that the Nazis had secretly produced a massive, unstoppable warmachine in two years - encouraged aggressors to first secretly rearm, then coerce and invade their neighbours while signing peace promises purely to buy more time for rearmament, until a world war resulted. Not exactly a great result for disarmament propaganda. So after obliterating what Reagan used to call (to the horror of commie "historians") the "true facts of history" from his mind, he advocates some compromise with the aggressors of the 30 September 1938 Munich Agreement peace-in-our-time sort, the historically proved sure fire way to really escalate a crisis into a major war by showing the green lamp to a loon to popular media acclaim and applause for a fairy tale utopian fantasy; just as the "principled" weak, rushed, imbecile withdrawl from Afghanistan in 2021 encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine in 2022, and also the green lamp for Hamas to invade Israel in 2023.

"... deterrence ... consists of threatening the enemy with thermonuclear retaliation should he act provocatively. ... If war is 'impossible', how can one threaten a possible aggressor with war? ... The danger, evoked by numerous critics, that such research will result in a sort of resigned expectation of the holocaust, seems a weak argument ... The classic theory of Clausewitz defines absolute victory in terms of disarmament of the enemy ... Today ... it will suffice to take away his means of retaliation to hold him at your mercy." - Raymond Aron, Introduction to Herman Kahn's 1962 Thinking About the Unthinkable, Weidenfield and Nicholson, London, pp. 9-12. (This is the commie support for arms control and disarmament has achieved, precisely the weakening of the West to take away credible deterrence.)

"75 years ago, white slavery was rampant in England. ... it could not be talked about openly in Victorian England, moral standards as to the subjects of discussion made it difficult to arouse the community to necessary action. ... Victorian standards, besides perpetuating the white slave trade, intensified the damage ... Social inhibitions which reinforce natural tendencies to avoid thinking about unpleasant subjects are hardly uncommon. ... But when our reluctance to consider danger brings danger nearer, repression has gone too far. In 1960, I published a book that attempted to direct attention to the possibility of a thermonuclear war ... people are willing to argue that it is immoral to think and even more immoral to write in detail about having to fight ... like those ancient kings who punished messengers who brought them bad news. That did not change the news; it simply slowed up its delivery. On occasion it meant that the kings were ill informed and, lacking truth, made serious errors in judgement and strategy. ... We cannot wish them away. Nor should we overestimate and assume the worst is inevitable. This leads only to defeatism, inadequate preparations (because they seem useless), and pressures toward either preventative war or undue accommodation." - Herman Kahn's 1962 Thinking About the Unthinkable, Weidenfield and Nicholson, London, pp. 17-19. (In the footnote on page 35, Kahn notes that original nuclear bullshitter, the 1950 creator of fake cobalt-60 doomsday bomb propaganda, Leo Szilard, was in the usual physics groupthink nutters club: "Szilard is probably being too respectful of his scientific colleagues who also seem to indulge in ad hominem arguments - especially when they are out of their technical specialty.")

"Ever since the catastropic and disillusioning experience of 1914-18, war has been unthinkable to most people in the West ... In December 1938, only 3 months after Munich, Lloyd's of London gave odds of 32 to 1 that there would be no war in 1939. On August 7, 1939, the London Daily Express reported the result of a poll of its European reporters. 10 out of 12 said, 'No war this year'. Hitler invaded Poland 3 weeks later." - Herman Kahn's 1962 Thinking About the Unthinkable, Weidenfield and Nicholson, London, p. 39. (But as the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 proved, even the label "war" is now "controversial": the aggressor now simply declares they are on a special operation of unifying people under one flag to ensure peace! So the reason why there is war in Ukraine is that Ukraine is resisting. If it waved a white flag, as the entire arms control and disarmament lobby insists is the only sane response to a nuclear-armed aggressor, there would be "peace," albeit on Russia's terms: that's why they disarmed Ukraine in 1994. "Peace propaganda" of "disarmers"! Free decent people prefer to fight tyranny. But as Kahn states on pp. 7-9:

"Some, most notably [CND's pseudo-historian of arms race lying] A. J. P. Taylor, have even said that Hitler was not like Hitler, that further appeasement [not an all-out arms race as was needed but repeatedly rejected by Baldwin and Chamberlain until far too late; see discussion of this fact which is still deliberately ignored or onfuscated by "historians" of the A. J. P. Taylor biased anti-deterrence left wing type, in Slessor's The Central Blue, quoted on this blog] would have prevented World War II ... If someone says to you, 'One of us has to be reasonable and it is not going to be me, so it has to be you', he has a very effective bargaining advantage, particularly if he is armed with thermonuclear bombs [and you have damn all civil defense, ABM, or credible tactical deterrent]. If he can convince you he is stark, staring mad and if he has enough destructive power ... deterrence alone will not work. You must then give in or accept the possibility of being annihilated ... in the first instance if we fight and lose; in the second if we capitulate without fighting. ... We could still resist by other means ranging from passive resistance of the Gandhi type to the use of underground fighting and sabotage. All of these alternatives might be of doubtful effectiveness against [the Gulag system, KGB/FSB torture camps or Siberian salt mines of] a ruthless dictatorship."

Sometimes people complain that Hitler and the most destructive and costly war and only nuclear war of history, WWII, is given undue attention. But WWII is a good analogy to the danger precisely because of the lying WMD gas war propaganda-based disarmament of the West which allowed the war, because of the attacks by Hitler's fans on civil defense in the West to make even the token rearmament after 1935 ineffective as a credible deterrent, and because Hitler has mirrors in Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Ghengis Khan, Tamerlane, Napoleon and Stalin. Kahn explains on p. 173: "Because history has a way of being more imaginative and complex than even the most imaginative and intelligent analysts, historical examples often provide better scenarios than artificial ones, even though they may be no more directly applicable to current equipment, postures, and political situations than the fictional plot of the scenario. Recent history can be especially useful.")

"One type of war resulting at least partly from deliberate calculation could occur in the process of escalation. For example, suppose the Soviets attacked Europe, relying upon our fear of their reprisal to deter a strategic attack by us; we might be deterred enough to pause, but we might evacuate our cities during this pause in the hope we could thereby convince the Soviets we meant business. If the Soviets did not back down, but continued their attack upon Europe, we might decide that we would be less badly off if we proceeded ... The damage we would receive in return would then be considerably reduced, compared with what we would have suffered had we not evacuated. We might well decide at such a time that we would be better off to attack the Soviets and accept a retalitory blow at our dispersed population, rather than let Europe be occupied, and so be forced to accept the penalty of living in the hostile and dangerous world that would follow." - Herman Kahn's 1962 Thinking About the Unthinkable, Weidenfield and Nicholson, London, pp. 51-2.

"We must recognise that the stability we want in a system is more than just stability against accidental war or even against an attack by the enemy. We also want stability against extreme provocation [e.g. invasion of allies, which then escalates as per invasion of Belgium 1914, or Poland 1939]." - Herman Kahn's 1962 Thinking About the Unthinkable, Weidenfield and Nicholson, London, p. 53(footnote).

Note: this 1962 book should not be confused with Kahn's 1984 "updated" Thinking About the Unthinkable in the 1980s, which omits the best material in the 1962 edition (in the same way that the 1977 edition of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons omits the entire civil defense chapter which was the one decent thing in the 1957 and 1962/4 editions!) and thus shows a reversion to the less readable and less helpful style of his 1960 On Thermonuclear War, which severely fragmented and jumbled up all the key arguments making it easy for critics to misquote or quote out of context. For example, Kahn's 1984 "updated" book starts on the first page of the first chapter with the correct assertion that Johnathan Schell's Fate of the Earth is nonsense, but doesn't say why it's nonsense, and you have to read through to the final chapter - pages 207-8 of chapter 10 - to find Kahn writing in the most vague way possible, without a single specific example, that Schell is wrong because of "substantive inadequacies and inaccuracies", without listing a single example such as Schell's lying that the 1954 Bravo nuclear test blinded everyone well beyond the range of Rongelap, and that it was impossible to easily shield the radiation from the fallout or evacuate the area until it decays, which Schell falsely attributed to Glasstone and Dolan's nonsense in the 1977 Effects of Nuclear Weapons! Kahn eventually in the footnote on page 208 refers readers to an out-of-print article for facts: "These criticisms are elaborated in my review of The Fate of the Earth, see 'Refusing to Think About the Unthinkable', Fortune, June 28, 1982, pp. 113-6. Kahn does the same for civil defense in the 1984 book, referring in such general, imprecise and vague terms to Russian civil defence, with no specific data, that it is a waste of time, apart possibly one half-baked sentence on page 177: "Variations in the total megatonnage, somewhat surprisingly, do not seem to affect the toll nearly as much as variations in the targetting or the type of weapon bursts." Kahn on page 71 quotes an exchange between himself and Senator Proxmire during the US Congressional Hearings of the Joint Committee on Defense Production, Civil preparedness and limited nuclear war where on page 55 of the hearings, Senator Proxmire alleges America would escalate a limited conflict to an all-out war because: "The strategic value and military value of destroying cities in the Soviet Union would be very great." Kahn responded: "No American President is likely to do that, no matter what the provocation." Nuclear war will be limited, according to Herman Kahn's analysis, despite the bullshit fron nutters to the contrary.

Kahn on page 101 of Thinking About the Unthinkable in the 1980s correctly and accurately condemns President Carter's 1979 State of the Union Address, which claimed falsely that just a single American nuclear submarine is required by America and has an "overwhelming" deterrent against "every large and medium-sized city in the Soviet Union". Carter ignored Russian retaliation on cities if you bomb theirs: America has avoided the intense Russian protection efforts that make the Russian nuclear threat credible, namely civil defense shelters and evacuation plans, and also the realpolitik of deterrence of world wars, which so far have only been triggered due to invasions of third parties (Belgium '14, Poland '39). Did America strategically nuke every city in Russia when it invaded Ukraine in 2022? No, debunking Proxmire and the entire Western pro-Russian "automatic escalation" propaganda lobby, and it didn't even have tactical neutron bombs to help deter the Russians like Reagan in the 1980s, because in the 1990s America had ignored Kahn's argument, and went in for MINIMAL deterrence of the least credible sort (abolishing the invasion-deterring dedicated neutron tactical nuclear stockpile entirely; the following quotation is from p101 of Kahn's Thinking About the Unthinkable in the 1980s):

"Minimum deterrence, or any predicated on an escessive emphasis on the inevitably of mutual homocide, is both misleading and dangerous. ... MAD principles can promote provocation - e.g. Munich-type blackmail on an ally. Hitler, for example, did not threaten to attack France or England - only Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. It was the French and the British who finally had to threaten all-out war [they could only do this after rearmament and building shelters and gas masks to reduce the risk of reprisals in city bombing, which gave more time for Germany to prepare since it was rearming faster than France and Britain which still desperately counted on appeasement and peace treaties and feared provoking a war by an arms-race due to endless lying propaganda from Lord Grey that his failure to deter war in 1914 had been due to an arms-race rather than the incompetence of the procrastination of his anti-war Liberal Party colleagues in the Cabinet] - a move they would not and could not have made if the notion of a balance of terror between themselves and Germany had been completely accepted. As it was, the British and French were most reluctant to go to war; from 1933 to 1939 Hitler exploited that reluctance. Both nations [France and Britain] were terrified by the so-called 'knockout blow', a German maneuver that would blanket their capitals with poison gas ... The paralyzing effect of this fear prevented them from going to war ... and gave the Germans the freedom to march into the Ruhr, to form the Anschluss with Austria, to force the humiliating Munich appeasement (with the justification of 'peace in our time'), and to take other aggressive actions [e.g. against the Jews in the Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht, etc.] ... If the USSR were sufficiently prepared in the event a war did occur, only the capitalists would be destroyed. The Soviets would survive ... that would more than justify whatever sacrifice and destruction had taken place.

"This view seems to prevail in the Soviet military and the Politburo even to the present day. It is almost certain, despite several public denials, that Soviet military preparations are based on war-fighting, rather than on deterrence-only concepts and doctrines..." - Herman Kahn, Thinking About the Unthinkable in the 1980s, 1984, pages 101-102.

Kahn adds, in his footnote on p111, that "Richard Betts has documented numerous historical cases in which attackers weakened their opponents defenses through the employment of unanticipated tactics. These include: rapid changes in tactics per se, false alarms and fluctuating preparations for war ... doctrinal innovations to gain surprise. ... This is exactly the kind of thing which is likely to surprise those who subscribe to MAD theories. Those who see a need for war-fighting capabilities expect the other side to try to be creative and use tactical innovations such as coercion and blackmail, technological surprises, or clever tactics on 'leverage' targets, such as command and control installations. If he is to adhere to a total reliance on MAD, the MADvocate has to ignore these possibilities." See Richard Betts, "Surprise Despite Warning: Why Sudden Attacks Succeed", Political Science Quarterly, Winter 1980-81, pp. 551-572.)

Compare two situations: (1) Putin explodes a 50 megaton nuclear "test" of the warhead for his new nuclear reactor powered torpedo, Poseidon, a revamped 1961 Tsar Bomba, or detonates a high-altitude nuclear EMP "test" over neutral waters but within the thousands of miles range of USA or UK territory; (2) Putin invades Poland using purely conventional weapons. Our point here is that both nuclear AND conventional weapons trigger nuclear threats and the risk of nuclear escalation, as indeed they have done (for Putin's nuclear threats scroll down to videos with translations below). So the fashionable CND style concept that only nuclear weapons can trigger nuclear escalation is bullshit, and is designed to help Russia start and win WWIII to produce a world government, by getting us to undertake further unilateral (not multilateral) disarmament, just as evolved in the 1930s, setting the scene for WWII. Japan for example did not have nuclear weapons in August 1945, yet triggered not just tactical nuclear war (both cities had some military bases and munitions factories, as well as enormous numbers of civilians), and the decision to attack cities rather than just "test" weapons obove Tokyo bay as Teller demanded but Oppenheimer rejected (for maximum impact with a very small supply of nuclear weapons) showed some strategic nuclear war thinking. Truman was escalating to try to shock Japan into rapid surrender emotionally (many cities in Japan had already been burned out in conventional incendiary air raids, and the two nuclear attacks while horrible for civilians in those cities contributed only a fraction of the millions killed in WWII, despite anti-nuclear propaganda lies to the contrary). Truman's approach escalating to win is the opposite of the "Minimax game theory" (von Neumann's maths and Thomas Schelling's propaganda) gradual escalation approach that's currently the basis of nuclear deterrence planning despite its failure wherever it has been tried (Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc). Gradual escalation is supposed to minimise the maximum possible risk (hence "minimax" name), but it guarantees failure in the real world (unlike rule abided games) by maximising the build up of resentment. E.g. Schelling/Minimax say that if you gradually napalm civilians day after day (because they are the unprotected human shields used by terrorists/insurgents; the Vietcong are hiding in underground tunnels, exactly like Hamas today, and the Putin regime's metro 2 shelter tunnels under Russia) you somehow "punish the enemy" (although they don't give a toss about the lives of kids which is why you're fighting them!) and force them to negotiate for peace in good faith, then you can pose for photos with them sharing a glass of champagne and there is "world peace". That's a popular fairy tale, like Marxist mythology.

Once you grasp this fact, that nuclear weapons have been and will again be "used" explosively without automatic escalation, for example provocative testing as per the 1961 Russian 50 megaton bomb test, or the 1962 high altitude EMP bursts, you should be able to grasp the fact that the "escalation" deception used to dismiss civil defense and tactical nuclear deterrence against limited nuclear war, is fake news from Russian fellow-travellers like Corbyn. Once you assign a non-unity probability to "escalation", you're into conventional war territory: if you fight a conventional war, it can "escalate" to nuclear war as on 6 August 1945. Japan did not avoid nuclear attack by not having nuclear weapons on 6 August 1945. If it had nuclear weapons ready to be delivered, a very persuasive argument could be made that unless Truman wanted to invite retaliation, World War II would have remained strategically non-nuclear: no net strategic advantage would have been achieved by nuclear city bombing so only war-ending tactical nuclear threats could have prevailed in practice. But try explaining this to the groupthink pseudosocialist bigoted mass murderers who permeate fake physics with crap; it's no easier to explain to them the origins of particle masses or even dark energy/gravitation; in both cases groupthink lying hogwash persists because statements of proved facts are hated and rejected if them debunk religious style fairy tales the mass media loves. There were plenty of people warning that mass media gas war fear mongering was disguised Nazi supporting propaganda in the 1930s, but the public listened to that crap then just as it accepted the "eugenics" (anti-diversity evolution crap of Sir Galton, cousin of Darwin) basis for Hitler's Mein Kampf without question, just as they accepted the lying propaganda from the UK "Cambridge Scientists Anti-War Group" which like CND and all other arms control and disarmament lobbies supporting terrorist states today, did more than even Hitler to deliberately lay the foundations for the Holocaust and World War II, while never being criticised in the UK media! Thus, it's surely time for people to oppose evil lying on civil defence to save lives in all disasters from storms to conventional war, to collateral damage risks in nuclear terrorism by mad enemies. At some point, the majority has to decide to either defend itself honestly and decently against barbarism, or be consumed by it as a price for believing bullshit. It's time for decent people to oppose lying evil regarding the necessity to have credible tactical (not incredible strategic) nuclear weapons, as Oppenheimer called for in his 1951 speech, to deter invasions.

Democracy can't function when secrecy is used to deliberately cover-up vital data from viewing by Joe Public. Secrecy doesn't protect you from enemies who independently develop weapons in secret, or who spy from inside your laboratories:

"The United States and Great Britain resumed testing in 1962, and we spared no effort trying to find out what they were up to. I attended several meetings on that subject. An episode related to those meetings comes to mind ... Once we were shown photographs of some documents ... the photographer had been rushed. Mixed in with the photocopies was a single, terribly crumpled original. I innocently asked why, and was told that it had been concealed in panties. Another time ... questions were asked along the following lines: What data about American weapons would be most useful for your work and for planning military technology in general?"

- Andrei Sakharov, Memoirs, Hutchinson, London, 1990, pp225-6.

ABOVE: The British government has now declassified detailed summary reports giving secret original nuclear test data on the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) damage due to numerous nuclear weapons, data which is still being kept under wraps in America since it hasn't been superseded because Western atmospheric nuclear tests were stopped late in 1962 and never resumed - even though the Russians have even more extensive data - completely debunking Glasstone and Dolan's disarmament propaganda nonsense in the 1962, 1964 and 1977 Effects of Nuclear Weapons which ignores EMP piped far away from low altitude nuclear tests by power and communications cables and falsely claims instead that such detonations don't produce EMP damage outside the 2psi blast radius! For a discussion of the new data and also a link to the full 200+ pages version (in addition to useful data, inevitably like all official reports it also contains a lot of "fluff" padding), please see the other (physics) site: https://nige.wordpress.com/2023/09/12/secret-emp-effects-of-american-nuclear-tests-finally-declassified-by-the-uk-and-at-uk-national-archives/ (by contrast, this "blogspot" uses old non-smartphone proof coding, no longer properly indexed any long longer by "google's smartphone bot"). As long ago as 1984, Herman Kahn argued on page 112 of his book Thinking About the Unthinkable in the 1980s: "The effects of an EMP attack are simply not well understood [in the West, where long powerlines were never exposed on high altitude nuclear tests, unlike the Russian's 1962 Operation K, so MHD-EMP or E3 damage wasn't even mentioned in the 1977 Glasstone and Dolan Effects of Nuclear Weapons], but the Soviets seem to know - or think they know - more than we do."

BELOW: declassified British nuclear war planning blast survival data showing that even without special Morrison table shelters, the American assumption that nobody can survive in a demolished house is false, based on detailed WWII British data (the majority of people in houses flattened within 77 ft from V1 Nazi cruise missiles survived!), and secret American reports (contradicting their unclassified propaganda) proved that blast survival occurred at 16 psi overpressure in Hiroshima's houses, e.g. see limited distribution Dirkwood corp DC-P-1060 for Hiroshima, also the secret 1972 Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons DNA-EM-1 table 10-1, and WWII report RC-450 table 8.2, p145 (for determining survival of people sheltered in brick houses, the WWII A, B, C, and D damage versus casualty data from V1 blast was correlated to similar damage from nuclear blast as given Glasstone's 1957 Effects of Nuclear Weapons page 249, Fig. 6.41a, and page 109 Fig. 3.94a, which show that A, B, C, and D damage to brick houses from nuclear weapons occur at peak overpressures of 9, 6, 3 and 0.5 psi, respectively; the longer blast from higher yields blows the debris over a wider area, reducing the load per unit area falling on to people sheltered under tables etc), and the declassified UK government assessment of nuclear terrorist attack on a port or harbour, as well as the confidential classified UK Government analysis of the economic and social effects from WWII bombing (e.g. the recovery times for areas as a function of percentage of houses destroyed):

Unofficial Russian video on the secret Russian nuclear shelters from Russian Urban Exploration, titled "Проникли на секретный Спецобъект Метро!" = "We infiltrated a secret special facility of the Metro!":

ABOVE: Moscow Metro and Metro-2 (secret nuclear subway) horizonially swinging blast doors take only 70 seconds to shut, whereas their vertically rising blast doors take 160 seconds to shut; both times are however far shorter than the arrival time of Western ICBMs or even SLBMs which take 15-30 minutes by which time the Russian shelters are sealed from blast and radiation! In times of nuclear crisis, Russia planned to evacuate from cities those who could not be sheltered, and for the remainder to be based in shelters (similarly to the WWII British situation, when people slept in shelters of one kind or another when there was a large risk of being bombed without notice, particularly in supersonic V2 missile attacks where little warning time was available).

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ABOVE: originally SECRET diagrams showing the immense casualty reductions for simple shelters and local (not long distance as in 1939) evacuation, from a UK Home Office Scientific Advisers’ Branch report CD/SA 72 (UK National Archives document reference HO 225/72), “Casualty estimates for ground burst 10 megaton bombs”, which exposed the truth behind UK Cold War civil defence (contrary to Russian propaganda against UK defence, which still falsely claims there was no scientific basis for anything, playing on the fact the data was classified SECRET). Evacuation plus shelter eliminates huge casualties for limited attacks; notice that for the 10 megaton bombs (more than 20 times the typical yield of today’s MIRV compact warheads!), you need 20 weapons, i.e. a total of 10 x 20 = 200 megatons, for 1 million killed, if civil defence is in place for 45% of people to evacuate a city and the rest to take shelter. Under civil defence, therefore, you get 1 million killed per 200 megatons. This proves that civil defence work to make deterrence more credible in Russian eyes. For a discussion of the anti-civil defence propaganda scam in the West led by Russian agents for Russian advantage in the new cold war, just read posts on this blog started in 2006 when Putin's influence became clear. You can read the full PDF by clicking the link here. Or see the files here.

ABOVE: the originally CONFIDENTIAL classified document chapters of Dr D.G. Christopherson’s “Structural Defence 1945, RC450”, giving low cost UK WWII shelter effectiveness data, which should also have been published to prove the validity of civil defence countermeasures in making deterrence of future war more credible by allowing survival of “demonstration” strikes and “nuclear accidents / limited wars” (it’s no use having weapons and no civil defence, so you can’t deter aggressors, the disaster of Munich appeasement giving Hitler a green light on 30 September 1938, when Anderson shelters were only issued the next year, 1939!). For the original WWII UK Government low cost sheltering instruction books issued to the public (for a small charge!) please click here (we have uploaded them to internet archive), and please click here for further evidence for the effectiveness of indoor shelters during WWII from Morrison shelter inventor Baker's analysis, please click here (he titled his book about WWII shelters "Enterprise versus Bureaucracy" which tells you all you need to know about the problems his successful innovations in shelter design experienced; his revolutionary concept was that the shelter should be damaged to protect the people inside because of the vast energy absorption soaked up in the plastic deformation of steel - something which naive fools can never appreciate - by analogy, if your car bumper is perfectly intact after impact you're unlikely to be because it has not absorbed the impact energy which has been passed on to you!). We have also placed useful declassified UK government nuclear war survival information on internet archive here and here. There is also a demonstration of how proof-tested WWII shelters were tested in 1950s nuclear weapon trials and adapted for use in Cold War nuclear civil defence, here, thus permanently debunking the somewhat pro-dictatorship/anti-deterrence Jeremy Corbyn/Matthew Grant/Duncan Campbell anti-civil defence propaganda rants which pretend to to based on reality, but obviously just ignore the hard, yet secret, nuclear testing facts upon which UK government civil defence was based as my father (a Civil Defence Corps instructor) explained here back in 2006. The reality is that the media follows herd fashion to sell paper/airtime; it doesn't lead it. This is why it backed Nazi appeasement (cheering Chamberlain's 1938 handshakes with Hitler for instance) and only switched tune when it was too late to deter Nazi aggression in 1939; it made the most money that way. We have to face the facts!

NUKEGATE - Western tactical neutron bombs were disarmed after Russian propaganda lie. Russia now has over 2000... "Disarmament and arms control" charlatans, quacks, cranks, liars, mass murdering Russian affiliates, and evil genocidal Marxist media exposed for what it is, what it was in the 1930s when it enabled Hitler to murder tens of millions in war. Glasstone's and Dolan's 1977 Effects of Nuclear Weapons deceptions totally disproved. Professor Brian Martin, TRUTH TACTICS, 2021 (pp45-50): "In trying to learn from scientific publications, trust remains crucial. The role of trust is epitomised by Glasstone’s book The Effects of Atomic Weapons. Glasstone was not the author; he was the editor. The book is a compilation of information based on the work of numerous contributors. For me, the question was, should I trust this information? Was there some reason why the editors or authors would present fraudulent information, be subject to conflicts of interest or otherwise be biased? ... if anything, the authors would presumably want to overestimate rather than underestimate the dangers ... Of special interest would be anyone who disagreed with the data, calculations or findings in Glasstone. But I couldn’t find any criticisms. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons was treated as the definitive source, and other treatments were compatible with it. ... One potent influence is called confirmation bias, which is the tendency to look for information that supports current beliefs and dismiss or counter contrary information. The implication is that changing one’s views can be difficult due to mental commitments. To this can be added various forms of bias, interpersonal influences such as wanting to maintain relationships, overconfidence in one’s knowledge, desires to appear smart, not wanting to admit being mistaken, and career impacts of having particular beliefs. It is difficult to assess the role of these influences on yourself. "

Honest Effects of Nuclear Weapons!

ABOVE (VIDEO CLIP): Russian State TV Channel 1 war inurer and enabler, NOT MERELY MAKING "INCREDIBLE BLUFF THREATS THAT WE MUST ALL LAUGH AT AND IGNORE LIKE DR GOEBBELS THREATS TO GAS JEWS AND START A WORLD WAR" AS ALMOST ALL THE BBC SCHOOL OF "JOURNALISM" (to which we don't exactly belong!) LIARS CLAIM, but instead preparing Russians mentally for nuclear war (they already have nuclear shelters and a new Putin-era tactical nuclear war civil defense manual from 2014, linked and discussed in blog posts on the archive above), arguing for use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine war in 2023: "We should not be afraid of what it is unnecessary to be afraid of. We need to win. That is all. We have to achieve this with the means we have, with the weapons we have. I would like to remind you that a nuclear weapon is not just a bomb; it is the heritage of the whole Russian people, suffered through the hardest times. It is our heritage. And we have the right to use it to defend our homeland [does he mean the liberated components of the USSR that gained freedom in 1992?]. Changing the [nuclear use] doctrine is just a piece of paper, but it is worth making a decision."

NOTE: THIS IS NOT ENGLISH LANGUAGE "PROPAGANDA" SOLELY ADDRESSED AS A "BLUFF" TO UK AND USA GOV BIGOTED CHARLATANS (those who have framed photos of hitler, stalin, chamberlain, baldwin, lloyd george, eisenhower, et al., on their office walls), BUT ADDRESSED AT MAKING RUSSIAN FOLK PARTY TO THE NEED FOR PUTIN TO START A THIRD WORLD WAR! Duh!!!!! SURE, PUTIN COULD PRESS THE BUTTON NOW, BUT THAT IS NOT THE RUSSIAN WAY, ANY MORE THAN HITLER SET OFF WWII BY DIRECTLY BOMBING LONDON! HE DIDN'T. THESE PEOPLE WANT TO CONTROL HISTORY, TO GO DOWN THE NEXT "PUTIN THE GREAT". THEY WANT TO GET THEIR PEOPLE, AND CHINA, NORTH KOREA, IRAN, ET Al. AS ALLIES, BY APPEARING TO BE DEFENDING RATIONALITY AND LIBERTY AGAINST WAR MONGERING WESTERN IMPERIALISM. For the KGB mindset here, please read Chapman Pincher's book "The Secret offensive" and Paul Mercer's "Peace of the Dead - The Truth Behind the Nuclear Disarmers". Please note that the link to the analysis of the secret USSBS report 92, The Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan (which google fails to appreciate is a report with the OPPOSITE conclusions to the lying unclassified reports and Glasstone's book on fire, is on internet archive in the PDF documents list at the page "The effects of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan" (the secret report 92 of the USSBS, not the lying unclassified version or the Glasstone book series). If you don't like the plain layout of this blog, you can change it into a "fashionable" one with smaller photos you can't read by adding ?m=1 to the end of the URL, e.g. https://glasstone.blogspot.com/2022/02/analogy-of-1938-munich-crisis-and.html?m=1

PLEASE BEAR WITH US - THIS SITE WAS DEVELOPED IN 2006 BEFORE GOOGLE SMARTPHONE BOT CACHING (GOOGLE BOTS CAN'T INDEX THIS FORMAT ANYMORE AS IT IS SIMPLY UNSUITABLE TO SMARTPHONES WHICH DIDN'T EXIST BACK IN 2006 - WILL MOVE TO A NEW DOMAIN SOON TO OVERCOME THIS. (HOPEFULLY THE TEXT WILL ALSO BE EDITED AND RE-WRITTEN TO TAKE OUT TYPING ERRORS AND DEAD LINKS DATING BACK TO 2006 WHEN THE BLOG BEGAN - A LOT HAS CHANGED SINCE THEN!)

Glasstone's Effects of Nuclear Weapons exaggerations completely undermine credible deterrence of war: Glasstone exaggerates urban "strategic" nuclear weapons effects by using effects data taken from unobstructed terrain (without the concrete jungle shielding of blast winds and radiation by cities!), and omits the most vital uses and most vital effects of nuclear weapons: to DETER world war credibly by negating the concentrations of force used to invade Belgium, 1914 (thus WWI) and Poland (WWII). The facts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the shielding of blast and radiation effects by modern concrete buildings in the credible nuclear deterrence of invasions (click here for data) which - unlike the countervalue drivel that failed to prevent WW2 costing millions of human lives - worked in the Cold War despite the Western media's obsession with treating as Gospel truth the lying anti-nuclear propaganda from Russia's World Peace Council and its allies (intended to make the West disarm to allow Russian invasions without opposition, as worked in Ukraine recently)! If we have credible W54's and W79's tactical nukes to deter invasions as used to Cold War, pro Russian World Peace Council inspired propaganda says: "if you use those, we'll bomb your cities", but they can bomb our cities with nuclear if we use conventional weapons, or even if we fart, if they want - we don't actually control what thugs in dictatorships - it is like saying Hitler had 12,000 tons of tabun nerve agent by 1945, so lying we had to surrender for fear of it. Actually, he had to blow his brains out because he had an incredible deterrent, as retaliation risk plus defence (masks) negated it!

Credible deterrence necessitates simple, effective protection against concentrated and dispersed invasions and bombing. The facts can debunk massively inaccurate, deliberately misleading CND "disarm or be annihilated" pro-dictatorship ("communism" scam) political anti-nuclear deterrence dogma. Hiroshima and Nagasaki anti-nuclear propaganda effects lies on blast and radiation for modern concrete cities is debunked by solid factual evidence kept from public sight for political reasons by the Marx-media which is not opposed by the remainder of the media, and the completely fake "nuclear effects data" sneaks into "established pseudo-wisdom" by the back-door. Another trick is hate attacks on anyone telling the truth: this is a repeat of lies from Nobel Peace Prize winner Angell and pals before WWI (when long-"outlawed" gas was used by all sides, contrary to claims that paper agreements had "banned" it somehow) and WWII (when gas bombing lies prior to the war by Angell, Noel-Baker, Joad and others were used as an excuse to "make peace deals" with the Nazis, again, not worth the paper they were printed on). Mathematically, the subset of all States which keep agreements (disarmament and arms control, for instance) is identical to the subset of all States which are stable Democracies (i.e., tolerating dissent for the past several years), but this subset is - as Dr Spencer Weart's statistical evidence of war proves in his book Never at War: Why Democracies Won't Fight One Another - not the bloody war problem! Because none of the disarmaments grasp set theory, or bother to read Dr Weart's book, they can never understand that disarmament of Democracies doesn't cause peace but causes millions of deaths.

PLEASE CLICK HERE for the truth from Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the shielding of blast and radiation effects by modern concrete buildings in the credible nuclear deterrence of invasions which - unlike the countervalue drivel that failed to prevent WW2 costing millions of human lives - worked in the Cold War despite the Western media's obsession with treating as Gospel truth the lying anti-nuclear propaganda from Russia's World Peace Council and its allies (intended to make the West disarm to allow Russian invasions without opposition, as worked in Ukraine recently)! Realistic effects and credible nuclear weapon capabilities are needed for deterring or stopping aggressive invasions and attacks which could escalate into major conventional or nuclear wars. Credible deterrence is through simple, effective protection against concentrated and dispersed invasions and aerial attacks, debunking inaccurate, misleading CND "disarm or be annihilated" left political anti-nuclear deterrence dogma. Hiroshima and Nagasaki anti-nuclear propaganda effects lies on blast and radiation for modern concrete cities is debunked by solid factual evidence kept from public sight for political reasons by the Marx-media.

Glasstone's and Nukemap's fake Effects of Nuclear Weapons effects data for unobstructed deserts, rather than realistic blast and radiation shielding concrete jungles which mitigate countervalue damage as proved in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Penney and Stanbury, undermine credible world war deterrence just as Philip Noel-Baker's 1927 BBC radio propaganda on gas war knock-out blow lies were used by Nazi propaganda distributing "pacifist disarmers" to undermine deterrence of Hitler's war, murdering tens of millions deliberately through lies (e.g. effective gas masks don't exist) that were easy to disprove, but supported by the mainstream fascist leaning press in the UK. There is not just one country, Russia, which could trigger WW3, because we know from history that the world forms alliances once a major war breaks out, apart from a few traditional neutral countries like Ireland and Switzerland, so a major US-China war over Taiwan could draw in support from Russia and North Korea, just as the present Russian invasion and war against Ukraine has drawn in Iranian munitions support for Russia. So it is almost certain that a future East-vs-West world war will involve an alliance of Russia-China-North Korea-Iran fighting on multiple fronts, with nuclear weapons being used carefully for military purposes (not in the imaginary 1930s massive "knockout blow" gas/incendiary/high explosive raids against cities that was used by the UK media to scare the public into appeasing Hitler and thus enabling him to trigger world war; Chamberlain had read Mein Kampf and crazily approved Hitler's plans to exterminate Jews and invade Russia starting a major war, a fact censored out of biased propaganda hailing Chamberlain as a peacemaker).

Realistic effects and credible nuclear weapons capabilities are VITAL for deterring or stopping aggressive invasions and attacks which could escalate into major conventional or nuclear wars debunk Marx media propagandarists who obfuscate because they don't want you to know the truth, so activism is needed to get the message out against lying frauds and open fascists in the Russian supporting Marx mass media, which sadly includes government officialdom (still infiltrated by reds under beds, sorry to Joe MaCarthy haters, but admit it as a hard fact that nuclear bomb labs in the West openly support Russian fascist mass murders; I PRAY THIS WILL SOON CHANGE!).

ABOVE: Tom Ramos at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (quoted at length on the development details of compact MIRV nuclear warhead designs in the latest post on this blog) explains how the brilliant small size primary stage, the Robin, was developed and properly proof-tested in time to act as the primary stage for a compact thermonuclear warhead to deter Russia in the 1st Cold War, something now made impossible due to Russia's World Peace Council propaganda campaigns. (Note that Ramos has a new book published, called From Berkeley to Berlin: How the Rad Lab Helped Avert Nuclear War which describes in detail in chapter 13, "First the Flute and Then the Robin", how caring, dedicated nuclear weapons physicists in the 1950s and 1960s actually remembered the lesson of disarmament disaster in the 1930s, and so WORKED HARD to develop the "Flute" secondary and the "Robin" primary to enable a compact, light thermonuclear warhead to help deter WWIII! What a difference to today, when all we hear from such "weaponeers" now is evil lying about nuclear weapons effects on cities and against Western civil defence and against credible deterrence on behalf of the enemy.)

ABOVE: Star Wars filmmaker Peter Kuran has at last released his lengthy (90 minutes) documentary on The neutron bomb. Unfortunately, it is not yet being widely screened in cinemas or on DVD Blu Ray disc, so you have to stream it (if you have fast broadband internet hooked up to a decent telly). At least Peter managed to interview Samuel Cohen, who developed the neutron bomb out of the cleaner Livermore devices Dove and Starling in 1958 (Ramos says Livermore's director, who invented a wetsuit, is now trying to say Cohen stole the neutron bomb idea from him! Not so, as RAND colleague and 1993 Effects Manual EM-1 editor Dr Harold L. Brode explains in his recent brilliant book on the history of nuclear weapons in the 1st Cold War (reviewed in a post on this blog in detail) that Cohen was after the neutron bomb for many years before Livermore was even built as a rival to Los Alamos. Cohen had been into neutrons when working in the Los Alamos Efficiency Group of the Manhattan project on the very first nuclear weapons, used with neutron effects on people by Truman, back in 1945 to end a bloody war while the Livermore director was in short pants.)

For the true effects in modern city concrete buildings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, disproving the popular lies for nudes in open deserts used as the basis for blast and radiation calculations by Glasstone and Nukemap, please click here The deceptive bigots protraying themselves as Federation of American Scientists genuine communist disarmers in the Marx media including TV scammers have been suppressing the truth to sell fake news since 1945 and in a repetition of the 1920s and 1930s gas war media lying for disarmament and horror news scams that caused disarmament and thus encouraged Hitler to initiate the invasions that set off WWII!

Glasstone's Effects of Nuclear Weapons exaggerations completely undermine credible deterrence of war: Glasstone exaggerates urban "strategic" nuclear weapons effects by using effects data taken from unobstructed terrain (without the concrete jungle shielding of blast winds and radiation by cities!), and omits the most vital uses and most vital effects of nuclear weapons: to DETER world war credibly by negating the concentrations of force used to invade Belgium, 1914 (thus WWI) and Poland (WWII). Disarmament and arms control funded propaganda lying says any deterrent which is not actually exploded in anger is a waste of money since it isn't being "used", a fraud apparently due to the title and content of Glasstone's book which omits the key use and effect of nuclear weapons, to prevent world wars: this is because Glasstone and Dolan don't even bother to mention the neutron bomb or 10-fold reduced fallout in the the Los Alamos 95% clean Redwing-Navajo test of 1956, despite the neutron bomb effects being analysed for its enhanced radiation and reduced thermal and blast yield in detail in the 1972 edition of Dolan's edited secret U.S. Department of Defense Effects Manual EM-1, "Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons", data now declassified yet still being covered-up by "arms control and disarmament" liars today to try to destroy credible deterrence of war in order to bolster their obviously pro-Russian political anti-peace agenda. "Disarmament and arms control" charlatans, quacks, cranks, liars, mass murdering Russian affiliates, and evil genocidal Marxist media exposed for what it is, what it was in the 1930s when it enabled Hitler to murder tens of millions in war .

ABOVE: 11 May 2023 Russian state TV channel 1 loon openly threatens nuclear tests and bombing UK. Seeing how the Russian media is under control of Putin, this is like Dr Goebbels rantings, 80 years past. But this doesn't disprove the world war threat any more than it did with Dr Goebbels. These people, like the BBC here, don't just communicate "news" but attempt to do so selectively and with interpretations and opinions that set the stage for a pretty obviously hate based political agenda with their millions of viewers, a trick that worked in the 1st Cold War despite Orwell's attempts to lampoon it in books about big brother like "1984" and "Animal Farm". When in October 1962 the Russians put nuclear weapons into Cuba in secret without any open "threats", and with a MASSIVELY inferior overall nuclear stockpile to the USA (the USA had MORE nuclear weapons, more ICBMs, etc.), the media made a big fuss, even when Kennedy went on TV on 22 October and ensured no nuclear "accidents" in Cuba by telling Russia that any single accidentally launched missile from Cuba against any Western city would result in a FULL RETALITORY STRIKE ON RUSSIA. There was no risk of nuclear war then except by accident, and Kennedy had in his 25 May 1961 speech on "Urgent National Needs" a year and a half before instigated NUCLEAR SHELTERS in public basement buildings to help people in cities survive (modern concrete buildings survive near ground zero Hiroshima, as proved by declassified USSBS reports kept covered up by Uncle Sam). NOE THAT THERE IS A CREDIBLE THREAT OF NUCLEAR TESTS AND HIROSHIMA TYPE INTIMIDATION STRIKES, THE BBC FINALLY DECIDES TO SUPPRESS NUCLEAR NEWS SUPPOSEDLY TO HELP "ANTI-NUCLEAR" RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA TRYING TO PREVENT US FROM GETTING CREDIBLE DETERRENCE OF INVASIONS, AS WE HAD WITH THE W79 UNTIL DISARMERS REMOVED IT IN THE 90s! This stinks of prejudice, the usual sort of hypocrisy from the 1930s "disarmament heroes" who lied their way to Nobel peace prizes by starting a world war!

The facts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the shielding of blast and radiation effects by modern concrete buildings in the credible nuclear deterrence of invasions (click here for data) which - unlike the countervalue drivel that failed to prevent WW2 costing millions of human lives - worked in the Cold War despite the Western media's obsession with treating as Gospel truth the lying anti-nuclear propaganda from Russia's World Peace Council and its allies (intended to make the West disarm to allow Russian invasions without overwhelming, effective deterrence or opposition, as worked in Ukraine recently)!

Realistic effects and credible nuclear weapon capabilities are required now for deterring or stopping aggressive invasions and attacks which could escalate into major conventional or nuclear wars. Credible deterrence necessitates simple, effective protection against concentrated and dispersed invasions and bombing. The facts can debunk massively inaccurate, deliberately misleading CND "disarm or be annihilated" pro-dictatorship ("communism" scam) political anti-nuclear deterrence dogma. Hiroshima and Nagasaki anti-nuclear propaganda effects lies on blast and radiation for modern concrete cities is debunked by solid factual evidence kept from public sight for political reasons by the Marx-media, which is not opposed by the fashion-obsessed remainder of the media, and so myths sneak into "established pseudo-wisdom" by the back-door.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Radiation Effects Research Foundation lumps data together to cover up benefits of low dose radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki Life Span Study (LSS)!


Above: film of the Effects of Nuclear Weapons, beginning by debunking the radiation myths of Hiroshima. The 1977 edition of the Effects of Nuclear Weapons book, by Glasstone and Dolan, gives further data showing that there is evidence for "threshold" doses below which no negative effects occur:

"From the earlier studies of radiation-induced mutations, made with fruitflies [by Nobel Laureate Hermann J. Muller and other geneticists who worked on plants, who falsely hyped their insect and plant data as valid for mammals like humans during the June 1957 U.S. Congressional Hearings on fallout effects], it appeared that the number (or frequency) of mutations in a given population ... is proportional to the total dose ... More recent experiments with mice, however, have shown that these conclusions need to be revised, at least for mammals. [Mammals are biologically closer to humans, in respect to DNA repair mechanisms, than short-lived insects whose life cycles are too small to have forced the evolutionary development of advanced DNA repair mechanisms, unlike mammals that need to survive for decades before reproducing.] When exposed to X-rays or gamma rays, the mutation frequency in these animals has been found to be dependent on the exposure (or dose) rate ...

"At an exposure rate of 0.009 roentgen per minute [0.54 R/hour], the total mutation frequency in female mice is indistinguishable from the spontaneous frequency. [Emphasis added.] There thus seems to be an exposure-rate threshold below which radiation-induced mutations are absent ... with adult female mice ... a delay of at least seven weeks between exposure to a substantial dose of radiation, either neutrons or gamma rays, and conception causes the mutation frequency in the offspring to drop almost to zero. ... recovery in the female members of the population would bring about a substantial reduction in the 'load' of mutations in subsequent generations."

- Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 3rd ed., 1977, pp. 611-3.




Above: the theory of the experimentally observed threshold doses for the radium dial painters and for the Hiroshima survivors.



In 1996, half a century after the nuclear detonations, data on cancers from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors was published by D. A. Pierce et al. of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, RERF (Radiation Research vol. 146 pp. 1-27; Science vol. 272, pp. 632-3) for 86,572 survivors, of whom 60% had received bomb doses of over 5 mSv (or 500 millirem in old units) suffering 4,741 cancers of which only 420 were due to radiation, consisting of 85 leukemias and 335 solid cancers.




Above: how to lie with statistics, applied by the 'Radiation Effects Research Foundation' (RERF) in its deceiving propaganda online guide, A Brief Description (6 MB) which is U.S. Department of Energy part-funded; you lump together all the low dose-end Hiroshima and Nagasaki lifespan study (LSS) data until you get enough higher dose survivors in the group so that the overall excess risk for that disproportionately large group becomes positive, to cover up the truth.

They are covering up the data at low doses to obfuscate statistical evidence of benefits and threshold for injury (for low doses the dosimetry is most accurate as we shall see, due to the little shielding that the average survivor had; the shielding calculations for large shielding factors at high doses are the major source of dosimetry error as indicated by the temporary epilation dose-response curve).

RERF are also lumping together Hiroshima data (where neutron doses were relatively high) with Nagasaki data (where the hydrogen nuclei - protons - in the implosion TNT shell around the plutonium core substantially slowed down the neutrons that escaped, reducing the neutron doses in Nagasaki to below those from the gun-type assembly Hiroshima bomb). Threshold and beneficial effects of gamma radiation should show up most strongly in the Nagasaki data, where neutron doses were smallest (gamma rays at Nagasaki usually just knocked out electrons from atoms by the Compton effect, but at Hiroshima, the higher contribution of neutrons knocked whole protons out of hydrogen nuclei, which caused more irrepairable DNA damage and probably prevented low dose benefits or threshold response, and this effect is not corrected by simply assigning a relative biological effectiveness of 20 or so to neutron doses).

Thus, lumping the data from both cities together tragically obscures the beneficial effects of gamma radiation at low doses in the resulting statistics; the Nagasaki data is vitally important for fallout decontamination in civil defence.

Additionally, the RERF must publish a full analysis of the effects of average dose rate at Hiroshima and Nagasaki upon the effects of particular dose intervals. Dose rates did vary because the time interval (up to tens of seconds for most of the gamma radiation from the buoyantly rising fireball) over which the initial nuclear radiation was emitted was only a weak function of distance, whereas the doses were a strong function of distance. Because single strands of DNA in each body cell are naturally broken about twice a second in each cell and are naturally repaired, the dose rate variations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been enough to have had some effect on cancer induction. In any case, knowledge of the averaged dose rates are vital for comparison with other human cancer induction data where the dose rate was different.

The statistics in the paper by Chen and others has been alleged to apply to a younger age group than the general population, affecting the significance of the data, although in other ways the data are more valid than Hiroshima and Nagasaki data extrapolations to low doses. For instance, the radiation cancer scare mongering of survivors of high doses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been prejudiced in the sense of preventing a blind to avoid “anti-placebo” effect, e.g. increased fear, psychological stress and worry about the long term effects of radiation, and associated behaviour. The 1958 book about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors, “Formula for Death”, makes the point that highly irradiated survivors often smoked more, in the belief that they were doomed to die from radiation induced cancer anyway. Therefore, the fear culture of the irradiated survivors would statistically be expected to result in a deviancy from normal behaviour, in some cases increasing the cancer risks above those due purely to radiation exposure.

For up-to-date data and literature discussions on the effects of DNA repair enzymes on preventing cancers from low-dose rate radiation, please see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis

See the earlier post, linked here, and also the post here on the history of the low-level effects exaggeration. The linear non-threshold (LNT) anti-civil defence dogma results from ignoring the vitally important effects of the dose rate on cancer induction, which have been known and published in papers by Mole and a book by Loutit for about 50 years; the current dogma which is falsely based on merely the total dose, thus ignoring the time-dependent ability of protein P53 and other to cancer-prevention mechanisms to repair broken DNA segments. This is particularly the case for double strand breaks (which form about 4% of radiation induced DNA breaks, and 0.007% of spontaneous breaks at body temperature, i.e. typically 15 natural double strand breaks per cell per day), where the whole double helix gets broken; the repair of single strand breaks is less time-dependent because there is no risk of the broken single strand being joined to the wrong end of a broken DNA segment. Repair is only successful in preventing cancer if the broken ends are rapaired correctly before too many unrepaired breaks have accumulated in a short time; if too many double strand breaks occur quickly, segments can be incorrectly 'repaired' with double strand breaks being miss-matched to the wrong segments ends, possibly inducing cancer if the resulting somatic cell can then undergo division successfully without apoptosis. In these earlier posts, we saw how the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) website was covering up the scientific effects on radiation and presenting false information as propaganda to exaggerate the effects of nuclear weapons and thus devalue civil defence. Now they have removed some of the offensive material and put up some facts (however notice that they omit error-bars from their data points, so they are still not following strictly scientific protocol):



Above: the new graph on the Radiation Effects Research Foundation website (note that the unit 1 Gy = Gray = 1 Joule/kilogram of deposited radiation energy in the target material = 100 cGy = 100 rads), showing the non-linear radiation effects of leukemia, the biggest radiation cancer problem (but notice that this curve only applies to one age group and one year after exposure, and is just a carefully selected subset of the data they now have which we will examine later; notice also how they literally cover-up the latest 2002 DS02 dosimetry data points for low doses, with irrelevant obsolete data points from the superseded 1986 DS86 dosimetry report!):

'As of the year 2000, there were 204 leukemia deaths among 49,204 Life Span Study survivors with a bone marrow dose of at least 0.005 Gy, an excess of 94 cases (46%) attributable to A-bomb radiation. In contrast to dose-response patterns for other cancers [which are generally more survivable and show far less radiation effects response anyway], that for leukemia appears to be nonlinear; low doses may be less effective than would be predicted by a simple linear dose response.'




Above: graph using earlier 1982 data, demonstrating why leukemia is so important: it shows a greater dose-effects response than other cancers. Solid cancers tend to respond better to treatment than leukemia. Notice the log-log scales (with marked discontinuity to linear scale where zero dose is indicated, since of course zero does not appear on a logarithmic axis): this log-log scale is needed to clearly show the effects at low doses, where the results are more accurate due to more people being exposed to lower doses than higher doses. The new presentation tries to cover-up the effects of low doses by using linear (not logarithmic) graph axes! It is very important to emphasise the two essential reasons why the data for low doses is more accurate:

(1) the dosimetry is more accurate for lower doses (the average shielding of survivor is less at low doses, for obvious reasons, making dosimetry far more accurate), and
(2) the sample size of exposed people is bigger than at high doses.

There is evidence that the dosimetry is inaccurate for high doses from the curve of temporary epilation (hair loss) versus dose, which we will discuss later. The problem with dosimetry at the high doses, near ground zero, is that the relatively few survivors at high doses tended to have substantial radiation protection by buildings, so the shielding calculations (which were not checked against atmospheric nuclear test data like the free-field dose data) were very important for survivors with high doses, but were not important for survivors with lower doses (where many people survived despite being outdoors and relatively unprotected). The larger number of people exposed to lower doses also makes the effects curve more accurate at lower doses than at higher doses, because statistically the larger sample at low doses is less likely to be in error due to mistakes in the locations of survivors than the smaller sample for higher doses. These facts would make the lower dose data more accurate, and is why there should be error bars on the data points to show which parts of the data are the most accurate: but the RERF is omitting error bars from data points!

The illustrated ABC Dose/Dose Rate Model that predicts the beneficial effects of radiation and the threshold is described in its formative stages in an earliest post (linked here): this model includes constants A, B and C, and dose or dose rate D, and predicts beneficial effects from low doses or low dose rates by a natural exponential term (beneficial effect = A*e-BD where A is the cancer risk at zero dose or dose rate D, and B is a constant) which, when summed with the usual linear no-threshold curve for high doses/rates, produces:

(A) the observed small benefit of very low doses/rates,
(B) the threshold dose/rate, and then
(C) the linear response at high doses/rates, which is why it can be called an ABC Dose Model (obviously the linear response curve must break down at very high doses because the risk of 1 person getting cancer can never exceed 100%).

There should be two versions of the model, one for acute doses and one for dose rates (chronic exposure). The dose rates involved for initial nuclear radiation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were very high, since most of the radiation was received within a minute. Similar doses received at lower dose rates would not overwork DNA repair mechanisms so much, so they should allow greater repair of DNA and greater beneficial effects by stimulation of the repair mechanisms (like regular workouts at a gym; building up strength).

This model is based on the review, in 2005, of the mechanism behind the Hiroshima and Nagasaki data at low doses, by L. E. Feinendegen in his paper, 'Evidence for beneficial low level radiation effects and radiation hormesis' in the British Journal of Radiology, vol. 78, pp. 3-7:

'Low doses in the mGy range [1 mGy = 0.1 rad, since 1 Gray = 1 Joule/kg = 100 rads] cause a dual effect on cellular DNA. One is a relatively low probability of DNA damage per energy deposition event and increases in proportion to the dose. At background exposures this damage to DNA is orders of magnitude lower than that from endogenous sources, such as reactive oxygen species. The other effect at comparable doses is adaptive protection against DNA damage from many, mainly endogenous, sources, depending on cell type, species and metabolism. Adaptive protection causes DNA damage prevention and repair and immune stimulation. It develops with a delay of hours, may last for days to months, decreases steadily at doses above about 100 mGy to 200 mGy and is not observed any more after acute exposures of more than about 500 mGy. Radiation-induced apoptosis and terminal cell differentiation also occur at higher doses and add to protection by reducing genomic instability and the number of mutated cells in tissues. At low doses reduction of damage from endogenous sources by adaptive protection maybe equal to or outweigh radiogenic damage induction. Thus, the linear-no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis for cancer risk is scientifically unfounded and appears to be invalid in favour of a threshold or hormesis. This is consistent with data both from animal studies and human epidemiological observations on low-dose induced cancer. The LNT hypothesis should be abandoned and be replaced by a hypothesis that is scientifically justified and causes less unreasonable fear and unnecessary expenditure.'




Above: non-cancerous effects of radiation show low dose benefits and threshold evidence.

Notice how in their leukemia effects curve, RERF deliberately cover-up the new DS02 data points using old obsolete and irrelevant DS86 data points! But since they're abusing the earlier DS86 data, let's look at some facts in that DS86 data that they want to hush up:



Above: Y. Shimizu, et al., Life Span Study Report II, Part 2, Cancer Mortality in the Years 1950-1985 Based on the Recently Revised Doses (DS86), Radiation Effects Research Foundation, RERF-TR-5-88. You can see that small doses up to 5 rads have no effect either way on the leukemia risk, while 6-9 rads in this data seems to cause a reduction in normal leukemia risk from 0.17% to 0.12%. Doses which exceed this are harmful: the P53 repair mechanism was saturated and could not repair radiation induced damage to DNA due to the rate it occurred at the higher doses.

DS86 and DS02 in the RERF curve above refer to the 1986 and 2002 dosimetry systems, which are nuclear radiation transport codes developed originally for predicting the effects of nuclear weapons. The 2002 dosimetry system for Hiroshima and Nagasaki was validated against the measured radiation doses from the 500 kt pure fission IVY-KING nuclear air burst at Eniwetok Atoll, as well as against the early Nevada tests of heavy implosion devices, very similar in design to the Nagasaki bomb: RANGER-FOX, BUSTER JANGLE-CHARLIE, and BUSTER JANGLE-DOG. (Reference: DS02 dosimetry report, pages 167-8.) It was also accurately validated for neutrons by comparing neutron induced residual radioactivity measurements in various impurities in structural steel and other materials in the cities at various distances with the amounts of neutron induced activity predicted by the computer code, and for gamma radiation doses the model was accurately validated by thermoluminescence of crystalline materials in roof tiles and such like (gamma radiation exposure causes electron displacements in crystals, and thus rearranges the crystal structure; this trapped energy can subsequently be emitted as light when the crystal is heated years later, allowing many crystalline materials to behave as accurate gamma dosimeters after correction for background radiation by correlation with similar materials which were at distances that did not receive bomb radiation).



Above: 'Sex and Civil Defense' unhelpfully tries to use humour to discredit lying propaganda hype on the genetic effects of radiation, published in the February 1983 issue of the Journal of Civil Defense page 10, linked here. However, there is no humour to be found in the sad facts about lying radiation propaganda and its effects on the world. Because the scientific community were unable to communicate the facts efficiently against pseudo-scientific propaganda, over 100,000 human lives were lost by abortions after Chernobyl: in 1995, environmentalist Michael Allaby stated on pages 191-7 of his book Facing the Future: the Case for Science (Bloomsbury, London):

'The clear aim of the anti-nuclear movement is to silence all opposition ... theirs are now the only voices heard ... In the Gomel district ... which was one of the most heavily contaminated [after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986], the death rate per thousand newborn babies was 16.3 in 1985, 13.4 in 1986, and 13.1 in 1987; in Kiev region the figures ... were, respectively, 15.5, 12.2, and 12.1.'


The International Atomic Energy Authority has reported that over 100,000 excess abortions were performed throughout Western Europe after the Chernobyl accident (reference: L. E. Ketchum, Lessons of Chernobyl: SNM members try to decontaminate world threatened by fallout, Part I [Newsline], J. Nucl. Med., vol. 28, 1987, pp. 413-22).

Therefore, unjustified fear of radiation promoted by people with axes to grind is not 'harmless scare-mongering quackery for promoting terrorism by communist or other groups of dictatorial thugs', but it has been proved by experience to be nefarious; costing many, many human lives. We rightly denounce the pseudoscience of Nazi eugenics for the Holocaust and we denounce the flawed Marxist utopian ideology which needs to be fostered on people by Stalinism for killing more innocent human beings than the Holocaust in the purges, so scientifically we must place the lethal effects of pseudoscience on low level radiation for political purposes into the same category of fanatical dogma and groupthink that murdered so many people. The lesson? Pseudoscience, when widely promoted and made into mainstream dogma, can result in evil consequences.

‘Today we have a population of 2,383 [radium dial painter] cases for whom we have reliable body content measurements. . . . All 64 bone sarcoma [cancer] cases occurred in the 264 cases with more than 10 Gy [1,000 rads], while no sarcomas appeared in the 2,119 radium cases with less than 10 Gy.’


- Dr Robert Rowland, Director of the Center for Human Radiobiology, Bone Sarcoma in Humans Induced by Radium: A Threshold Response?, Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting, European Society for Radiation Biology, Radioprotection colloquies, Vol. 32CI (1997), pp. 331-8.



Dr Philip Abelson, Editor Emeritus of Science journal, in an editorial on 'Risk Assessments of Low-Level Exposures' published in Science, vol. 265, 9 September 1994 issue, p. 1507, wrote:

'The current mode of extrapolating high-dose to low-dose effects is erroneous for both chemicals and radiation. Safe levels of exposure exist. The public has been needlessly frightened and deceived, and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted. A hard-headed, rapid examination of phenomena occurring at low exposures should have a high priority.'


J. Strzelczyk, W. Potter and Z. Zdrojewicz state in their paper, 'Rad-By-Rad (Bit-By-Bit): Triumph of Evidence Over Activities Fostering Fear of Radiogenic Cancers at Low Doses', Dose Response, vol. 5 (2007), issue 4, pp. 275-283:

'Large segments of Western populations hold sciences in low esteem. This trend became particularly pervasive in the field of radiation sciences in recent decades. The resulting lack of knowledge, easily filled with fear that feeds on itself, makes people susceptible to prevailing dogmas. Decades-long moratorium on nuclear power in the US, resentment of "anything nuclear", and delay/refusal to obtain medical radiation procedures are some of the societal consequences. The problem has been exacerbated by promulgation of the linear-no-threshold (LNT) dose response model by advisory bodies such as the ICRP, NCRP and others. This model assumes no safe level of radiation and implies that response is the same per unit dose regardless of the total dose. The most recent (June 2005) report from the National Research Council, BEIR VII (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation) continues this approach and quantifies potential cancer risks at low doses by linear extrapolation of risk values obtained from epidemiological observations of populations exposed to high doses, 0.2 Sv to 3 Sv. It minimizes the significance of a lack of evidence for adverse effects in populations exposed to low doses, and discounts documented beneficial effects of low dose exposures on the human immune system. The LNT doctrine is in direct conflict with current findings of radiobiology and important features of modern radiation oncology.

'Fortunately, these aspects are addressed in-depth in another major report—issued jointly in March 2005 by two French Academies, of Sciences and of Medicine. The latter report is much less publicized, and thus it is a responsibility of radiation professionals, physicists, nuclear engineers, and physicians to become familiar with its content and relevant studies, and to widely disseminate this information. To counteract biased media, we need to be creative in developing means of sharing good news about radiation with co-workers, patients, and the general public.'



W. L. Chen, Y. C. Luan, M. C. Shieh, S. T. Chen, H. T. Kung, K. L. Soong, Y. C. Yeh, T. S. Chou, S. H. Mong, J. T. Wu, C. P. Sun, W. P. Deng, M. F. Wu, and M. L. Shen, ‘Is Chronic Radiation an Effective Prophylaxis Against Cancer?’, published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring 2004, page 6, available in PDF format here:


‘An extraordinary incident occurred 20 years ago in Taiwan. Recycled steel, accidentally contaminated with cobalt-60 ([low dose rate, gamma radiation emitter] half-life: 5.3 y), was formed into construction steel for more than 180 buildings, which 10,000 persons occupied for 9 to 20 years. They unknowingly received radiation doses that averaged 0.4 Sv, a collective dose of 4,000 person-Sv. Based on the observed seven cancer deaths, the cancer mortality rate for this population was assessed to be 3.5 per 100,000 person-years. Three children were born with congenital heart malformations, indicating a prevalence rate of 1.5 cases per 1,000 children under age 19.


‘The average spontaneous cancer death rate in the general population of Taiwan over these 20 years is 116 persons per 100,000 person-years. Based upon partial official statistics and hospital experience, the prevalence rate of congenital malformation is 23 cases per 1,000 children. Assuming the age and income distributions of these persons are the same as for the general population, it appears that significant beneficial health effects may be associated with this chronic radiation exposure. ...’





Above: the harmful effects of radiation are approximately linear but there is another effect which also needs to be incorporated into the overall dose-effects curve for radiation, even where the dose rate is high as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki initial nuclear exposure lasting under a minute. This extra effect is the increased stimulation of DNA repair and self-destruction enzymes, which work faster when they detect the free radicals and hydrogen peroxide formed by radiation hitting cellular water, preventing the usual cancer incidence occurring at low doses. This beneficial effect is similar to the hormesis effect that most vitamins and certain minerals have on us: too much sodium kills you, but too little sodium kills you because it’s needed for electrolyte balance. There is a range over which the dose has a benefit: outside that range, it is bad. The radiation hormesis effect exponentially reduces the natural cancer incidence as dose increases, while the harmful component of the overall effect of the dose is more simple and rises linearly. The net result is a curve that dips into negative effects (i.e. benefits of reduced risk, not harmful effects) for a while at low doses, before hitting a threshold equal to the zero dose incidence, and then rising at higher doses into harmful overall results.

Zbigniew Jaworowski, 'Radiation Risk and Ethics: Health Hazards, Prevention Costs, and Radiophobia', Physics Today, April 2000, pp. 89-90:


‘... it is important to note that, given the effects of a few seconds of irradiation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, a threshold near 200 mSv may be expected for leukemia and some solid tumors. [Sources: UNSCEAR, Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation, New York, 1994; W. F. Heidenreich, et al., Radiat. Environ. Biophys., vol. 36 (1999), p. 205; and B. L. Cohen, Radiat. Res., vol. 149 (1998), p. 525.] For a protracted lifetime natural exposure, a threshold may be set at a level of several thousand millisieverts for malignancies, of 10 grays for radium-226 in bones, and probably about 1.5-2.0 Gy for lung cancer after x-ray and gamma irradiation. [Sources: G. Jaikrishan, et al., Radiation Research, vol. 152 (1999), p. S149 (for natural exposure); R. D. Evans, Health Physics, vol. 27 (1974), p. 497 (for radium-226); H. H. Rossi and M. Zaider, Radiat. Environ. Biophys., vol. 36 (1997), p. 85 (for radiogenic lung cancer).] The hormetic effects, such as a decreased cancer incidence at low doses and increased longevity, may be used as a guide for estimating practical thresholds and for setting standards. ...


‘Though about a hundred of the million daily spontaneous DNA damages per cell remain unrepaired or misrepaired, apoptosis, differentiation, necrosis, cell cycle regulation, intercellular interactions, and the immune system remove about 99% of the altered cells. [Source: R. D. Stewart, Radiation Research, vol. 152 (1999), p. 101.] ...


‘[Due to the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986] as of 1998 (according to UNSCEAR), a total of 1,791 thyroid cancers in children had been registered. About 93% of the youngsters have a prospect of full recovery. [Source: C. R. Moir and R. L. Telander, Seminars in Pediatric Surgery, vol. 3 (1994), p. 182.] ... The highest average thyroid doses in children (177 mGy) were accumulated in the Gomel region of Belarus. The highest incidence of thyroid cancer (17.9 cases per 100,000 children) occurred there in 1995, which means that the rate had increased by a factor of about 25 since 1987.


‘This rate increase was probably a result of improved screening [not radiation!]. Even then, the incidence rate for occult thyroid cancers was still a thousand times lower than it was for occult thyroid cancers in nonexposed populations (in the US, for example, the rate is 13,000 per 100,000 persons, and in Finland it is 35,600 per 100,000 persons). Thus, given the prospect of improved diagnostics, there is an enormous potential for detecting yet more [fictitious] "excess" thyroid cancers. In a study in the US that was performed during the period of active screening in 1974-79, it was determined that the incidence rate of malignant and other thyroid nodules was greater by 21-fold than it had been in the pre-1974 period. [Source: Z. Jaworowski, 21st Century Science and Technology, vol. 11 (1998), issue 1, p. 14.]’



Here is a brief explanation from the December 2002 issue of Discover magazine article Is radiation good for you? by Will Hively:

‘Any idiot should be able to poison a plant. That's what Edward Calabrese thought in 1966 as a junior at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. He was in a plant physiology class at the time, and his lab group had been told to dose some peppermint with an herbicide called Phosfon. ... the lesson backfired. Instead of shriveling, the crop grew green and luxuriant. "Either you treated the plants with the wrong chemical, or you mislabeled them," the professor said. "God forbid, you discovered something new."

‘When Calabrese next tried to repeat the experiment, the peppermint shriveled as expected. But the professor had been right: Calabrese had discovered something new. When he sprayed the plants with a diluted dose of the poison, as he had done mistakenly the first time, the plants thrived. By every measure—height, weight, root length—they did about 40 percent better than those that did not get Phosfon. ...

‘Poisons that injure or kill at high doses can have the opposite effect at low doses, he says, and the paradox holds true for every conceivable measure of health—growth, fertility, life span, and immune and mental function. The effect is known as hormesis, from the Greek word for excite. "The implications," he says, "are enormous."

‘During the past decade, Calabrese has combed through tens of thousands of studies for examples of the effect, and he has found them in impressive numbers. Worms exposed to excessive heat, rats given a little dioxin, mice and humans exposed to low-level radiation—all have lived longer, in controlled experiments, than they would have without the toxins. ...

‘It also becomes scary. Using toxins to improve health sounds both irresponsible and suspiciously convenient for polluters. If a little dioxin is good for you, why bother to clean up the Hudson River? If a touch of arsenic can fend off cancer, why lower the allowable amount in drinking water, as the Environmental Protection Agency has urged? "This is one of the major awakenings we are going through," Calabrese says. "We really don't see any exceptions, and that's hard for people to deal with. But I have so much data—this is so overwhelmingly convincing—that I don't think anyone rational could deny that hormesis exists." ... Paracelsus, a 16th-century Swiss-German pharmacologist ... declared: "All things are poison and nothing is without poison. It is the dose that makes a thing a poison." This was common sense of a sort: We all know that even essential nutrients like sodium become toxic in high doses. ...

‘Poisons, the psychiatrist Rudolf Arndt and the pharmacologist Hugo Schulz declared, simply have a lower threshold of toxicity than other substances; taken in the right quantity, they can do good. As the Arndt-Schulz law put it: Poisons are stimulants in small doses. Arndt based his conclusions on animal experiments, Schulz on studies of yeast fermentation. ...

‘Soon after the discovery of X rays in 1895, researchers began publishing reports of radiation hormesis, claiming, for example, that low doses stimulated plants. At the same time, some quacks began touting radioactive patent medicines for every conceivable human ailment. It's not clear how many people exposed themselves to such elixirs, but the fad came to an abrupt halt with several well-publicized poisonings. In 1932, for instance, industrialist Eben Byers died from bone cancer presumably caused by his regular intake of radium supplements. Meanwhile, other researchers had shown that radiation causes chromosome damage in fruit flies—the higher the dose, the more mutations.

‘After World War II, physicists and others unhappy with the spread of nuclear weapons fanned the fear of radiation. By the time Calabrese's generation went to school, all mention of hormesis had dropped out of textbooks. ...

‘The general principle behind hormesis ... is homeostasis: the tendency of an organism to keep itself on an even keel. We respond to a rise in temperature by sweating. We respond to invading microbes by cranking up the immune system. Hormesis occurs when our bodies overcompensate, reaching a new and healthier equilibrium. When the immune system "remembers" foreign proteins, for instance, it can gear up quicker to cope with similar challenges, and the organism becomes more resistant to disease. Friedrich Nietzsche wasn't far off the mark, hormesis researchers say: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Some would even cite weightlifting, running, and character-building experiences as examples of stresses that produce hormesis. ...

‘Drugs typically lock onto receptors that signal the body to produce more of some needed chemical—a hormone, say—or to remove it from circulation. If low doses of poisons act just like medicines, then they should affect the same pathways. Calabrese and Baldwin have identified about 30 types of receptors that drugmakers target. They regulate important functions such as cell division, immune responses, and nerve signals, and they seem likely places where toxins would act. ...

‘As for immune-system stimulants, the best example may be radiation. While most scientists dismissed radiation treatments as quackery after World War II, a handful continued to test it as a way to prevent metastasis in cancer patients. In 1976 and 1979, two small clinical trials at Harvard found that low-dose radiation boosted four-year metastatic cancer survival rates from 40 to 70 percent and from 52 to 74 percent. Five years ago, a study at Tohoku University in Japan reported that patients who received low-dose radiation had an 84 percent chance of surviving for 12 years; those who didn't receive it had only a 50 percent chance of surviving nine years. ...

‘Myron Pollycove ... finds that low-level radiation benefits the body in at least two ways: It stimulates the immune system in the constant search-and-destroy mission against cancerous cells, and it stimulates DNA repair. ... all radiation causes damage, even at low doses, but ... the stimulation it provides more than compensates [at low doses] for the damage. For cancer therapy, they recommend the Japanese procedure, in which patients first get conventional high-dose radiation and/or chemotherapy to kill off tumors, then follow it up with low-dose treatments to stimulate hormesis and fight metastasis.’


THE FACTS ABOUT DNA REPAIR MECHANISMS AND LOW LEVEL RADIATION

The structure of DNA was of course discovered using DNA in a solid crystalline form by X-ray diffraction (Crick and Watson, 1953). However, in the human body DNA is not in that form but is immersed in water at 37 oC and is therefore continually being buffeted by Brownian motion from other molecules. The DNA strands in every single cell on the human body are naturally broken (single strand breaks) 200,000 times every single day, or 2.3 times per second! About 4% of the total number of radiation-induced DNA breaks are double strand breaks (the DNA molecule is a double helix, with two strands in it), and 0.007% of spontaneous DNA breaks are double strand breaks. To prevent every cell rapidly turning cancerous, the human body dedicates a great deal of effort to repairing the damage occurring all the time.

It is well known that the rate at which mammals breathe is depends in part upon the concentration of harmful carbon dioxide in the air. Similarly, the rate at which DNA damage is repaired depends partly upon the rate at which damage is done to DNA.

In the late 1970s, proteins like P53, involved in the repair of the broken DNA strands, were discovered. In the 1960s, French studies were carried out on the effect of background radiation upon protozoans shielded from the natural background radiation by 5 and 10 cm of lead: they grew at 60% and 40%, respectively, of the natural growth rates for normal background radiation! This was the first solid evidence that indicated that background gamma radiation is actually beneficial to life, like vitamins in small doses (vitamins are harmful in excessive doses, but essential in small doses). Soon there was evidence from mice which confirmed this, but obviously human evidence was needed, because DNA repair mechanisms may differ between species:




In 1993, Dr Sohei Kondo's book Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation (Kinki University Press, Osaka) reported two Chinese studies, over 10 years, comparing cancer rates in 74,000 people exposed to 3.5 times the normal background radiation for 16 generations, with a control group of 77,000 people who were exposed to normal background radiation. The group exposed to 3.5 times normal background radiation had the lowest overall cancer rate.

Then, in 1995, James Muckerheide's report 'The Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation: Science, Data, and Corrective Action', was published in Nuclear News, vol. 38, pp. 26-34. Muckerheide presented smaller sample sizes than the Chinese study (12,918 people in Kerala, India, exposed to 4 times normal background, and a control group of 5,938 exposed to normal background), but at least confirmed that there was no rise in cancer rates in the more highly exposed group. Muckerheide has further interesting reports here, here, here, and here. (However, see the concluding notice to this blog post about the harmful effects of high-LET radiation like alpha particles from radon gas which deposit their energy over such a short distance in tissue they overload DNA repair mechanisms and probably have no threshold; some advocates of beneficial effects of radiation do not have reliable data. The beneficial effects of low-LET gamma radiation described in this post do not necessarily apply to internal emitters of high-LET radiation like alpha and beta particles; although we will discuss the evidence from the radium dial painters which shows that there were no bone cancers or leukemias below a threshold alpha emitting radium intake, which was accurately determined from the radioactivity of bone samples after death.)

We shall now discuss the effects documented in the new online effects summary (PDF document). First of all, DS02 reassesses the Hiroshima yield and burst altitude to be 16 kt at 600 metres above ground zero (the 'hypocenter'). For Nagasaki, DS02 uses 21 kt yield at 503 metres burst altitude. We'll discuss the new dose-versus-distance and dose-shielding data later on, after discussing the key effects data as a function of the latest DS02 dose data.

ACUTE RADIATION EFFECTS: HAIR LOSS (EPILATION) AND THE SYNERGISTIC LD50 DOSE FOR ALREADY UNDERNOURISHED, THERMAL FLASH BURNED, BLAST DEBRIS LACERATED NUCLEAR WEAPON CASUALTIES



The summary document states on page 11: ‘Early estimates from survivor interviews measured the LD50 in terms of the distance from the hypocenter at which 50% of people survived: 1,000 to 1,200 meters in Hiroshima and 1,000 to 1,300 meters in Nagasaki. Dose estimation was not possible at that time because of insufficient shielding information. Later analyses of extensive records at RERF were able to make estimates of shielding and to calculate that a bone marrow dose of 2.7 to 3.1 Gy caused 50% mortality within 60 days (with the new DS02 dosimetry system, the corresponding doses would be 2.9 to 3.3 Gy). The data came from about 7,600 survivors in 2,500 households exposed inside Japanese houses located within 1,600 meters of the hypocenter in Hiroshima. Survivors inside Japanese houses received special scrutiny because the homogeneity of such housing structures allowed better estimation of individual radiation doses. The closer one was to the hypocenter, however, the higher the radiation dose received and the more severe the effects of blast and heat in terms of destruction of houses and subsequent fires. It was thus impossible to classify deaths that occurred within a few weeks after the bombings as due to radiation, injuries, or burns.’

Hence, the DS02 measured LD50/60 (lethal dose for 50% for acute radiation syndrome effects occurring within 60 days of exposure) for thermal flash burned, blast debris lacerated nuclear weapon casualties who are suffering from malnutrition due to severe food rationing before exposure, is 290-330 cGy.

Page 11 adds that using this data, 'together with other information from cases involving exposure to accidental radiation or radiation therapy, the United Nations’ Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has estimated the bone marrow LD50/60 at around 2.5 Gy when little or no medical assistance is available and at 5 Gy or more with extensive medical care.'


This is important: these LD50/60 estimates are based on data from radiation exposure to people malnourished with thermal flash burns and blast debris laceration trauma (in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki casualties), and very ill cancer patients in the case of whole-body gamma radiotherapy data. This is why the figures are so low. In addition, note that the bone marrow dose is only a fraction of the free-in-air dose, because bone marrow is substantially shielded against radiation by the human body (by the soft tissue and also of course by the bone which surrounds the marrow). These two factors account for why the LD50/60 doses reported are relatively low compared to those for healthy people where the exposure is measured in air (by radiation meters) and not caclulated for the shielded bone marrow.

LONG-TERM CANCER EFFECTS



Above: the non-linear dose-response leukemia effects curve published for DS02 data. Page 11 of the summary reports that cataracts also may show a non-linear or theshold dose-effect response: ‘It is unclear how frequently radiation cataracts advance to severe visual impairment, although we have documented in a recent study about a 20–30% excess at 1 Gy of cataracts that prompted cataract surgery. A low-dose threshold may exist below which radiation cataract does not arise, although our recent analyses suggest that there may not be a threshold, or if one exists, it is somewhere in the range of 0 to 0.8 Gy.’



Above: effects of age at time of exposure, and also age attained in the years after exposure, on the leukemia risk for a dose of 100 cGy (1 Gy). Because the immune systems of very young people are still in the process of development, they are relatively vulnerable to cancer and infections.



Above: cynical cover-up (which we have highlighted with a red box) in the table of data published: what they have done is cover-up the threshold or beneficial immune system boosting by low doses, by lumping together all the 0.005-0.1 Gy (0.5-10 cGy or 'rads') dose effects data, instead of breaking it down as they previously did! This is a cynical cover-up of low-dose effects data from the largest irradiated survivor group (30,387 survivors)! By lumping the results together, they manage to get an excess leukemia of just 4 survivors, making their statistics fit fashionable prejudice. If they hadn't lumped together the statistics for that group of 30,387 survivors but had broken down the doses within it, the results would have shown - like earlier results - a 'politically incorrect' threshold and beneficial effects from low doses. So it is a case of the abuse of science. This criticism also applies to the lumping of solid cancer data into the same dose range. Page 17 of the summary states:

‘Excess leukemia was the earliest delayed effect of radiation exposure seen in A-bomb survivors. Japanese physician Takuso Yamawaki in Hiroshima first noted an increase of leukemia cases in his clinical practice in the late 1940s. This led to the establishment of a registry of leukemia and related disorders and to the initial reports on elevated leukemia risks published in the early 1950s. Risks for radiation-induced leukemia differ in two major respects from those for most solid cancers. First, radiation causes a larger percent increase in leukemia rates (but a smaller number of cases since leukemia is relatively rare, even in heavily exposed survivors), and second, the increase appears sooner after exposure, especially in children. The excess leukemias began appearing about two years after radiation exposure, and the excess peaked at about 6–8 years after exposure. Today, little if any excess of leukemia is occurring. Because the LSS cohort was based on the 1950 national census, quantitative descriptions of leukemia risks in A-bomb survivors have been based on cases diagnosed from that year on. As of the year 2000, there were 204 leukemia deaths among 49,204 LSS survivors with a bone marrow dose of at least 0.005 Gy, an excess of 94 cases (46%) attributable to A-bomb radiation (Table 4). In contrast to dose-response patterns for other cancers, that for leukemia appears to be nonlinear; low doses may be less effective than would be predicted by a simple linear dose response. Even for doses in the 0.2 to 0.5 Gy range, however, risk is elevated (Figure 7).’

What they are still doing is for political expediency reasons, deliberately ignoring the effects below 0.2 Gy (20 cGy), which they should be studying closely: this is where the threshold and non-linear response is to be found, and this is where the data is most reliable since there were a vast number of survivors exposed to low doses, contrasted to few survivors from very high doses! Dose estimates at low doses are more reliable (see the suggested dose error at high doses in the graph of epilation effects, above) than at high doses. So the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, which is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, is still issuing propaganda.

Page 19 states: ‘In an unexposed Japanese population, the lifetime risk of leukemia is about seven cases per 1,000 people. For typical survivors in the LSS, who received 0.005 Gy or greater (a mean dose of about 0.2 Gy), the lifetime leukemia risk increases to about 10 cases per 1,000 (or the relative risk is nearly 1.5).’

NO GENETIC EFFECTS WERE OBSERVED

Page 30 of the summary states: ‘While high doses in experimental animals can cause various disorders in offspring (birth defects, chromosome aberrations, etc.), no evidence of clinical or subclinical effects has yet been seen in children of A-bomb survivors.’

Page 46 of the summary adds: ‘One of the earliest concerns in the aftermath of the atomic bombings was how radiation might affect the children of survivors. Efforts to detect genetic effects began in the late 1940s and continue. Thus far, no evidence of increased genetic effects has been found.’

Naturally about 4% of all babies are stillborn or die shortly after birth, 2.7% are born with congenital abnormalities, and 0.011% are born blind due to genetic mutations. In the early days of genetic theory, the idea of dominant and recessive genes held sway. A gene is a section of DNA which carries the instructions for producing a specific protein.

A baby inherits genes from each parent, and while dominant genes always make their presence known, the effect of a recessive gene will only appear if both parents contribute the same recessive gene to the baby, i.e., if the baby has two copies of that recessive gene in each cell nucleus. It is now well established that no genes are entirely dominant or entirely recessive.

Examples of relatively dominant gene effects are haemophilia, which is sex-linked, and the Duchenne type of muscular dystrophy. However, most of the common genetic defects are mainly recessive in nature, such as colour blindness.

In 1950, Dr H. J. Muller and others reported in Genetics, vol. 35, p. 125, that a radiation dose of 390 rem (3.9 Sv or 3.9 Gy for gamma radiation) doubled the natural mutation rate for nine relatively recessive genes which produce visibly obvious effects in the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). For mice (Mus musculus), the corresponding natural 'doubling dose', for seven visibly obvious relatively recessive genetic effects, was 50 rem. (W. L. Russell, Quantitative Biology, vol. 16, 1952, p. 327; T. C. Carter, et al., British Journal of Radiology, New Series, vol. 29, 1956, p. 106.) Hence, the mouse is 390/50 = 7.8 times more sensitive to radiation induced genetic damage than the fruit fly.

In 1956, C. F. Konzak and W. R. Singleton reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 42, p. 78, that using thermal neutrons on maize cereal pollen (Zea mays) gave a genetic doubling dose of just 28 rem, so that maize seemed to be 14 times as sensitive as the fruit fly (although this precise figure is suspect because of the relatively high biological effectiveness of neutron radiation, which is now known to be about 20 more effective than a similar dose of gamma rays).

With such a variation in the 'doubling dose' for natural genetic defects between species, it was widely feared (and hyped in the media) that the human genetic effects of large doses of radiation after a nuclear war may be disastrous for future generations. The effects were statistically calculated for a population of a given size, generation time, and assumed doubling dose: the genetic effects were simply the natural incidence multiplied up linearly by ratio of the received dose to the 'doubling dose' (it was usually assumed that the human was like a mouse and had a doubling dose was 50 rem). Relatively dominant genetic defects would show up in the first generation after radiation exposure, but the more recessive effects could be postponed for generations (until a baby inherited the same defective recessive gene from each parent).

However, serious problems with the linear dose-effects law for genetic damage were immediately evident. In 1954, H. J. Muller and others published a paper called 'A non-linear relation between X-ray dose and recovered lethal mutations' in Genetics, vol. 39, p. 741, which found evidence that the relationship between dose and the incidence of recessive lethal mutations in the fruit fly is extremely non-linear:

'... we may conclude that when the dose was quadrupled the frequency of lethals was not even doubled; that is, the frequency at the higher dose was less than half what it would have been on the linearity principle. ... This marked flattening of the lethal frequency-dosage curve at high doses is interpreted as an effect of selection, operating more strongly at higher doses to kill off preferentially, by chromosome breakage, the descendants of the more susceptible germ cells, in which recessive lethals had been induced at a higher frequency. It is inferred that the germ cells of the period in question are heterogeneous in their susceptibilities, and that there is a strong positive correlation between susceptibility to the chromosome-breaking and that to the recessive-lethal-inducing effect of X-rays.'

Thus, mutations to genes from very large doses are often accompanied by other damage to germ cell such as chromosome breakage, which 'weeds out' that particular germ cell from the potential gene pool. This discovery in 1954 - of an effect of DNA apoptosis, or programmed cell death in the fruit fly, reducing the observable genetic damage at high doses to way, way below what is predicted by a linear dose-effects law - has great significance for not just genetic but also cancer effects in human beings: when the DNA in a non-germ cell is seriously damaged by radiation it can be weeded out by apoptosis, instead of going on to divide and proliferate somatic effects like cancer.

In human beings, no radiation induced effects in descendants has occurred unless the mother was pregnant when irradiated (which is why pregnant mothers are not X-rayed); in the case of a pregnant mother receiving a large dose of radiation the effect is a spontaneous abortion. Notice that the RERF report doesn't give statistical data, to show whether genetic effects in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were actually reduced below the incidence in the control group, or whether they were just statistically insignificant. But, just as with cancer suppression by radiation, mechanisms do exist to suppress genetic effects using apoptosis, or programmed cell death, to the germ cells which are damaged by radiation.

CONTINUING FALSE PROPAGANDA OVER THE RADIOACTIVITY OF FIRESTORM SOOT RAINOUT



Above: false claims about soot-rain fallout from firestorm, on page 5 of a 'Basic Guide to Radiation and Health Sciences' booklet RERF have published, based on radiation prejudice, not scientific facts. In their more detailed summary of data, page 40 falsely claims: ‘Radioactive material in the bomb fireball ascended and cooled, a fraction falling as “black rain” which contaminated the ground (although the black rain was primarily soot particles from the extensive fires). Because of wind directions, the rain fell mainly in northern and western Hiroshima, with the highest measured gamma dose rates from fallout being in the Koi-Takasu area to the southwest, and in eastern Nagasaki, in the Nishiyama area. The maximum estimates of fallout dose from external exposure to gamma rays, assuming that a person remained in one place throughout life, are 0.01 to 0.03 Gy in Koi- Takasu, Hiroshima, and 0.2 to 0.4 Gy in Nishiyama, Nagasaki. [Notice the greater fallout dose in Nagasaki, which did not suffer a raging firestorm like Hiroshima!] The corresponding fallout doses at the hypocenters are believed to be only about 1/10 of these values.’

Page 48 adds: ‘The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs exploded 500 to 600 meters above the ground, and the explosions created huge fireballs that rose with ascending air currents. The material then cooled and started to fall with rain. Because of the wind, the rain did not fall directly on the hypocenters but rather in northwestern Hiroshima, in the Koi-Takasu area, and in eastern Nagasaki, in the Nishiyama area.’

In fact, the radioactive mushroom cloud was blown downwind, away from the fire and soot area, long before any moisture condensed on soot in the cool air above the fires to produce rain:

'About 20 minutes after the detonation of the nuclear bomb at Hiroshima, a mass fire developed showing many characteristics usually associated with fire storms. A wind blew toward the burning area of the city from all directions, reaching a maximum velocity of 30 to 40 miles per hour about 2 to 3 hours after the explosion, decreasing to light or moderate and variable in direction about 6 hours after. The wind was accompanied by intermittent rain, light over the center of the city and heavier about 3,500 to 5,000 feet (0.67 to 0.95 mile) to the north and west. Rain in these circumstances was apparently due to the condensation of moisture on particles from the fire when they reached a cooler area. ...' - The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 3rd ed., 1977, page 305.

The small amounts of fission products deposited on surrounding high hills were from the stem of the mushroom cloud (unlike Nevada tests, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were beside the ocean, so both entrained - and carried to cooler higher altitudes - some sea level moist air containing tiny airborne salt crystals, which created a very small amount of stem salt slurry fallout as was also observed in Pacific air burst tests like KING and CHEROKEE: see the footnote to Table 1 on page 5 of Crocker, O'Connor and Freiling's report USNRDL-TR-899, Physical and Radiochemical Properties of Fallout Particles, 1965 and weapon test report WT-1317), and had nothing to do with the soot and moisture rainout that occurred during the firestorm an hour after the Hiroshima detonation, when the mushroom cloud was many miles downwind. The height attained by the mushroom cloud far exceeded the height attained, much later, by the cloud of soot and moisture due to the fires. The black rain is significant not because it was radioactive (it wasn't significantly contaminated), but because it shows that soot from mass fires tends to be hydroscopic, absorbs moisture and returns to the ground quickly, instead of blocking out the sun as claimed in 'nuclear winter' garbage (firestorms are only possible in wooden cities, and are not possible in modern brick and concrete cities, as proven by World War II data; in modern cities there are not enough ignition points, let alone enough flammable material, as firestorm expert George R. Stanbury proved in his analysis of firestorms at Hamburg and elsewhere). (For a different analysis debunking the 'nuclear winter' hoax of Sagan et al., see Brian Martin's article, 'Nuclear winter: science and politics', Science and Public Policy, Vol. 15, No. 5, October 1988, pp. 321-334.)

'We have studied the process of wet fallout from a tactical nuclear explosion due to scavenging of radioactivity by self-induced rain (rain produced by the explosion itself) using a numerical two-dimensional model of an axisymmetric cloud. Under mid-latitude summertime conditions and for yields of 20 to 100 kilotons, the model shows that self-induced rainout is not significant for low relative humidities, is very important for high relative humidities (> 80%), and is moderately important for relative humidities down to about 50%. When self-induced rainout occurs, it is heavy within a couple of kilometers of ground zero and peaks early in the episode. The model has successfully predicted observed radioactive self-induced rainout for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki detonations (both in the 20 kiloton range), and does not predict rain under conditions typical of U.S. tests in Nevada, where self-induced rainout has not been observed.'

- R. A. Carhart (Department of Physics, University of Illinois) and A. J. Policastro (Energy and Environmental Systems Division, Argonnne National Laboratory, 'Effects of relative humidity and yield on self-induced rainout from tactical nuclear explosions', Simulation, vol. 51, no. 5, pp. 191-194 (1988).




Above: measured neutron induced activity and fallout in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, from the DTRA. There are further reports here and here.

‘Nuclear winter’ lies debunked by Saddam Hussein in 1991

Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army invaded Kuwait and set all of its oil wells on fire as it was driven back into Iraq by American in 1991. Paul Crutzen who had started the nuclear winter myth in 1982 before Carl Sagan and others became involved, in 1991 predicted that the burning of Kuwait’s oil wells would cause a nuclear winter which would devastate the northern hemisphere:

‘The fears expressed last week centred around the cloud of soot that would result if Kuwait’s oil wells were set alight by Iraqi forces ... with effects similar to those of the “nuclear winter” ... Paul Crutzen, from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, has produced some rough calculations which predict a cloud of soot covering half of the Northern Hemisphere within 100 days. Crutzen ... estimates that temperatures beneath such a cloud could be reduced by 5-10 degrees C ...’

- Peter Aldhous, ‘Oil-well climate catastrophe?’, Nature, vol. 349 (1991), p. 96.

Dr Richard D. Small of Pacific-Sierra Research Corporation, California, responded in Nature, vol. 350 (1991), pp. 11-12, that 16,000 metric tons of actual soot is produced from 220,000 metric tons of oil burned every day, and anyway:

‘My estimates of the smoke produced by destruction of Kuwait’s oil wells and refineries and the smoke stabilization altitude do not support any of the purported impacts. The smoke is not injected high enough to spread over large areas of the Northern Hemisphere, nor is enough produced to cause a measurable temperature change or failure of the monsoons.’

It is significant that oil soot, being 69% elemental carbon, is the most effective particulate known for absorbing sunlight. The nuclear winter propaganda is a hoax. When you look at the data on liquid petroleum tanks exposed at Nevada nuclear tests, they did not rupture let alone ignite at the damaging overpressures which dented them, and which the nuclear winter propaganda people used in their calculations for the ignition of oil facilities! The nuclear winter hoax people started off by assuming that brick and concrete cities burn, and when that was debunked as unable to cause nuclear winter, they then exaggerated the ignition and effects of nuclear attacks on oil refineries.

Cression H. Kearny explained the following facts in the 1987 revised edition of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory book. Nuclear War Survival Skills (Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine), page 18:

‘Soviet propagandarists promptly exploited belief in unsurvivable “nuclear winter” ... because raging city firestorms are needed to inject huge amounts of smoke into the stratosphere ... according to one discredited theory ... the Soviets changed their descriptions of how a modern city will burn. Thus, in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory translation (ORNL-TR-2793) of Civil Defense, Second Edition (500,000 copies), Moscow, 1970, by Egorov, Shlyakhov and Alabin, we read: “Fires do not occur in zones of complete destruction ... that are characterized by an overpressure exceeding 0.5 kg/cm2 [7.1 psi or 49 kPa] ... because rubble is scattered and covers the burning structures. As a result, the rubble only smoulders, and fires as such do not occur. Firestoms destroyed the centers of Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo. The old-fashioned buildings of these cities contained large amounts of flammable materials ... In a free country, truth will out – although sometimes too late to effectively counter fast-hitting propaganda.’

HIROSHIMA (6 August 1945, 16 kt at 600 metres burst height) DS02 DOSIMETRY





NAGASAKI (9 August 1945, 21 kt yield at 503 metres burst height) DS02 DOSIMETRY





The DS02 report on page 167 states: ‘Delayed radiation is generated by the emission of neutrons and gamma rays from fission products in the fireball. The low air density in the fireball enhances the transport of these particles and results in their becoming a large contribution to the radiation fluences. For example, delayed radiation contributes more than one-half of the gamma-ray dose out to 1,500 m slant distance at both cities. At Hiroshima, the delayed neutrons add less than 10% to the dose and thermal activation and less than 5% to fast neutron activation at all ranges. However at Nagasaki, the delayed neutrons are significant, having their maximum contribution to thermal neutron activation (approximately 60%) at about 700 m slant range and to the neutron dose (approximately 40%) at the hypocenter. The delayed neutron contribution drops rapidly at distance, and at 2,500 m, it contributes less than 5% to either neutron dose or thermal neutron activation. Delayed neutrons contribute less than 10% to the Nagasaki fast neutron activation at all ranges. ...

‘The improved methods used to calculate the delayed radiation for this work were also used to improve the analysis of several Nevada and Pacific test shots. For those test shots, calculated activation results were compared with measurements of time-dependent and time-integrated neutron and gamma measurements. For example, calculations of time-dependent delayed gamma radiation of the Pacific test shot KING (Kaul and Egbert 1991) showed good agreement with measurements.’

The cited Kaul and Egbert references are:

D. C. Kaul and S. D. Egbert, Debris Gamma Dose Rate Calculations Using a Multi-Dimensional Hydrodynamic Model, presented at Cloud Program Review, DNA/SPWE Meeting held Logicon RDS, Los Angles, California, December 4-5, 1991.

D. C. Kaul, F. Dolatshahi, S. D. Egbert, J. A. Roberts, and W. H. Scott, The Development and Testing of the Air Transport of Radiation Code Version 6 (ATR). Washington, D.C.: Defense Nuclear Agency; DNA-TR-91-237; 1992.

DS02 RADIATION SHIELDING FACTORS FOR SURVIVORS PROTECTED BY BUILDINGS




COMPARISON OF DS02 FREE-IN-AIR DOSES IN HIROSHIMA TO THOSE IN NAGASAKI




Above: notice that the Nagasaki bomb (21 kt) produced the largest initial gamma radiation doses, but the Hiroshima bomb, despite its lower yield (16 kt), produced the largest neutron doses of the two weapons. This was due to fact that the bomb core of the Nagasaki bomb was surrounded by a lot of hydrogen nuclei (protons) due to the TNT surrounding the core of that implosion weapon. When neutrons hit protons, they lose a lot more of their energy than when they are scattered by very heavy nuclei such as the steel barrel of the Hiroshima gun-type assembly bomb.

This has a very important effect on the quality of the radiation from the two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Neutron doses are found to be about 20 times as effective at producing cancers than gamma doses. This is because gamma rays tend to knock electrons flying by the Compton effect, but high energy neutrons knock protons flying when they hit hydrogen nuclei. Protons are heavy and can generally cause more damage to DNA than electrons, knocking whole chunks of DNA out rather than just inducing single strand breakage. It is also now clear that merely applying a 'relative biological effectiveness' factor of 20 or so for neutrons is not a complete solution to the difference in effects produced. I.e., neutron radiation is less likely to have a threshold and beneficial effects at low doses than gamma radiation.

For this reason, the RERF must publish separate analyses of the effects for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so that the exact differences in cancer rates, particularly leukemia, will be apparent and correlatable to the known differences in the neutron-to-gamma dose ratios in the two cities.

Because of the higher gamma-to-neutron dose ratio in Nagasaki than in Hiroshima, the effects of a threshold and also beneficial effects at low doses are predicted to be far greater in Nagasaki than in Hiroshima.

By lumping the data from both cities together, this vital effect is being covered up statistically by the RERF. The quality of the dosimetry now permits the data to be resolved in this way to learn more about the effects of radiation at low doses:

‘The results reported in this chapter are state-of-the-art. They were obtained using the best available codes and data and clearly represent the best available data of the air-over-ground neutron and gamma-ray radiation environments for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The agreement between the calculated and measured responses, as shown in the ensuing chapters, is notable. Achieving 10-20% agreement between a controlled measurement and calculation is generally quite acceptable. Achieving similar agreement between measured responses and calculations from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki events is remarkable.’ – Page 198 of the DS02 dosimetry report.

OUTDOOR GAMMA DOSE RATES AND GAMMA DOSES FROM NEUTRON-INDUCED ACTIVITY IN THE GROUND




Above: neutron induced gamma radiation in the ground. Page 40 of the summary states: ‘Doses due to induced radioactivity were highest at the hypocenters. Past investigations have suggested that the maximum cumulative doses of residual hypocenter radiation since the bombing are 0.8 Gy in Hiroshima and 0.3 to 0.4 Gy in Nagasaki. At 500 and 1,000 meters from the hypocenters, the respective estimates are about 1/10 and 1/100 of the hypocenter value. The induced radioactivity decayed very quickly with time. In fact, nearly 80% of the above doses were released within a day, about 10% between days 2 and 5, and the remaining 10% from day 6 onward. Considering the extensive fires near the hypocenters that prevented people from entering the cities until day 2, it seems unlikely that any person received more than 20% of the maximum induced doses (0.16 Gy in Hiroshima and 0.06 to 0.08 Gy in Nagasaki.’

EXAGGERATIONS OF THE EFFECTS AT HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI FOR POLITICAL REASONS SINCE 1945

Extract from a previous post: in 1950, the Top Secret British Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch report SA/16 concluded:

‘The wide publicity given to the appalling destruction caused by the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki has possibly tended to give an exaggerated impression of their effectiveness. Perhaps the best way to counteract this impression, and to help to get the atomic bomb to scale, is to consider the numbers of atomic bombs that would have to be dropped on this country and on Germany to have caused the same total amount of damage as was actually caused by attacks with high explosive and incendiary bombs.

‘During the last war a total of 1,300,000 tons [of bombs] were dropped on Germany by the Strategic Air Forces [of Britain and America]. If there were no increase in aiming accuracy, then to achieve the same amount of material damage (to houses, industrial and transportational targets, etc.) would have required the use of over 300 atomic bombs together with some 500,000 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs for targets too small to warrant the use of an atomic bomb ... the total of 300,000 civilian air raid deaths in Germany could have been caused by about 80 atomic bombs delivered with the accuracy of last war area attacks, or by about 20 atomic bombs accurately placed at the centres of large German cities ...’


This vital report, SA/16, was kept Top Secret for 8 years, and then Restricted for another 22 years. It was never published, for fear of undermining the value of the nuclear deterrent against Russian expansion.

CUMULATIVE BLAST WAVE PRESSURE REDUCTION BY DAMAGE CAUSED

*The average density of ground coverage by buildings in Hiroshima determined from aerial photographs of the target taken before detonation was 5,400 buildings per square kilometre (the values in most British cities vary from about 5,000 near the centre to 2,000 near the outer boundaries). It is recommended that the housing density for modern Western cities be taken as half that in Hiroshima. (Data from Penney, et al., 1970.)

Lord William Penney visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the American occupation forces, measured all of the damage and shipped it back to Britain for laboratory analysis. He determined the bending moments for steel poles by the blast wave, the overpressures required to reduce the volume of blueprint containers and petrol cans, and many other natural blast wave gauges. The value of these studies was proved in the 1946 ABLE nuclear test, where the bomb was dropped off target by accident and Penney had to determine the air pressures from the collapse of petrol cans. This is a precise measurement because by filling the petrol can with water before and after partial collapse by blast, the volume reduction is measured, which correlates with the blast wave peak overpressure. Therefore, several items of this type can be used to get a statistically good measurement, unlike the piezoelectric electronic blast sensors used at the TRINITY test in 1945 which were of course wrecked by EMP (as predicted by Enrico Fermi). Later, Penney used empty toothpaste tubes to measure the peak overpressure at early British nuclear tests, averting the risk of EMP damage to electronic sensors.

Penney used the Hiroshima and Nagasaki data to do a secret study of the reduction in peak overpressure caused by the irreversible energy loss from the blast wave as it flattened house after house in each radial line outward from ground zero. Penney found that at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the peak overpressure fell faster than in British nuclear tests at similar scaled burst heights over smooth unobstructed desert. The peak blast overpressure fell exponentially due to the cumulative irreversible energy loss done in blowing up successive buildings.

At a distance of 1.74 km from ground zero in Hiroshima, the peak overpressure was only 50% of what it would have been over an ideal smooth desert without houses. This figure applies only to the wooden houses in Hiroshima where there were 5,400 houses per square kilometre. In most modern Western cities the number of buildings per square kilometre is on average only half that figure, but the buildings are brick or concrete and this means that they can absorb more energy in the act of being blown up by the blast wave. In a modern British city, the peak overpressure could therefore fall by 50% every 340 metres that the shock wave progressed, causing a dramatic reduction in damage at great distances, compared to the effects predicted for unobstructed ideal desert terrain in Glasstone and Dolan’s 1977 book The Effects of Nuclear Weapons. The reduction factor for peak blast overpressure at Hiroshima due to destruction caused was: (peak overpressure in built up area) / (peak overpressure over unobstructed ideal desert terrain in nuclear tests) = e-0.41R where R is ground range in kilometres; for typical Western brick and concrete cities they estimated the reduction factor to be e-2.0R.

It is important to note that this irreversible cumulative energy loss from the blast wave is a straightforward consequence of the laws of physics and is not speculative: the work energy E needed to push in a brick wall the distance X against resistance force F is simply E = FX. This is a simple property of physics. The energy lost from the supersonic shock front is converted into relatively slow-moving debris and a heating of the rubble, there is no mechanism for it to get back into the blast wave. This process of irreversible energy loss has nothing to do with the mere scattering of blast waves by multiple reflections between the walls of buildings which is the basis of the obfuscating discussion in Glasstone and Dolan, 1977. Analysis of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki data by Penney showed that after 75 wooden buildings had been damaged in a radial line from ground zero, the peak overpressure had fallen to only half that which would have occurred on an unobstructed ideal desert surface.

Penney kept this secret until 1970 when he gave some details in a published paper comparing the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blast waves to British nuclear test data for ideal terrain. Penney had earlier supported some experiments at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment by W. Worsfold, published in the 1957 secret report The Effects of Shielding a Building from Atomic Blast by Another of the Same Size and Shape, AWRE-E4/57 (declassified only in May 1985) and further experiments in the report AWRE-E8/57. Each individual building causes only a trivial net reduction in the peak overpressure (1-5 % as shown in the following table), but after some tens or hundreds of houses in any radial line from ground zero have been totalled, the blast wave is seriously depleted in energy. Hence, predictions of blast damage using desert nuclear test data with the cube-root scaling law are massive exaggerations.
*Data are computed for a peak overpressure of 50 kPa (7.2 psi) for the total energy loss in the blast wave, which is why there is a dependence on the weapon yield. The longer duration blast winds from a higher yield weapon loses more energy in accelerating blast debris than the shorter duration blast wave from a low yield weapon. However, the amount of reduction in the peak overpressure (at the front of the shock wave) by causing damage will be independent of the blast wave duration. It is therefore recommended that the data for 20 kilotons be used for estimating the percentage reduction in peak overpressure, regardless of the blast wave duration or weapon yield.

All buildings tend to absorb approximately the same fraction of the blast wave energy regardless of the peak overpressure when struck because the amount of kinetic energy imparted by the blast wave to the debris and damaged materials increases approximately in direct proportion to the energy in the blast wave. Therefore, regardless of the weapon yield, in a modern American city the blast reduction factor for blast overpressure due to energy loss in causing the damage done to structures will be roughly exp(-d/750) where d is distance in metres. This will obviously have a more dramatic effect on reducing damaged areas for high yield weapons (where the low levels of blast overpressure cover immense distances on unobstructed desert terrain) than low yield weapons (where the damage distances are small in any case).

But even in the case of a 1 kt terrorist surface burst in an American city, the data in Glasstone and Dolan 1977 are still gross exaggerations! The 600 R initial nuclear radiation radius will be reduced from 808 m in Nevada tests to 245 m by buildings due to the elimination of most direct (line of sight) unscattered relativistic radiation by structures long before such structures can be destroyed by the much slower-moving blast wave! The 5 cal/cm2 thermal flash burn radius of 750 m in Nevada tests will be practically eliminated because the thermal pulse from such a small weapon will be over before the fireball becomes buoyant (this happens when its density falls below ambient air density, in the late stages) and rises into view above the structures which have yet to be destroyed by the blast wave. The 5 psi peak overpressure radius for severe damage to light residential structures will be reduced from 442 m in Nevada tests to 350 m, and the 2.5 psi peak overpressure radius for serious flying debris and glass injuries to persons standing behind windows will be reduced from 640 m in Nevada tests to 460 m. Because damaged areas are proportional to the square of the radius, the actual number of casualties and amount of damage reduction is far more impressive than these figures for radii suggest.


Above: the official U.S. nuclear weapons effects horror story; it is a gross exaggeration, showing how the U.S. government lied about the effects of nuclear weapons during the cold war. They predicted blast effects to buildings in cities assuming that the terrain was unobstructed and ignored the irreversible loss of energy in the blast as it flattens house after house in any radial line outward from ground zero, which quickly soaks up the energy in the ground level diverging blast wave and contains the damaged area (particularly in large explosions). They also exaggerated the fire situation by neglecting the fact that piles of concrete and bricks don't burn (as proved in Britain in World War II, and by the fact that firestorms only occurred in wooden medieval cities in Europe such as ancient wooden parts of Hamburg and Dresden, and wooden cities in Japan; and even then this was not due to thermal radiation but due to a mixture of high explosives to damage the houses by blast and incendiaries to get inside, or in Hiroshima and Nagasaki where detonations occurred at breakfast and lunch time respectively so that charcoal cooking braziers were overturned by the blast amidst bamboo and paper screens, starting the tindering fires inside wooden houses), and by ignoring the shielding of thermal radiation by shadowing effects:




Above: dangerous abdominal penetration 3 metres behind windows (when glass fragments have been accelerated to high speed by the blast winds) during OPERATION TEAPOT Nevada nuclear tests in 1955. Notice that at low overpressures, there is no danger from low-overpressure broken windows because the blast wind behind the shock front is far too weak to accelerate the large fragments to high momenta, while at very high overpressures the window gets broken into dust-sized fragments that are simply far too small to carry enough momentum to penetrate clothing or skin. Thus, like Goldilocks' porridge, the peak overpressure ideally needs to be just right (2-5 psi) to break windows into big fragments that carry enough momentum to penetrate the abdomen when accelerated by the blast winds behind the shock front. Ducking and covering under a table or desk would avert this danger, and even dropping flat on the floor would help because the most dangerous fragments are blasted horizontally from the window. Contrary to lying propaganda films of nuclear explosions, the blast wave NEVER ACCOMPANIES THE VISIBLE FLASH, BUT IS ALWAYS DELAYED LIKE THUNDER AFTER LIGHTNING, ALWAYS MAKING DUCK AND COVER POSSIBLE. The graph is taken from: I. G. Bowen, D. R. Richmond, M. B. Wetherbe and C. S. White, Biological effects of blast from bombs. Glass fragments as penetrating missiles and some of the biological implications of glass fragmented by atomic explosions, Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research, Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission progress report AECU-3350, June 1956, p. 46.


Above: a more recent report based on nuclear test research at OPERATION TEAPOT in 1955 and OPERATION PLUMBBOB in 1957 for house debris injury and also human displacement by blast is Dr Anatol Longinow's 161 pages long report Survivability in a Nuclear Weapon Environment, DCPA Contract DCPA01-77-0229, for Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, Washington, D.C. 20301, report ADA076026, May 1979, which estimates the following casualties in framed buildings (steel and concrete), of up to four stories with weak exterior walls (weak curtain walls, large glass windows, etc.) when subject to 1 Mt weapon:

90 % survival at a peak overpressure of 5 psi
50 % survival at a peak overpressure of 7 psi
10 % survival at a peak overpressure of 11 psi








Above: because it didn't contain charcoal cooking stoves surrounded by paper screens and bamboo furnishings, this American two-story wood frame house survived unburned 25 cal/cm2 thermal radiation with just white-washed paint (which was quickly charred off) before the house was blown up by 5 psi (35 kPa) peak overpressure at 3,500 feet from 16 kt UPSHOT KNOTHOLE-ANNIE on 17 March 1953, Nevada Test Site; anti-civil defense propaganda in 2004 Cornell-published book by Lynn Eden Whole World on Fire while quoting in detail Dr Glasstone's 1957 Effects of Nuclear Weapons statement that the house had whitewash on it (just like most wooden houses) completely ignores the fact that Dr Glasstone states in paragraph 7.30 on page 292 of the 1957 Effects of Nuclear Weapons: 'a material which blackens (or chars) readily in the early stages of exposure to thermal radiation behaves essentially as black, i.e., as a strong absorber irrespective of its original color. [Emphasis added.] On the other hand, if smoke is formed [by dark coloured wood] it will partially shield the underlying material from the subsequent radiation.' Lynn Eden also ignores the facts that:

(1) the ordinary white-washed (quite normal) house did not ignite or burn despite being charred by the thermal flash and covered in black smoke due to thermal radiation. Lynn falsely claims that the whitewash was a 'heroic' precaution to avoid ignition. But it was burned off. Even unpainted poles in Hiroshima didn't catch fire, they just charred. Window blinds were blown in by the blast. So these things which Lynn biasedly sees as bad didn't prevent fire, because as other tests like ENCORE (which we will discuss below in detail) proved it takes more than a brief pulse of heat to set thick wood on fire. Anyway, the safeguards aren't 'bad' but are actually good benefits which would help survival by minimising glass fragments and flash burns. Contrary to the totally false and civil defence demeaning impression given by Lynn Eden's prejudiced, partial quotations from Dr Glasstone's 1957 edition, rooms don't need metal window blinds: in an attack warning you can instantly protect rooms containing beds or upholstered furniture and a window which would potentially let in thermal radiation by simply drawing curtain, or by simply taping sheets of white paper over the inside of the window glass - which will protect against thermal radiation for the crucial interval of time until the delayed arrival of the blast wave!

(2) the basement survived, and

(3) the house was not knocked over by the blast overpressure; the front was cracked by the reflected overpressure and the roof was peeled off by the blast winds, but then the house exploded due to the low pressure (suction) phase of the blast occurring while there was still overpressure trapped inside the house (which had entered through the windows but could not escape as fast as the external pressure dropped). This is vital because it shows that most of the debris (with the exception of window glass) was blown outwards from the exploding house, not inwards against the occupants. Although debris landed on the family car and dented the roof, it could still be driven away after the explosion, illustrating that the debris load from the collapse of a house is not always the end of the universe as portrayed by evil propaganda:

‘We have often been accused of underestimating the fire situation ... we are unrepentant in spite of the television utterances of renowned academic scientists ... Air cannot get into a pile of rubble 80% of which is incombustible anyway. This ... is the result of a very complete study of some 1,600 flying bomb incidents ... Secondly, there is a considerable degree of shielding of one building by another ... Thirdly, even when the windows of a building can "see" the fireball, and something inside is ignited ... even with the incendiary bomb the chance of a continuing fire developing in a small room is only 1 in 5 ...’

– George R. Stanbury, ‘The Fire Hazard from Nuclear Weapons’, Fission Fragments, Scientific Civil Defence Magazine, No. 3, August 1962, pp. 22-6, British Home Office, Scientific Adviser’s Branch, originally classified 'Restricted'.

‘Dense smoke, and even jets of flame, may be emitted, but the material does not sustain ignition... smoke formed in the early stages will partially shield the underlying material from subsequent radiation. This behaviour is illustrated in the photographs taken of one of the wood-frame houses exposed in the 1953 Nevada tests... the house front became covered with a thick black smoke... within less than 2 seconds from the explosion, the smoke ceased... Ignition of the wood did not occur... The thermal energy incident upon the material was apparently dissipated in the kinetic energy of the "exploding" surface molecules before the radiation could penetrate into the depth of the material.’

– Dr Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, editors, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Department of Defence, 1977, pp. 285-6.

‘The measured total radiation at [9.1-km] from the centre was 0.29 calories/cm2 ... Examination of the specimen exposed at [975 m] shows ... the charred layer does not appear to be thicker than 1/10 millimetre.... scorching of the fir lumber used to support signal wires extended out to about [1.9 km] ... the risk of fire due to the radiation ... is likely to be much less than the risk of fire from causes existing in the buildings at the time of explosion.’ – W. G. Marley and F. Reines, July 16th Nuclear Explosion: Incendiary Effects of Radiation, Los Alamos report LA-364, October 1945, originally Secret, pp. 5-6.

‘Persons exposed to nuclear explosions of low or intermediate yield may sustain very severe burns on their faces and hands or other exposed areas of the body as a result of the short pulse of directly absorbed thermal radiation. These burns may cause severe superficial damage similar to a third-degree burn, but the deeper layers of the skin may be uninjured. Such burns would heal rapidly [emphasis added; this is true unless the person also receives a concurrent massive nuclear radiation dose], like mild second-degree burns.’

– Dr Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, editors, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Department of Defence, 1977, p. 561.

The 1950 edition of the U.S. Department of Defense Effects of Atomic Weapons, edited by Dr Glasstone, on pages 392-9 justifies each protective action:

'If a person is in the open when the sudden illumination is apparent, then the best plan is instantaneously to drop to the ground, while curling up so as to shade the bare arms and hands, neck and face with the clothed body. ... A person who is inside a building or home when a sudden atomic bomb attack occurs should drop to the floor, with the back to the window, or crawl behind or beneath a table, desk, counter, etc.; this will also provide a shield against splintered glass due to the blast wave. The latter may reach the building some time after the danger from radiation has passed, and so windows should be avoided for about a minute, since the shock wave continues for some time after the explosion. ... planning will be necessary to avoid panic, for mass hysteria could convert a minor incident into a major disaster.'



Above: although American wood-frame houses offer less blast protection indoors than brick houses, they mostly have basements which are ideal for improvised shelters such as strong tables, because nuclear test data from OPERATION UPSHOT-KNOTHOLE at Nevada in 1953 and OPERATION TEAPOT at Nevada in 1955 showed that the blast winds carry most of the debris past the house, so that the debris load on the basement is minimal and survival is easy there (below).



'This report contains information on protective capabilities of a variety of different personnel shelters against prompt effects of nuclear weapons. This information was collected from previous studies performed for DCPA in this subject area. Protective capabilities are expressed in terms of 'people survivability functions' which relate the probability of survival (or percent survivors) to the free field overpressure at the shelter site. Respective shelters are described in terms of their geometry and material properties. The following shelter categories are included. (1) Existing Engineered Buildings (Upper Stories and Basements), (2) Designed Basements, (3) Single-Purpose Shelters, (4) Dual-Purpose Shelters, (5) Expedient and Special Purpose Shelters and (6) Expediently Upgraded Shelters.'

'Casualty mechanisms included blast translation terminating in impact with hard surfaces and interaction with debris from the breakup of the building walls, partitions, furniture, etc.'


Above: proof of duck and cover effectiveness for reducing the blast wind drag from standing and lying anthropometric dummy human beings at an ideal peak overpressure of 5.3 psi / 37 kPa (with 0.964 second positive phase duration) at 1,622 metres from PLUMBBOB-PRISCILLA (37 kt, 700 ft balloon, 24 June 1957, Nevada) where the standing dummy was blasted 13 feet in the air before hitting the ground and tumbling for 9 feet, coming to rest 22 feet from the starting point, but the lying dummy was not even moved. In the PLUMBBOB-SMOKY test (44 kt, 700 ft tower, 21 August 1957, Nevada), dummies were exposed to a non-ideal precursor-type blast wave such as occurs over dark coloured desert sand (which is popcorned into a hot dust cloud which increases the density of the air and increases the dynamic pressure and duration of the blast wave while reducing the peak overpressure) and were displaced considerably larger distances by the increased dynamic pressure impulse of the precursor (like a dust storm). However, for cities which are not covered in dark desert sand, a precursor will not occur, as demonstrated by nuclear tests over water and light colour surfaces. (Source: Donald R. Richmond and Clayton S. White, Biological Effects of Blast and Shock, Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research, report AD638342, DASA1777, 1966. ‘We were fortunate enough at a 5 psi station in one of the 1957 shots in Nevada to photograph the time-displacement history of a 160-pound [standing] dummy, and we were able from analysis of the movies to determine the maximal velocity reached ... about 21 feet per second. This velocity developed in 0.5 second. The total displacement of the dummy was near 22 feet ... It was this piece of empirical information that helped greatly in getting an analytical “handle” on the “treatment” of man as missile.’ – Dr Clayton S. White, who worked on nuclear weapon blast effects at Nevada test series’ Upshot-Knothole (1953), Teapot (1955) and Plumbbob (1957), Testimony to the U.S. Congressional Hearings, 22-26 June 1959, Biological and Environmental Effects of Nuclear War, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959, pp. 364-5.)

‘... it must be recognised that the amount of protection that will be available to individuals is, in a large degree, directly related to the extent of public knowledge concerning nuclear weapons effects and associated protective measures ... By falling prone and covering exposed portions of the body or getting behind opaque objects, much of the thermal radiation may be avoided, especially in the case of large-yield detonations ... Staying behind thick walls or lying in a deep ditch may help to avoid initial nuclear radiation ... the above actions will also help to decrease the possible danger from the blast wave.’ - Samuel Glasstone, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Department of Defense, 1962, pp. 660-1.

Further evidence on blast displacement is available from British nuclear test studies of human displacement. In 1948, R. H. A. Liston of the Atomic Research Establishment, UK, did a theoretical study of the displacement of man by a blast wave (The kinematic effect of blast on a man in the open, ARE Report 1/48), in which he assumed a drag coefficient for a standing man of 0.8, and predicted that a standing 76 kg man would be displaced 20 feet by a blast of 7 psi peak overpressure from a 20 kt bomb. For a peak overpressure of 3 psi, he predicted a displacement of 4 ft. On 27 September 1956 Liston's theory was checked out and found to make perfect predictions for a nearly ideal blast wave and soft ground at the 15 kt BUFFALO-1 nuclear test at Maralinga, Australia, by W. J. H. Butterfield et al., The Effects of Blast on Dummy Men Exposed in the Open, Atomic Weapons Reearch Establishment report AWRE-T2/59 (1959). For a peak overpressure of 6.4 psi, standing dummies facing BUFFALO-1 were displaced 16 feet, while those standing sideways were displaced only 10 feet. At a peak overpressure of 4.3 psi, standing dummies facing the burst were displaced 4 feet, while those standing sideways to the burst were only displaced 3 feet:

Psi_____________Facing burst_____Sideways to burst
10______________10.5 m_____________6 m
8.5_____________9 m________________5 m
6.4_____________5 m________________3 m
4.3_____________1.25 m_____________1 m
2.4_____________0.67 m_____________0 m

Information on the effects of human impacts and displacements are plentiful: car accidents and impact fall statistics are available. A person free-falling 1 m gains a velocity, v = (2gH)1/2 = 4.4 m/s. If the person lands prepared, feet-first with the knees slightly bent (to avoid transmitting the shock to the spine), this fall is usually safe; but head first this impact speed can result in being knocked unconscious and possibly suffering a cracked skull. If a person falls from a great altitude (such as suicide attempts from a high cliff, bridge or aircraft) without a parachute, then air drag becomes important and causes an average terminal velocity of v = [2g/(acceleration coefficient * air density)]1/2 = 51 m/s, which almost always proves to be lethal. However, there are cases of survival due to luck or to landing on soft surfaces, even from great heights. For example, see Christopher K. Kepler, et al., ‘Orthopaedic Injuries Associated With Fall From Floor Forty-Seven’, Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma, vol. 23, No. 2, Feb. 2009, pp. 154-158: ‘This case report provides background reviewing mortality rates associated with falls from height before detailing the clinical history of a patient who survived a fall from a height of 43 stories.’

For a curve of survival incidence versus number of stories fallen, see: Sylvia M. Ramos and Harry M. Delany, ‘Free Falls From Heights: A Persistent Urban Problem’, Journal of the National Medical Association, vol. 78, no. 2, February 1986, pp. 111–115. U.K. data for road accidents indicates that 50% lethal trauma occurs for a person hit by a car moving at only 13.4 m/s (such casualties suffer additional injuries from tumbling after the initial impact). There is also good survival data from patients jumping out of windows in burning hospitals: W. S. Lewis, et al., ‘Jumpers syndrome: The trauma of high free fall as seen at Harlem Hospital’ Journal of Trauma, vol. 5, no. 6, Nov. 1965, pp. 812-8. Suicide attempts from bridges and cliffs as well as parachute failure data also help to determine the exact effects from decelerative impact to different parts of the body, which we will discuss in detail in a later post.

‘Collapse of a brick house is expected to result in approximately 25% mortality, 20% serious injury and 10% light injury to the occupants. Reinforced concrete structures, though much more resistant to blast forces, will produce almost 100% mortality on collapse ... based on data from British World War II experience ... for cases where the population expects bombing and most personnel have selected the safest places in the buildings.’ – Philip J. Dolan, editor, Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Department of Defence, DNA-EM-1, 1978, c. 10, p. 5, Secret – Restricted Data. This data comes in part from the effects of the 12,000 German V1 subsonic cruise missiles and V2 supersonic rockets, each armed with a similar-sized 0.001 kt warhead. Because the V1 cruise missile was subsonic and made a well-known pulsating engine sound, people had more time to take cover and therefore each V1 only killed an average of 2.8 people, compared to 5 people per V2 supersonic rocket because there was no warning. The first sound from the V2 was the explosion shock.

The collapse of buildings creates voids since the weight of debris depends just on the mass of the building, not upon the blast pressure, so survival under a strong table or staircase in a brick house proved possible during World War II. In wood frame houses at Hiroshima, about 50% of people trapped were able to free themselves and escape before the firestorm (5% were rescued by others), while in brick houses in Britain only 25% could escape of their own accord, because the brick debris was much heavier. Bricks cannot burn, so there is a lower fire risk in brick houses. The major problem is explained clearly in Robert Jungk's book, Children of the Ashes, Heinemann, London, 1961, which cites a report in Hiroshima by American psychologist Woodbury Sparks called Panic Among A-Bomb Casualties at Hiroshima which showed that due to their surprise at the effects of the nuclear explosion, only 26 percent (153 out of a random sample of 589 bomb survivors in Hiroshima) gave any assistance at all to anybody else after the explosion. Seeing that the majority of the people in each city survived and that a major cause of death was the burning of blast damaged wooden houses containing persons trapped by blast debris, a lot more could have been done if people had been prepared. This is one of the civil defence lessons from Hiroshima: the emotional shock prevented proper action. Effective civil defence training in the solid, unvarnished facts about nuclear effects phenomenology can avert this shock, enabling help to be given more efficiently where and when practical to save lives and minimise injury.

Regarding vehicle displacement, four heavy British Army Daimler Scout Cars were exposed to the 6-kt ANTLER-2 test at Maralinga, 25 September 1957 (report AWRE-T6/59). The car exposed side-on to a peak overpressure of 76-kPa at 527 m was just turned on its side without significant displacement, and cars exposed at 48-kPa or less (671 m or more) were unmoved, although the flash scorched the paint and ‘slightly charred’ tyres facing detonation.


Above: effects of blast wind drag on a standing anthropometric dummy human being at a peak overpressure of 6 psi (41 kPa) during the 0.5 kt SAILOR HAT-CHARLIE shot at Kahoolawe Island in Hawaii on 16 April 1965. The dummy briefly behaves like superman, taking off and flying, then summersaulting gymnastically through the air before hitting the camera. A basketball beside the dummy shows the motion of a less aerodynamic object to this blast wave. You can see the 0.5 kt explosion fireball in the background. Contrary to anti-civil defense propaganda, duck and cover would have saved a human being in this situation: 'it requires about 8 times the blast wind force to move a person who is lying down compared to a standing person. People crouched or lying down also offer a much poorer target to glass shards and debris missiles. [Not to mention thermal radiation shadowing.]' (Panel 11 of DCPA Attack Environment Manual: Chapter 2, What the Planner Needs to Know about Blast and Shock, U.S. Department of Defense, report CPG 2-1A2, June 1973.)


Above: the gas holder paint (actually bitumen) deception by the Americans: the photo on the left was taken by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey and published as Figure 7.50b the 1962 book The Effects of Nuclear Weapons as being ‘Paint on gas holder scorched by the thermal radiation, except where protected by the valve (1.33 miles from ground zero at Hiroshima)’, while that on the right is the British Government’s Photo No. 23 of the Report of the British Mission to Japan, 1946, showing that there was no scorched paint at that distance, but just melted bitumen, stating: ‘Shadow cast by valve-wheel on side of gasholder 1.25 miles from the centre of damage. The bituminous coating on the steel plates was affected by heat radiation except where shielded by the wheel and spindle.’ Since bitumen melts more easily than paint scorches, the American book gives a wildly deceptive exaggeration of the true thermal effect. The shadow effect in fact proves that direct, not scattered, thermal radiation predominates even at large distance where scattering is significant, which makes simple line-of-sight shielding effective. Notice that the valve that cast the shadow has not been vaporised! Anti-civil defense propaganda shows similar shadows cast by people with the false and pathetic claim that (since the person walked away) they ‘must’ certainly have been vaporised. Many political American and British anti-civil defence propaganda organisations, formerly funded by the Soviet Union, published a photo of a human shadow, claiming that the person was vaporised, ‘ceased to exist’. The objective was to discourage any duck-and-cover civil defence as being ‘useless’. In fact, the shadow is not the ash of a vaporised person but the shadow of a person with very painful skin flash burns! The vast amount of energy necessary to vaporise a human being (mainly water), compared to the thermal energy delivered, disproves the vaporisation claim (a myth invented to devalue civil defence by those either ignorant or sinisterly inhumane for political purposes): those exposed directly who did not ‘duck and cover’ received very painful burns, window glass fragments, and unshielded nuclear radiation.







Above: Hiroshima wasn't vaporised. A firestorm developed half an hour later (by which time the radioactive mushroom cloud had been blown several miles downwind) from thousands of blast-overturned charcoal cooking braziers (being used at breakfast time when the Hiroshima bomb was dropped; the Nagasaki bomb was dropped at lunch time) inside wood frame houses filled with bamboo furnishings and paper screens. There had been no rain for many weeks. The mechanisms used to achieve the appalling effects were deliberately exaggerated for military propaganda purposes during the war, because the aim was to end the war, saving a million American and Japanese lives in the invasion of Japan, rather than to inform people how to survive and mitigate the effects for civil defence! This worked, because the two bombs convinced Russia - which Japan had hoped would help it negotiate a surrender - to suddenly declare war on Japan so as to be included as a victor when Japan surrendered. As a result of Russia's declaration of war on Japan (caused directly by the two nuclear attacks), Japan surrendered. America accepted their surrender. The use of two nuclear bombs over just three days was a propaganda tool to make it look as if America had a large number of bombs available, which it didn't due to the very slow production of oralloy (enriched U-235) and Pu-239. The effects of those weapons would have been rather different if used against Western brick and concrete buildings which are not surrounded by tens of thousands of easily inflammable wooden houses. This is the whole reason why the hydrogen bomb was developed, and why much higher yields than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki weapons would be needed today to achieve the same effects.

It's curious how attitudes have changed since World War II. The American Institute of Public Opinion in the United States for the Fall 1945 found that 85 percent of Americans supported the use of atomic bombs against Japan in the war, while a poll taken by Dr Arthur Holly Compton and others of 150 Manhattan Project nuclear weapons researchers at the same time gave exactly the same result! In 1950, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported a Gallup Poll which found that 61 percent of Americans said yes in reply to the question, 'Should the U.S. use the atom bomb if it gets into another world war?'

From Dr Glasstone's Effects of Nuclear Weapons (1962/64 ed., page 631):

'At distances between 0.3 and 0.4 mile from ground zero in Hiroshima the average survival rate, for at least 20 days after the nuclear explosion, was less than 20 percent. Yet in two reinforced concrete office buildings, at these distances, almost 90 percent of the nearly 800 occupants survived more than 20 days, although some died later of radiation injury.

'Furthermore, of approximately 3,000 school students who were in the open and unshielded within a mile of ground zero at Hiroshima, about 90 percent were dead or missing after the explosion. But of nearly 5,000 students in the same zone who were shielded in one way or another, only 26 percent were fatalities. ... survival in Hiroshima was possible in buildings at such distances that the overpressure in the open was 15 to 20 pounds per square inch. ... it is evident ... that the area over which protection could be effective in saving lives is roughly eight to ten times as great as that in which the chances of survival are small.'



Above: photos of exterior and interior of reinforced concrete frame buildings surviving at distances of 210 metres and 1,620 metres from ground zero in Nagasaki. In the interior photo of the building at 210 metres, you can see that the roof sagged down slightly due to the downward regular blast reflection pressure on the roof. The interior was burned out causing the roof plaster to spall due to fire ignited by the bamboo furnishings and paper screens in the surrounding wooden houses which suffered overturned charcoal cooking stoves from the blast of the lunch-time detonation. There is no damage to exterior walls which remained intact and uncracked. If fire sprinklers had been installed, they would have prevented the fires. In the building at 1,620 metres from ground zero, the only damage is broken windows. (Photographs are from Figures 5.54a and b on pp. 140-1 of Glasstone's 1950 Effects of Atomic Weapons, U.S. Department of Defense.)

Above: line-of-sight shadowing in Hiroshima (Glasstone and Dolan, 1977). What really angers people who are against terrorism is the the fact that the anti-civil defence lobby uses this evidence for pseudo-scientific purposes, claiming falsely that anything in Hiroshima and Nagasaki which cast a burns shadow was 'vaporized'. People who cast 'shadows' on otherwise burned materials were not vaporized, they were painfully burned, and if they had ducked and covered behind anything opaque, they wouldn't have been. E.g., ‘A soldier on picket duty at Nagasaki was vaporised by the explosion even though he was 3.5 km from the centre of the blast.’ – Professors Tony Hey and Patrick Walters, The Quantum Universe, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 69. The soldier was only subject to skin reddening because of the brief pulse, which even a leaf or a sheet of paper stopped. The wooden panel behind the person was slightly scorched where shielded by the person. Hey and Walters’ are unaware that it takes more energy to evaporate water (people are 70% water) than to burn dry wood! If the flash had been sufficient to ‘vaporise’ anyone, the wooden panel would have burned first. Totally ignorant and shameful abuse of 'scientific authority' from two physics professors. Shameful to the publishers' physics editor at Cambridge University Press, too.

ABOVE: U.S. Army photo showing how a mere leaf of Fatsia japonica attenuated the heat flash enough to prevent scorching to the bitumen on an electric pole near the Meiji Bridge, 1.3 km range, Hiroshima. It didn't even vaporize the leaf before the pulse ended, let alone did it somehow ignite the wooden pole (most photos claiming to show thermal flash radiation effects in Hiroshima and Nagasaki purely show effects from the fires set off by the blast wave overturning cooking stoves, which developed 30 minutes to 2 hours later).

'Even blades of grass cast permanent shadows on otherwise badly scorched wood. The [Hiroshima nuclear bomb heat] flash lasted less time than it took the grass to shrivel.' - Chapman Pincher, Into the Atomic Age, Hutchinson and Co., London, 1950, p. 50.



Above: people in Hiroshima mainly died from combined flash burns and radiation exposure (data from: Dr Ashley Oughterson and Dr Shields Warren, Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1956). The graph shows the impact of any kind of light shadow (not nuclear radiation shielding) from the line of sight of the fireball to the person on survival probability. Nuclear radiation interfered with burn recovery, turning mild superficial burns into a lethal source of infection when the white blood cell count was depressed during the recovery phase by the fact that the burns were accompanied by concurrent nuclear radiation exposure. Hiroshima’s wood-frame houses shielded the heat flash, as did vehicles, trees, hills, bridges, tunnels and clothing, and by removing thermal burns, nuclear radiation became survivable. Glass/debris impacts are also avoided by ducking down since the blast is delayed like thunder after lightning. Notice that ‘duck and cover’ action would have increased survival probability at 1.75-2.5 km by a factor of 5.8-5.9.

'Don't stand behind windows in an attack. First you will get burned and then you will have fine glass splinters driven into you very deeply within distances like 7 miles from a 1-megaton burst. ... Glass in any disaster like the Texas City disaster is one of the primary materials found in the normal home which can result in blinding and all other types of effects due to the flying small splinters of glass.'

- Dr Frank H. Shelton, Technical Director of U.S. Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, testimony to U.S. Congressional Hearings on the Biological and Environmental Effects of Nuclear War, 22-26 June 1959, page 41. (Although windows are just broken by the peak overpressure out to 25 miles from a 1 Mt surface burst, the hazard from the blast wind pressure accelerating the glass fragments into a missile threat only extends to 7 miles. E.g., many windows were broken in Las Vegas after Nevada tests due to the refraction of blast waves, but the glass fell vertically to the ground without hurting anybody.)

Nuclear radiation by itself was an extremely survivable effect, but in combination with thermal flash burns and blast debris injuries, there was a synergism which decreased the LD50 dramatically. Burns wounds which would not be fatal in the absence of simultaneous radiation exposure proved lethal even where the amount of nuclear radiation was not by itself lethal. The mechanism is that the moderate doses of nuclear radiation depressed the white blood cell count for several weeks after exposure, which proved lethal when the patient also had infected burns wounds, because of the absence of enough white blood cells to combat the infection during this crucial time.

A month before nuclear weapons were exploded at Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 of August 1945, weather aircraft were sent over the cities daily to ‘accustom the Japanese to seeing daytime flights of two or three bombers’ (autobiography of 509th bombing group commander and Hiroshima pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets). B-29 weather aircraft preceded the nuclear B-29 bomber, giving a false sense of security. In Hiroshima the air-raid warning sounded at 7 am, and the all-clear at 7:30 am, but the bomb was dropped at 8:09 am. People cooked breakfasts with charcoal braziers in inflammable wood homes, with paper screens and bamboo furniture. Blasted red-hot charcoal and screens in the wooden houses started fires. In Nagasaki, the air-raid siren sounded at 7:50 am but was cleared before the bomb fell at 11 am.


Above: photo of the tunnel shelters in the hillside near ground zero, Nagasaki. According to both the originally secret U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey 1947 detailed report on Nagasaki and also the openly-published 1956 book The Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan, these tunnel shelters had places for 70,000 people but fewer than 400 were in them when the bomb dropped, because the small number of American aircraft passing daily over the cities for weeks beforehand (to build up weather data and target surveillance, as well as to get the anti-aircraft gunnery crews complacent so that the nuclear bomb aircraft would not be shot down before dropping the bomb) without attacking the cities, had gradually worn down the civil defence response to small groups of aircraft passing overhead. People in the shelters survived all the effects intact, as they provided adequate shielding. If the people had taken used the shelters, they would have survived. This photo is Figure 12.52a on page 389 of Glasstone's The Effects of Atomic Weapons, U.S. Department of Defense, 1950.

The originally ‘secret’ May 1947 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey report on Nagasaki states (vol. 1, p. 10): ‘... the raid alarm was not given ... until 7 minutes after the atomic bomb had exploded ... less than 400 persons were in the tunnel shelters which had capacities totalling approximately 70,000.’ This situation, of most people watching lone B-29 bombers, led to the severe burns by radiation and flying debris injuries in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The originally ‘secret’ May 1947 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey report on Hiroshima, pp. 4-6:

‘Six persons who had been in reinforced-concrete buildings within 3,200 feet [975 m] of air zero stated that black cotton black-out curtains were ignited by flash heat... A large proportion of over 1,000 persons questioned was, however, in agreement that a great majority of the original fires were started by debris falling on kitchen charcoal fires... There had been practically no rain in the city for about 3 weeks. The velocity of the wind ... was not more than 5 miles [8 km] per hour....

‘The fire wind, which blew always toward the burning area, reached a maximum velocity of 30 to 40 miles [48-64 km] per hour 2 to 3 hours after the explosion ... Hundreds of fires were reported to have started in the centre of the city within 10 minutes after the explosion... almost no effort was made to fight this conflagration within the outer perimeter which finally encompassed 4.4 square miles [11 square km]. Most of the fire had burned itself out or had been extinguished on the fringe by early evening ... There were no automatic sprinkler systems in building...’

The vital six secret volumes of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey consist of three volumes on Hiroshima dated May 1947 and three on Nagasaki dated June 1947. (These are completely separate from the brief unclassified summary on the effects published by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey in 1946.) These secret volumes were finally declassified in 1972 and may be inspected at the British National Archives, as documents AIR 48/160, AIR 48/161, AIR 48/162, AIR 48/163, AIR 48/164, and AIR 48/165.

Dr Ashley Oughterson and Dr Shields Warren noted a fire risk in Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1956, p. 17):

‘Conditions in Hiroshima were ideal for a conflagration. Thousands of wooden dwellings and shops were crowded together along narrow streets and were filled with combustible material.’

The British Mission to Japan also analysed the damage and casualties in 1945, and comprised of 10 Home Office scientists who had been studying effects of conventional bombing on Britain, and 6 military scientists. One of these Home Office scientists, F.H. Pavry, continued to work on nuclear weapons effects at the Home Office throughout the 1950s, and accompanied by George R. Stanbury (who set up Home Office experiments at the first British nuclear test, Hurricane, 1952) and others, worked out civil defence countermeasures.

The British Mission to Japan, unlike the Americans, discriminated data between the casualties in areas with modern brick houses and those in areas of wood-frame traditional Japanese buildings. The results for Nagasaki were two curves for the percentage dead as a function of distance. For people in wood-frame buildings, the percentage killed was 96*exp(-0.45R2); for brick houses it was 96*exp(-0.63R2). In the formulae, based on the curves published in 1946, R is distance from ground zero in km. Each formula applies to the population ignoring air raid warnings and taking no evasive action. For wood-frame areas, 50% mortality occurs at 1.20 km, compared to 1.02 km for brick areas. (However, this estimate for brick houses only applies to brick houses in a firestorm area, surrounded by tens of thousands of burning wooden houses, and was later rejected by those Home Office scientists when they realized that such firestorm conditions - and thus mortality to trapped people in the buildings - would not apply to modern brick and concrete cities where firestorms cannot occur.)


Above: photos of crude earth covered wood-frame shelters that survived at 90 metres from ground zero in Nagasaki and 274 metres from ground zero in Hiroshima, amidst the debris from blast and fire effects on the surrounding wooden houses. These photos were first published as photographs 17 and 18 in the 1946 H.M. Stationery Office publication of the report of the British Mission to Japan, The Effects of the Atomic Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They next appeared in a 1963 article by F. X. Lynch entitld 'Adequate Shelters and Quick Reactions to Warning: A key to Civil Defense', published in Science, vol. 142, pp. 665-7, and finally in Cresson H. Kearny's 1979 Oak Ridge National Laboratory publication, Nuclear War Survival Skills. The Japanese wooden frames (they were very short of steel, due to the war effort using up steel to produce aircraft, ships, etc.) were far less protective than the corrugated steel arches of British Anderson shelters, which survived even better when exposed to measured air blast at the Operation HURRICANE nuclear bomb test in 1952. But the basic principle of earth arching worked even with the wooden frame of the Hiroshima shelter, as Kearny's 1979 book explained : 'It's narrow room and a 3-foot-thick earth cover brought about effective earth arching; this kept its yielding wooden frame from being broken.' Earth arching makes the force from the applied air blast loading conduct through the compressed soil, diffracting around the wood or steel frame instead of being passed on to the frame. This arch arching mechanism was a late discovery in the nuclear testing programme, but it was extensively investigated in nuclear tests from 1957 onwards.

The British Mission to Japan found that the mortality for Nagasaki, assuming the standard wartime population density used for proper comparisons in Britain (45 people/acre) would be 65,000 for wood-frame houses or 50,000 for brick houses in firestorm areas. These figures compare directly to the average of 15 for the Nazi V2 rocket landing on brick housing with the same standard population density (12 for people lying down, 25 for people standing up). Because the V2 was supersonic, no air raid warnings could be given (unlike the case of normal bombing and V1 cruise missiles).

According to the report of the British Mission to Japan, wood-frame house damage was severe: ‘Complete collapse of these buildings from blast extended to 1.25 miles from the centre of damage in Hiroshima, and to an average of 1.5 miles in Nagasaki.’ This difference is due to the fact that the Nagasaki bomb was 22-kt, compared to 12-kt for Hiroshima, and blast effects radii scale as roughly {yield}1/3. The report also notes:

‘The provision of air raid shelters throughout Japan was much below European standards. Those along the verges of the wider streets in Hiroshima were comparatively well constructed: they were semi-sunk, [6 m] long, had wooden frames, and [0.5-0.6 m] of earth cover... Exploding so high above them, the bomb damaged none of these shelters.

‘In Nagasaki ... most householders had made their own backyard shelters, usually slit trenches or bolt holes covered with [0.3 m] or so of earth carried on rough poles and bamboos. These crude shelters ... nevertheless had considerable mass and flexibility ... Most of these shelters had their roofs forced in immediately below the explosion; but the proportion so damaged had fallen to 50 % at [274 m] from the centre of damage, and to zero at about [805 m].

‘These observations show that the standard British shelters would have performed well against a bomb of the same power exploded at such a height. Anderson shelters, properly erected and covered, would have given protection. Brick or concrete surface shelters with adequate reinforcement would have remained safe from collapse. The Morrison shelter is designed only to protect its occupants from the debris load of a house, and this it would have done. Deep shelters such as the refuge provided by the London Underground would have given complete protection.’

The report also debunks myths about people being vaporised where shadows were cast on flash-burned material: ‘There were cases where a clump of grass or the leaf of a tree has cast a sharp shadow on otherwise scorched wood. Therefore the most intense flash from the ball of fire had ended in a time less than that required to shrivel vegetation.’ It also notes that: ‘even the thin clothing protected from flash burn.’

Equally important, it debunks some of the horror rumours which were spread: ‘a rumour was current which age has made almost respectable, for it appeared in the London Blitz and before that in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. This was that large numbers of people had been ripped open by the blast, and their entrails exposed; their eyes and tongues were said also to have hung out. Experience in this country [Britain] has shown that blast pressure alone does not in fact cause these sensational effects ... two Nagasaki survivors who had spoken of seeing hundreds or thousands of such bodies on examination reduced their claim to one or two. Flying debris would be expected to produce a few such injuries.’ (Report of the British Mission to Japan, The Effects of the Atomic Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, H.M. Stationery Office, London, 1946, pp. 17-18.)

This report does not minimise the nuclear radiation effects, noting that exposed pregnant women suffered miscarriages at up to 3.2 km from ground zero in Hiroshima. Because of the variation of effects with distance, the percentage of the total mortality occurring on the first day fell from 92% within 0.5 km to 49% at 1.5-2 km in Hiroshima. The overall average is that 70% of the deaths occurred on the first day. The major nuclear radiation hazard was the fall in the white blood cell count due to bone marrow damage (bone marrow, which produces the white blood cells that fight bacterial infection are produced inside the bones that shield the marrow from ultraviolet rays). Because this coincided with skin blistering from thermal radiation, many infections resulted which overwhelmed the immune systems of survivors. Deaths from infection due to a lack of white blood cells began within a week of the explosion, reached a peak at 3 weeks after exposure, and ceased at 6-8 weeks.

According to the 1979 U.S. Office of Technology Assessment report The Effects of Nuclear War, p. 31: ‘... on a winter night less than 1 percent of the population might be exposed to direct thermal radiation, while on a clear summer weekend afternoon more than 25 percent might be exposed (that is, have no structure between the fireball and the person).’

The secret 1981 U.S. Department of Defence Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons (c. 10, p. 10) states that pain produced by intense thermal radiation provides ‘a useful tool in warning an individual to evade the thermal pulse.’

R. A. Langevin and others in 1958 compared the ability of trained troops and the untrained civilian population to duck and turn away, covering exposed skin (Operations Research, vol. 6, p. 710). Trained troops duck and cover in 0.75 second when a very bright flash occurs. The untrained civilians fared less well: 2% protected themselves within 1 second, 15% by 2 seconds, 50% by 3 seconds, 70% by 4 seconds, 80% by 5 seconds, 90% by 7 seconds, but 7.5% are still fully exposed at 10 seconds after detonation. The young and the old react most slowly if they lack clear simple knowledge of the dangers. Langevin shows that even this untrained protective reaction increases the amount of energy required to cause burns to an exposed population, especially in the case of high-yield weapons which expose the most people.

Dr Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan stated in the 1977 edition of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (U.S. Department of Defence, p. 561):

‘Persons exposed to nuclear explosions of low or intermediate yield may sustain very severe burns... These burns may cause severe superficial damage similar to a third-degree burn, but the deeper layers of the skin may be uninjured. Such burns would heal rapidly, like mild second-degree burns.’

At Hiroshima and Nagasaki, high mortality from superficial burns occurred despite the slight depth of charred skin, because of synergistic interaction between nuclear and thermal radiation exposure. This was discovered by Dr James W. Brooks et al. in 1952, and published in their paper ‘The Influence of External Body Radiation on Mortality from Thermal Burns’ (Annals of Surgery, vol. 136, p. 533). Although superficial third-degree burns from the brief thermal pulse of a nuclear explosion are easily survived, a concurrent nuclear radiation exposure of 100 r interferes with recovery by suppressing the white blood cell count, allowing otherwise minor infections to become lethal.

Contrary to antinuclear propaganda claims that people were ‘vaporised’ in Japanese photographs of human ‘shadows’ left behind on otherwise melted asphalt paint and road surfaces, the fact that these shadows exist proves that people blocked the thermal radiation without disappearing. The peak skin temperature is reached when the rate of absorption of energy equals the rate of dissipation of energy by re-emission, blood circulation, and air-cooling. The human body (mainly water) could not be vaporised by the thermal exposures present at ground zero, even if the energy could have somehow diffused throughout a person within the time available. Skin has a thermal conductance of 8 kg.cal/m2/hour/C. Another recurring myth are spectacular keloids (overgrowths of scar tissue) misrepresented as ‘nuclear bomb’ burns: ‘The degree of the keloid formation was undoubtedly influenced by secondary infections, that complicated healing of the burns, and by malnutrition, but more important is the known tendency for keloid formation to occur among the Japanese, as a racial characteristic. Thus, many spectacular keloids were formed after the healing of burns produced in the fire raids on Tokyo.’ (Dr Samuel Glasstone, editor, The Effects of Atomic Weapons, U.S. Department of Defence, September 1950, p. 337.)

In a controlled sample of 36,500 survivors, 89 people got leukemia over a 40 year period, above the number in the unexposed control group. (Data: Radiation Research, volume 146, 1996, pages 1-27.) Over 40 years, in 36,500 survivors monitored, there were 176 leukemia deaths which is 89 more than the control (unexposed) group got naturally. There were 4,687 other cancer deaths, but that was merely 339 above the number in the control (unexposed) group, so this is statistically a much smaller rise than the leukemia result. Natural leukemia rates, which are very low in any case, were increased by 51% in the irradiated survivors, but other cancers were merely increased by just 7%. Adding all the cancers together, the total was 4,863 cancers (virtually all natural cancer, nothing whatsoever to do with radiation), which is just 428 more than the unexposed control group. Hence, the total increase over the natural cancer rate due to bomb exposure was only 9%, spread over a period of 40 years. There was no increase whatsoever in genetic malformations.

Contrast these hard facts to the propaganda first spread by Dr Harold Jacobson, a nuclear effects ignorant Manhattan Project physicist at Los Alamos, who claimed to the International News Service that Hiroshima will be uninhabitable for 75 years, and then falsely added: ‘Any Japanese who try to ascertain the extent of the damage caused by the atomic bomb are committing suicide.’ Neutron activity doses were not high enough to do that, and there was no significant local fallout (firestorm soot and moisture rainout occurred an hour after the Hiroshima explosion, by which time the radioactive mushroom cloud was far downwind and did not contaminate the rain). Examine the post-attack recovery rate in Hiroshima before any significant outside help arrived:

7 August (Day 2): Survivors open bridges and roads to pedestrian traffic, clearing away debris.

8 August (Day 3): Tracks cleared and trains to Hiroshima resumed.

9 August (Day 4): Street trolley bus (electric tram) lines return to service.

Next, consider what civil defence did during the post-attack recovery process to help aid survivors in Nagasaki, subjected to a nuclear explosion just 3 days after Hiroshima:

9 August (Day 1): Emergency rations are brought in to feed 25,000 survivors (though less than the required amount, due to bureaucratic confusion). The survivors lived in the air-raid shelters, which had survived.

10 August (Day 2): Emergency rations are brought in to feed 67,000 survivors: ‘this represents a remarkable feat of organisation that illustrates the great possibilities of mass feeding.’ - Fred C. Ikle, The Social Impact of Bomb Destruction, University of Oklahoma Press, 1958, p. 147.

7 October (Day 60): The first green shoots of recovery appeared on an irradiated and firestorm burned chestnut tree, photographed by U.S. Air Force observers, and published in the U.S. Congress book, The Effects of Nuclear War, 1979.


Above: the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment published a very poorly researched book in May 1979 (full of popular lies about ozone layer damage, and so on) called The Effects of Nuclear War in which the one useful disclosure (on page 114) was this U.S. Air Force photo of the leaves and new shoots appearing on a chestnut tree in Nagasaki 2 months after being irradiated with gamma rays and neutrons and then charred and burned in the fires which followed. Predictably, this one piece of honesty is omitted from the online PDF version of that book by the Federation of American Scientists here (which is so poorly scanned for page 114 that not even a single word of the photo caption is readable), and also hosted by Princeton University here. Robert Jungk, Children of the Ashes (Heinemann, London, 1961): 'one morning in April 1946, the Vice-Mayor [of Hiroshima] gazed for a long time. For what met his eyes was a sight he had scarcely hoped ever to see again ... The blackness of the branches was dappled with the brilliant white of cherry buds opening into blossom.'

Robert Jungk carefully investigated the history of the recovery in Hiroshima by interviewing the people involved and collecting first hand reports, and gives further interesting details in his book Children of the Ashes (Heinemann, London, 1961):

1. On 31 August 1945: 'the first locally produced and locally printed post-war edition of the Chugoku Shimbun was on sale in the streets of Hiroshima ... 'Our darkroom was an air-raid shelter dug into the hillside [which survived of course]', one of the editors remembers, 'but our type had to be cast in the open air, under the sunny sky.'

2. On 7 September 1945, the Chugoku Shimbun reported that Hiroshima then had a population estimated to be 130,000.

3. On 10 September 1945, electricity was reconnected to some parts of Hiroshima: 'huts made of planks quickly knocked together ... already had electric light.'

4. On 5 November 1945, the Chugoku Shimbun reported that - despite inertia and delays due to 'the rigidity of bureaucratic procedure' which was hindering the recovery rate - a lot of progress was being made:

'Housing. The building of houses is to be systematically begun on 15 November. ...

'Tramways. At present, ten trams are in commission on the main route, eight on the Miyajima route and five muncipal buses. These twenty-three vehicles must cater for an average of 42,000 persons daily.'

Some 70% of the destroyed buildings of Hiroshima had been reconstructed by mid-1949. (Ref.: Research Department, Hiroshima Municipal Office, as cited in Hiroshima, Hiroshima Publishing, 1949. Other recovery data are given in U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Washington, D.C., 1946, p. 8.)


Above: the Chugoku newspaper building 870 m east of GZ Hiroshima, gutted by fire. Unlike the CND-pandering 'survivors would envy the dead' propaganda-lying big name 'journalists' (mostly scum) of today, those journalists at Hiroshima didn't let a nuclear attack deflect them from their duty of reporting news truthfully. They go on with the task of helping to keep morale up, and assisting the flow of information needed to rebuild Hiroshima. They rolled their sleeves up, and got to work, setting type outdoors, processing photographic prints in an old air raid shelter! These journalists are a model for civil defense, unlike their modern lying counterparts!



'I must confess that as an expert, my original view, and the view I held during the time I was on the SALT delegation, was that there was no defense against nuclear war and that there was no realistic recovery from it. ...[However, upon checking the actual facts... ] The day after the blast, bridges in downtown Hiroshima were open to traffic. Two days later, the trains started to run again, and three days later, some of the streetcar lines were back in operation.'

- Thomas K. Jones, Program and Product Evaluation Manager, Boeing Aerospace Company, Testimony the Hearings before the Joint Committee on Defense Production, U.S. Congress, 17 November 1976.

(See also his report: T. K. Jones, Industrial Survival and Recovery after Nuclear Attack: A Report to the Joint Committee on Defense Production, U.S. Congress, Boeing Aerospace Company, Seattle, Washington, ADA041540, 1976. Another relevant report is: U.S. Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, Research Report on Recovery from Nuclear Attack, Information Bulletin No. 307, Washington, D.C., 1979.)

With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War is the title of a 285 pages long pseudoscientific political diatribe against the value of dirt in shielding fallout gamma radiation in civil defense, written by Robert Scheer and published by Vintage Books in 1983. There is an extract here which clearly shows the pseudoscientific, unbalanced, arm-waving, fact-denying style. It was reviewed by Andrew J. Pierre in the Spring 1983 issue of Foreign Affairs, who clearly doesn't know the first thing about fission product fractionation, the Compton effect, or the low energy of gamma rays from neptunium-239 produced by dirty nuclear weapons with uranium-238 casings:

'The sensationalism of the approach of this widely touted book about the Reagan Administration's attitude toward nuclear war somewhat reduces its credibility. There are too many alarums and extreme statements. Yet it remains a troubling work which emphasizes the degree to which at least some in the current Administration hold views which are outside the mainstream of America's strategic and arms control policy of the past 20 years.'

Notice the way that mainstream views are implicitly assumed to be right, contrary to all the lessons of the failure of groupthink dogma for the whole of human history in the fields of politics, war and science. All of the reader reviews currently on Amazon.com also miss the science. The nearest one to truth (at least in the context of Reagan's Starwars SDI project, which came after Scheer's book) is probably the following by Donovan Colbert (Sacramento, California United States) who focusses on Sheer's diatribe against President Reagan and his Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger who both used Jones' research as the basis for making claims to the media that America could not just survive but actually 'win' nuclear war. In 1982 the Reagan administration presented a program to Congress requesting $4.2 billion for civil defense over seven years, to save 80 percent of the U.S. population in the event of a full scale nuclear war with the USSR. In 1980, presidential candidate, George H. W. Bush, later Reagan's Vice President and President himself, answered Robert Scheer's question about how a super-power can win in a nuclear exchange: 'You have survivability of command and control, survivability of industrial potential, protection of a percentage of your citizens, you have a capability that inflicts more damage on the opposition than it can inflict on you. That's the way you have a winner ...'. It's clear that this 'Hawkish' approach was designed to stand up to the Soviet Union which had just invaded Afghanistan, and make it understand that Reagan's administration was tough on terrorist states, the nuclear threat notwithstanding. Colbert's review of Sheer's book states:

'The goal was to convince them to enter into an arms race that they couldn't possibly win, which would cause their economy to collapse and make them reform their Communist system of Government. That loony neocon Mr. Reagan... what a crazy cowboy. How could he ever have thought that this plan could have worked... What... what is that? The Soviet Union suffered an economic collapse and embraced a more democratic society? You don't say... The value of this book is that it the author got it ALL right. Reagan was in a staring contest with the Soviet Union, and he made them blink. He convinced them that he and his administration was crazy, and they were so caught up in that - they bankrupted themselves, causing the collapse of soviet communism.'




Robert Scheer wrote a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times attacking the Reagan people who tried to implement Cresson H. Kearny's 1979 Oak Ridge National Laboratory book, Nuclear War Survival Skills in national civil defense plans for American survival. In 1983, Scheer in his book With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War ridiculed the policies based on the Kearny book without once mentioning or discussing Kearny's book or his prior Oak Ridge National Laboratory research reports. Sheer attacked Thomas K. Jones, the man Ronald Reagan had appointed Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces. Sheer wrote in his yellow bellowied, subversive (non-mentioning) attack on Kearny's research:

'Very late one autumn night in 1981, Thomas K. Jones, the man Ronald Reagan had appointed Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces, told me ... that nuclear war was not nearly as devastating as we had been led to believe. He said, "If there are enough shovels to go around, everybody's going to make it." The shovels were for digging holes in the ground, which would be covered somehow or other with a couple of doors and with three feet of dirt thrown on top, thereby providing adequate fallout shelters for the millions who had been evacuated from America's cities to the countryside. "It's the dirt that does it," he said.

'What is truly astounding about my conversation with T. K. is not simply that one highly placed official in the Reagan Administration is so horribly innocent of the effects of nuclear war. More frightening is that T. K. Jones's views are all too typical of the thinking of those at the core of the Reagan Administration, as I have discovered through hundreds of hours of interviews with the men who are now running our government.'

This kind of sneering by the media against the people implementing civil defence in the Reagan administration, while ignorantly ignoring the scientific facts from tests as published in Kearny's book, led to the whole civil defence effort being ditched. Sheer also promulgated lies about civil defense evacuation effectiveness, quoting some lunatic who claimed that evacuation of densely populated cities and dispersal of the population could be overcome by the Russians if they 'simply retarget to hit the evacuated populations'. Duh! The whole point of nuclear weapons is that they concentrate the effects in a small area which is why cities could be targets, so they're no use for a dispersed population which is protected against blast, thermal and fallout effects! While you can hit 100 cities with 100 nuclear weapons, you would need millions of nuclear weapons to target a dispersed population, and then you would have to keep re-targetting every weapon non-stop as people moved around (the coordinates of cities are fixed).

America and Britain dropped 1.3 Megatons (1,300,000 tons) of conventional high explosives and incendiaries on Germany, while in August 1945 America dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan. Hiroshima and Nagasaki casualties were about 25% of the population of each city (only 1% of casualties have been due to long-term radiation injuries, such as leukemias), and the cities recovered quickly, despite a lack of assistance from other cities.

Remember that the firestorm in Tokyo from one air raid of conventional incendiaries in March 1945 produced more casualties than either atomic bomb, including long term casualties. Many of the incendiary victims suffered worse injuries than nuclear casualties. There was no significant residual fallout in Japan because the bombs were air bursts. (Compare these scientific facts to popular fiction in newspapers and widely published political books 'explaining' the horrific effects of nuclear weapons compared to other weapons.) Remember than 62 million people were killed by conventional warfare in WWII.

Also remember that the blast effects radius scales as the cube-root of yield, so the area devastated is only proportional to the two-thirds power of yield (for fallout there is an analogous effect, since the bigger areas covered by fallout involve longer fallout arrival times than in the case of smaller weapons, so more fallout decays in transit, reducing the doses below those you would expect from linear scaling). The result is that the 2 megatons of bombs dropped in WWII (in the form of 20 million TNT bombs, each of 100 kg average size) is equivalent to an 'equivalent megatonnage' of 431 nuclear bombs each of 1 megaton yield.

The thing about a big nuclear explosion is that it gives you more warning than a conventional low yield bomb - the flash of light travels faster than the blast wave(which takes about 4 seconds to travel one mile), the heat and initial nuclear radiation pulses (the heat and initial nuclear radiation pulse travels at light velocity but is released slowly and takes several seconds to be delivered from the glowing fireball), giving most people time to get out of the line of sight (duck and cover).

Fallout is wind carried dust and again takes time to arrive, giving people who are downwind vital time to evacuate or at least get some shielding in a brick building or one of Kearny's improvised shelters (e.g., each foot of dirt shielding reduces the fallout gamma dose rate by a factor of ten). The nuclear winter hype relies on firestorms, which were feasible in the medieval part of Hamburg and in Japanese cities in 1945, but are not possible with the brick/concrete modern cities around today: any fires get extinguished by rubble. You can't get firestorms. The nuclear winter people like Sagan had to invent a targetting strategy that would put nearly all nuclear bombs on oil refineries. Actually, Saddam set alight all of Kuwait's oil fields before the First Gulf War, but it didn't freeze the planet. Soot layers don't remain stable in the atmosphere: they quickly get dispersed and washed out in the 'black rain' that was seen in Hiroshima (an hour after the radioactive mushroom cloud had been blown miles away by the wind) and conventional firestorm places.



Above: Mannequins at 2.1 km ground range from the 29-kt TEAPOT-APPLE 2 Nevada 500 ft altitude tower test on 5 May 1955. Clothes did not ignite, but the exposed colour of a dark suit faded while a dark pattern on a dress was burned on to the underwear. Clothing protects skin.



Above: UPSHOT KNOTHOLE-ENCORE 27 kt air burst at 2,423 feet altitude at the Nevada nuclear test, 8 May 1953. Wooden houses, black and white, resisted ignition by a thermal flash of 12 calories/cm2, despite ‘smoking’ during exposure. But a badly decayed dark wooden fence and piles of old leaves and newspaper trash set their adjacent houses on fire within 15 minutes. The light-painted house with a tidy yard survived. Far right: two wooden houses 10-by-12 feet in size with large windows facing ground zero were exposed to 17 calories/cm2 from ENCORE. In one house piles of inflammable newspaper trash indoors set a house on fire due to thermal radiation from ENCORE entering the large window, but an identical house beside it survived because inflammable trash had been removed! Page 343 of the 1962 edition of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons explains the significance of this ENCORE test:

‘The value of fire-resistive furnishings in decreasing the number of ignition points was also demonstrated ... where the thermal radiation exposure was 17 calories/cm2 ... draperies were of vinyl plastic, and rugs and clothing were made of wool ... the recovery party, entering an hour after the explosion, was able to extinguish the fires.’

Note that the house which did burn which was loaded with trash with a large window facing the fireball and underwent immediate room 'flashover' with no delay because all the easily ignited trash in it simultaneously burst into flames. Lynn Eden falsely makes a great issue out this fact in her 2004 book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation, on pages 256-7, where she simply ignores the vitally important civil defence fact that the identical house with the trash like old newspapers and highly inflammable old type furniture removed did not undergo instant flashover!

The immediate flashover effect was confirmed at the 1 kt high explosive test DIRECT COURSE in New Mexico, October 1983. There was no surprise there: light tinder filled rooms facing the fireball and irradiated with 17 cal/cm2 instantly burst into flame, but clean tidy rooms without trash don’t, even if they face the fireball. This is what ENCORE proved!



Thomas Goodale's report Effects of Air Blast on Urban Fires, URS Research Company, California, report URS 7009-14, also AD723429, December 1970, showed that where thermal radiation from a simulated 1 megaton burst ignites curtains and papers, the blast wave arrived and blew fires out. At 1 psi, 50% of burning curtains are extinguished by the blast wave, burning fragments from the remainder can be blown into the room by a peak overpressure of 1 psi. But in all case above 2.5 psi peak overpressure, 100% of incipient fires were extinguished by the blast wave, unless the whole room was filled with tindering like newspaper trash and directly facing the fireball so as to suffer immediate 'flashover' like the trash filled room exposed to ENCORE.

Blast winds displace flames and cool the burning material to temperatures below those needed for ignition, thus extinguishing fires. Burning beds, all curtains and upholstered furniture are only extinguished by peak overpressures of 2.5 psi and higher. The beds and upholstered furniture may then continue to smoulder, and can rekindle into fires after 15 minutes or more. During this time it is very easy to stamp out the potential fires.

Lynn Eden falsely comments on Goodale's research in her 2004 book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation, where she writes on page 218 that:

'The next year [1971] Goodale conducted more experiments ... One experiment examined the effects of blast overpressures of up to 9 psi on the smoulder that remained after the flames had been blown out. These findings, however, were not conclusive: "The higher overpressures did not produce a smoulder-extinction counterpart to the blowout of flames. No trend was evident".'

This statement about the trend in smoulder extinction with increasing peak overpressure, has nothing to do with the fact that blast waves do extinguish 100% of solid fuel (not burning liquid fuel pans or burning papers and trash such as in the ENCORE room) of incipient fires above 2.5 psi, even if some are left in a smouldering condition at high overpressures and can re-ignite if not dowsed with water or stamped out.

Lynn Eden continues:

'Another experiment showed a very different outcome in which low blast pressure could increase fire spread. In this study, Goodale subjected burning curtains to blast overpressures of 1 psi "only to discover that transport of burning curtain fragments may become a considerable hazard under suitable conditions".'

Ignition of curtains depends on the curtain colour (curtains with common white linings are resistant to ignition by thermal radiation), but if they are ignited it is true that when blasted into a room they can cause fires under some conditions. yet this does not discredit the finding that other internal room fires are blown out by the blast wave. Burning curtain fragments are easy to deal with, by stamping out. It is not an immediate flashover mechanism, like the trash filled ENCORE room.

Even where rooms are ignited by thermal radiation, this does not instantly spread burn the house down, unless the room is filled with fine tindering such as trash newspapers, magazines, etc., as in the ENCORE room which burned rapidly by immediate flashover (contrasted to the identical room without trash which did not undergo immediate flashover and was extinguished an hour later by the recovery party). It takes 17 minutes for 50% of normal living room fires to 'flashover' so that the whole room bursts into flame, and 8 minutes for 50% of bedroom bed ignitions to flashover to the rest of the room. (F. J. Vodvarka and T. E. Waterman, Fire Behavior, Ignition to Flashover, IIT Research Institute, Chicago, report AD618414, June 1965.) Until flashover occurs, it remains possible to extinguish the fire with water, sand, or by beating it out with wet blankets.

Collaborated evidence from observers at Hiroshima shows that the ignition of dark air raid blackout curtains occurred at up to 1.1 km from ground zero, whereas the more likely blast ignition due to overturned charcoal cooking stoves caused a firestorm to burn everything within an average radius of 1.9 km. Curtain ignition was limited to rooms facing the explosion with uninterrupted line-of-sight to the fireball. Now that upholstery fabrics are fire retardant by law, research has been done into the risk of internal house fires being started by bits of ignited window curtains being thrown into rooms. The main risk occurs if there are piles of old newspapers in the rooms which can act as tinder, because the wood used in flooring and furniture is too thick to be ignited before curtain fragments burn out. (Thomas Goodale, The Ignition Hazard to Urban Interiors During Nuclear Attack due to Burning Curtain Fragments Transported by Blast, URS Research Corp., San Mateo, California, report URS-7030-5, 1971.)

There are lots of simple countermeasures against thermal ignition in the threat of a nuclear attack. For rooms containing ignitable items like beds, upholstered furniture, or rugs: choose light-coloured curtains, paint a mixture of flour and water on to the inside of windows with a potential view of the fireball, or even better simply tape sheets of aluminium cooking foil over those particular windows. For other rooms and offices: dispose of loose combustible materials like newspapers, magazines and trash, and place in the rooms buckets filled with water or sand to use to extinguish fires before they can spread. Blankets soaked with water are useful to beat out tindering fires before they spread.

Lynn Eden goes on (pages 218-9):

'Many studies followed, but the results were inconclusive. One experiment undertaken in the spring of 1973 ... subjected twenty pans of burning fuel to blast ... "no fire at any of the three stations was extinguished by the shock wave". ... Some experiments ... appeared to bear out Goodale's findings, others did not.'

This is dishonest because burning liquid in pans involves the circulation of hot convection currents of liquid with a much higher specific heat capacity (heat retaining ability) than air. Solid fuels only circulate hot gases, which have a low specific heat capacity and so are easily blown out by a blast of relatively cool air. But burning liquid is totally different and can be much harder to extinguish once the liquid is heated to ignition temperature by convection currents within it. This has nothing to to with the extinguishing nature of the blast wave on burning solid fuels: it is patiently and fundamentally dishonest to compare experiments on dissimilar phenomena and then claim that they are contradictory so that those which support civil defence can be ignored as 'inconclusive'. That is just fact ignoring pseudoscience, a political dodge with no place in fact-based science.

Lynn Eden states on page 219:

'... In the "doughnut hole", the area immediately surrounding the detonation, collapsed strustures would prevent fires from burning or would extinguish incipient fires; farther away, fires would burn vigorously. ... at Hiroshima ... there was no "hole" near the detonation, nor was there evidence of such a hole at Nagasaki.'

This is a dishonest 'comparison' because Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wood frame cities, not brick and concrete. The few brick and concrete buildings survived in each city, often with minor damage. It is dishonest for Lynn Eden and her sources like Postol and Brode to ignore the fact that brick and concrete can't burn but wood can burn. The May 1947 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey report on Hiroshima, pp. 4-6:

‘Six persons who had been in reinforced-concrete buildings within 3,200 feet [975 m] of air zero stated that black cotton black-out curtains were ignited by flash heat... A large proportion of over 1,000 persons questioned was, however, in agreement that a great majority of the original fires were started by debris falling on kitchen charcoal fires... There had been practically no rain in the city for about 3 weeks. The velocity of the wind ... was not more than 5 miles [8 km] per hour....

‘The fire wind, which blew always toward the burning area, reached a maximum velocity of 30 to 40 miles [48-64 km] per hour 2 to 3 hours after the explosion ... Hundreds of fires were reported to have started in the centre of the city within 10 minutes after the explosion... almost no effort was made to fight this conflagration within the outer perimeter which finally encompassed 4.4 square miles [11 square km]. Most of the fire had burned itself out or had been extinguished on the fringe by early evening ... There were no automatic sprinkler systems in building...’

The British Home Office Manual of Civil Defence, Vol. 1, Pamphlet No. 1, Nuclear Weapons, 2nd edition, 1959, states that the 'main fire zone' in a British brick built city will not exist within the radius of peak overpressure 11 psi because the rubble will exclude air and prevent significant fires within that radius. It specified four damage zones:

A - 11 psi (75 kPa) peak overpressure: complete destruction of ordinary houses, so brick rubble extinguishes fires.

B - 6 psi (40 kPa) peak overpressure: brick walls cracked or demolished, houses irreparably damaged, streets blocked with debris until cleared with mechanical aids.

C - 1.5 psi (10 kPa) peak overpressure: doors and roofs smashed in addition to broken windows and tiles blown off roofs.

D - 0.75 psi (5 kPa) peak overpressure: light damage, just glass and tiles.

Russian nuclear test based civil defence data indicated that brick houses do not burn at overpressures above 7 psi because the rubble prevents fires, as quoted Cresson H. Kearny, Nuclear War Survival Skills, Updated and Expanded 1987 Edition, Oak Ridge National Laboratory/Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, 1987, Chapter 1:

'Soviet propagandists promptly exploited belief in unsurvivable "nuclear winter" to ... demoralize their enemies. Because raging city firestorms are needed to inject huge amounts of smoke into the stratosphere and thus, according to one discredited theory, prevent almost all solar heat from reaching the ground, the Soviets changed their descriptions of how a modern city will burn if blasted by a nuclear explosion. ... [before nuclear winter hype in 1983] Russian scientists and civil defense officials realistically described ... the burning of a city hit by a nuclear weapon. Buildings in the blasted area for miles around ground zero will be reduced to scattered rubble - mostly of concrete, steel, and other nonflammable materials - that will not burn in blazing fires. Thus in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory translation (ORNL-TR-2793) of Civil Defense, Second Edition (500,000 copies), Moscow, 1970, by Egorov, Shlyakhov, and Alabin, we read: "Fires do not occur in zones of complete destruction . . . that are characterized by an overpressure exceeding 0.5 kg/cm2 [7 psi peak overpressure], because rubble is scattered and covers the burning structures. As a result the rubble only smolders, and fires as such do not occur." ... No firestorm has ever injected smoke into the stratosphere, or caused appreciable cooling below its smoke cloud.

'The theory that smoke from burning cities and forests and dust from nuclear explosions would cause worldwide freezing temperatures was conceived in 1982 by the German atmospheric chemist and environmentalist Paul Crutzen, and continues to be promoted by a worldwide propaganda campaign. This well funded campaign began in 1983 with televised scientific-political meetings in Cambridge and Washington featuring American and Russian scientists. A barrage of newspaper and magazine articles followed, including a scaremongering article by Carl Sagan in the October 30, 1983 issue of Parade, the Sunday tabloid read by millions. The most influential article was featured in the December 23,1983 issue of Science (the weekly magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science): "Nuclear winter, global consequences of multiple nuclear explosions," by five scientists, R. P. Turco, O. B. Toon, T. P. Ackerman, J. B. Pollack, and C. Sagan. Significantly, these activists listed their names to spell TTAPS, pronounced "taps," the bugle call proclaiming "lights out" or the end of a military funeral.

'Until 1985, non-propagandizing scientists did not begin to effectively refute the numerous errors .... A principal reason is that government organizations, private corporations, and most scientists generally avoid getting involved in political controversies ... Stephen Schneider has been called a fascist by some disarmament supporters for having written "Nuclear Winter Reappraised," according to the Rocky Mountain News of July 6, 1986. Three days later, this paper, that until recently featured accounts of unsurvivable "nuclear winter," criticized Carl Sagan and defended Thompson and Schneider in its lead editorial, "In Study of Nuclear Winter, Let Scientists Be Scientists." In a free country, truth will out - although sometimes too late to effectively counter fast-hitting propaganda.'

DPA Attack Environment Manual: Chapter 3, What the Planner Needs to Know about Fire Ignition and Spread, U.S. Department of Defense, report CPG 2-1A3, June 1973, Panels 3 and 5:

'Of course, hardly anyone lives in an area where they would be certainly exposed to thermal radiation ... There would be buildings, trees, hills ... Virtually any opaque material will serve to shield against the thermal pulse. ... nearly all of the radiation would be shielded out by objects before they are damaged or moved by the blast wave. ... tinder fuels do not usually contain sufficient energy by themselves to cause a sustained fire. What is needed is a "fuel array" containing both tinder and other burnables. ... Hardly anyone puts black curtains at their windows. In the thousands of sites that have been surveyed, none have been found. Crumpled newspaper and dry leaves are found in urban areas but, like people in the streets, they are very often not in a position to "see" the fireball and rarely are they located with other burnables to form a sufficient fuel array to cause a building fire. ... Some fire analysts consider only upholstered furniture and beds as the fuel arrays of significance. About 35 to 40 calories per square centimetre are required for ignition by a 5-Mt weapon.'

Curtains and drapes should be closed across windows in an impending nuclear attack, to shield beds and upholstered furniture from thermal radiation. Ignition of curtain fragments are easily stamped or doused out. This occurred at Hiroshima, where the main source of fires was the overturning of charcoal braziers in wooden houses by the blast wave.

John McAuliffe and Kendall Moll studied the blast wave role in starting fires in their 224 pages long report, Secondary Ignitions from Nuclear Attack, Stanford Research Institute, California, report AD625173, July 1965. They found that flying debris and building collapse data on fire ignition was available from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings, high explosive disasters such as the massive Texas City ship explosion in 1947, World War II bombings, earthquakes and tornadoes. They concluded that for American cities (which don't use Japanese charcoal cooking braziers in indoors in homes filled with paper screens and bamboo furnishings), there are only 0.006 fires ignited by the blast wave per 1,000 square feet of floor area damaged by peak overpressures of 2 psi or more. This is approximately 1% ignition of typical American homes, one fire in every three blocks, or 80 fires per square mile in an area which is 25% builtup with 2-story buildings. Electrical wiring and gas piping were considered equally vulnerable. (Actually, this will be an overestimate because the source-region cable pick up of light-speed EMP current surges will automatically shut down transformers within a few microseconds of a surface burst or low air burst on a city; power stations and substations may be ignited by the EMP, but it will prevent secondary ignitions of electrical fires by blast wave debris in homes.)

A theoretical study of the combined effects of both primary thermal ignition of American homes by thermal radiation and also blast wave effects in extinguishing most of those fires but causing some secondary fires by damaging electrical and gas installations (they ignored the role of EMP) is the 97 pages long report by R. K. Miller et al., Analysis of Four Models of the Nuclear-Caused Ignitions and Early Fires in Urban Areas, the Dirkwood Corporation, New Mexico, report AD 716807, August 1970. This report used a combination of computer models to show that a 5 megaton surface burst on Detroit would ignite 2% of buildings at 8 miles from ground zero where the peak overpressure was 2 psi, rising linearly to a maximum of 10% of buildings at 5 miles (and within 5 miles) where the peak overpressure was 5 psi or more.

The poorly researched 1979 U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment report The Effects of Nuclear War ignorantly used these figures of 2% ignition at 2 psi and 10% at 5 psi without understanding that they include thermal radiation effects and therefore do not scale with peak overpressure!

Another study of fires ignited in Detroit by a 5 Mt burst is Arthur N. Takata and Frederick Salzberg, Development and Application of a Complete Fire-Spread Model: Volume II, IIT research Institute, Chicago, report AD684874, June 1968, found that 3.8% of all buildings could be ignited initially, but that firespread could burn down many more if initial ignitions were not stamped out. Radiation from a burning wooden building emits about 4 cal/cm2/sec, and it takes only 0.4 cal/cm2/sec to ignite wood, so whenever another wooden house occupies more than 10% of the field of view of a burning house, it will be ignited. (Takata and Salzburg note that in the Darmstadt fire of 11 September 1944, where firebrands were negligible, thermal radiation from burning wooden houses caused a 72% probability of igniting immediately adjacent houses, a 50% probability of igniting houses 8 metres away, and a 10% probability of igniting houses 12 metres away.)

This short-ranged radiation firespread mechanism could nearly double the number of house ignitions in Detroit over the first hour, from 3.8% to 6.5% of houses burning at one hour post attack. After an hour, firebrands from burning houses would start to seriously contribute to the ignition of fires at much greater distances than the heat radiation from burning wooden buildings, so by 3 hours 18% of buildings in Detroit could be burnt out, and by 28 hours the figure could rise to 50%. Unlike a firestorm, this would be a very slow process, like the Great Fire of London in 1666 where only 8 people were killed when 32,000 homes were burned over 1.8 km2, because the fire spread very slowly over 4 days; and the Chicago Fire of 1871 where only 50 people were killed when 17,500 homes burned over an area of 8.6 km2 over a period of 3 days. (Wind carried burning firebrands from the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 caused fires to wooden houses at distances of up to 800 metres downwind. Landing on wooden roofs, they are very difficult to deal with when the fire brigade is preoccupied with the existing fire zone.)

In Hiroshima, the secret May 1947 report of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (Fig 5-IX) found that for wooden houses, the probability of one burning house igniting another by firebrands is 50% for a separation distance of 26 m, and shows (Fig 4-IX) that the risk of fire spread is 50% where 21% of the ground area is covered by wooden houses or 32% of the ground area is covered by industrial buildings.

‘Considerable war-time experience in the UK established beyond doubt that the chance of a continuing fire in an ordinary British house spreading and involving another house is less than 40%.’ – George R. Stanbury, The number of fires caused by nuclear attack, British Home Office, Scientific Adviser’s Branch, report SA/PR 90, 1965.

Many American buildings are wood-frame. For the brick and concrete type buildings that prevail in Britain, the Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch Scientific Advisers' Operational Handbook, Scottish Home and Health Department, H. M. Stationery Office, Edinburgh, 1979, states on page 39:

'The density of initial ignitions in the main fire zone, for UK houses, is likely to be very roughly one house in thirty, with a fire-spread factor of about 2 [i.e., each initial ignition will on average ignite one other building by thermal radiation, wind blown convection flames, and hot burning firebrands]. About one house in fifteen is expected to become burnt out. This situation would not constitute a "firestorm" or "mass fire", and the number of fire casualties should be small.'

Firestorms have always required at least 50% of buildings to be ignited. A 71 pages long report by Robert M. Rodden, Floyd I. John, and Richard Laurino, Exploratory Analysis of Fire Storms, Stanford Research Institute, California, report AD616638, May 1965, identified the following parameters required by all firestorms:

(1) More than 8 pounds of fuel per square foot (40 kg per square metre) of ground area. Hence firestorms occurred in wooden buildings, like Hiroshima or the medieval part of Hamburg. The combustible fuel load in London is just 24 kg/m2, whereas in the firestorm area of Hamburg in 1943 it was 156 kg/m2. The real reason for all the historical fire conflagrations was only exposed in 1989 by the analysis of L. E. Frost and E.L. Jones, ‘The Fire Gap and the Greater Durability of Nineteenth-Century Cities’ (Planning Perspectives, vol. 4, pp. 333-47). Each medieval city was built cheaply from inflammable ‘tinderbox’ wooden houses, using trees from the surrounding countryside. By 1800, Britain had cut down most of its forests to build wood houses and to burn for heating, so the price of wood rapidly increased (due to the expense of transporting trees long distances), until it finally exceeded the originally higher price of brick and stone; so from then on all new buildings were built of brick when wooden ones decayed. This rapidly reduced the fire risk. Also, in 1932, British Standard 476 was issued, which specified the fire resistance of building materials. In addition, new cities were built with wider streets and rubbish disposal to prevent tinder accumulation in alleys, which created more effective fire breaks.

(2) More than 50% of structures ignited initially.

(3) Initial surface winds of less than 8 miles per hour.

(4) Initial ignition area exceeding 0.5 square mile.

The fuel loading per unit ground area is equal to fuel loading per unit area of a building, multiplied by the builtupness fraction of the area. E.g., Hamburg had a 45% builtupness (45% of the ground area was actually covered by buildings), and the buildings were multistorey medieval wooden constructions containing 70 pounds of fuel per square foot. Hence, in Hamburg the fuel loading of ground area was 0.45*70 = 32 pounds per square foot, which was enough for a firestorm.

By contrast, modern cities have a builtupness of only 10-25% in most residential areas and 40% in commercial and downtown areas. Modern wooden American houses have a fuel loading of 20 pounds per square foot of building area with a builtupness below 25%, so the fuel loading per square foot of ground is below 20*0.25 = 5 pounds per square foot, and would not produce a firestorm. Brick and concrete buildings contain on the average about 3.5 pounds per square foot of floor area, so they can't produce firestorms either, even if they are all ignited.

On the night of 9-10 March 1945, 334 B-29 aircraft dropped 1,667 tons of high explosives (to open up buildings to allow incendiary bombs inside) and incendiaries on Tokyo, creating a firestorm which burned down 41 km2 or 15.8 square miles, killing more people than at Hiroshima (where only 4.7 square miles was burned down) or Nagasaki (where the valley geography meant that only 1.8 square miles burned down). These data come from the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey report, The Effects of Atomic Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1946.

THE BOMBING OF HAMBURG AND HOW THE FIRESTORM WAS PRODUCED

London was bombed in 1940 by about 200 aircraft for 61 consecutive nights. Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote in September 1940 that ‘The bombers alone will provide the means of victory’, but in August 1941 an analysis of British night-time bombing raids showed that only 10-33 % of British bombers dropped their bombs within 8 km of their targets, the lower (10 %) figure being due to heavy anti-aircraft artillery in Ruhr. In conclusion, it was decided that precision attacks on small targets by bombers were a waste of time, and cities would be targeted instead. Arthur Harris became chief of bomber command on 25 February 1942 and wanted to accumulate a vast number of aircraft and to pound Germany’s capital city, Berlin, into submission. In a filmed statement, Harris said: ‘There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war. My answer to that is: it has never been tried yet, and we shall see.’

However, Churchill rejected Harris’ demand to concentrate on Berlin. Churchill then nick-named Harris ‘Bomber’ (Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris) and personally instructed him to bomb other German cities, such as Dresden, to support the Russian attack on Germany. On 14 February 1942, bomber command had received a directive stating: ‘the primary object of your operations should now be focussed on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular, of the industrial workers.’

George R. Stanbury, the Home Office scientist who conducted Civil Defence research int fallout protection at Monte Bello for Operation HURRICANE, Britain’s first nuclear test in 1952, explains in detail how the Hamburg firestorm was produced in his originally restricted article, ‘The Fire Hazard from Nuclear Weapons’, Fission Fragments, Scientific Civil Defence Magazine, Home Office, London, No. 3, August 1962, pp. 22-6, British Home Office, Scientific Adviser’s Branch, originally classified Restricted:


Above: effect of the Hamburg firestorm.

'We have often been accused of underestimating the fire situation … we are unrepentant in spite of the television utterances of renowned academic scientists who know little about fire. ... Firstly ... the collapse of buildings would snuff out any incipient fires. Air cannot get into a pile of rubble, 80% of which is incombustible anyway. This is not just guesswork; it is the result of a very complete study of some 1,600 flying bomb [V1 cruise missile] incidents in London supported by a wealth of experience gained generally in the last war. Secondly, there is a considerable degree of shielding of one building by another in general. Thirdly, even when the windows of a building can "see" the fireball, and something inside is ignited, it by no means follows that a continuing and destructive fire will develop. ... A window of two square metres would let in about 105 calories at the 5 cal/cm2 range. The heat liberated by one magnesium incendiary bomb is 30 times this and even with the incendiary bomb the chance of a continuing fire developing in a small room is only 1 in 5; in a large room it is very much less. Thus even if thermal radiation does fall on easily inflammable material which ignites, the chance of a continuing fire developing is still quite small. In the Birmingham and Liverpool studies, where the most generous values of fire-starting chances were used, the fraction of buildings set on fire was rarely higher than 1 in 20.



ABOVE: the heat flash radiation which causes the scorching is so unscattered or unidirectional that any shading from the fireball source stops it even if you are exposed to the scattered radiation from the rest of the sky: shadows still present in October 1945 in the bitumen road surface of Yorozuyo Bridge, 805 m SSW of ground zero, Hiroshima, pointed where the bomb detonated (U.S. Army photo).

'And this is the basis of the assertion that we do not think that fire storms are likely to be started in British cities by nuclear explosions, because in each of the five raids in which fire storms occurred (four on Germany - Hamburg, Darmstadt, Kassel, Wuppertal and a "possible" in Dresden, plus Hiroshima in Japan - it may be significant that all these towns had a period of hot dry weather before the raid) the initial fire density was much nearer 1 in 2. Take Hamburg for example:

'On the night of 27/28th July 1943, by some extraordinary chance, 190 tons of bombs were dropped into one square mile of Hamburg. This square mile contained 6,000 buildings, many of which were [multistorey wooden] medieval.

'A density of greater than 70 tons/sq. mile had not been achieved before even in some of the major fire raids, and was only exceeded on a few occasions subsequently. The effect of these bombs is best shown in the following diagram, each step of which is based on sound trials and operational experience of the weapons concerned.

'102 tons of high explosive bombs dropped -> 100 fires
'88 tons of incendiary bombs dropped, of which:
'48 tons of 4 pound magnesium bombs = 27,000 bombs -> 8,000 hit buildings -> 1,600 fires
'40 tons of 30 pound gel bombs = 3,000 bombs -> 900 hit buildings -> 800 fires
'Total = 2,500 fires

'Thus almost every other building [1 in 2 buildings] was set on fire during the raid itself, and when this happens it seems that nothing can prevent the fires from joining together, engulfing the whole area and producing a fire storm (over Hamburg the column of smoke, observed from aircraft, was 1.5 miles in diameter at its base and 13,000 feet high; eyewitnesses on the ground reported that trees were uprooted by the inrushing air).

'When the density was 70 tons/square mile or less the proportion of buildings fired during the raid was about 1 in 8 or less and under these circumstances, although extensive areas were burned out, the situation was controlled, escape routes were kept open and there was no fire storm.'

Often people point to bits of glass melted by the firestorm in Hiroshima, and ignorantly claim it was a special effect of nuclear weapons. Alas, such melted glass occurred in the GreatFire of London, 1666, and it didn’t need a nuclear explosion:

‘Having stayed, and in an hour’s time seen the fire rage every way, and nobody, to my sight, endeavouring to quench it, but to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire; and, having seen it get as far as the Steelyard, and the wind mighty high, and driving it into the City; and everything, after so long a drought, proving combustible... So near the fire as we could for smoke; and all over the Thames, with one’s face in the wind, you were almost burned with a shower of fire-drops... took up, which I keep by me, a piece of glass of Mercers’ chapel in the street, where much more was, so melted and buckled with the heat of the fire like parchment.’ – Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), Great Fire of London, Diary, September 1666.

The Hamburg air raid be compared directly to the eventual policy of the U.S.A.F. bombers that were attacking Japan. The man who would pilot the nuclear bomber to Hiroshima, Paul Tibbets, who had been in Europe, advised General C. E. LeMay ‘many Japanese buildings were constructed of flammable material. Paper houses, we called them. “All you need to do is ‘area bomb’ these cities [using incendiaries],” I said.’ [P. W. Tibbets, The Tibbets Story, Stein & Day, 1978.]

LeMay took Tibbet’s advice and in his 1965 book (Mission with LeMay, Doublesday) explained why this was acceptable in World War II: ‘It was their system of dispersal of industry. All you had to do was visit one of those targets after we’d roasted it, and see the ruins of a multitude of tiny houses, with a drill press sticking up through the wreckage of every home. The entire population got into the act and worked to make those airplanes or munitions of war ... men, women, children.’

After the single Tokyo air raid killed 83,600 people on 10 March 1945, Dr Robert Oppenheimer predicted that a nuclear air raid at night (people indoors) would kill 20,000 people. Oppenheimer wanted the attack done at night to prevent women and children receiving flash burns in the daytime. He received a very cold reception from people like LeMay, owing to the insignificance relative to conventional air raids. Oppenheimer then began to sell the nuclear bomb as a thermal and nuclear radiation killer, instead of a blast device to be used at night.

Colonel Paul Tibbets was instructed by LeMay to ignore Oppenheimer’s wish and only to drop the bombs in the daytime visually to prevent the risk of a serious radar aiming error. He maximised casualties by minimising warning (although this was done for the deliberate purpose of minimising the risk of serious anti-aircraft gun attacks on the bombing aircraft): for weeks before dropping the bombs, the cities that had been carefully spared incendiaries were daily flown over by weather and photographic aircraft. This was to prevent surprise when the plane carrying the bomb appeared. Tibbets recorded in his autobiography that this ‘would accustom the Japanese to seeing daytime flights of two or three bombers over their target ... we hoped they would be lulled into ignoring us, when we came to deliver the real thing ... air raid sirens would sound when we came overhead.’

This ‘lulling’ meant that many people outside would merely watch the planes without taking shelter, and receive serious facial burns and direct exposure to other effects. Nobody was vaporised; the skin burns were deep enough near ground zero to be lethal in combination with the nuclear radiation exposure. In the case of Hiroshima, the weather survey aircraft caused a night time air raid, and a final weather aircraft ahead of the nuclear bomber set off air raid alarms at 7:30 am (cancelled by an all clear at 8 am), before the nuclear armed bomber arrived at 8:15 am. Mrs Nakamuru, a widow with three children had only just arrived back home after the ‘all clear’ from the weather aircraft-caused alarm, as described by John Hersey in his 1946 book Hiroshima:

‘They reached home a little after 2:30 am and she immediately turned on the radio, which, to her distress, was just then broadcasting a fresh warning. When she looked at the children and saw how tired they were, and she thought of the number of trips they had made in the past weeks, all to no purpose, she decided that inspite of the instructions on the radio, she simply could not face starting out all over again.’ When the all clear sounded at 8 am, she lit her stove and started cooking rice. She was in a wood frame house 1,230 metres from ground zero: ‘everything flashed whiter than any white she had ever seen. She had taken a single step when something picked her up and she seemed to fly into the next room over the raised sleeping platform, pursued by parts of her house ...’ Others were burned when they looked up at the B-29 and received facial flash burns, some behind windows which resulted in glass fragment lacerations in addition.

Tibbets remarked in his autobiography, The Tibbets Story: ‘Of course, one hopes that civilians will have the good sense to seek protection in bomb shelters.’ If so, there would have been far fewer casualties, and less impact, and Tibbets admitted: ‘In the case of Hiroshima, I was to learn later that Eatherly’s weather plane ... had set off air raid sirens but, when nothing happened, ours were ignored.’ The Joint Commission for the Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan, Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan (Oughterson and Warren, editors, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1956), found ‘there only about 400 people in the tunnel shelters [Nagasaki] which had a capacity of 70,000’ and that such people survived ‘even directly below the bomb.’ Describing the situation in Hiroshima, it stated:

‘Most of the people were at home preparing breakfast; consequently thousands of fires were burning in charcoal braziers. Only a few people were in modern buildings.’

DR HAROLD L. BRODE AND FIRESTORM ERRORS IN LYNN EDEN'S BOOK, 'WHOLE WORLD ON FIRE'

'At a range of more than 1 nautical mile [= 6,076 feet = 1,851 m = 1.15 statute mile], more than half the buildings [in Hiroshima] were gutted by fire. At that point, the peak overpressure of the nuclear blast wave was about 3 psi, and the fireball heat or thermal fluence was about 8 or 9 cal/cm2.'

- Dr Harold L. Brode and Dr R. D. Small, A Review of the Physics of Large Urban Fires, in The Medical Implications of Nuclear War, U.S. National Academy Press, 1986, page 79.

This correlation of thermal radiation to the firestorm radius is totally bogus, because no fires at that radius were ignited by thermal radiation! Some 100% of house fires at that radius were ignited by the blast wave overturning charcoal cooking braziers inside wooden houses filled with paper screens and bamboo furnishings. Dr Brode and Dr Small might as well have correlated the radius of the firestorm to the EMP field or to the mushroom cloud radius, for all the relation that there was between thermal radiation and the firestorm radius in Hiroshima. They neglected the physical mechanism entirely, and practised the worst form of pseudoscience.

Brode on page 84 states that 'Threshold ignition levels ... for common susceptible materials in an urban environment increase with yield roughly as ... 3.5Wkt0.113 cal/cm2. This gives 9 cal/cm2 for 5 Mt, when as we have seen it actually takes four times more energy to ignite beds and upholstry in a sustained way which won't be blown out by the blast or die out without spreading to the rest of the room, even when the window can 'see' the fireball:

'About 35 to 40 calories per square centimetre are required for ignition by a 5-Mt weapon.' - DPA Attack Environment Manual: Chapter 3, What the Planner Needs to Know about Fire Ignition and Spread, U.S. Department of Defense, report CPG 2-1A3, June 1973, Panels 3 and 5.

Lynn Eden, who had numerous interviews and discussions with Dr Brode since the late 1980s, is also duped entirely by this outrageous anti-civil defence lie in her 2004 book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation, where she writes on page 120:

'At Hiroshima, the perimeter of mass fire ... occurred about one mile from the detonation ... at this distance, the thermal fluence deposited was estimated at 10 cal/cm2 ... The deposition of thermal fluence of 10 cal/cm2 is the basic measure used in much of Theodore Poston's published work on fire damage ...'

Theodore Poston in his ignorant paper 'Possible Fatalities from Superfires following Nuclear Attacks in or Near Urban Areas', in the 1986 U.S. National Academy of Sciences book The Medical Implications of Nuclear War, assumes falsely that brick and concrete cities can burn like the small areas of medieval German cities and like Brode and Small, he simply ignores the mechanism for the firestorm in Hiroshima which had nothing to do with thermal radiation but was just due to overturned breakfast charcoal braziers. Theodore Poston also falsely complains that wooden houses exposed to nuclear tests didn't burn because they had white paint on them and shutters over the windows. That discredits Theodore Poston's whole anti-civil defence countermeasure tirade by actually PROVING the value of simple civil defense; but actually if you open your eyes, you find that most wooden houses are painted white, and in a real city - unlike the empty Nevada desert - few windows will have a line of sight to the fireball anyway!

The pseudoscientific fanatical thuggery against civil defence countermeasures to nuclear terrorism must be deplored. (Another basic scientific error Lynn makes is trying to use firestorm data from incendiary phosphorus bombing in humid weather to discredit the fact that thermal ignition depends on humidity! Unlike nuclear weapons thermal radiation which demands dry tindering to cause ignition, phosphorus is actually ignited by water! You must never pour water on a phosphorus bomb, or it will flare up. Ignorance of such basic chemistry is lethal.)

Brode and Small make the worst error of all when they state on page 94: 'Despite a well-organized German civil defense, firefighting, rescue operations, and emergency medical aid were severely limited in many of the fires and totally ineffective in the intense fire storms.'

They incorrectly ignores all the evidence that the civil defence operations were hampered by the extended period of air raid bombing, which did not occur at Hiroshima or Nagasaki where only a single bomb was dropped. They ignorantly take no account or make any mention whatsoever of all the studies done on the efficient, extremely easy and effective firefighting that readily saved buildings near Hiroshima's ground zero, well within the firestorm area, reported by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. For example, the Bank of Japan, Hiroshima branch, was a 3-story reinforced concrete frame building at just 400 m from ground zero. There were no initial ignitions at all by either blast or thermal radiation. However, 1.5 hours afterwards a a firebrand started a fire in a room on the second floor. The survivors in the building simply extinguished the fire with buckets of water! Duh! Hiroshima in the very middle of the intense fire storm?! Buckets of water? Yes. They simply put the fire out. Later another firebrand ignited the third floor, and the survivors this time ran out of water and just shut the doors and allowed it to burn out. The fire did not spread to the lower floors.

This incident is explained in panel 26 of the DPA Attack Environment Manual: Chapter 3, What the Planner Needs to Know about Fire Ignition and Spread, U.S. Department of Defense, report CPG 2-1A3, June 1973, which adds that the Geibi Bank Company in the firestorm area of Hiroshima also survived the bomb with no thermal or blast ignitions: 'However, at about 10:30 A.M., over 2 hours after the detonation, firebrands from the south exposure ignited a few pieces of furniture and curtains on the first and third stories. The fires were extinguished with water buckets by the building occupants. Negligible fire damage resulted.'

It is either incompetent or else dishonest of Dr Harold L. Brode and Dr R. D. Small to try to discredit civil defense countermeasures against firestorms in nuclear attack by giving the false example of German bombing raids and totally ignoring the experiences of the Hiroshima firestorm to nuclear warfare (below).



I wish the Radiation Effects Research Foundation will start caring less about abiding politically correct, scientifically misleading dogma; and instead focus on helping the world to understand the vitally important scientific facts on radiation.

DECEPTION OVER OZONE LAYER DAMAGE

One of several errors in the 1977 3rd edition of the U.S. Department of Defense book The Effects of Nuclear Weapons is the false claim on page 78 that air bursts like those over Hiroshima and Nagasaki damage the ozone (O3) layer which exists at altitudes of 15-30 km:

'... nuclear explosions are accompanied by the formation [in the blast wave at high overpressures] of oxides of nitrogen [causing the red-brown colour to the rising fireball before condensing water vapor turns it white]. An air burst, for example, is estimated to produce about 1032 molecules of nitrogen oxides per megaton of TNT equivalent ... hence, the nitrogen oxides from such explosions would be expected to enhance mechanisms which tend to decrease the ozone concentration.'

This is false because:

(1) the initial gamma radiation from both surface and air bursts produce a large ozone layer around the early fireball, shielding the early thermal radiation from the fireball after nuclear explosions, and this ozone production is not mentioned in the book. The mechanism for the production of ozone naturally is the absorption by oxygen molecules (O2) of short-wavelength ultraviolet light, bordering the soft X-ray spectrum. In addition to ozone formation by gamma radiation, nuclear weapons release typically 70-80% of their energy as such soft X-rays in a blackbody distribution (Glasstone and Dolan, pp. 23-5) which is soon degraded by air scatter into ultraviolet radiation which forms ozone. The reaction is: 3O2 + energy -> 2O3. The heat released by the natural ozone-forming process is the reason for the increase in the temperature of the stratosphere with altitude. The natural chemical reaction produces about 4,500 tons of ozone per second in the stratosphere, which maintains equilibrium by being broken down at a similar rate by other natural chemical reactions.

(2) the nitrogen oxides, largely nitrogen dioxide, in the fireball soon reacts with moisture in the white mushroom cloud to produce nitric acid, which is later precipitated in rainfall along with naturally produced nitric acid from lightning storms, and has no effect on the ozone layer. A lightning storm is qualitatively like a nuclear explosion in that it produces both ozone (from the electrical discharge air ionization) and nitrogen oxides (from the shock waves formed around the extremely hot lightning bolts, which are later heard as thunder). Nitric acid (HNO3) production from the mixing with nitrogen dioxide and water vapour in the fireball is described by the reaction:

3NO2 + H2O -> 2HNO3 + NO

then the nitrogen oxide, NO, itself gets oxidized into nitric acid by the reaction:

4NO + 3O2 + 2H2O -> 4HNO3

It was a bigger hoax than Piltdown Man to suggest that nitrogen oxides from nuclear bomb tests could break down ozone; they instead get oxidised into nitric acid by atmospheric moisture and oxygen before they can reach the ozone layer. For a published discussion of the nitric acid production in the air around the fireball from an atmospheric nuclear explosion, see Murray Scheibe, The Increased Attachment Due to Ionization-Induced Smog in EMP Environments, Mission Research Corporation, California, MRC-R-532, DNA5077F, ADA087850, 1979: 'The increased electron attachment due to HNO3 production in the EMP source region is investigated. The HNO3 produced is found to be roughly linear with the total ionization up to an ionization value of about 2 x 10 to the 16th power ion pairs. Above this, the HNO3 production is less than linear.'

P. Goldsmith, A. F. Tuck, J. S. Foot, E. L. Simmons and R. L. Newson, reported in their paper, 'Nitrogen oxides, nuclear weapon testing, Concorde and stratospheric ozone' published in Nature, vol. 244 (1973), issue 5418, pp. 545-551:

'Although amounts of nitrogen oxides equivalent to the output from many concordes were released into the atmosphere when nuclear testing was at its peak, the amount of ozone in the atmosphere was not affected.'

In total, the U.S.A, U.S.S.R., U.K., France and China detonated 545.4 megatons in the atmosphere, the peak rate of testing occurring in 1962, see page 295 of Merril Eisenbud and Thomas F. Gesell, Environmental Radioactivity, Academic Press, 4th ed., 1997 (the ten biggest atmospheric tests are listed on an earlier post, here).

Finally, for high altitude explosions, there is no high pressure air blast wave, thus no production of nitrogen oxides whatsoever, but the gamma radiation striking the atmosphere still produces ozone! Therefore, such explosions have the exact opposite effect on the ozone layer to the claims being made. This has some importance to the issue of holes in the ozone layer by CFCs, and the way to repair such damage.



Above: effect of ozone on early thermal radiation emission from a nuclear explosion. The first graph above shows the thermal radiation calculated by computer when ozone is ignored, while the second shows how it reduces the (mainly ultraviolet) radiation emission from the very hot fireball at early times, before the shock wave has formed and penetrated through the 'veil' or shell of ozone caused by the intense high energy X-ray and gamma radiation interacting with the air just around the fireball. (Thermal Radiation From Nuclear Weapons, Defense Nuclear Agency, February 1991.)

The fact that nuclear explosions produce ozone was first published in paragraph 6.26 on page 190 of the 1950 U.S. Department of Defense book, The Effects of Atomic Weapons: 'there may be some absorption of ultraviolet radiation by ozone which is produced by interaction of gamma rays from the atomic explosion with atmospheric oxygen.' Herman Hoerlin states on page 43 of his 1976 Los Aamos report LA-6405 United States High Altitude Test Experiences: 'significant amounts of ozone are produced in sea-level explosions.' (Hoerlin cites as reference: H. E. DeWitt, A Compilation of Spectroscopic Observations of Air Around Atomic
Bomb Explosions, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory report LAMS-1935, June 1955.) However, since the time that was written, full calculations have been performed which show that high altitude nuclear detonations (above 100 km altitude) produce large excess amounts of ozone, strengthening rather than depleting the ozone layer. Finally, sampling of the cloud of a 1976 atmospheric Chinese megaton range test showed confirmed that there was no ozone depleting nitrogen dioxide: it reacts with water vapour to form nitric acid, instead of destroying ozone! Anyway, nitrogen dioxide is only formed in high pressure shock waves from low altitude detonations, not from high altitude bursts, which produce an excess of ozone.

The ozone destruction lie

The U.S. Department of Defense book The Effects of Atomic Weapons reported in 1950 that nuclear air bursts near sea level produce 5 tons of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) per kiloton, producing the flame-like red-brown colour of the fireball. The pressure and temperature of the shock front turns 1% of the air it contains into nitrogen dioxide when it cools to 2000 K, below which no further nitrogen dioxide is formed. The shock waves around bolts of lightning in thunderstorms also produce nitrogen dioxide, and it is quickly transformed into nitric acid, causing the natural acidity (pH 4.5) of thunderstorm rain. Thunderstorms produce 100,000 tons of nitric acid daily.

Ozone (O3) is created in the stratosphere in part by the action of ultraviolet light with wavelengths less than 0.24 microns upon molecular oxygen (O2):

3O2 + ultraviolet -> 2O3

Nitrogen oxide (NO) acts as a catalyst to break down ozone in the atmosphere. The reaction requires the energy of sunlight:

2O3 + NO + O + sunlight -> 3O2 + NO + O.

This is the principal cause of destruction of stratospheric ozone. Nitrogen oxide (NO) is naturally produced in the upper atmosphere (the thermosphere at 90-120 km altitude) by sunlight at the mean rate of 73,000 metric tons per hour!

In the troposphere (below the stratosphere), ozone is also destroyed by the reaction with sunlight:

O3 + H2O + sunlight -> O2 + 2OH,

Where OH is the hydroxyl radical (negatively charged) which is a vital catalyst in other reactions. A catalyst is defined as a vital component of a chemical reaction that is nevertheless returned to its original state at the end of a reaction, so that it is able to endlessly function without being permanently modified. (Therefore, chemical reaction formulae containing catalysts should never have the catalyst deleted from both sides of the reaction to ‘simplify’ the equation, because that will produce a false reaction that will not work!) Nitrogen oxide, NO, is also an essential catalyst in the creation of ozone in the troposphere from carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH4), both of which exist in the troposphere in concentrations of several parts per million of air. The CO reaction creating ozone requires the energy of sunlight and is given by:

CO + 2O2 + OH + NO + sunlight -> CO2 + O3 + OH + NO.

If there is an insufficient concentration of the NO catalyst present, ozone is actually destroyed by CO, since the following reaction is then favoured:

CO + O3 + OH + O2 -> CO2 + OH + 2O2.

This reaction predominates in the atmosphere today, since the concentration of NO is less than 0.025% of the concentration of ozone. If the concentration of NO were raised above 0.025% of the ozone concentration, then this rate of destruction of ozone would be overtaken by the rate of creation of ozone using the NO catalytic effect.

With CH4, the ozone creation reaction, which again requires sunlight, is represented by:

CH4 + 4O2 + OH + 2NO -> CO + H2 + H2O + 2O3 + OH + 2NO.

Finally, ethane (C2H6) in the troposphere racts with sunlight to produce ozone if NO is present:

C2H6 + 10(O2) + 2OH + 5NO + sunlight -> 2 H2O + H2 + CO2 + CO + 5(O3) + 2OH + 5NO.

The CO produced in this reaction is then available for other ozone reactions, already listed.

As a result of all these reactions, NO injections to the atmosphere at altitudes below 20 km actually increase the ozone layer concentration! For the mushroom cloud heights from the yields of stockpiled nuclear weapons today, the effect of a nuclear war would be to strengthen the ozone layer rather than to destroy it. High altitude bursts don’t produce nitrogen oxides because they don’t produce high-pressure air blast waves, although they too do produce ozone by the action of gamma radiation on oxygen! So the entire ozone destruction myth is a complete and utter fraud, both in theory and in extensive observed nuclear test evidence on the ozone layer.

Quite frequently during testing, an ‘excuse’ was made for the theoretical lies, that the ozone layer is naturally highly variable, masking any effect from the hundreds of megatons of atmospheric tests. Duh! Even if it were true (which it is not) that the ozone layer is slightly damaged by a nuclear war of hundreds of megatons (as known from testing data), what is the significance of such slight damage when the concentration is so naturally variable that it masks the effect anyway?

In a slightly different context, but to give some feel for what the nuclear effects exaggeration hype is about, see what Dr John Maddox, editor of Nature, wrote in his editorial in 1983 (vol. 312, p. 593) about the ‘nuclear winter’ scandal (‘hype’ was Maddox’s own word for it!) from the TAPPS (the ‘nuclear winter’ pseudo-scientific propaganda group consisting of Richard Turco, Carl Sagan, et al.): they got publicity by means of handing over $50,000 to a public relations company (the funding came from the Kendall Foundation). This is how political pseudo-science is marketed. Caveat emptor!

Professor Brian Martin (then a physicist at the Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Australian National University, Canberra, but now he is Professor of Social Sciences in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication at the University of Wollongong), 'Critique of Nuclear Extinction', published in Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 287-300 (1982):

'The idea that global nuclear war could kill most or all of the world's population is critically examined and found to have little or no scientific basis. A number of possible reasons for beliefs about nuclear extinction are presented, including exaggeration to justify inaction, fear of death, exaggeration to stimulate action, the idea that planning is defeatist, exaggeration to justify concern, white western orientation, the pattern of day-to-day life, and reformist political analysis. Some of the ways in which these factors inhibit a full political analysis and practice by the peace movement are indicated. Prevalent ideas about the irrationality and short duration of nuclear war and of the unlikelihood of limited nuclear war are also briefly examined.'

The U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency report in 1975, Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War, incorrectly asserted that:

'It has been estimated that a 10,000-megaton war with half the weapons exploding at ground level would tear up some 25 billion cubic meters of rock and soil, injecting a substantial amount of fine dust and particles into the stratosphere. This is roughly twice the volume of material blasted loose by the Indonesian volcano, Krakatoa, whose explosion in 1883 was the most powerful terrestrial event ever recorded. Sunsets around the world were noticeably reddened for several years after the Krakatoa eruption, indicating that large amounts of volcanic dust had entered the stratosphere.'

This is false because 25,000,000,000 cubic metres of rock and soil per 10,000 megatons, with an average density of 2 tons per cubic metre, implies 5,000 tons of lofted fallout material per kiloton. As we saw in a previous post, the specific activity of fallout (fraction of bomb per kg of fallout debris) was extensively measured (although all this kind of vital fallout results were kept secret for some crazy reason). The 3.53 Mt ZUNI coral land surface burst and 5.01 Mt TEWA coral reef shots produced 136 and 210 metric tons of fallout per total yield kiloton, respectively (Rhodes in his book on the H-bomb confused the entire crater ejecta mass for the fallout mass, as exposed in a previous blog post). For the Nevada desert, Dr Carl F. Miller's 1963 Stanford Research Institute report Fallout and Radiological Countermeasures, vol. 1, estimated similar amounts of fallout mass per kiloton, around 200 tons per kiloton of yield. Hence, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency exaggerated the mass of lofted fallout debris by at least a factor of 25. (In fact, a lot of the heavier particles reside in the stem of the mushroom and never make it into the stratosphere, so the exaggeration is even bigger than a factor of 25.)

DOSE RATE MECHANISM FOR LOW LEVEL RADIATION EFFECTS: AT LOW DOSE RATES P53 AND OTHER DNA REPAIR MECHANISMS, AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM, ARE STIMULATED TO REPAIR DNA DAMAGE FASTER (JUST AS REGULAR WORKOUTS AT THE GYM INCREASE FITNESS, BUT A ONCE-OFF MASSIVE EXERCISE IF TOTALLY UNFIT CAN CAUSE INJURY OR HEART DAMAGE); BUT AT HIGH DOSE RATES THE DNA REPAIR MECHANISMS ARE OVERLOADED AND UNABLE TO REPAIR ALL THE DAMAGE CORRECTLY, THUS CANCER RATES DEPEND ON THE DOSE RATE, AND NOT MERELY UPON THE TOTAL DOSE, CONTRARY TO THE CENTRAL DOGMA OF MAINSTREAM HEALTH PHYSICS TODAY

W.L. Chen,Y.C. Luan, M.C. Shieh, S.T. Chen, H.T. , Kung, K.L. Soong, Y.C.Yeh, T.S. Chou, S.H. Mong, J.T.Wu, C.P. Sun,W.P. Deng, M.F.Wu, and M.L. Shen, ‘Is Chronic Radiation an Effective Prophylaxis Against Cancer?’, published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring 2004, page 6, available in PDF format here:

‘An extraordinary incident occurred 20 years ago in Taiwan. Recycled steel, accidentally contaminated with cobalt-60 ([low dose rate, low-LET gamma radiation emitter] half-life: 5.3 y), was formed into construction steel for more than 180 buildings, which 10,000 persons occupied for 9 to 20 years. They unknowingly received radiation doses that averaged 0.4 Sv, a collective dose of 4,000 person-Sv. Based on the observed seven cancer deaths, the cancer mortality rate for this population was assessed to be 3.5 per 100,000 person-years. Three children were born with congenital heart malformations, indicating a prevalence rate of 1.5 cases per 1,000 children under age 19.

'The average spontaneous cancer death rate in the general population of Taiwan over these 20 years is 116 persons per 100,000 person-years. Based upon partial official statistics and hospital experience, the prevalence rate of congenital malformation is 23 cases per 1,000 children. Assuming the age and income distributions of these persons are the same as for the general population, it appears that significant beneficial health effects may be associated with this chronic radiation exposure. ...’

A recent example of the pseudoscientific radiation 'education' masquerading as science that Feynman (quoted below) objected to in the 1960s was published in 2009 in an article called 'The proportion of childhood leukaemia incidence in Great Britain that may be caused by natural background ionizing radiation' in Leukemia, vol. 23 (2009), pp. 770–776, which falsely asserts - in contradiction to the evidence that the no-threshold model is contrary to Hiroshima and Nagasaki data: 'Risk models based primarily on studies of the Japanese atomic bomb survivors imply that low-level exposure to ionizing radiation, including ubiquitous natural background radiation, also raises the risk of childhood leukaemia. Using two sets of recently published leukaemia risk models and estimates of natural background radiation red-bone-marrow doses received by children, about 20% of the cases of childhood leukaemia in Great Britain are predicted to be attributable to this source.' The authors of this pseudoscience which is the opposite of the facts are R. Wakeford (Dalton Nuclear Institute, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK), G. M. Kendall (Childhood Cancer Research Group, Oxford, UK), and M. P. Little (Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Imperial College, London, UK). It is disgusting and sinful that the facts about childhood leukemia are being lied on so blatantly for non-scientific purposes, and it is to be hoped that these leukemia investigators will either correct their errors or alternatively be banned from using scientific literature to promote false dogma for deception until they mend the error of their ways and repent their sins in this matter.

‘What is Science?’ by Richard P. Feynman, presented at the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, 1966 in New York City, and published in The Physics Teacher, vol. 7, issue 6, 1968, pp. 313-20:

‘... great religions are dissipated by following form without remembering the direct content of the teaching of the great leaders. In the same way, it is possible to follow form and call it science, but that is pseudo-science. In this way, we all suffer from the kind of tyranny we have today in the many institutions that have come under the influence of pseudoscientific advisers.

‘We have many studies in teaching, for example, in which people make observations, make lists, do statistics, and so on, but these do not thereby become established science, established knowledge. They are merely an imitative form of science analogous to the South Sea Islanders’ airfields - radio towers, etc., made out of wood. The islanders expect a great airplane to arrive. They even build wooden airplanes of the same shape as they see in the foreigners' airfields around them, but strangely enough, their wood planes do not fly. The result of this pseudoscientific imitation is to produce experts, which many of you are. ... you teachers, who are really teaching children at the bottom of the heap, can maybe doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.’

Richard P. Feynman, 'This Unscientific Age', in The Meaning of It All, Penguin Books, London, 1998, pages 106-9:

'... another example of the same thing is the famous Protocol of the Elders of Zion, which was a fake document. It was supposed to be a meeting of the old Jews and the leaders of Zion in which they had gotten together and cooked up a scheme for the domination of the world. ... it was one of the strongest forces in the development of anti-Semitism.

'What I am asking for in many directions is an abject honesty. ... Scientists are not honest. ... By honest I don't mean that you only tell what's true. But you make clear the entire situation. You make clear all the information that is required for somebody else who is intelligent to make up their mind.

'For example, in connection with nuclear testing ... the greatest question on nuclear testing is the question of its future effects. ... You can play games and show that you will kill 10 million people in the next 2000 years with it. If I were to walk in front of a car, hoping that I will have some more children in the future, I will kill 10,000 people in the next 10,000 years, if you figure it out, from a certain way of calculating. ...

'How much is the increase in radioactivity compared to the general variations in the amount of natural background radioactivity from place to place? The amounts of background radioactivity in a wooden building and a brick building are quite different, because the wood is less radioactive than the bricks. ... the difference in the [weapons fallout] effects was less than the difference between being in a brick and a wooden building. And the difference [due to natural nuclear cosmic background radiation, which is well shielded at sea level because the atmosphere is a radiation shield equivalent to being protected by 10 metres of water] between being at sea level and being at 5000 feet altitude was ... bigger than the extra radioactivity produced by the atomic bomb testing.

'Now, I say if a man is absolutely honest and wants to protect the populace from the effects of radioactivity, which is what our scientific fiends often say they are trying to do, then he should work on the biggest number, not on the smallest number, and he should try to point out that the radioactivity which is absorbed by living in the city of Denver is so much more serious ... that all the people of Denver ought to move to lower altitudes.'

Protein P53, discovered only in 1979, is encoded by gene TP53, which occurs on human chromosome 17. P53 also occurs in other mammals including mice, rats and dogs. P53 is one of the proteins which continually repairs breaks in DNA, which easily breaks at body temperature due to free radicals produced naturally in various ways and also as a result of ionisation caused by radiation hitting water and other molecules in the body. Cancer occurs when several breaks in DNA happen to occur by chance at nearly the same time, giving several loose ends which P53 repairs incorrectly, causing a mutation. This cannot occur when only one break occurs, because only two loose ends are produced, and P53 will reattach them correctly. If low-LET ionising radiation levels are increased to a certain extent, causing more single strand breaks, P53 works faster and is able deal with faster breaks as they occur, so that multiple broken strand ends do not arise. This prevents DNA strands being repaired incorrectly, and prevents cancer - a result of mutation caused by faults in DNA - from arising. Too much radiation of course overloads the P53 repair mechanism, and then it cannot repair breaks as they occur, so multiple breaks begin to appear and loose ends of DNA are wrongly connected by P53, causing an increased cancer risk.

1. DNA-damaging free radicals are equivalent to a source of sparks which is always present naturally.

2. Cancer is equivalent the fire you get if the sparks are allowed to ignite the gasoline, i.e. if the free radicals are allowed to damage DNA without the damage being repaired.

3. Protein P53 is equivalent to a fire suppression system which is constantly damping out the sparks, or repairing the damaged DNA so that cancer doesn't occur.

In this way of thinking, the ‘cause’ of cancer will be down to a failure of a gene like P53 to repair the damage.

‘Professor Edward Lewis used data from four independent populations exposed to radiation to demonstrate that the incidence of leukemia was linearly related to the accumulated dose of radiation. ... Outspoken scientists, including Linus Pauling, used Lewis’s risk estimate to inform the public about the danger of nuclear fallout by estimating the number of leukemia deaths that would be caused by the test detonations. In May of 1957 Lewis’s analysis of the radiation-induced human leukemia data was published as a lead article in Science magazine. In June he presented it before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy of the US Congress.’ – Abstract of thesis by Jennifer Caron, Edward Lewis and Radioactive Fallout: the Impact of Caltech Biologists Over Nuclear Weapons Testing in the 1950s and 60s, Caltech, January 2003.

Dr John F. Loutit of the Medical Research Council, Harwell, England, in 1962 wrote a book called Irradiation of Mice and Men (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London), discrediting the pseudo-science from geneticist Edward Lewis on pages 61, and 78-79:

‘... Mole [R. H. Mole, Brit. J. Radiol., vol. 32, 1959, p. 497] gave different groups of mice an integrated total of 1,000 r of X-rays over a period of 4 weeks. But the dose-rate - and therefore the radiation-free time between fractions - was varied from 81 r/hour intermittently to 1.3 r/hour continuously. The incidence of leukemia varied from 40 per cent (within 15 months of the start of irradiation) in the first group to 5 per cent in the last compared with 2 per cent incidence in irradiated controls. ...

‘What Lewis did, and which I have not copied, was to include in his table another group - spontaneous incidence of leukemia (Brooklyn, N.Y.) - who are taken to have received only natural background radiation throughout life at the very low dose-rate of 0.1-0.2 rad per year: the best estimate is listed as 2 x 10-6 like the others in the table. But the value of 2 x 10-6 was not calculated from the data as for the other groups; it was merely adopted. By its adoption and multiplication with the average age in years of Brooklyners - 33.7 years and radiation dose per year of 0.1-0.2 rad - a mortality rate of 7 to 13 cases per million per year due to background radiation was deduced, or some 10-20 per cent of the observed rate of 65 cases per million per year. ...

‘All these points are very much against the basic hypothesis of Lewis of a linear relation of dose to leukemic effect irrespective of time. Unhappily it is not possible to claim for Lewis’s work as others have done, “It is now possible to calculate - within narrow limits - how many deaths from leukemia will result in any population from an increase in fall-out or other source of radiation” [Leading article in Science, vol. 125, p. 963, 1957]. This is just wishful journalese.

‘The burning questions to me are not what are the numbers of leukemia to be expected from atom bombs or radiotherapy, but what is to be expected from natural background .... Furthermore, to obtain estimates of these, I believe it is wrong to go to [1950s inaccurate, dose rate effect ignoring, data from] atom bombs, where the radiations are qualitatively different [i.e., including effects from neutrons] and, more important, the dose-rate outstandingly different.’

WHY IS THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY CONTINUING TO FUND THE RADIATION EFFECTS RESEARCH FOUNDATION (RERF), WHICH IS BLATANTLY COVERING UP THE EFFECTS OF RADIATION?

According to James Muckerheide's article, It’s Time to Tell the Truth About the Health Benefits of Low-Dose Radiation (Summer 2000 21st Century), the U.S. Department of Energy and its predecessor have cut off funding to studies which showed benefits of radiationm, and the RERF may fear the same thing if it tells the truth:

'Low-dose radiation has been shown to enhance biological responses for immune systems, enzymatic repair, physiological functions, and the removal of cellular damage, including prevention and removal of cancers and other diseases. ... about 0.012 percent of natural potassium is a radioactive isotope, potassium-40. Potassium was processed to separate the potassium-40 from natural potassium at Oak Ridge to conduct radiobiology experiments in the 1950s. Dr. Willis [Charles Willis of the NRC] confirms that radiation research, funded for radiation-protection objectives, supported the linear no-threshold concept by suppressing contrary scientific data, and that this activity dates back more than 40 years, to the 1950s.'

He quotes Dr Marshall Brucer: 'Health Physicists soon learned that their livelihood depended on scaring the pants off Congress. Every Genetics budget meeting opened its request for funds with an anti-nuclear litany. During the 1960s and 1970s about 40 articles/year described hormesis. In 1963, the AEC [Atomic Energy Commission] repeatedly confirmed lower mortality in guinea pigs, rats, and mice irradiated at low dose. In 1964, the cows exposed to about 150 rads [of gamma, and about ten times as much beta skin dose due to contamination sticking to their hides in the dry Alamogordo desert] after the TRINITY A-bomb in 1946 were quietly euthanized because of extreme old age.'

Muckerheide has an interesting discussion of:

'The Case of the Radium Dial Painters

'In 1974, the pre-eminent radium health effects researcher, Dr. Robley Evans [author of the famed 972 pages long textbook, The Atomic Nucleus], of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, rigorously demonstrated in an article in the Health Physics Journal, that BEIR in 197220 [reference: R. D. Evans, 'Radium in Man', Health Physics, Vol. 27, 1974, pp. 497-510] had misrepresented the data on the health effects of radium in order to produce a linear no-threshold result from extremely non-linear data21 [ref.: BEIR, 'The Effects on Populations of Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation', Report of the Advisory Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiations (BEIR Committee), Washington, D.C., National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, 1972]. On Evans’s retirement in 1970, the Center for Human Radiobiology (CHR) was established at the Argonne National Laboratory.

'In 1981, Dr. Evans gave the "Invited Summary" at an international conference in which it was reported that in thousands of cases of radium dial painters worldwide, there were still no occurrences of bone cancer or nasal carcinoma in individuals who had ingested less than 250 microcuries [of which 50 was taken into the bone] of radium-226, which produced an estimated dose of 1,000 rad to the bone. A report on these data was published in 1983. Dr. Evans told the conference22 [ref.: R. D. Evans, 'Highlights of the Meeting—Invited Summary', In Radiobiology of Radium and the Actinides In Man, Proc. of an Int’l Conf., Health Physics, Vol. 44 (Supp 1), 1983, pp. 571-573]: The studies of the radium cases during the past dozen years . . . have continued to show no radiogenic tumors, or other effects, in hundreds of persons whose effective initial body burden was less than about 50 microcuries of Ra-226, and whose cumulative skeletal average dose is less than about 1,000 rad.

'In 1983, DOE initiated termination of this program, which had been established for the life of the dial painters, while more than 1,000 individuals were still alive. It may be that this message was received by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), which was established to follow the Japanese A-bomb survivors for life. The reports of the RERF produce consistently biased data.

'It is significant that systemic intake of 50 microcuries of radium-226 is about 125,000 times the annual ingestion of 5 picocuries/liter allowed by the EPA in its drinking water limits. The EPA is even proposing reductions in these limits, which will require even greater public water supply expenditures under EPA program control. If, instead, the EPA were to mandate a moderate revision in its limit by a factor of 4, this would essentially eliminate the need for monitoring for radium in drinking water, and eliminate significant unnecessary costs, while still providing a safety margin of 30,000 (times 50 picocuries) to a person who drinks 1.1 liters per day of that water. ...

'Further analysis by Dr. Robert Rowland, former Director of the Center for Human Radiobiology, has more conclusively determined that a threshold exists. Rowland states25 [ref.: R. Rowland, 'Bone Sarcoma in Humans Induced by Radium: A Threshold Response?', in Proc. of the 27th Ann. Meeting, European Society for Radiation Biology, Radioprotection colloquies, Vol. 32CI, 1997, pp. 331-338]: Today we have a population of 2,383 cases for whom we have reliable body content measurements. ... All 64 bone sarcoma cases occurred in the 264 cases with more than 10 Gy, while no sarcomas appeared in the 2,119 radium cases with less than 10 Gy.

'To contradict these objective results, in an analysis used in BEIR IV to misrepresent the actual data, Drs. Charles Mays and Raymond Lloyd selected, first, a wide low-dose group range that included no cancers, and, second, a wide dose-group range that included the lowest dose with cancer; from this, they manufactured a “linear” result. [Prof. Otto G. Raabe: 'By grouping the Evans data into six non-uniform dose groups selected so that only one dose group included no bone cancer cases (one with average skeletal alpha doses from zero to about 500 rad or 10,000 rem)and so that the next highest dose group included a few cases of bone cancer (cases were only observed for average skeletal alpha radiation doses that exceeded 1,000 rad or 20,000 rem), Chuck Mays and Ray Lloyd created the appealing, but misleading, linear plot shown on page 198 of BEIR IV. In their plot the "threshold" region, which is below 1,000 rad, is obscured near the origin since the abscissa is extended to 16,000 rad and only one dose group was assigned to this region. Their plot proves nothing about linearity. Evans's analysis shows that no linear model fits these data.']

'In the Federal Register in 1991, the EPA explicitly favored duplicity in the matter, by responding to a recommendation by its Science Advisory Board (SAB) that the radium dial painter data be used to establish the radium limits in water, as follows26 [ref.: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Register, Vol. 56, No. 138, 1991, pp. 33050-127]: EPA policy is to assess cancer risks from ionizing radiation as a linear response. Therefore, use of the dial painter data requires either deriving a linear risk coefficient from significantly non-linear exposure response data, or abandoning EPA policy.

'Simply put, science is irrelevant in this campaign to mislead the public about the hazards of radium, and radiation generally.

'It was after a notorious radium poisoning case in 1932, that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) achieved control of radiation from Congress. Well-known Philadelphia industrialist and socialite Eben Byers, died from a massive overdose of radium ingested in large quantities over three years. The Byers case had great publicity and created great public fear of radiation. The truth is that Byers did not die of cancer. Bone necrosis led to removal of his jaw and other interventions that put a gruesome image on the radiation effects. The FDA did not then assess the dose effects to the thousands of persons who had also used radium and other radiation sources in more moderate amounts; or acknowledge that Byers had been the victim of the equivalent of a drug overdose. The amount of radium that Eben Byers ingested daily is about 2,000,000 times the current EPA limits, based on drinking 1 liter/day at 5 picocuries per liter (pCi/l). The threshold for latent bone cancers from ingesting radium by the dial painters is more than 125,000 times the annual limits from drinking water at 5 pCi/l. After the Byers case, Dr. Edna Johnson, and others, suppressed well-known data on the stimulatory effects of low doses of ionizing radiation, especially, a 1936 report for the National Research Council, to claim that “radiation is harmful at low doses”. ...

'Japanese Survivors Study

'The Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) studies of Japanese atomic bomb survivor data at low doses have been substantially questioned, without resolution. This is especially true since the Department of Energy’s arbitrary reassignment of the RERF from the National Academy of Sciences to a DOE-recruited and selected investigator at Columbia University. Many independent studies of the RERF data contradict the RERF analyses, even when limited to using the RERF’s own processed data in the absence of the ability to access the raw data. Even BEIR V consultants were unable to obtain the data to undertake an independent analysis. Some of the RERF data show more evidence of hormetic effects than adverse effects at low doses. However, critical analyses are not considered by radiation protection interests in BEIR V or NCRP SC1-6. Certainly however, in the first instance, the conditions of doses to persons exposed directly to an atomic bomb, and confounding factors of survivors, both before and after the bombing, are of no significance to the assessment of the health effects of chronic low-dose exposures to environmental contamination. Use of the RERF results for the assessment of health effects is well known to be inappropriate, because the exposure does not apply to radiation protection for workers or for the public exposed to chronic and highly fractionated and low dose-rate radiation, especially for extreme costly cleanup and decommissioning standards.'

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, ORAL HISTORY OF BIOPHYSICIST DR. ROBERT E. ROWLAND

The biophysicist in charge of dosimetry and effects studies for the radium dial painters gave is on the U.S. Department of Energy radiation research site here.

DOE/EH-0461, Human Radiation Studies: Remembering the Early Years, Oral History of Biophysicist Robert Edmund Rowland, Ph.D., onducted January 27, 1995, United States Department of Energy, Office of Human Radiation Experiments, published in June 1995:

Dr Robert E. Rowland, PhD.: '... we used to think for a while that the radium cases were very lucky, because when they got induced sarcomas, maybe the alphas there that induced it were turning around and killing it. ...Well, we weren't able to prove it or anything about it. ... what we learned was that the gamma-ray measurement of a skeleton was really all you needed ... about 37 percent ... of the radon escaped from the body, so you could account for that without too big an error. So, we got a body content. ... It turned out the average dial painter was measured 40 years after their first exposure. ...

'I then was interested in getting an equation which would give me the probability of a sarcoma, for example, as a function of what went in during the exposure. We were very surprised to find that when you did this for bone sarcomas, it was an equation best described as a square of the dose, a square of the systemic intake.

'This is not very acceptable in radiobiological quarters, because everybody knows that the response is linear. There ought to be some sort of a linear relationship, extending back down to zero dose. Instead, we kept seeing that these sarcomas seemed to respond as a square. ...

'So, our earliest studies said, "Linear fits," meaning we tested by a chi-square 44 relationship. "Linear fits. Use linear for the head carcinomas. Use square for the sarcomas." This we did for some time.

'The fact of the matter is, Mays and Rowland and Stehney have a paper about radium and uranium in drinking water, and ... There, we actually go and use linear relationships, which I regret very much, because I don't believe they're true at all. ... whether we like it or not, they are the best definition of a threshold relationship that I've ever come across. ...

'The big dilemma in malignancies induced by radium is, "Why aren't there leukemias?" ... Bill Spiers, F. W. Spiers as written. He wrote what I think is the definitive paper in looking over all of the data, [and Spiers found that] there is no excess of leukemia in radium-exposed people. ... So, leukemia is a non-event. [We have, for radium-induced malignancies] bone sarcomas, a total of 85 in the whole population; carcinomas in the paranasal sinus and mastoid air cells, 37 in the whole population. [That population totals 6,675 measured and unmeasured radium-exposed individuals]. ...

'Stehney examined the life expectancy of dial painters ... If you then went back and took out all those cases that had radiation-induced malignancies — bone sarcomas and head carcinomas — took them out, there was no life shortening.

'So it says if you didn't get one of those two malignancies, you didn't have any visible effect on, at least, life shortening, which implies indirectly that other cancers aren't causing problems, cancers induced by radium.

'This was done about 15 years ago, and he brought it up-to-date at the conference in Heidelberg last April [1994]. That's a very nice paper, and it should be published sometime this summer [1995] ...

'... an initial systemic intake of less than about 75 microcuries of radium[-226] ... which is one-fifth of the total intake has never induced a malignancy, either bone sarcoma or carcinoma of the air cells. ... 75 microcuries, systemically, which is five times that in terms of oral ingestion, or 75 if you inject it with a needle in the vein. ... And that works for either of the two types of malignancies. ... if you quote rem, 20,000. And, that's another reason why I don't like to use skeletal dose, either in rad, rem, grays or sieverts, because the number is meaningless: it's so high.

'I mean, I [grew] up with the idea that 600 rad, to the whole body, was lethal. And then I go talking about, "But we've never seen a malignancy under 20,000 rem, or 1,000 rads, of radiation." You know, you don't even get a malignancy, yet you kill someone with 600 rads! It just didn't have meaning in the same sense. [Protracted, chronic exposure to radiation over 40 years from radium in the bones happens at a low dose rate so is less lethal than the same dose as rapidly received radiation given at high dose rates over a minute or so as at Hiroshima.]'

At this point Dr. Darrell Fisher from Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratory states: '... in the dogs that have inhaled plutonium-239 oxide, I don't believe we've seen any lung cancers in dogs with less than about 150 rads to the lungs. ... It hasn't been published, but one thing we have observed is that in dogs with some plutonium, but less than 150 rads to lungs, there have been no lung cancers, and the incidence has been zero, whereas the incidence of lung cancers in the controls range between 3 and 16 percent. ... A protective that, with no incidence of lung cancer in the very low-dose-plutonium dogs ... where plutonium is administered by inhalation.'

Dr Robert E. Rowland: 'I mentioned that we have good measurements on 2,400 people who acquired radium, either dial painters or medical injections or drinking water. ... This population of people we've measured, if we line them up in order of initial systemic intake, how much radium got into the bloodstream, and put them in pecking order — of the 2,400, all of the malignancies occur in the highest 280 cases. The lower 2,100 cases, nothing. All of it occurs right there.

'And so, another way of looking at the doses in a way, I think, that is striking to the layperson, that up to this level nothing happens, and all the experience and all the bad things you've heard about what radium can do — and it can do bad things — are all right here at the end, at the highest levels, which is another way of saying, "It sure looks like a threshold relationship".'

Dr Rowland's 246 pages long book, Radium in Humans: A Review of U.S. Studies, Argonne National Laboratory, ANL/ER-3, 1994, is available here as a PDF file (5.3 MB), and page 80 states:

'When the measured radium cases are arranged in order of increasing initial systemic intake, expressed as μCi of Ra-226 plus 2.5 times μCi of Ra-228, the lowest-dose case with a bone sarcoma is number 2,102 on the list of 2,383 cases. That is, no bone sarcomas occurred in the 2,101 cases with lower combined intakes than this case. The value of the combined systemic intake for this case was 100 μCi, from 81.53 μCi of Ra-226 and 7.42 μCi of Ra-228. This lowest-dose sarcoma case was a female dial painter who started work in 1918 and died in 1983 of a bone sarcoma diagnosed in 1981.'

Page 87 states:

'When the measured cases are arranged in order of increasing initial systemic intake, the head carcinoma occurring at the lowest dose (Figure 13) is found to be number 2,024 in the list of 2,383 cases, with a calculated intake of 25.63 μCi of Ra-226. As indicated below, this intake value is incorrect; the true value is larger ...'

THE STERNGLASS 'SECRET FALLOUT' DECEPTION AND DR ALICE STEWART'S COVER-UP OF THE TRUTH ABOUT RADIATION

We have already seen in the previous post here how Professor Sternglass, author of Secret Fallout, Low-Level Radiation from Hiroshima to Three Mile Island and Before the Big Bang (which at least is anti-groupthink rubbish in physics, such as debunking Bohr's and Heisenberg's Copenhagen Interpretation and correctly analyzing the double slit experiment where a single photon's transverse wavelength is big enough to make it interact with both slits, where the slits are close enough that you get a diffraction pattern on the screen) fabricated false 'evidence' of low level radiation effects from fallout:



Above: the biggest hoax in the history of science, bigger than Piltdown Man, Cold Fusion and 11 dimensional Superstring. Professor Ernest Sternglass plots the rate at which infant mortality falls from 1935-68. He ignores the godd*mn mechanism for the fall in infant mortality in the period 1935-50, which was better medical treatment such as the sulfonamide-based drugs! Once this had reduced the infant mortality, the rate of year on year decrease would flatten out. Sternglass ignores this mechanism, and pretends that the cause of the flattening of the curve is all due to nuclear bomb test fallout instead! DUH!!!!! What's amazing is that people want to believe such lies with no control group, no mechanism, and inconsistencies such as the implication (from Sternglass' no-fallout straight line in the graph above) that childhood mortality was above 100% in the past and will drop to zero in the future! Duh! Who is he kidding???? But unfortunately, a lot of people believe these lies, simply because they want to believe them for non-scientific reasons like wishful thinking (so they don't have to study the facts, but can just dismiss radiation as scary and believe that it can be removed as a terrorist threat somehow politically by our disarmament):

'Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."

'I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Sternglass' straight line extrapolation is completely pseudoscience, because if carried into the past it predicts a time with over 100% infant mortality (evidently wrong, because people are alive now!), and extrapolated into the future it predicts 0% childhood mortality (clearly false, because disease cannot be eradicated, despite the innovations like sulfonamides and antibiotics in the 1935-50 era). This type of error, due to a lack of causality and lack of proper mechanism-based predictions is not limited to the controversy over the effects of radiation. It's also shown by 10 dimensional superstring dogma and other groupthink rubbish in physics.

As shown in an earlier post, quite a bit of iodine-131 was released across America by Nevada testing in 1951-62, but even the effects of that were far smaller than what Sternglass was claiming.

Darrell Huff wrote a book called How to Lie with Statistics which has the example that researchers found that the number of children in a family in Holland correlated to the number of storks nests on the roof of the home! Perhaps that proves that storks really deliver children to families? Well, actually the bigger the family, the bigger the home they needed on the average. The bigger families with more children tended to have bigger, older houses, with big old roofs which had more storks nests because of their size and age. Professor Sternglass has recently had a change from claiming that low-level radiation is lethal: he has published a book about what happened before the big bang, an analogy to an egg dividing many times to produce all the particles.

Sternglass' first presentation was at the 9th Annual Hanford Biological Symposium, May 1969. Dr Alice Stewart was honest enough at that time to debunk Sternglass on 24 July 1969, in her article for the New Scientist, 'The Pitfalls of Extrapolation', which exposed the fatal contradiction in the Sternglass 'evidence' (besides the lack of a control group!):

'Sternglass has postulated a fetal mortality trend which would eventually produce rates well below the level which - according to his own theory - would result from background radiation.'

Dr Alice Stewart had discovered in 1956 that the exposure of pregnant mothers to an X-ray doubled the natural risk that the child would develop leukemia by the age of 10 years, but was biasedly anti-nuclear and ignorant of the initial effects of nuclear weapons. She falsely claimed that the 73.5% of the population of Hiroshima and 78.1% of the population of Nagasaki who survived the initial effects - these statistics are from Glasstone and Dolan, page 544 - were 'superfit' before exposure to radiation - when they were in fact undernourished on wartime rationing - rather than superfit as a consequence of exposure to radiation, e.g. see her lie in New Scientist magazine, 5 August 2000:

'Our paper also shows that the A-bomb survivors were not a normal, homogenous population. They were the best athletes - the top 10 per cent - and did not include the young and the old. This means that we cannot base standards of radiation safety on such an elite cohort.'

That is a blatant lie, because the initial effects survivors were 73.5% of the population in Hiroshima and 78.1% of the population, and did include young and old; additionally, at long ranges and thus low doses there were very few fatalities from initial effects. So it wasn't a biased population, it had a carefully matched control group unlike Sternglass' garbage and the Hanford study.

Despite this falsehood, Alice Stewart continued to deceive others, falsely claiming that the initial bomb effects like blast and thermal (but conveniently for her bias, not radiation!) made the survivors superfit:

STOA Workshop 5th February 1998
STOA WORKSHOP
SURVEY AND EVALUATION OF CRITICISM OF BASIC SAFETY STANDARDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WORKERS AND THE PUBLIC AGAINST IONISING RADIATION

Brussels, LEO 5-E-2
Thursday, 5 February 1998

0925-09.40 A-bomb Survivors. Reassessment of the Radiation Hazard. A. Stewart, The University of Birmingham, UK

Summary of Dr.Stewart's Presentation at STOA 1998:

'Dr. Stewart remarked that the ... radio-sensitive people were removed from the population from the destructive effects of the bomb. That is why we are currently working on a basis which only provides for extremely resistant people. If the population was composed of young men, this condition would represent extreme-radio-resistance, which is in fact exactly what happened in the A-bomb survivor study.'

This was a tissue of lies, because at the low doses where the whole controversy arises, nobody (i.e., 0%) died from the acute radiation syndrome! There has never ever been any controversy that acute radiation syndrome has a threshold for lethal effects above at least 1 Gy (the 64 Marshallese exposed to BRAVO fallout in 1954 got 1.75 Gy of gamma plus a larger skin dose from beta, and 0% died from acute radiation syndrome). Dr Alice Stewart was covering up the truth.

She, and her supporter Klaus Becker at that meeting, simply had no excuse, because right back in 1961, Dr Clayton Samuel White (1912-2004) and others of the Lovelace Medical Center, published Comparative Nuclear Effects of Biomedical Interest, Atomic Energy Commission Civil Effects Test Operations report CEX-58.8 (also available online in a high quality format here), analyzing the mechanisms of all the initial effects. Clayton S. White, I. G. Bowen, and Donald R. Richmond also wrote A Comparative Analysis of Some of the Immediate Environmental Effects at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research, report ADA438031, 1964, also published in Health Physics, vol. 10, issue 3, pp. 89-150, March 1964:

'The problem areas of concern to those who would establish a quantitative relation between biologic response and the more immediate environmental variations caused by nuclear explosions were defined. The scope of blast and shock biology was set forth and a selective summary of current knowledge regarding biological blast effects was presented. Tentative criteria useful in assessing the hazards of some of the major nuclear effects were noted. Following elucidation of the range-yield-effects relationship applicable to high-yield explosions generally, the criteria were applied specifically to a 20-kt yield burst at heights assumed to apply to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions. The procedure, establishing the range-effect relationships for the two Japanese cities, was carried out through use of the free-field scaling laws and a mathematical model allowing scaling of translational effects for both debris and man. Thus an attempt was made to predict the ranges inside which the potential existed for producing specified levels of biological damage. For each of the predicted ranges, values for overpressure, thermal and initial nuclear radiations along with translational velocities for man and glass fragments were computed to allow a more balanced appreciation of all the effects parameters that pose a hazard to man. The implications of the free-field range-effects data in interpreting some of the immediate effects at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were explored and discussed. Though the over-all analytical approach followed was thought to be useful and sound, the tentative nature of many of the numerical data presented was emphasized. Thus those numbers employed representing best current estimates as well as values arbitrarily assigned were all noted to be subject to future refinement as new information expands the understanding of nuclear phenomenology and the consequences of exposure thereto.'

Dr Clayton S. White, who worked on nuclear weapon blast effects at Nevada test series’ Upshot-Knothole (1953), Teapot (1955) and Plumbbob (1957), testimony to the U.S. Congressional Hearings, 22-26 June 1959, Biological and Environmental Effects of Nuclear War, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959, pp. 364-5:

‘We were fortunate enough at a 5 psi station in one of the 1957 shots in Nevada to photograph the time-displacement history of a 160-pound [standing] dummy, and we were able from analysis of the movies to determine the maximal velocity reached ... about 21 feet per second. This velocity developed in 0.5 second. The total displacement of the dummy was near 22 feet ... It was this piece of empirical information that helped greatly in getting an analytical “handle” on the “treatment” of man as missile.’

In his 1985 oral history for the University of New Mexico, Dr White pointed out that all researchers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki need to study initial effects of nuclear weapons:

'More time was spent right after Hiroshima-Nagasaki in picking window glass out of people than in treating any other one entity.'

See also White's reports here, here, and particularly the report by Clayton S. White, Robert K. Jones, Edward G. Damon, E. Royce Fletcher, and Donald R. Richmond, The Biodynamics of Air Blast, The Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research, report ADA384508, July 1971:

'After pointing out that accelerative and decelerative events are associated with the direct (pressure) and indirect (translational events including penetrating and nonpenetrating debris and whole body impact) effects of exposure to blast induced winds and pressure variations, some of the relevant biophysical parameters were selectively noted and discussed. These included the pressure time relationship; species differences; ambient pressure effects; the significance of positional (orientational) and geometric (situational) factors as they influence the wave form, the pressure, and the biologic response; and data bearing upon the etiology of blast injury. The consequences of pressure induced, violent implosion of the body wall and the significance of the associated variations in the internal gas and fluid pressures were described and emphasized as were alternating phases of "forced" hemorrhage and arterial air embolization; fibrin thrombi; coagulation anomalies; and renal, cardiac, and pulmonary sequelae. Tentative biomedical criteria consistent with recent interspecies scaling and modeling studies for assessing primary blast hazards were presented.'

Also, Donald R. Richmond, Edward G. Damon, E. Royce Fletcher, I. Gerald Bowen, and Clayton S. White, The Relationship between selected blast wave parameters and the response of mammals exposed to air blast, was published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 152 (2006), issue 1, pp. 103-21, while E. Royce Fletcher and I. Gerald Bowen, Blast-induced translational effects, was published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 152, issue 1, 2006, pp. 378-403.

We have given links to some of their studies on the glass fragment hazard, in the post here. See also the reports here (essential report), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The danger that Sternglass and Alice Stewart both succumbed to is that bad science, lacking mechanism, can be asserted and become credible in the public despite being completely false; just because a scientist misuses authority to gain attention. In this case, when Sternglass' paper was rejected from a scientific journal, he had it published in the September 1969 issue of Esquire magazine, titled ‘The death of all children’. That magazine advertised the story as a selling point, and sent out copies of the magazine to prominent people in politics. If he had scientific evidence that was being covered up, that would have been reason to do that, assuming that the media would be interested in making a political storm out of the facts (which strongly support a result which is the opposite of that which Sternglass makes). So you end up with the idea that these false claims about low level radiation stem from politics: if the public wants to fear low level, low dose rate radiation, someone will fiddle the statistics accordingly. Anyone giving the facts is conveniently ignored or ridiculed as being ‘out of touch’ or part of a conspiracy and cover-up by the paranoid, deluded, media-manipulating charlatans.

R. H. MOLE AND F. W. SPIERS: HANFORD RADIATION STUDY

Mole and Spiers, as mentioned above, did the crucial work on radiation effects that others used. Both were scientific advisers to the British Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch on radiation effects for civil defence. Mole discovered the effect of dose rate on leukemia induction in mice, while Spiers discovered that the radium dial painters had no excess of leukemia, despite the gamma radiation from its decay chain daughter nuclides. There is an interesting argument by Mole over the statistical bias of the Hanford radiation study, which lacked both proper control groups and supervision of the diagnosis of cancers online here.

NUCLEAR TEST PARTICIPANTS RADIATION INDUCED CANCER RISKS

In May 1985, a U.S. National Research Council report on mortality in nuclear weapons test participants raised several questions. Some 5,113 nuclear test participants had died between 1952-81, when 6,125 deaths would be expected for a similar sized group of non-exposed Americans. The number of leukemia deaths was 56, identical to that in a similar sized non-exposed group. However, as the graph at the top of this post shows, the risk depends on the dose, so the few people with the highest doses would have far greater risks. In 1983, a C.D.C. report on the effects of fallout from the Plumbbob-Smoky test in 1957 showed that 8 participants in that test has died from leukemia up to 1979, compared to only 3 expected from a similar sized sample of non-exposed Americans. However, even for the Plumbbob-Smoky test, the overall death rate from all causes in the exposed test participants (320 deaths from 1957-79) was less than that in a matched sample of non-exposed Americans (365 deaths). The average dose to American nuclear test participants was only about 0.5 rad, although far higher doses were received by those working with fallout soon after nuclear tests. Altogether, out of 205,000 U.S. Department of Defense participants in nuclear tests, 34,000 were expected to die from naturally occurring cancer, and 11 from cancer due to radiation exposure. (According to the March 1990 U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency study guide DNA1.941108.010, report HRE-856, Medical Effects of Nuclear Weapons.)

CHERNOBYL 1986 NUCLEAR DISASTER RADIATION AFTER EFFECTS

We will now discuss the long term effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion (already discussed in some aspects, in a previous post here). Unlike the authorities in Poland, the Russians decided not to issue 130 mg potassium iodide tablets to civilians exposed to short-lived radioactive iodine isotopes like iodine-131, which is concentrated in a small area of the body (the thyroid gland) producing massive doses there (unlike other nuclides!). As a result of the lack of protection against radioactive iodine, many people subsequently had thyroid abnormalities, nodules and some cancers.

Dr Valerie Beral of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund showed in the 1 June 1995 issue of Nature that in the Ukraine there was no rise in general cancers or leukemia after Chernobyl, but there was a rise in thyroid cancers from 8 children with thyroid cancer in 1986 to 42 in 1993. The risk to children is greatest because they drink more milk and have smaller thyroid glands, which concentrates the iodine in a smaller volume, producing a greater dose within that volume. Dr Beral also found that children born after 1986 had no extra thyroid cancer risk, confirming that the threat died quickly with the 8-day half life of iodine-131.

Other data were reported in Health Physics, vo. 71 (1996), p. 47, showing that in Belarus (population 2,348,300 including 720,000 children exposed to a mean thyroid dose of 337 mGy) the number of thyroid cancers in the years from 1986 to 1992 inclusive were 1, 2, 2, 2, 10, 32, and 31. Back in 1961, the Lancet (vol. 2, p. 1097) published the fact that that 200 mg tablets of potassium iodide block iodine-131 uptake effectively even if they are taken up to 2 hours after exposure, and showed that each tablet is effective for several days. D. N. Pahuja, et al., in 1993 published the fact in Health Physics vol. 65, pp. 545-9, 'Potassium iodate and its comparison to potassium iodide as a blocker of I-131 uptake by the thyroid of rats', that although potassium iodide (KI) has a short shelf life in hot conditions, potassium iodate (KIO3) is more stable and is just as effective.

Nigel Hawkes, Science Editor, wrote an article called 'Born Under the Cloud of Chernobyl' in The Times on 1 June 1995, stating:

'Ukrainian officials reportedly claimed that 125,000 people had died as a result of the radiation release. It turned out that this was the total of all deaths in the affected area since the accident.'

Dr Roger Highfield, Science Editor of the Daily Telegraph, wrote about Chernobyl radiation hysteria on 9 April 1996:

'In 1991, 45 per cent of people in the contaminated areas claimed to be suffering from an illness due to radiation, but Western medical teams found no such effects. ... One fascinating discovery is that the feeling of fatalism is so strong among many that they do not comply with restrictions on eating contaminated foods and drinking radioactive milk.'

The cause of such hysteria is clear in the 28 April 1994 issue of the Daily Express newspaper which reported falsely that Chernobyl radiation could melt snow: 'Out here in the countryside, the land either side of us is so radioactively hot that when snow falls it melts instantly.'

In the same Daily Express newspaper on 2 May 1996, Sir Bernard Ingham stated: 'the population in general is damaged psychologically, blaming every ailment on the disaster ... a report which said radioactivity at Chernobyl "melts the winter's snow as it falls" exaggerates its effect by a factor of 26,000,000,000.'

The Chernobyl accident occured when, on 26 April 1986, a 1 GW badly designed Soviet Union nuclear reactor (i.e., it was a boiling water reactor with pressure-tube heat exchanger, and used a graphite moderator at a temperature of 700 oC with a poor safety system - an electronic safety switch which could be turned off while the reactor was in operation!) at Chernobyl in the Ukraine was being used for an unofficial experiment and a number of decisions combined to make its power level accelerate to 100 GW (100 times normal full power) in just 4 seconds. The operators (1) turned off the automatic safety protection system, (2) withdrew the neutron-absorbing control rods, then (3) turned off the coolant flow.

You don't need to be a reactor physicist to work out that the incredible heat generated in the (now stagnant) cooling water dissociated the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gas, which then exploded, blowing the reactor lid off and sending up a cloud of fission product smoke and fallout. Potassium iodate tablets were issued to all Chernobyl workers 1.5 hours after the accident, but not the the civilians downwind! Most of the deaths occurred from whole body gamma radiation, and from beta skin contact burns when workers without waterproof protective clothing were drenched with highly contaminated water during decontamination work.

Some 31 people died from short-term exposure to gamma exposure and beta burns. One died from physical injury, one from thermal burns, and 29 from acute radiation syndrome. Out of 22 patients with dosimeter readings of 6-16 Gy, 21 died; for 23 patients with 4-6 Gy, 7 died; for 53 patients with 2-4 Gy, 1 died; and for 105 patients with dosimetry readings of 1-2 Gy, no acute radiation syndrome deaths occurred.

A total mass of 6 tons of fragmented concrete, steel and graphite debris formed the contaminated fallout from Chernobyl. Downwind fallout was substantial 6 km away on the town of Pripyat, giving a peak measured gamma dose rate of 600 mR/hr (about 0.6 cGy/hour when converting from air ionization units to absorbed dose units) at 40 hours after the explosion; by the end of 1987 it had decayed to 0.2 mR/hr (about 10-20 times the natural background radiation level for most soils at sea level). The inhabitants of Pripyat were given by potassium iodate tablets, but were evacuated beginning the day after the explosion in 1,216 buses and 300 trucks from the upwind city of Kiev.

A total of 135,000 people from a 30 km radius of Chernobyl were evacuated by 5 May 1986. The 25,000 people living within 3-15 km of the reactor received an average of 0.45 Sv (0.45 Gy for gamma radiation where the RBE is 1), while the 110,000 people within 15-30 km received an average of 0.043 Sv. On 10 May 1986, the 5 mR/hr fallout contour extended 110 km downwind, while the 2 mR/hr fallout contour covered 200,000 km2.

Initially, most of the dose rate was due to permanent gases (e.g., the full reactor inventory of 1.7 x 1018 Bq of the nobel gas Xenon-133 was released, which has a half-life of 5.27 days). But after the cloud dispersed and those gases decayed, the activity from deposited fallout and rainout predominated. About 20% of the 1.3 x 1018 Bq reactor inventory of iodine-131 was released, which decayed with a half life of 8.05 days. (This release was 350 times greater than the amount of iodine-131 emitted in the 1957 Windscale graphite reactor fire in Britain, and about a million times greater than the iodine-131 released in the Three Mile Island accident of 1979.)

Iodine-131 in the Pripyat river water reached a peak concentration of 0.03 microcuries/litre on 3 May 1986, but then fell rapidly due to the effects of dilution and natural radioactive decay.

The alleged long-term radioactive hazard was mainly due to caesium-137. Some 13% of the reactor inventory of 2.9 x 1017 Bq of caesium-137 was released, and it has a half life of 30 years. Rainout of Chernobyl smoke over North-West England on 2-3 May 1986 deposited 6 kBq/m2 of caesium-137, and by 15 June the caesium-137 content of grazing sheep exceeded the 1 kBq/kg safety limit. The sale of sheep for feed was banned, but wool production for clothing was safe and was continued. After 12 weeks, 3 million British sheep were banned from consumption due to uptake of caesium-137 from grass. Milk contamination was a short-term problem in the rainout areas of Britain, reaching a peak of up to 1.1 kBq/litre before decaying.

'The maximum measured radioactive contamination of milk in the United States by iodine-131 from the Chernobyl disaster was in milk produced by cows grazing on pasture in Washington: 560 picocuries per liter. The much greater potential danger from trans-Pacific war fallout is brought out by the fact that the approximately 300-kiloton Chinese test explosion of December 28, 1966 resulted in worse iodine-131 contamination of milk produced by a cow grazing on pasture near Oak Ridge, Tennessee: 900 picocuries per liter.' - Cresson Kearny.

But the most serious short-term effects of Chernobyl were due to fictitious media hyped scare stories from ignorant and biased non-threshold dogma-abiding idiots, setting off a series of panic-induced abortions across Europe. During May 1986 alone, 2,564 babies (23% of early pregnancies) in Greece were aborted due to radiation fears, although as we have shown these particular fears proved groundless judging by the results in the heavily-contaminated Gomel district:

'The clear aim of the anti-nuclear movement is to silence all opposition ... theirs are now the only voices heard ... In the Gomel district ... which was one of the most heavily contaminated [after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986], the death rate per thousand newborn babies was 16.3 in 1985, 13.4 in 1986, and 13.1 in 1987; in Kiev region the figures ... were, respectively, 15.5, 12.2, and 12.1.'

- Environmentalist Michael Allaby, Facing the Future: the Case for Science (Bloomsbury, London, 1995, pp.191-7).

The effects of distant strontium-90 in milk due to fallout from nuclear weapons tests were similarly exaggerated. After the largest atmospheric nuclear test series ever by America and Russian in 1962 (they ceased atmospheric tests in December 1962), the peak concentration of strontium-90 in milk in Britain reached 1.5 Bq per gram of calcium in 1963, and it thereafter diminished to half that over a period of 18 months (mainly due to the downward movement of fallout washed ever deeper in the soil by rainfall, until less and less of it was available for uptake by grass). For America, there is a graph on page 303 of Merril Eisenbud and Thomas F. Gesell, Environmental radioactivity, Academic Press, 4th ed., 1997, which shows that strontium-90 reached a peak concentration of Sr-90 in milk in New York City of about 1 Bq (26 picocuries) per gram of calcium in 1963.

Up to 1962, the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. conducted a total of 496 Mt of atmospheric tests, of which 183 Mt was from fission. The highest rate of nuclear testing was in 1962: see the graph on page 295 of Merril Eisenbud and Thomas F. Gesell, Environmental Radioactivity, Academic Press, 4th ed., 1997. Because strontium-90 is chemically similar to radium in being concentrated in the bones, and because of the censored evidence we have discussed about the threshold dose for bone cancer of radium by the 1920s luminous watch dial painters who licked the radium/zinc sulphide paint on their brushes (and in some cases painted their teeth with it), the widely believed effects of such fallout have no scientific evidence behind them. Page 305 of Eisenbud and Gesell 1997 shows that the peak concentration of strontium-90 in adult bone in New York City was 2.2 picocuries (0.08 Bq) per gram of calcium, reached in 1965. Humans are 1.5% calcium by mass, thus an average 70.0 kg adult contains 1.05 kg or 1,050 grams of calcium, so that the total peak body burden in 1965 was about 2,300 picocuries = 2.3 nanocuries. This body burden is 22,000 times lower than the 50 microcuries of Ra-226 which was the threshold needed to produce 1,000 rads and bone cancers to the radium workers. Thus the 183 megatons of fission yield in atmospheric tests was 22,000 times too low to produce the observed threshold for bone cancer from strontium-90 uptake, according to the previously quoted data.

NOT JUST 'EXAGGERATION' BUT WHOLESALE LYING ABOUT RADIATION EFFECTS FOR POLITICAL ENDS

Dr Jane M. Orient wrote a paper on 'Nuclear weapons: surrender or defense?' published in the Journal of the American Medical Women's Association, vol. 37, number 10, October 1982, pp. 260-2, stating: 'Nobody remembers that the French had enough ammunition in the Maginot Line to kill every German many times.' The Germans simply bypassed the Maginot Line and went through the Ardennes Forest to invade France. This shows why anti-nuclear 'overkill' hype totally misses the whole point: having piles of 'overkill' weapons doesn't prevent terrorism (state-sponsored or otherwise), you need the effective means to defend yourself! In 1985, she published in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 28, issue 2, Winter 1985, pp. 218-22 an analysis of 'Nuclear Winter' deceptions by TTAPS, e.g., 'the TTAPS model assumes, without comment, that 50 percent of the urban area in the 2-5 psi overpressure zone would burn, in contrast to the 10 percent or less estimated by the Office of Technology Assessment. ... Whether or not the nuclear winter is credible, the conclusions drawn by its major promoter, Carl Sagan, are non sequiturs. Sagan calls for rejecting civil defense and appears on public television to denounce the concept of weapons that might disarm nuclear warheads before they could start a firestorm.'

She states in her paper 'Homeland Security for Physicians', Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, vol. 11, number 3, Fall 2006, pp. 75-9:

'As older physicians will recall, in the 1950s and 1960s Americans had a high level of awareness that they were targeted by Soviet missiles armed with nuclear warheads. As reminders, there were periodic checks of the air-raid sirens and the Conelrad
emergency broadcast system, and signs identifying designated fallout shelters were visible in public places. Our high school had a civil defense club. ...

'In the 1960s, a group of activist physicians called Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) undertook to "educate the medical profession and the world about the dangers of nuclear weapons," beginning with a series of articles in the New England Journal of Medicine. [Note that journal was publishing information for anti-civil defense propaganda back in 1949, e.g. the article in volume 241, pp. 647-53 of New England Journal of Medicine which falsely suggests that civil defense in nuclear war would be hopeless because a single burned patient in 1947 with 40% body area burns required 42 oxygen tanks, 36 pints of plasma, 40 pints of whole blood, 104 pints of fluids, 4,300 m of gauze, 3 nurses and 2 doctors. First, only unclothed persons in direct line of sight without shadowing can get 40% body area burns from thermal radiation, second, duck and cover offers protection in a nuclear attack warning, and G. V. LeRoy had already published, two years earlier, in J.A.M.A., volume 134, 1947, pp. 1143-8, that less than 5% of burns in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were caused by building and debris fires. In medicine it is always possible to expend vast resources on patients who are fatally injured. In a mass casualty situation, doctors should not give up just because they don't have unlimited resources; as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they would need to do their best with what they have.]

'On its website, www.psr.org, the group boasts that it "led the campaign to end atmospheric nuclear testing." With this campaign, the linear no-threshold (LNT) theory of radiation carcinogenesis became entrenched. It enabled activists to calculate enormous numbers of potential casualties by taking a tiny risk and multiplying it by the population of the earth. As an enduring consequence, the perceived risks of radiation are far out of proportion to actual risks, causing tremendous damage to the American nuclear industry.

'Over the next decade, governmental civil defense programs declined, and public interest waned. By 1974, only 29 million public shelter spaces had been added to the 110 million catalogued by 1963 on order of President John F. Kennedy. The Medical Self-Help Program and the Medical Education for National Defense Program were terminated. ...

'I became involved in the early 1980s, when Australian pediatrician Helen Caldicott, M.D., gave a lecture at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. She handed out copies of the articles from the New England Journal of Medicine, displayed posters equating nuclear weapons with nuclear power production, and gave an impassioned appeal for physicians to join in the disarmament movement du jour, the Nuclear Freeze. ...

'PSR's successful efforts in garnering physician members and support sparked the formation of another group, International Physicians for the Prevention of NuclearWar (IPPNW), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for its disarmament advocacy. ... Nuclear war, it declared, meant the utter destruction of the planet; if the explosive force of the weapons weren't enough, there was always an ensuing climate catastrophe. During the 1980s, that was nuclear winter, although current visitors to the PSR website will find only allusions to global warming, not the slides about the Cold and the Dark that its members formerly showed to frighten schoolchildren. Using a medical metaphor, PSR claimed that treatment was impossible, and only prevention was acceptable. Efforts to save lives were not only futile, but unethical ...

'Physicians could help save millions of lives by serving as a credible source of crucial lifesaving information. Simply preventing panic would probably save more lives than almost anything else. ...

'Chances of surviving the blast at some distance from the fireball are much enhanced by "duck and cover." Soldiers are taught to lie down immediately if they see a flash or hear an explosion. It takes eight times as much force to move someone who is lying down as opposed to standing up. The flash travels with the speed of light; the speed of the blast wave is a function of the speed of sound. Many would be killed by being thrown against hard objects or struck with flying debris. Cover could protect against flying glass shards; any type of cover, even a newspaper, would provide some protection from the thermal pulse, which can last several seconds ...

'Radioactive fallout would cause delayed casualties many miles away. But effective action can be taken. People need to understand that radiation is not forever. It has a half life, in contrast to microorganisms, which have a doubling time. The isotopes generated in a nuclear explosion decay very rapidly. The exponential decay curve is such that within 7 hours, the radiation level is one-tenth the original [1-hour] level, and within 49 (72) hours, the level is about one-hundredth (1/10)2 of the original [1-hour] level. Dangerous fallout should be visible to the naked eye, as it consists of larger particles that have come to earth quickly while still very "hot."

'No special materials are needed for shielding. People simply need to put sufficient distance or mass between themselves and the source. Water or wood or paper or buckets of rice can serve as shielding, but a greater thickness is needed, compared to denser substances such as concrete, earth, or lead ... One half-value thickness of concrete is 2.4 in; of compacted earth, 3.6 in. Five half-value thicknesses reduces the radiation dose by a factor of 25, or to 1/32 of the incident dose. Two tenth-value thicknesses reduce the dose to 1/100 of the incident dose. ...

'For the mindset that engendered and enables this situation, which jeopardizes the existence of the United States as a nation as well as the lives of millions of its citizens, some American physicians and certain prestigious medical organizations bear a heavy responsibility.

'Ethical physicians should stand ready to help patients to the best of their ability, and not advocate sacrificing them in the name of a political agenda. Even very basic knowledge, especially combined with simple, inexpensive advance preparations, could save countless lives.'

Note the we have already discussed the morality of civil defence in previous blog posts: because the facts show that nuclear explosions are survivable if the correct simple actions are taken, it is immoral and evil to not take precautions:

'On the one hand, a strong point can be made for the fact that civil defense, appropriate civil defense, would save a great many lives; on the other hand, one can also make a strong case that any civil defense, appropriate or otherwise, may increase the danger of a war because people will feel that they don't have to avoid it because they have civil defense.'

- Dr Frank Fremont-Smith, director of the New York Academy of Sciences Interdisciplinary Communications Program, Proceedings of the Second Interdisciplinary Conference on Selected Effects of a General War, DASIAC Special Report 95, July 1969, vol. 2, DASA-2019-2, AD0696959, page 281.

'I must just say that as far as I'm concerned I have had some doubts about whether we should have had a civil defense program in the past. I have no doubt whatsoever now, for this reason, that I've seen ways in which the deterrent forces can fail to hold things off, so that no matter what our national leaders do, criminal organizations, what have you, groups of people over which we have no control whatsoever, can threaten other groups of people.'

- Dr Theodore B. Taylor, Proceedings of the Second Interdisciplinary Conference on Selected Effects of a General War, DASIAC Special Report 95, July 1969, vol. 2, DASA-2019-2, AD0696959, page 298.

The big lie of the civil defense rejection is the false assumption that the only threat from nuclear weapons is a situation in which civil defense is clearly useless, e.g., if you are at ground zero and literally hit on the head by the bomb; although there is documentary evidence of survival at ground zero itself both in tunnel shelters in Nagasaki, and also at ground zero directly below the fireball of several nuclear tests. In 1958, the 3.8 megaton TEAK test missile malfunctioned and the bomb detonated 77 km directly above the control shelter on Johnston Island instead of 32 km downrange as planned (a group of men standing at the shelter entrance without goggles were filmed, and can be seen being dazzled by the flash, and running back into the shelter; nobody was injured). In 1962, 410 kt BLUEGILL was detonated just 48 km over Johnston Island and the only injuries were two people with retinal burns, neither of whom was wearing dark goggles at the time of detonation.

Dr Edward Teller and Dr Albert L. Latter on page 143 of their book Our Nuclear Future: Facts, Dangers and Opportunities (Criterion Books, New York, 1958) give details of another example where five men were deliberately exposed at ground zero to the nuclear air burst on 19 July 1957, 2 kt PLUMBBOB-JOHN, the live test firing of the Genie air-to-air nuclear warhead air defense rocket:

'This possibility would fill most people with alarm lest the population underneath the explosion be hurt. Fortunately, in a recent nuclear test in Nevada, five well-informed and courageous Air Force officers demonstrated that there is complete safety to people on the ground. They did this by standing directly beneath the explosion at ground zero. ...

'An F-89 jet fighter plane flying at 19,000 feet above sea level delivered an air-to-air atomic rocket to a preassigned point in the sky. The ground zero men were 15,000 feet immediately below. They wore no helmets, no sun-glasses, and no protective clothing.

'At the instant of the explosion the men looked up, saw the fireball and felt the heat. There was no discomfort, only a gentle warmth. Then they waited for the shock wave to arrive - approximately ten seconds. When the shock came, it was actually just a loud noise. However, one of the men ducked his head instinctively.

'The blast and the thermal pulse were over. One question still remained: Would there be any fallout? They checked their radiation instruments and waited while the cloud drifted slowly away. There was no significant rise in the [natural background] radiation level. ... The effects of the explosion were utterly insignificant on the ground.'




On page 144 they explain: '... in our conflict with the powerful communistic countries which strive for world domination, it may be too much to hope for uninterrupted peace. If we abandon our light and mobile [nuclear] weapons, we shall enable the Red bloc to take over one country after another, close to their borders, as opportunities arise. The free nations cannot maintain the massive armies throughout the world which would be required to resist such piecemeal aggression.'

On pages 170-1 they show why limited nuclear war is more likely than a massive annihilating nuclear war:

'The certainty of a counterblow gives real protection against all-out war. No such protection exists against wars limited in territory and in aims. In the history of humankind such wars have been most frequent. There is no indication that these limited wars have ended.'

The attack on civil defense by propagandarists is thus lie in which the particular details of the assumed nuclear attack are deliberately selected in order to negate the value of civil defense: such an assumption is biased against civil defense from the word go, so 'investigating' the consequences of such an attack is totally meaningless for any practical purpose, except propaganda. Objective analysis of the history of nuclear war against Japan in 1945 shows that limited nuclear war is more likely than total annihilation, so protection is both possible and desirable.

This was first made clear by Dr Paul Tompkins of the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, in his statement to U.S. Congressional Hearings on the Biological and Environmental Effects of Nuclear War, 26 June 1959, pp. 953-4:

‘I had the experience of being on the Manhattan District in 1943. I am very familiar with the psychology of revulsion against the effect these weapons can produce ... The facts themselves are bad enough. However, it is crucially important to look those facts squarely in the face if one is going to face the necessity for survival, if against your will or despite anything you can do about it, it is imposed on you ... As far as I am personally concerned, by looking at the problems, understanding what they are composed of, and by necessity being an incurable optimist, I never expect to see a war of this [world destroying] kind happen. It is possible that more limited engagements of a more sharply defined type will be fought under the sword of Damocles ... If so, let us be prepared for that.’

Glasstone and Dolan's Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 2nd ed., April 1962 (reprinted with corrected, dramatically altered thermal ignition energy data in February 1964), contains a civil defense analysis chapter, Principles of Protection, which was replaced with a new EMP effects chapter in the 1977 3rd edition.

Page 645 (1962/4 edition) explains:

'The major part of the thermal radiation travels in straight lines, so any opaque object interposed between the fireball and the exposed skin will give some protection. This is true even if the object is subsequently destroyed by the blast, since the main thermal radiation pulse is over before the arrival of the blast wave.

'At the first indication of a nuclear explosion, by a sudden increase in the general illumination, a person inside a building should immediately fall prone, and, if possible, crawl behind or beneath a table or desk or to a planned vantage point. Even if this action is not taken soon enough to reduce the thermal radiation exposure greatly, it will minimise the displacement effect of the blast wave and provide a partial shield against splintered glass and other flying debris.

'An individual caught in the open should fall prone to the ground in the same way, while making an effort to shade exposed parts of the body. Getting behind a tree, building, fence, ditch, bank, or any structure which prevents a direct line of sight between the person and the fireball, if possible, will give a major degree of protection. If no substantial object is at hand, the clothed parts of the body should be used to shield parts which are exposed. There will still be some hazard from scattered thermal radiation, especially from high-yield weapons at long ranges, but the decrease in the direct radiation will be substantial.'

A person on the ground whose clothes ignite (which is only a risk under extremely high thermal exposure to dark coloured clothing) can immediately extinguish the clothes by simply rolling over to starve the flames of oxygen.

Page 653 (1962/4 edition) correctly explains:

'Some, although perhaps not all, of the fallout in the Marshall Islands, after the test explosion of March 1, 1954, could be seen as a white powder or dust. This was due, partly at least, to the light color of the calcium oxide or carbonate of which the particles were mainly composed. It is probable that whenever there is sufficient fallout to constitute a hazard, the dust will be visible.'

Page 658 (1962/4 edition) shows how to deal with fallout on food and water:

'If emergency food supplies do become contaminated, or if it is necessary to resort to contaminated sources after emergency supplies are exhausted, many types of food can be treated to remove the radioactive material. Fresh fruit and vegetables can be washed or peeled to remove the outer skin or leaves. Food products of the absorbent typecannot be decontaminated in this manner and should be disposed of by burial. Boiling or cooking of the food has no effect in removing the fallout material. Milk, from cows which survive in a heavily contaminated area, may not be safe to drink because of the radioiodine content and this condition may persist for weeks or months. [It can be turned into cheese while the iodine-131 decays rapidly with an 8-day half life.]

'Domestic water supplies from underground sources will usually remain free from radioactive contamination. Water supplies from surface sources may become contaminated if watersheds and open reservoirs are in areas of heavy fallout. However, most of the radioactive fallout material would be removed by regular water treatment which includes coagulation, sedimentation, and filtration. If a surface water supply is not treated in this manner, but merely chlorinated, it may be unfit for consumption for several days after an attack. As a result of dilution and natural decay the contamination will decrease with time.

'If the regular water supply is not usually subjected to any treatment other than chlorination, and an alternative source is not available, consideration should be given in advance planning to the provision of ion-exchange columns or beds for emergency decontamination use. Home water softeners might serve the same purpose on a small scale. The water contained in a residential hot-water heater would serve as an emergency supply, provided it can be removed without admitting contaminated water. Water may also be distilled to make it safe for drinking purposes. It should be emphasized that mere boiling of water contaminated with fallout is of absolutely no value in removal of the radioactivity.'

Decontamination of streets, buildings and farm land is discussed on page 659 (1962/4 edition):

'Because of its particulate nature, fallout will tend to collect on horizontal surfaces, e.g., roofs, streets, tops of vehicles, and the ground. In the preliminary decontamination, therefore, the main effort should be directed toward cleaning such surfaces. The simplest way of achieving this is by water washing, if an adequate supply of water is available. The addition of a commercial wetting agent (detergent) will make the washing more efficient. The radioactive material is thus transferred to storm sewers where it is less of a hazard [underground drains are well shielded from people]. ... if facilities are to be provided across open country which is contaminated over large areas, bulldozing the top few inches of contaminated soil to the sides will be satisfactory only if a wide strip is cleared. Thus, if the strip is 250 feet in width, the radiation dose rate in the middle will be reduced to one-tenth of the value before clearing. A similar result may be achieved by scraping off the top layer of soil and burying it under fresh soil. Something like a foot of earth cover would be required to decrease the dose rate by a factor of ten.'

Dr Glasstone is wrong here, assuming that gamma rays are coming straight upwards! Actually, because most radiation from fallout comes directly from a wide surrounding area, the protection afforded is much better than a factor of 10: the gamma rays from a smooth uniformly contaminated terrain come from an average distance of 15 metres from the observer centred at 1 metre height. These direct gamma rays are therefore travelling through not the 1 foot vertical earth cover (the contribution from fallout below your feet is negligible) but are travelling at an angle of only 3.8 degrees from the horizontal (not 90 degrees as the 1 foot or factor of 10 shielding suggests), and hence travel through a much bigger slant distance of earth, about 5 metres thickness of earth for the fallout 15 metres away. Obviously, this effect increases the amount of earth-scattered radiation reaching the observer, so when you put an earth layer over fallout, the distance of mean fallout contribution (i.e., the radius beyond which the fallout gives 50% of the total dose) is no longer 15 metres, but is reduced greatly. However, the shielding is still much better than Glasstone's factor of 10 protection suggests. James Sartor gives data on page 96 of The Control of Exposure of the Public to Ionizing Radiation in the Event of Accident or Attack, Proceedings of a Symposium Sponsored by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP), April 27-29, 1981, Held at the International Conference Center, Reston, Virginia which show that 1 foot (30 cm) of earth cover over fallout gives a protection factor of 50, while 6 inches (15 cm) of earth cover gives a protection factor of 6.7.

The final page of Chapter 12, page 661 (1962/4 edition), has a Conclusion which states:

'Much of the discussion presented in earlier sections of this chapter have been based, for simplicity, on the effects of a single nuclear weapon. It must not be overlooked that in a nuclear attack some areas may be subjected to several bursts. The basic principles of protection would remain unchanged, but protective action against all the effects of a nuclear weapon - blast, thermal radiation, initial nuclear radiation, and fallout - would become even more important. There is a good possibility that many people would survive a nuclear attack and this possibility would be greatly enhanced by utilizing the principles of protection in preattack preparations and planning in taking evasive action at the time of an attack, and in determining what should be done in the recovery phase of an attack.'

There is also some important censored information in the earlier June 1957 edition of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, which is available online (see pages 514-517 of the 1957 edition): on page 514-5 three photos of successful Japanese 'blast-shielding walls' at Nagasaki which stopped damage from the nuclear explosion are shown. These walls are about 10 feet tall, and are wider at their base than at their top to avoid overturning by blast. They are made out of either precast reinforced concrete or earth-filled wooden panels. Both types fully protected vital Japanese machinery, such as electrical transformers, at 0.85 mile from ground zero in Nagasaki. Pages 516-7 of the 1957 edition shows photos of unprotected earth-moving equipment (bulldozer and road grader) badly damaged by 30 psi peak overpressure in a Nevada test: the road grader has lost tyres and the bulldozer is overturned with track damage. Another picture is shown of identical equipment completely protected after exactly the same 30 psi peak overpressure nuclear blast, because the bulldozer and road grader in this example are in an open trench (at right angles to the blast motion) which has a depth equal to the height of the equipment. Although some blast wave energy diffracted straight into the trench, the main mechanism for blast damage is wind drag, which is caused by directional dynamic pressure. Unlike the overpressure, the wind pressure does not diffract unless it is forced to do so by being blocked. Hence the blast wind blew straight over the top of the open trench, without causing any displacement or damage to the equipment. All of these photos and information were removed from all future editions of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons.



Above: All that happened to the Anderson shelters 400 yards from the 25 kt Hurricane nuclear test on 3 October 1952 was that a few sand bags were blown off by the arrival of the blast wave, but by that time the initial nuclear radiation and thermal radiation pulses were already over, so the sandbags had shielded the radiation. Frank H. Pavry, who as part of the British Mission to Japan had observed the surviving air raid shelters near ground zero in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, organized the construction of 15 Anderson shelters. In World War II, two types of shelters were issued by the U.K. government to householders: the 'Morrison' (a steel table designed to resist the debris load from the collapse of a house, which was introduced in March 1941 and named after the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison), and the 'Anderson' which was an outdoor shelter supplied to 2,100,000 householders (a 14-gauge corrugated steel arch shelter, 2 m long, 1.4 m wide and 1.8 m high, designed to accommodate 6 people and to be sunk to 1.2 metre depth and covered by at least 40 cm of earth; it was invented in 1938 and named after Sir John Anderson, who was in charge of U.K. Air Raid Precautions/Civil Defence).

Frank H. Pavry's report, Operation HURRICANE: Anderson Shelters, Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, AWRE-T17/54, was originally classified 'Secret - Atomic'. The 15 Anderson shelters had survived very well. Nearest to the bomb ship, they survived a peak overpressure of 55 psi or 380 kPa without internal damage: sand bags on the outside were hurled off when the blast wave arrived, but by that time they had done their job of shielding the initial neutron and gamma radiation. (They could have been replaced before fallout arrived.) At a peak overpressure of 12 psi or 83 kPa, even the sandbags on the outside remained intact. (Pavry had used sand bags instead of the recommended packed earth as a convenience.)

This rightly gave conviction to the British Home Office civil defence effects team. The bomb ship HMS Plym, can be seen moored in 40 feet of water 400 yards off Trimouille Island, Monte Bello group. The public information film on Operation Hurricane states: 'At Montebello the advance party is already at work: 200 Royal Engineers had arrived in April to find an empty wilderness of salt, bush and spinifex ... Within the danger zone they erected the familiar [World War II British civilian] Anderson shelters, well-protected by sandbags ... These tests would influence the pattern of civil defence against some future atomic attack. ... On shore, they find many of the Anderson shelters have survived the ordeal remarkably well – better than some of the concrete-block houses.' (The full report on the Anderson shelters exposed at Operation Hurricane is 'Operation Hurricane: Anderson Shelters', Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Aldermaston, report AWRE-T17/54, 1954, UK National Archives reference ES 5/19 and also duplicated at DEFE 16/933. See also 'Penetration of the gamma flash into Anderson shelters and concrete cubicles', AWRE-T20/54, 1954, UK National Archives ref ES 5/22 duplicated at DEFE 16/935.) For more about British civil defence nuclear weapons effects testing programme, and the influences of Glasstone's 1957 book and Dolan's 1974 NATO version of Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, see this post.)





PLUTONIUM DIOXIDE AND THE ANALOGY OF RADIUM-226 TO STRONTIUM-89, -90

While there is evidence mentioned in this blog post for a threshold dose for lung tumours from plutonium dioxide inhalation and from radium-226 uptake by bone, these studies have only focussed on bad effects and so there does not seem to be any research into beneficial effects. In the absence of any benefits, it is safest to try to avoid any exposure to these forms of contamination.

The analogy of radium-226 to strontium-89 and strontium-90 fallout nuclides has the following limitations. First, studies were done in the 1950s on what happens to radium-226 and strontium-89 taken up from diet or injection and deposited in bones. Although are similar in so far that they both get deposited in the bones, there may a significant chemical difference on the way they are deposited within bone: radioautographs (self-producing X-rays) of cross-sections of human leg bones from old people who died after massive doses of radium contaminated 'therapy' water showed that the radium ended up concentrated at discrete hotspots in the bone. By contrast, bones from young rabbits injected with strontium-89 contamination just a few minutes before sacrifice showed that the strontium was deposited uniformly throughout bone tissue. The difference may be due to the way calcification occurs, with crystals forming where the hotspots are located. Whether the effect is entirely due to chemical differences between radium and strontium, or whether it is due in whole or part to the age of the bone tissue, the duration of uptake and bone deposition process (just a few minutes for the rabbits, but years for radium exposure in humans) or differences in diet and calcium intake as a function of age, is unclear. The radium hotspots in the bones of old people would have produced higher doses than the uniform deposition of a similar amount of activity from strontium in the bones of young rabbits. However, as suggested in the material quoted on the radium cases earlier, there was the suggestion that some tumour incidence did not increase even at large doses because continuing irradiation of the bone marrow by alpha and gamma emitting radium-226 may have acted as automatic radiotherapy and suppressed and killed cancer. If so, then the fact that strontium-90 is a pure beta emitter, whereas radium emits gamma rays as well as alpha particles, may be a significant difference, given that there is statistical evidence that gamma radiation is a threshold effect with benefits below the threshold. So there are still unresolved questions about the way in which radium threshold doses should be modelled mathematically to predict low dose effects.

Professor Bernard L. Cohen in 1995 published a 'Test of the linear no-threshold theory of radiation carcinogenesis in the low dose, low dose rate region' in Health Physics, vol. 68, pp. 157-174, which is very unconvincing (like the Hanford radiation workers study, which reached opposite conclusions) because it lacked individual-level statistical control for factors like smoking and radon exposure. It therefore lacks statistical power. It is vital in studies to match the control group with the group under study or you end up with false excesses or false benefits. Without a properly matched unexposed control group (against which to measure excesses or benefits in the exposed group), 'adjustments' are needed to 'correct' observed data for various factors like the effect of smoking, age, diet, exercise and so on, and the uncertainties in the adjustment factors soon exceed and statistically mask the real effect, so the more convoluted the correction-analysis, the more likely it is to misinterpret data (an excellent example being Sternglass' false correlation and extrapolation, already discussed in detail).

Professor Cohen's investigations into the benefits of radiation at low doses, such as a correlation of cancer risks versus background radiation doses in America (which shows a trend to lower risks at higher doses, but is meaningless because no proper individual level control is used to exclude other factors than radiation), is damaging to the cause of promoting science in society, because it is poor science if not mere propaganda, and thus it acts as a straw man for attack by those who prefer to ignore the statistically undeniable evidence from other studies, such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those people need only point to pseudoscientific 'benefits' claims in order to falsely deny all the evidence, or to point out that there are some 'controversial' claims so they can use that as an excuse to avoid any change. For example, both Bernard Cohen and Ernest Sternglass are retired physics professors from the same institute, the University of Pittsburgh, and they are now arguing with one over whether low level radiation is harmful, through letters in the newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

In Rebuttal: Overblown fears of nuclear power
There is no credible evidence that suggests nuclear power plants give their neighbors cancer
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
By Bernard L. Cohen

I am writing in response to the Dec. 6 Forum commentary by Ernest J. Sternglass, "Trade Nukes for Gas." In it Mr. Sternglass claims that there have been excess cancers in areas near nuclear power plants, which he explains as due to radioactivity released from those plants. ...

But even if there were such excesses in the particular areas Mr. Sternglass carefully selects, he cites no reason to believe that they are caused by releases from nuclear plants. There are many environmental causes for cancer, and many of them, such as air pollution, chemicals and the effects of poverty, are especially important near the big cities cited by Mr. Sternglass. He offers no evidence that radiation was the cause. ...

... even ... natural and medical exposures cannot be responsible for more than about 1 percent of all cancers. Clearly then, the thousand-times-smaller exposures that nuclear-plant neighbors receive from those plants cannot be responsible for the effects claimed by Mr. Sternglass.

Mr. Sternglass has been making claims about excess cancers near nuclear plants for more than 45 years, never publishing them in regular scientific journals, but getting publicity from them in the mass media.

As a result of this publicity, the governor of Pennsylvania set up a fact-finding committee consisting of eight distinguished scientists, including some known to be opposed to nuclear power; the 1974 report of that committee completely rejected the Sternglass assertions. ...

The fact that Mr. Sternglass was a professor of radiology at the University of Pittsburgh is irrelevant. His research here dealt with X-ray image intensifiers, not with health impacts of radiation. ...

Errors in Bernard Cohen's 1995 paper are addressed in his 2000 paper in Technology, vol. 7, pp. 657-72, where he compensates for 450 confounding factors, but although his data survive because none of the factors can explain the 'discrepancy', it is not convincing study because of the lack of a proper individual level control. It's not clean, clear scientific evidence: without a proper control group there is always some risk that some effect is biasing results.

A good review of the problems in old studies is: Nonlinearity of Radiation Health Effects by Myron Pollycove, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C., Environmental Health Perspectives Supplements, vol. 106 (1998), Number S1.

IMPORTANT NOTICE ON LINEAR ENERGY TRANSFER (LET) AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR DIFFERING EFFECTS FROM ALPHA, BETA AND GAMMA RADIATIONS:

Just in case anyone ignorant of the basics of radiation reads this post, it should be explained that the data and conclusions given in this post apply to gamma and also neutron radiation, both of which are ELECTRICALLY NEUTRAL PARTICLES, which is the major threat from nuclear explosions. Because gamma rays and neutrons are UNCHARGED, they tend to be weakly ionizing (i.e., they penetrate easily, and deposit energy only in discrete events such as occasional collisions with orbital electrons and nuclei of atoms, e.g., the Compton effect for gamma rays striking electrons). Neutrons however can emulate charged radiations when they hit protons (hydrogen nuclei): the protons are electrically charged and can carry off much of the energy, behaving almost like alpha particles and causing 20 times as much damage as gamma rays for every unit of dose (Joule per kilogram). This correction factor of 20 for neutrons is termed the relative biological effectiveness (RBE). However, low-energy (well scattered or 'thermalized') neutrons are unlikely to be scattered by protons, and instead are captured by protons to form heavy hydrogen (deuterium); in this 'radiative capture' process the surplus energy is released in the form of gamma rays.

The weakly ionizing nature of gamma rays means that they deposit relatively little energy per unit length of their path through living matter, so are LOW-LET (Linear Energy Transfer) radiations. This is not the case with the ELECTRICALLY CHARGED alpha and beta particles from internal emitters like iodine-131 in the thyroid gland of people drinking milk without taking any precautions from cattle eating contaminated pasture grass, which occurred in Russia which didn't issue potassium iodide tablets to civilians after the Chernobyl disaster, but not in Poland where the tablets were issued (ion exchange removes iodine-131 from milk, as does turning it to cheese and storing it, because of the short 8-days half life of iodine-131, and if the predicted dose is above 25 cGy then the excess risk is negated by taking 130-milligram potassium iodide tablets to prevent the uptake of iodine-131); electrically charged alpha and beta particles in the body are stopped over a very small path length in tissue, and so they deposit all of their energy in that small amount of tissue which means that a single alpha or beta particle can potentially saturate the P53 DNA repair mechanism in a single cell nucleus and cause a cancer risk: hence, alpha and beta particles, because of their electrical charge, are HIGH-LET radiations, that probably have no threshold for effects, and are dangerous at all doses. On the positive side, this high-LET nature of alpha and beta particles means that they are not very penetrating, so they cause relatively little risk as long as you don't ingest or inhale contamination. Protective clothing and respirators can totally negate the risks from alpha and beta radiations during decontamination work after fallout. A report on beta skin burns from fallout on the Marshallese in 1954 is here, and calculations of the length of time over which fallout can cause beta burns when deposited on skin are reported here in the post about Dr Carl F. Miller's excellent fallout research. For proof of U.S. Department of Defense fallout exaggerations and the continuing cover-up of the limited extent of nuclear test fallout during the Cold War, see this post. For underwater burst contamination see this post. For data on the efficiency of decontamination, see this post as well of course as the post about Dr Miller's work.



Above: Cresson Kearny explains how to shield against fallout by making a 'core shelter' inside a building: put cardboard boxes on top of, and around, a strong table that you can shelter under: then put two large waterproof plastic waste bags inside one another in each box, and simply fill them up with water. This saves you messing around with dirt for shielding. Just 5 inches of water halves the intensity of 1 MeV gamma radiation penetrating it. Actually, dirty bombs with U-238 jackets produce a great deal of softer gamma rays from Np-239 (which has a half life of 56 hours and thus contributes a peak to fallout at a time of 1.73 X 56 = 4 days after burst) and U/Np-240, as well as U-237 which has a longer half life and contributes substantially during the two week sheltering period. So protection is even more efficient than Kearny quotes, due to the lower-energy of fallout from dirty hydrogen bombs with neutron capture in U-238.



Above: Kearny fallout meter (see Kearny's book Nuclear War Survival Skills for instructions on building it) being tested with a dental X-ray machine. The charged foil plates discharge and visibly fall together as soon as the X-ray machine is turned on. This is just a simple electroscope dosimeter, using the same principle as the pocket quartz fibre dosimeter. However, a more convenient radiation meter is something like a RADIAC set or PDRM82 which tells you the dose rate, so that you can see take it into a shelter and see how much the fallout dose rate drops due to the protection, or how efficient evacuation is. In reality, of course, fallout is extremely visible. A land surface burst (water surface bursts produce even more!) as proved by all the American tests ALWAYS creates roughly 200 tons of sand like fallout contaminant per kiloton of total yield, so if the 1-hour exposure rate conversion factor is taken to be typically 2000 (R/hr)/(kt/sq. mile) then the 2000 R/hr at 1 hour after bursts corresponds to 200 tons of fallout mass per square mile or 77 grams per square metre. Try sprinkling 77 grams of sand or flour per square metre. It's visible. Even when the particles themselves (like tiny flour grains) are too small to be seen, the bulk of material is visible. Similarly, atoms aren't visible to the eye, but if you have enough atoms, the bulk of material becomes visible! Rainout from air bursts is visible as rain, and runs down the drain or soaks deep into the ground (which attenuates the radiation) in the same way as rain. Ocean surface burst fallout arrives as tiny non-depositing wind-carried dry salt crystals if the humidity is very low, or as wet salt-slurry droplets in a high humidity atmosphere; the depositing droplets are visible. Anti-civil defense propaganda covers up the nuclear test data on fallout particle deposits and covers up the difference between radiation and fallout to make people confused about the danger and make it seem mysterious and fearful. Actually, you can wash fallout away, you can brush dry fallout away, it can be swept up and buried under the soil while it decays. There are numerous ways to successfully decontaminate and shield the danger.

‘A number of factors make large-scale decontamination useful in urban areas. Much of the area between buildings is paved and, thus, readily cleaned using motorized flushers and sweepers, which are usually available. If, in addition, the roofs are decontaminated by high-pressure hosing, it may be possible to make entire buildings habitable fairly soon, even if the fallout has been very heavy.’ – Dr Frederick P. Cowan and Charles B. Meinhold, Decontamination, Chapter 10, pp. 225-40 in Dr Eugene P. Wigner (editor), Survival and the Bomb, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1969.

For road sweeper decontamination data see D. E. Clark, Jr., and W. C. Cobbin, Removal of Simulated Fallout from Pavements by Conventional Street Flushers, report USNRDL-TR-797, 1964.

Small areas of fallout contamination, such as indoor ingressed fallout contamination, are always in practice found to make totally and utterly negligible contributions to gamma ray doses by comparison to the gamma hazard from the wide areas of fallout outdoors, because most of the gamma dose rate comes from large distances horizontally across a vast uniformly contaminated plane, and that coming vertically upwards from the small amount of fallout under your feet or nearby is trivial by comparison, so the ingress of fallout into damaged buildings makes no significant difference to gamma doses!


Above: 'The three factors which count in gaining protection are the distance from the radioactive dust, the weight of material in between, and the time for which one remains protected while the radioactivity decays. A slit trench with overhead cover of two or three feet of earth would give very good protection against fall-out, as well as protection against blast, but the occupants would have to remain in the trench for forty-eight hours or more while the radioactivity surrounding them decayed. ... A prepared refuge room inside a house could be made to give good protection against fall-out (although not so good as a covered slit trench) and it would also be much less uncomfortable for a period of two days or more. A cellar or basement would be by far the best place for a refuge room; next best would be the room with the fewest outside walls and the smallest windows. The windows would need to be blocked with solid material, to the thickness of the surrounding walls at least. It would help if the walls themselves were thickened, not necessarily to their full height, with sandbags, boxes filled with earth, or heavy furniture. The occupants of the refuge roof would have to remain in it until told that it was safe to come out - perhaps for a period of days - and the room would have to be prepared and equipped accordingly.’ - British Home Office civil defence booklet, The Hydrogen Bomb (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1957, 32 pages.)



Above: The car-over-trench expedient fallout shelter from G. A. Cristy and C. H. Kearny, Expedient Shelter Handbook, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, August 1974, report AD0787483, 318 pages. In place of a car, doors, felled logs, or planks of wood heaped with soil can be used instead, depending on the resources to hand. Kearny showed in a later Oak Ridge National Laboratory book, Nuclear War Survival Skills, 2nd ed., 1987, how to build improvised efficient, self-calibrating radiation dosimeter (a comb-charged jam-jar electroscope, calibrated accurately by the size of the aluminium foil leaves which carry the charge; the charges keeps the leaves separated against gravity until air is ionized by radiation, when the leaves lose charge and fall together, the amount of declease in separation distance in millimetres being accurately correlated with radiation dose as proved by laboratory tests!) that can be quickly made by anyone with kitchen odds and ends in an emergency, a hand-powered simple string-pulled hinged panel air cooling pump for such shelters in hot weather, and how to obtain food and water in a nuclear war.

The most important for emergency use (where rapid protection is desirable) are the 'car over trench shelter' (dig a trench the right size to drive your car over, putting the excavated earth to the sides for added shielding, then drive your car over it), "tilt up doors and earth" shelter (if your house is badly damaged, build a fallout shelter against any surviving wall of the house by putting doors against it and piling earth on top in accordance to the plans), and the "above ground door-covered shelter" (basically a trench with excavated earth piles at the sides, doors placed on top, then a layer of earth piled on top of the doors).








All these shelters can be constructed very quickly under emergency conditions (in a time of some hours, e.g., comparable to the time taken for fallout to arrive in the major danger area downwind from a large nuclear explosion). For the known energy of gamma rays from fallout including neutron induced activities with low energy gamma ray emission (Np-239, U-237, etc.), a thickness of 1 foot or 30 centimetres of packed earth (density 1.6 grams per cubic centimetre) shields 95% of fallout gamma radiation, giving an additional protective factor of about 20. A thickness of 2 feet or 60 centimetres of packed earth provides a protective factor of about 400. Caravans have a protective factor of 1.4-1.8, single storey modern bungalows have a protection factor of 5-6, while brick bungalows have a protective factor of 8-9. British brick multi-storey buildings have protection factors of 10-20, while British brick house basements have protective factors of 90-150. These figures can easily be increased by at least a factor of 2-3 by making a protected ‘inner core’ or ‘refuge’ within the building at a central point, giving additional shielding:



In 1964, Britain conducted experiments with Co-60 sources to validate the ‘core’ Protect and Survive shelter plan (above videos): A. D. Perryman, Experimental Determination of Protective Factors in a Semi-Detached House With or Without Core Shelters, U.K. Home Office report CD/SA117. Using Co-60, the dry fallout protective factor was 21 on the ground floor of a brick house, increasing to 39 in a core shelter, made using furniture piled near an inner wall. For real fallout with less than the 1.25 MeV mean gamma ray energy of Co-60, the protection would be far greater. See also the 75-pages long American report on these 'Protect and Survive' core shelter experiments in Britain by Joseph D. Velletri, Nancy-Ruth York and John F. Batter, Protection Factors of Emergency Shelters in a British Residence, Technical Operations Research, Burlington, Massachusetts, report AD439332, 1963.

John Newman examined effects of fallout blown into a buildings, due to blast-broken windows, in Health Physics, vol. 13 (1967), p. 991: ‘In a particular example of a seven-storey building, the internal contamination on each floor is estimated to be 2.5% of that on the roof. This contamination, if spread uniformly over the floor, reduces the protection factor on the fifth floor from 28 to 18 and in the unexposed, uncontaminated basement from 420 to 200.’

But measured volcanic ash ingress, measured as the ratio of mass per unit area indoors to that on the roof, was under 0.6% even with the windows open and an 11-22 km/hour wind speed (U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory report USNRDL-TR-953, 1965). The main gamma hazard is from a very big surrounding area, not from trivial fallout nearby!

Dr Saad Z. Mikhail's paper, Beta-Radiation Doses from Fallout Particles Deposited on the Skin (Environmental Science Associates, Foster City, California, report AD0888503, 1971) quantified the beta contact hazard for fallout particles while they are descending in the open:

'A fission density of 1015 fissions per cubic centimeter of fallout material was assumed. Comparison of computed doses with the most recent experimental data relative to skin response to beta-energy deposition leads to the conclusion that even for fallout arrival times as early as 16.7 minutes post-detonation, no skin ulceration is expected from single particles 500 micron or less in diameter. Absorbed gamma doses calculated for one particle size (100 microns) show a beta-to-gamma ratio of about 15. Dose ratio for larger particle sizes will be smaller. Doses from arrays of fallout particles of different size distributions were computed, also, for several fallout mass deposition densities; time intervals required to accumulate doses sufficient to initiate skin lesions were calculated. These times depend strongly on the assumed fallout-particle-size distribution. Deposition densities in excess of 100 mg per square foot of the skin will cause beta burns if fallout arrival time is less than about three hours, unless the particles are relatively coarse (mean particle diameter more than 250 microns).'

Keeping the highly visible particles off the skin by wearing clothing, or removing them quickly by brushing or washing after contamination, eliminates the beta burn hazard, as demonstrated by the examples of Marshallese Islanders who washed after fallout contamination:

U.S. Congressional Hearings before the Special Subcommittee on Radiation of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, The Nature of Radioactive Fallout and Its Effects on Man, 27 May - 3 June 1957, pages 173-216 where Dr Gordon M. Dunning testified: ‘In the case of the Marshallese who were in the fallout from the detonation at the Pacific on March 1, 1954, most of the more heavily exposed showed some degree of skin damage, as well as about half of them showing some degree of epilation [hair loss] due to beta doses. However, none of these effects were present except in those areas where the radioactive material was in contact with the skin, i.e., the scalp, neck, bend of the elbow, between and topside of the toes. No skin damage was observed where there was a covering of even a single layer of cotton clothing. ... The Marshallese were semiclothed, had moist skin, and most of them were out-of-doors during the time of fallout. Some bathed during the two-day exposure period before evacuation, but others did not; therefore, they were optimal conditions for possible beta damage. The group suffering greatest exposure [Rongelap Islanders, 175 R gamma dose from 4 hours to 2 days after burst] showed 20 percent (13 individuals) with deep lesions; 70 percent (45 individuals) superficial lesions; and 10 percent (6 individuals) no lesions. Likewise, 55 percent (35 individuals) showed some degree of epilation followed by a regrowth of hair.' On pages 944-948, Dr Eugene P. Cronkite testified: 'The fallout material consisted predominantly of flakes of calcium oxide resulting from the incineration of the coral [reef near Namu Island at Bikini Atoll]. Upon the flakes of calcium oxide fission products were deposited. At Rongelap Atoll the material was visible and described as snowlike. ... To arrive at some physical estimate of the skin dose, an attempt must be made to add up the contributions of the penetrating gamma, the less penetrating gamma, the beta bath to which the individuals were exposed from the relatively uniform deposition of fission products in the environment, and the point contact source of fallout material deposited on the skin. By all means, the largest component of skin irradiation resulted from the spotty local deposits of fallout material on deposited surfaces of the body. To put it in reverse, the individuals who remained inside had no skin burn. It was only on those on whom the material was directly deposited on the skin that received burns. ... Itching and burning of the skin occurred in 28 percent of the people on Rongelap, 20 percent of the group on Ailinginae, and 5 percent of the Americans [weather station staff exposed to fallout on Rongerik Atoll]. There were no symptoms referable to the skin in the individuals on Utirik. In addition to the itching of the skin there was burning of the eyes and lacrimation in people on Rongelap and Ailinginae. It is probable that these initial skin symptoms were due to irradiation since all individuals who experienced the initial symptoms later developed unquestioned radiation-induced skin lesions that will be described later in detail. It is possible, however, that the intensely alkaline nature of the calcium oxide [produced when the coral i.e. calcium carbonate was heated in the fireball] when dissolved in perspiration might have contributed to the initial symptoms. ... Burns were caused by direct contact of the radioactive material with the skin. The perspiration as common in the tropics, the delay in decontamination and the difficulties in decontamination certainly favored the development of the skin burns. Those individuals who remained indoors or under trees during the fallout developed less severe skin burns. The children who went wading in the ocean developed fewer lesions of the feet and most of the Americans who were more aware of the dangers of the fallout, took shelter in aluminum buildings and bathed and changed clothes. Consequently they developed only very mild beta burns. Lastly, a single layer of cotton material offered almost complete protection, as was demonstrated by the fact that skin burns developed almost entirely on the exposed parts of the body.’



Above: the Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch forerunner during World War II ensured that every civilian and soldier had a reliable gas mask, which deterred Hitler from using nerve gases tabun and sarin (discovered in the late 30s by German chemists) against England. He was not being a nice guy: he was deterred by the fact that in highly dispersed form, nerve gas inhalation (not merely skin contact, which requires far larger doses and far more nerve gas to overcome disperson by the wind) is prevented by the activated charcoal absorbers in the cannisters of standard gas masks! If Hitler had used nerve gas, it would have been largely ineffective and would have led to a retaliation with mustard gas against Germany, which did not have enough gas masks due to a rubber shortage. (In Britain, rubber was stockpiled for gas masks long before war broke out and by September 1939, no less than 38 million gas masks had been issued to civilians.) Civil defence thereby helped to negate weapons of mass destruction.



Above: cynical, evil anti-civil defence propaganda falsely claims that because gas masks helped to negate the threat of, and thus deter, gas attacks, they 'were never used and therefore a waste of time and money; no more use than home fire insurance in a year when your home doesn't burn down'. Such people miss the whole point: civil defence is not just like a worthwhile insurance policy, but it actually helps to deter the enemy from attacking because it undermines the gains to be had from making an attack! If America had better aircraft security and defences against terrorists prior to 9/11, and the terrorists had been thus deterred, then we can envisage that terrorism-supporting anti security propaganda would doubtless have cynically and nefariously claimed that the defence measures were a 'waste of time and money' because they were never needed. The gas masks that deterred Hitler from using weapons of mass destruction were successful because they were never used against gas, they were successful because they were used as a deterrent; similarly nuclear weapons in the cold war were not a waste of time because they were never dropped, they were a success, in combination with some civil defence planning, for deterring the Soviet Union from launching an invasion of the West through nuclear intimidation.


Above: this picture answers the question 'why didn't Hitler use his nerve gas against Britain in World War II?' Britain's comprehensive issue of gas masks for all civilian situations - including the unconscious and people with acute breathing disorders - meant that Nazi nerve gas production was rendered impotent and obsolete; for it was simply inadequate to gas Britain. The LDt50 (i.e., the air concentration and exposure time product which has units of dosage*time/volume, and which gives rise to 50% lethality) for skin exposure to Nazi tabun and sarin nerve gases were 3,700 and 3,100 times the inhalation LDt50's, respectively. Issuing gas masks increased the amount of nerve gas needed by a factor of 3,700 for tabun and 3,100 for sarin. To overcome dispersion by the weather, the Nazis would have had to drench the country with nerve gas to get it on people's skin asuming people were out of doors, but they simply couldn't make enough nerve gas to do this. Thus, because of Britain's civil defence - which didn't even know about nerve gas, although they did know that the pores in activated charcoal absorbers will absorb any dangerously reactive molecules apart from carbon monoxide - the Nazis were effectively deterred from making what would have been an ineffective attack inviting effective retaliation. These scientific facts are totally ignored in evil anti-civil defence propaganda which ignores the fact that simple civil defence countermeasures in Britain successfully averted weapons of mass destruction during World War II.


Above: the 1963 Civil Defence Handbook No. 10, Advising the Householder on Protection against Nuclear Attack, was cynically written by the Central Office of Information for either the illiterate or the inmates of lunatic asylums, and contained no justification or nuclear test experience to substantiate the crazy-sounding advice it offered. It quickly led to the closure of the Civil Defence Corps when it was held up and ridiculed in the House of Commons. It teaches the lesson that for civil defence, it is no good to dictatorially hand out 'official' nonsense-sounding advice, while keeping the facts that justify it secret. That is what communist and fascist dictatorships do, on the false grounds of 'secrecy' and 'national security' (in fact, some dictatorships are more open to their citizens that this). Instead of patronising citizens by refusing to reveal the solid scientific evidence for each protective measure, the facts must be disclosed to forestall cynical anti-civil defense propaganda. By contrast, the 1950 edition of the U.S. Department of Defense Effects of Atomic Weapons, edited by Dr Glasstone, on pages 392-9 justifies each protective action:

'If a person is in the open when the sudden illumination is apparent, then the best plan is instantaneously to drop to the ground, while curling up so as to shade the bare arms and hands, neck and face with the clothed body. ... A person who is inside a building or home when a sudden atomic bomb attack occurs should drop to the floor, with the back to the window, or crawl behind or beneath a table, desk, counter, etc.; this will also provide a shield against splintered glass due to the blast wave. The latter may reach the building some time after the danger from radiation has passed, and so windows should be avoided for about a minute, since the shock wave continues for some time after the explosion. ... planning will be necessary to avoid panic, for mass hysteria could convert a minor incident into a major disaster.'



It is estimated that Mongol invaders exterminated 35 million Chinese between 1311-40, without modern weapons. Communist Chinese killed 26.3 million dissenters between 1949 and May 1965, according to detailed data compiled by the Russians on 7 April 1969. The Soviet communist dictatorship killed 40 million dissenters, mainly owners of small farms, between 1917-59. Conventional (non-nuclear) air raids on Japan killed 600,000 during World War II. The single incendiary air raid on Tokyo on 10 March 1945 killed 140,000 people (more than the total for nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined) at much less than the $2 billion expense of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs! Non-nuclear air raids on Germany during World War II killed 593,000 civilians.

J. K. S. Clayton (formerly with the Weapons Department of the RAE Farnborough which he joined in 1946), as Director of the Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch oversaw Thatcher’s brilliant ‘Protect and Survive’ era civil defence assault on the Soviet Union (which was controversial because it presented facts about how to protect against nuclear weapons blast, heat and fallout without giving the nuclear test data which validated those facts). Clayton wrote about the basis of Protect and Survive policy in his lengthy and brilliant introduction, 'The Challenge - Why Home Defence?', to the Home Office 1977 Training Manual for Scientific Advisers:

'Since 1945 we have had nine wars - in Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam, between China and India, China and Russia, India and Pakistan and between the Arabs and Israelis on three occasions. We have had confrontations between East and West over Berlin, Formosa and Cuba. There have been civil wars or rebellions in no less than eleven countries and invasions or threatened invasions of another five. Whilst it is not suggested that all these incidents could have resulted in major wars, they do indicate the aptitude of mankind to resort to a forceful solution of its problems, sometimes with success. ...

'Let us consider what a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom might mean. It will be assumed that such an attack will only occur within the context of a general nuclear war which means that the UK is only one of a number of targets and probably by no means the most important. It follows that only part of the enemy's stock of weapons is destined for us. If the Warsaw Pact Nations constitute the enemy - and this is only one possible assumption - and if the enemy directs the bulk of his medium range and intermediate range weapons against targets in Western Europe behind the battle front, then Western Europe would receive about 1,000 megatons. Perhaps the UK could expect about one fifth of this, say 200 Mt. Let us assume rather arbitrarily that this would consist of 5 x 5 Mt, 40 x 2 Mt, 50 x 1 Mt and 100 x 1/2 Mt.

'An attack of this weight would cause heavy damage over about 10,000 square kilometres, moderate to heavy damage over about 50,000 square kilometres, and light damage over an additional 100,000 square kilometres. (Light damage means no more than minor damage to roofs and windows with practically no incidence of fire.) We can compare the heavy damage to that suffered by the centre of Coventry in 1940. This will amount to approximately 5% of the land area of the UK. Another 15% will suffer extensive but by no means total damage by blast and fire; another 40% will suffer superficial damage. The remaining 40% will be undamaged. In other words, four-fifths of the land area will suffer no more than minor physical damage. Of course, many of the undamaged areas would be affected by radioactive fallout but this inconvenience would diminish with the passage of time.

'Policy to meet the Threat

'The example just given of the likely severity of the attack - which is, of course, only one theoretical possibility - would still leave the greater part of the land area undamaged and more people are likely to survive than to perish. Government Home Defence policy must therefore be aimed to increase the prospects of the survivors in their stricken environment.'



Clayton's booklet Protect and Survive was first prepared and printed in 1976, but was only used for training purposes until it was published and placed on sale in May 1980. It was justified by Dr Carl F. Miller’s work on fallout radiation at the CASTLE, REDWING and PLUMBBOB nuclear test series in 1954, 1956 and 1957; the research he directed explained the nature and radiation properties of fallout, which is especially easy to shield for the case of 'dirty' bombs with U-238 casings, because much of the gamma radiation from these weapons in the period of hours to weeks after burst is very low energy (easily shielded) gamma rays from neutron induced isotopes like Np-239 (resulting from neutron capture in U-238) and U-237 (resulting from neutron capture in U-238 followed by double neutron emission, the n,2n reaction first discovered by Professor Kenjiro Kimura, who used this reaction to discover Uranium-237, and later found this isotope in the CASTLE-BRAVO fallout that landed on Japanese fishing boat 'Lucky Dragon' on 1 March 1954).

The British Home Office report reviewing in great detail Dr Carl F. Miller's 1963 Stanford Research Institute vital report Fallout and Radiological Countermeasures is: HO 227/74 Home Office: Scientific Adviser's Branch and successors: SA/PR Reports Series, Fallout and radiological counter-measures, Former reference (Department) SA/PR 74. Dr Miller's report was a complete chemical, physical and radiological model of the fallout process, and answered all of the Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch concerns about:

(1) the physical and chemical nature (solubility, stickiness, etc.) of fallout,

(2) the actual mass (kilograms per square metre) of deposited fallout (to sweep up and decontaminate) associated with given radioactivity intensities,

(3) the fractionation of fission products as a function of the distance from the detonation (the most hazardous large fallout particles near ground zero are seriously lacking in soluble, ingestible fission products like iodine-131, strontium-90 and caesium-137, because these isotopes have either gaseous precursors or are volatile with a low boiling point, so they only 'plate out' on to the surfaces of the still-present tiny particles of solidified fallout after the fireball has cooled to low temperatures in the last stages of fallout formation, and those tiny particles take a long time to fall out, being deposited globally not locally), and

(4) the radioactive decay rate as modified by fractionation of different fission product decay chains in the hot, condensing fireball and also the vital effect of neutron induced activities like U-239, Np-239, U-240, Np-240 and U-237 on the decay rate and the gamma ray spectra of fallout radiation, which of course determines the penetrating ability of the gamma radiation from fallout and the protection afforded by simple expedient countermeasures against it, particularly at times of 2 hours to 2 weeks after burst when sheltering is most important because the intensity is greatest; low-energy or soft gamma rays from fractionated local fallout fission products and in particular from neutron-induced activities such as Np-239 and U-237 formed by neutron capture in the casings of dirty fission-fusion-fission 3-stage thermonuclear weapons with U-238 jackets, are much more easily shielded than the harder gamma ray spectrum from unfractionated fission products as a whole. (For additional data on fallout see the earlier posts here and here.)

Clayton's decisive civil defence actions based on the Miller fallout data were later strongly supported by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (a former research chemist, unlike most scientifically ignorant politicians) who - despite her widely perceived domestic policy failings as a right-wing woman - backed the morality of civil defence and on foreign policy issues stood up to terrorist state dictator Leonid Brezhnev like a man, echoing Clayton's pragmatic outlook on war in her address to the United Nations General Assembly on disarmament on 23 June 1982, when she pointed out that in the years since the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 10 million people were killed by 140 non-nuclear conflicts, so:

‘The fundamental risk to peace is not the existence of weapons of particular types. It is the disposition on the part of some states to impose change on others by resorting to force against other nations ... Aggressors do not start wars because an adversary has built up his own strength. They start wars because they believe they can gain more by going to war than by remaining at peace.’

On 29 October 1982, Thatcher stated of the Berlin Wall:

‘You may chain a man, but you cannot chain his mind. You may enslave him, but you will not conquer his spirit. In every decade since the war the Soviet leaders have been reminded that their pitiless ideology only survives because it is maintained by force. But the day comes when the anger and frustration of the people is so great that force cannot contain it. Then the edifice cracks: the mortar crumbles ... one day, liberty will dawn on the other side of the wall.’

Leonid Brezhnev fortunately died on 10 November 1982, while Reagan and Thatcher challenged the Soviet Union's nuclear superiority with increased civil defence efforts coupled to military expenditure in a successful effort to bankrupt and reform the corrupt Soviet terrorist system.

On 22 November 1990, she was able to declare: ‘Today, we have a Europe ... where the threat to our security from the overwhelming conventional forces of the Warsaw Pact has been removed; where the Berlin Wall has been torn down and the Cold War is at an end. These immense changes did not come about by chance. They have been achieved by strength and resolution in defence, and by a refusal ever to be intimidated.’



'The case for civil defence stands regardless of whether a nuclear deterrent is necessary or not. ... Even if the U.K. were not itself at war, we would be as powerless to prevent fallout from a nuclear explosion crossing the sea as was King Canute to stop the tide.' - U.K. Home Office leaflet, Civil Defence, 1982.



ABOVE: excellent nuclear test evidence-based civil defence protection film by the U.S. Navy, Nuclear Effects at Sea. Robert Jungk's book, Children of the Ashes, Heinemann, London, 1961, cites a report in Hiroshima by American psychologist Woodbury Sparks called Panic Among A-Bomb Casualties at Hiroshima which showed that due to their surprise at the effects of the nuclear explosion, only 26 percent (153 out of a random sample of 589 bomb survivors in Hiroshima) gave any assistance at all to anybody else after the explosion. Seeing that the majority of the people in each city survived and that a major cause of death was the burning of blast damaged wooden houses containing persons trapped by blast debris, a lot more could have been done if people had been prepared. This is one of the civil defence lessons from Hiroshima: the emotional shock prevented proper action. Effective civil defence training in the solid, unvarnished facts about nuclear effects phenomenology can avert this shock, enabling help to be given more efficiently where and when practical to save lives and minimise injury.



Above: Morrison steel table indoor shelter which survived the debris load of a collapsed house, and a badly damaged Anderson garden shelter which nevertheless did its job and saved lives of three children when their house was wrecked during World War II bombing.



ABOVE: a 1950s British Civil Defence Corps poster, explaining that civil defence is important in peacetime emergencies, such as the 1953 floods in England, just as it is important in war.



ABOVE: a 1950s British Civil Defence Corps poster, explaining evacuation planning and organization in September 1939 when war was declared, which is also needed in case of nuclear hostilities.



ABOVE: a 1950s British Civil Defence Corps poster, showing rescue of trapped people. The whole point of civil defence is precisely the problem that enormous numbers of houses can be destroyed in either massive enemy conventional bombing raids, or a single nuclear explosion: either way, the conventional peacetime energency services such as the fire brigade would not be able to cope with the tremendous (but not unlimited) scale of destruction in a built up area. This is the reason why hundreds of thousands of civil defence volunteers were trained in rescue, first aid, the effects of various weapons including chemical, biological, nuclear and conventional weapons, and the emergency feeding and evacuation measures which are important for any kind of emergency including natural ones like floods. Civil defence membership peaked at 336,265 by May 1956 (The Times, 2 May 1956, p 6). This would have been enough to make a large difference in the event of a war or disaster.



ABOVE: a 1950s British Civil Defence Corps poster, extrapolating damage in the wood frame inflamable cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a British city with brick, concrete and steel-frame buildings. This poster shows the severe damage such as building collapse at 0.5 mile from ground zero after a 20 kt air burst at an altitude of 1760 feet.



ABOVE: a 1950s British Civil Defence Corps poster, showing damage at 0.67 mile from ground zero after a 20 kt air burst at an altitude of 1760 feet.



ABOVE: a 1950s British Civil Defence Corps poster, showing damage at 0.85 mile from ground zero after a 20 kt air burst at an altitude of 1760 feet.



ABOVE: a 1950s British Civil Defence Corps poster, showing damage at 1.3 mile from ground zero after a 20 kt air burst at an altitude of 1760 feet.



ABOVE: a 1950s British Civil Defence Corps poster, showing warden equipped with anti-contamination protective clothing, a pen-like quartz fibre dosimeter to measure integrated gamma radiation dose and a RADIAC (radioactivity detection, identification and computation) survey meter to measure the varying dose rate of beta and gamma radiation (a hinged aluminium flap on the base of the instrument could be opened to measure beta plus gamma, and shut to measure gamma radiation only; the dosimeters and the RADIAC Survey Meter No. 2 instruments were checked for calibration accuracy and rugged reliability against real nuclear bomb fallout at the four British-Australian nuclear tests in Maralinga, Operation Buffalo, in 1956).







ABOVE: a selection of random 1950s British Civil Defence Corps posters, focussing on the aspects of civil defence which are common to not just nuclear attack, but also to the experience of civil defence during World War II, when attacks on London occurred repeatedly by large numbers of aircraft, V1 cruise missiles and V2 rocket missiles. In 1950, the Top Secret British Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch report SA/16 (HO225/16 in the UK National Archives), 'The number of atomic bombs equivalent to the last war air attacks on Great Britain and Germany', concluded:

‘The wide publicity given to the appalling destruction caused by the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki has possibly tended to give an exaggerated impression of their effectiveness. Perhaps the best way to counteract this impression, and to help to get the atomic bomb to scale, is to consider the numbers of atomic bombs that would have to be dropped on this country and on Germany to have caused the same total amount of damage as was actually caused by attacks with high explosive and incendiary bombs.

‘During the last war a total of 1,300,000 tons [i.e. 1.3 MEGATONS of bombs] were dropped on Germany by the Strategic Air Forces [of Britain and America]. If there were no increase in aiming accuracy, then to achieve the same amount of material damage (to houses, industrial and transportational targets, etc.) would have required the use of over 300 atomic bombs together with some 500,000 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs for targets too small to warrant the use of an atomic bomb… the total of 300,000 civilian air raid deaths in Germany could have been caused by about 80 atomic bombs delivered with the accuracy of last war area attacks, or by about 20 atomic bombs accurately placed at the centres of large German cities...’

This report, SA/16, was kept Top Secret for 8 years, and then Restricted for another 22 years. It was never published, and civil defence was gradually undermined by the exaggeration of nuclear weapons effects by political groups such as CND, the full facts remaining secret.

Before Mr Pseudoscience of CND makes the claim that the Home Office miss-divided 1.3 megatons of bombs into 20 kilotons, adding that "everyone can see that 1.3 Mt is just 65 times 20 kt", it should be pointed out, as explained in the comments at http://glasstone.blogspot.com/2006/03/samuel-glasstone-and-philip-j-dolan.html and http://glasstone.blogspot.com/2007/03/above-3.html, that blast damage radii for overpressure diffraction damage scale at most as the cube-root of yield (or more slowly than the cube-root if allowance for blast attenuation by the work energy used in destroying houses while the blast knocks down successive houses in a radial line from ground zero is included in the calculations). Areas of damage scale as the square of the ground range, or the two-thirds of yield at most.

Hence, the 1.3 megatons of small bombs dropped as mentioned in this blog post is not anywhere remotely equivalent to a single 1.3 megaton nuclear bomb. It turns out that 1.3 megatons as a single explosive is only the equivalent of 4.64 kilotons of 100 kg bombs, because efficiency is greater for smaller bombs.

(This is the reason that America stopped designing very high yield thermonuclear weapons after the 1954 nuclear tests of Operation Castle, and the mean yield of the 4,552 nuclear warheads and bombs in the deployed 1.172 Gt or 1,172 Mt U.S. nuclear stockpile is only 0.257 Mt or 257 kt. 257 kt is just 12 times the yield of the Nagasaki bomb, so by the cube-root scaling law the blast destruction radii for the mean yield of 257 kt is just 2.27 times the blast destruction radii in Nagasaki. Because there are no flimsy wood-frame inflammable cities in the West, the actual effects of typical stockpiled nuclear weapons today would be less severe than they were in Nagasaki.)

Because the average bomb size of conventional (chemical) high explosive bombs was under 100 kg in WWII, they were far more efficient than a megaton nuclear bomb: relative area damaged = number of bombs * {bomb yield}2/3

Hence to get the same area damaged by 100 kg TNT bombs as by a 1 Mt nuclear bomb, you would need only 1/(10-7)2/3 = 46,400 conventional 100 kg bombs, a total of just 46400*0.0001 = 4.64 kilotons of bombs doing the same area destruction as a single 1 megaton bomb. To emphasise this non-linear addition law:

1 megaton of TNT as a single explosion = 4.64 kt of 100 kg bombs in an air raid

The relative efficiency of the single 1 Mt nuclear bomb in this example is only 0.464% compared to conventional small TNT explosive bombs.

Hence, heavy conventional high explosive bombing raids with hundreds of aircraft in WWII produced the same destruction as a relatively large thermonuclear weapon. The fact that easily mitigated effects (such as delayed fallout and thermal radiation which is easily avoided by ducking and covering skin) were absent in the high explosive attacks, where the energy wasn't wasted but mainly went into blast wave damage, made conventional warfare far more dangerous.



Above: All that happened to the Anderson shelters 400 yards from the 25 kt Hurricane nuclear test on 3 October 1952 was that a few sand bags were blown off by the arrival of the blast wave, but by that time the initial nuclear radiation and thermal radiation pulses were already over, so the sandbags had shielded the radiation. Frank H. Pavry, who as part of the British Mission to Japan had observed the surviving air raid shelters near ground zero in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, organized the construction of 15 Anderson shelters. In World War II, two types of shelters were issued by the U.K. government to householders: the 'Morrison' (a steel table designed to resist the debris load from the collapse of a house, which was introduced in March 1941 and named after the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison), and the 'Anderson' which was an outdoor shelter supplied to 2,100,000 householders (a 14-gauge corrugated steel arch shelter, 2 m long, 1.4 m wide and 1.8 m high, designed to accommodate 6 people and to be sunk to 1.2 metre depth and covered by at least 40 cm of earth; it was invented in 1938 and named after Sir John Anderson, who was in charge of U.K. Air Raid Precautions/Civil Defence).

Frank H. Pavry's report, Operation HURRICANE: Anderson Shelters, Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, AWRE-T17/54, was originally classified 'Secret - Atomic'. The 15 Anderson shelters had survived very well. Nearest to the bomb ship, they survived a peak overpressure of 55 psi or 380 kPa without internal damage: sand bags on the outside were hurled off when the blast wave arrived, but by that time they had done their job of shielding the initial neutron and gamma radiation. (They could have been replaced before fallout arrived.) At a peak overpressure of 12 psi or 83 kPa, even the sandbags on the outside remained intact. (Pavry had used sand bags instead of the recommended packed earth as a convenience.)

This rightly gave conviction to the British Home Office civil defence effects team. The bomb ship HMS Plym, can be seen moored in 40 feet of water 400 yards off Trimouille Island, Monte Bello group. The public information film on Operation Hurricane states: 'At Montebello the advance party is already at work: 200 Royal Engineers had arrived in April to find an empty wilderness of salt, bush and spinifex ... Within the danger zone they erected the familiar [World War II British civilian] Anderson shelters, well-protected by sandbags ... These tests would influence the pattern of civil defence against some future atomic attack. ... On shore, they find many of the Anderson shelters have survived the ordeal remarkably well – better than some of the concrete-block houses.' (The full report on the Anderson shelters exposed at Operation Hurricane is 'Operation Hurricane: Anderson Shelters', Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Aldermaston, report AWRE-T17/54, 1954, UK National Archives reference ES 5/19 and also duplicated at DEFE 16/933. See also 'Penetration of the gamma flash into Anderson shelters and concrete cubicles', AWRE-T20/54, 1954, UK National Archives ref ES 5/22 duplicated at DEFE 16/935.)



Here again are some extracts from the civil defence chapter in the 1962/64 edition of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons:

'At distances between 0.3 and 0.4 mile from ground zero in Hiroshima the average survival rate, for at least 20 days after the nuclear explosion, was less than 20 percent. Yet in two reinforced concrete office buildings, at these distances, almost 90 percent of the nearly 800 occupants survived more than 20 days, although some died later of radiation injury.

'Furthermore, of approximately 3,000 school students who were in the open and unshielded within a mile of ground zero at Hiroshima, about 90 percent were dead or missing after the explosion. But of nearly 5,000 students in the same zone who were shielded in one way or another, only 26 percent were fatalities. ... survival in Hiroshima was possible in buildings at such distances that the overpressure in the open was 15 to 20 pounds per square inch. ... it is evident ... that the area over which protection could be effective in saving lives is roughly eight to ten times as great as that in which the chances of survival are small.'

Page 645 (1962/4 edition):

'The major part of the thermal radiation travels in straight lines, so any opaque object interposed between the fireball and the exposed skin will give some protection. This is true even if the object is subsequently destroyed by the blast, since the main thermal radiation pulse is over before the arrival of the blast wave.

'At the first indication of a nuclear explosion, by a sudden increase in the general illumination, a person inside a building should immediately fall prone, and, if possible, crawl behind or beneath a table or desk or to a planned vantage point. Even if this action is not taken soon enough to reduce the thermal radiation exposure greatly, it will minimise the displacement effect of the blast wave and provide a partial shield against splintered glass and other flying debris.

'An individual caught in the open should fall prone to the ground in the same way, while making an effort to shade exposed parts of the body. Getting behind a tree, building, fence, ditch, bank, or any structure which prevents a direct line of sight between the person and the fireball, if possible, will give a major degree of protection. If no substantial object is at hand, the clothed parts of the body should be used to shield parts which are exposed. There will still be some hazard from scattered thermal radiation, especially from high-yield weapons at long ranges, but the decrease in the direct radiation will be substantial.'

A person on the ground whose clothes ignite (which is only a risk under extremely high thermal exposure to dark coloured clothing) can immediately extinguish the clothes by simply rolling over to starve the flames of oxygen. Page 653 (1962/4 edition):

'Some, although perhaps not all, of the fallout in the Marshall Islands, after the test explosion of March 1, 1954, could be seen as a white powder or dust. This was due, partly at least, to the light color of the calcium oxide or carbonate of which the particles were mainly composed. It is probable that whenever there is sufficient fallout to constitute a hazard, the dust will be visible.'



Below are some extracts from the British Home Office civil defence booklet, The Hydrogen Bomb (published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1957, 32 pages). The frontispiece to the booklet is a quotation from Sir Winston Churchill: 'The hydrogen bomb has made an outstanding incursion into the structure of our lives and thoughts.' Page 3 states:

'Knowledge of the effects of this weapon should be widespread. Terrible as these effects are, they can be exaggerated, and the information given in this booklet shows that much can be done to reduce them and to save lives. ... The publication of this summary does not mean that the Government think war likely. As the 1957 White Paper on Defence made clear, the existence of nuclear weapons and of the means to use them is a safeguard against aggression and a deterrent to war. But everyone should know what these weapons could do, and have some idea of how their effects could be reduced.'

It is impressive (in comparison to more 'modern' pamphlets) due to the way it conveys the facts by direct examples from thermonuclear weapons tests and from the nuclear weapon attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For example, the chapter on 'The danger from heat' (pages 8-11) draws directly on the experience of the Home Office authors (George R. Stanbury and others attended British nuclear tests at Monte Bello and elsewhere during the 1950s):

'With an atomic bomb similar [20 kilotons] to the one used at Nagasaki, the "heat flash" lasts for only about one and a half seconds, and most of it is over in half a second. With the [15 megatons] hydrogen bomb, heat is radiated for twenty seconds or more, most of it in the first ten seconds.

'THE DANGER TO PEOPLE

'What would happen to anyone in the open directly exposed to the heat? People have gained some inkling from nuclear tests. At one test, for example, the device exploded was rather more powerful than the bombs dropped in Japan. The day was clear, which favoured the radiation of heat, and the observers were six miles away. Even at this distance, their eyes would have been temporarily blinded, if not permanently injured, had they not worn very dark glasses [when staring directly at the fireball]. As the fireball rapidly expanded, they felt as if an oven door had been opened only a few feet away. If the distance had been only one or two miles, their skin would have been severely burned. At half a mile, they would have been killed.

'With a hydrogen bomb these distances would be increased, though not as much as might be expected. The "heat radiation" from a hydrogen bomb lasts longer. On a fine cloudless day, it might be felt as far as fifty miles away, but without injury to the skin. ... Mist or fog would reduce the range of the heat. They act as a barrier against heat rays, just as they do against the rays of the sun [water molecules have band absorption spectra covering the infrared radiation wavelengths].

'Anything that keeps off the sun's heat will help to give protection against the heat of a nuclear bomb. At Hiroshima, for instance, a painted surface was scorched except where it was in the shadow of a wheel. ... At Hiroshima some Japanese women, who had on white cotton dresses with a darker pattern, suffered burns only beneath the pattern. The skin under the white material escaped. This was because white or light-coloured material reflects heat while dark material absorbs it. Colour apart, woolen clothes would be less likely to catch fire than cotton. If clothing did catch fire and there was no time to throw it off, the best way to put out the flames would be to roll over and over on the ground.

'All this applies only to people caught in the path of the heat rays. Any solid substance would give full protection against this danger. ... In built-up areas, the lower storeys would probably be shielded by other buildings. Here a householder would need to pay particular attention to the upper floors with a full view of the sky ...'



ABOVE: U.S. Army photo showing how a mere leaf of Fatsia japonica attenuated the heat flash enough to prevent scorching to the bitumen on an electric pole near the Meiji Bridge, 1.3 km range, Hiroshima. It didn't even vaporize the leaf before the pulse ended, let alone did it somehow ignite the wooden pole (most photos claiming to show thermal flash radiation effects in Hiroshima and Nagasaki purely show effects from the fires set off by the blast wave overturning cooking stoves, which developed 30 minutes to 2 hours later): 'Even blades of grass cast permanent shadows on otherwise badly scorched wood. The [Hiroshima nuclear bomb heat] flash lasted less time than it took the grass to shrivel.' - Chapman Pincher, Into the Atomic Age, Hutchinson and Co., London, 1950, p. 50.



ABOVE: the heat flash radiation which causes the scorching is so unscattered or unidirectional that any shading from the fireball source stops it even if you are exposed to the scattered radiation from the rest of the sky: shadows still present in October 1945 in the bitumen road surface of Yorozuyo Bridge, 805 m SSW of ground zero, Hiroshima, pointed where the bomb detonated (U.S. Army photo).

Pages 18-19 of the 1957 British Home Office booklet The Hydrogen Bomb introduce the protected 'refuge room' against fallout gamma radiation from large contaminated areas outside and on the roof (small areas of fallout contamination, such as indoor contamination, are negligible by comparison because most of the gamma dose rate comes almost horizontally from large distances across a uniformly contaminated plane rather than vertically upwards from the small amount of fallout under your feet or nearby, so the ingress of fallout into buildings makes no siugnificant difference unless the wall protection factors are so pathetically low it is not much help anyway):

'PROTECTION FROM FALL-OUT

'The three factors which count in gaining protection are the distance from the radioactive dust, the weight of material in between, and the time for which one remains protected while the radioactivity decays.

'A slit trench with overhead cover of two or three feet of earth would give very good protection against fall-out, as well as protection against blast, but the occupants would have to remain in the trench for forty-eight hours or more while the radioactivity surrounding them decayed.

'A prepared refuge room inside a house could be made to give good protection against fall-out (although not so good as a covered slit trench) and it would also be much less uncomfortable for a period of two days or more. A cellar or basement would be by far the best place for a refuge room; next best would be the room with the fewest outside walls and the smallest windows. The windows would need to be blocked with solid material, to the thickness of the surrounding walls at least. It would help if the walls themselves were thickened, not necessarily to their full height, with sandbags, boxes filled with earth, or heavy furniture. The occupants of the refuge roof would have to remain in it until told that it was safe to come out - perhaps for a period of days - and the room would have to be prepared and equipped accordingly.

'In some places it might be practicable to make good use of both an outdoor slit trench and an indoor refuge room, using the first for protection against blast, and the second, if the house survived the blast, for subsequent protection against fall-out.'




This advice about a refuge room against fallout is actually an extension of advice in the 1938 British Home Office booklet The Protection of Your Home Against Air Raids, 38 pages. (See also the collection of official civil defence public handouts here.) Page 1 of that 1938 booklet contains a Foreword signed by Samuel Hoare (the Home Secretary of the British Government at that time), stating:

'WHY THIS BOOK HAS BEEN SENT TO YOU

'If this country were ever at war the target of the enemy's bombers would be the staunchness of the people at home. We all hope and work to prevent war but, while there is risk of it, we cannot afford to neglect the duty of preparing ourselves and the country for such an emergency. This book is being sent out to help each householder to realise what he can do, if the need arises, to make his home and his household more safe against air attack.'

Page 3 states (in italics):

'On board ship, both crew and passengers are instructed where to go and what to do, not when danger threatens, but beforehand. The captain considers it a matter of ordinary routine and everyday precaution that everything is in readiness for a shipwreck which he hopes will never happen. If the head of the house will consider himself as "the captain of the ship" and put these air raid precautions in to effect, the principal object of this book will have been achieved.'

Page 4 states:

'If air raids ever came to this country, every home should have a refuge specially prepared in which the whole household could take cover. Every shop and office, or other place of work or business, would require a place similarly prepared for those engaged on its premises.

'Every householder, or head of a family or business, should learn now how to protect, in war-time, his own people and home from the effects of explosive bombs, incendiary bombs, and poison gas. This applies to those who live in large centres of population. In more remote districts the dangers would no doubt be less, though the need for protection and precautions would still exist.

Page 8 states:

'HOW TO CHOOSE A REFUGE ROOM

'Almost any room will serve as a refuge-room if it is soundly constructed, and if it is easy to reach and to get out of. Its windows should be as few and small as possible, preferably facing a building or blank wall, or a narrow street. If a ground floor room facing a wide street or a stretch of level open ground [where bombs could fall] is chosen, the windows should if possible be specially protected. The stronger the walls, floor and ceiling are, the better. Brick partition walls are better than lath and plaster. ... An internal refuge will form a very good refuge room if it can be closed at both ends.'

Both 'Morrison' indoor refuge-room shelters (basically a steel table designed to take the weight of the house collapsing on top of it, under which people could take protection against blast damage) and 'Anderson' outdoor earth-covered corrugated steel arch shelter were used for blast protection during World War II. Tube stations were used as communal air raid shelters. The first experiment set up by George R. Stanbury and others from the Home Office who attended the British 'Operation Hurricane' nuclear weapons test at Monte Bello in 1952, was to set up Anderson shelters to see the effects of nuclear weapons against World War II style civil defence. The shelters stood up very well indeed cutting down thermal and nuclear radiation and protecting against blast, although the longer duration of the nuclear blast wave relative to the bombs used in World War II meant that at the same high overpressure levels, the air drag effect of wind pressure tended to blow some sandbags off in the case of the nuclear explosion (but not in the case of the conventional low yield chemical explosives).

The final British civil defence booklet was prepared for the Home Office by the Central Office of Information in 1976 and was first published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office in May 1980:



Protect and Survive

This booklet tells you how to make your home and family as safe as possible under nuclear attack

Foreword

If the country were ever faced with an immediate threat of nuclear war, a copy of this booklet would be distributed to every household as part of a public information campaign which would include announcements on television and radio and in the press. The booklet has been designed for free and general distribution in that event. It is being placed on sale now for those who wish to know what they would be advised to do at such a time.

May 1980

If Britain is attacked by nuclear bombs or by missiles, we do not know what targets will be chosen or how severe the assault will be.

If nuclear weapons are used on a large scale, those of us living in the country areas might be exposed to as great a risk as those in the towns. The radioactive dust, falling where the wind blows it, will bring the most widespread dangers of all. No part of the United Kingdom can be considered safe from both the direct effects of the weapons and the resultant fall-out.

The dangers which you and your family will face in this situation can be reduced if you do as this booklet describes.

Challenge to survival

Fall-out

Fall-out is dust that is sucked up from the ground by the explosion. It can be deadly dangerous. It rises high in the air and can be carried by the winds for hundreds of miles before falling to the ground.

The radiation from this dust is dangerous. It cannot be seen or felt. It has no smell, and it can be detected only by special instruments. Exposure to it can cause sickness and death. If the dust fell on or around your home, the radiation from it would be a danger to you and your family for many days after an explosion. Radiation can penetrate any material, but its intensity is reduced as it passes through - so the thicker and denser the material is, the better.

Planning for survival

Plan a Fall-out Room and Inner Refuge

The first priority is to provide shelter within your home against radioactive fall-out. Your best protection is to make a fall-out room and build an inner refuge within it.

First, the Fall-out Room

Because of the threat of radiation you and your family may need to live in this room for fourteen days after an attack, almost without leaving it at all. So you must make it as safe as you can, and equip it for your survival. Choose the place furthest from the outside walls and from the roof, or which has the smallest amount of outside wall. The further you can get, within your home, from the radioactive dust that is on or around it, the safer you will be. Use the cellar or basement if there is one. Otherwise use a room, hall or passage on the ground floor.

Even the safest room in your home is not safe enough, however. You will need to block up windows in the room, and any other openings, and to make the outside walls thicker, and also to thicken the floor above you, to provide the strongest possible protection against the penetration of radiation. Thick, dense materials are the best, and bricks, concrete or building blocks, timber, boxes of earth, sand, books, and furniture might all be used.

Flats

If you live in a block of flats there are other factors to consider. If the block is five stories high or more, do not shelter in the top two floors. Make arrangements now with your landlord for alternative shelter accommodation if you can, or with your neighbours on the lower floors, or with relatives or friends.

If your flat is in a block of four storeys or less, the basement or ground floor will give you the best protection. Central corridors on lower floors will provide good protection.

Bungalows

Bungalows and similar single-storey homes will not give much protection. Arrange to shelter with someone close by if you can do so.

If not, select a place in your home that is furthest from the roof and the outside walls, and strengthen it as has been described.

Caravans

If you live in a caravan or other similar accommodation which provides very little protection against fall-out your local authority will be able to advise you on what to do.

Now the Inner Refuge

Still greater protection is necessary in the fall-out room, particularly for the first two days and nights after an attack, when the radiation dangers could be critical. To provide this you should build an inner refuge. This too should be thick-lined with dense materials to resist the radiation, and should be built away from the outside walls.

Here are some ideas:



1. Make a 'lean-to' with sloping doors taken from rooms above or strong boards rested against an inner wall. Prevent them from slipping by fixing a length of wood along the floor. Build further protection of bags or boxes of earth or sand - or books, or even clothing - on the slope of your refuge, and anchor these also against slipping. Partly close the two open ends with boxes of earth or sand, or heavy furniture.

2. Use tables if they are large enough to provide you all with shelter. Surround them and cover them with heavy furniture filled with sand, earth, books or clothing.

3. Use the cupboard under the stairs if it is in your fall-out room. Put bags of earth or sand on the stairs and along the wall of the cupboard. If the stairs are on an outside wall, strengthen the wall outside in the same way to a height of six feet.

Essentials for survival in your Fall-out Room

1 Drinking Water

You will need enough for the family for fourteen days. Each person should drink two pints a day - so for this you will need three and a half gallons each.

You should try to stock twice as much water as you are likely to need for drinking, so that you will have enough for washing. You are unlikely to be able to use the mains water supply after an attack - so provide your drinking water beforehand by filling bottles for use in the fall-out room. Store extra water in the bath, in basins and in other containers.

Seal or cover all you can. Anything that has fall-out dust on it will be contaminated and dangerous to drink or to eat. You cannot remove radiation from water by boiling it.

2 Food

Stock enough food for fourteen days.

Choose foods which can be eaten cold, which keep fresh, and which are tinned or well wrapped. Keep your stocks in a closed cabinet or cupboard.

Provide variety. Stock sugar, jams or other sweet foods, cereals, biscuits, meats, vegetables, fruit and fruit juices. Children will need tinned or powdered milk, and babies their normal food as far as is possible. Eat perishable items first. Use your supplies sparingly.

In the open

If you are in the open and cannot get home within a couple of minutes, go immediately to the nearest building. If there is no building nearby and you cannot reach one within a couple of minutes, use any kind of cover, or lie flat (in a ditch) and cover the exposed skin of the head and hands.

Light and heat from an explosion will last for up to twenty seconds, but blast waves may take up to a minute to reach you. If after ten minutes there has been no blast wave, take cover in the nearest building.

What to do after the Attack:

After a nuclear attack, there will be a short period before fall-out starts to descend. Use this time to do essential tasks. This is what you should do.

Do not smoke.

Check that gas, electricity and other fuel supplies and all pilot lights are turned off.

Go round the house and put out any small fires using mains water if you can.

If anyone's clothing catches fire, lay them on the floor and roll them in a blanket, rug or thick coat.

If the mains water is still available also replenish water reserves.

REMEMBER:

The danger from fall-out is greatest in the first forty-eight hours. During that time you must stay in the fall-out room and as far as possible within your inner refuge. If you leave the room to dispose of waste or to replenish food or water supplies, do not stay outside it for a second longer than is necessary.



Above: The car-over-trench expedient fallout shelter from G. A. Cristy and C. H. Kearny, "Expedient Shelter Handbook", Oak Ridge National Laboratory, August 1974, report AD0787483, 318 pages. In place of a car, doors, felled logs, or planks of wood heaped with soil can be used instead, depending on the resources to hand.

The most important for emergency use (where rapid protection is desirable) are the "car over trench shelter" (dig a trench the right size to drive your car over, putting the excavated earth to the sides for added shielding, then drive your car over it), "tilt up doors and earth" shelter (if your house is badly damaged, build a fallout shelter against any surviving wall of the house by putting doors against it and piling earth on top in accordance to the plans), and the "above ground door-covered shelter" (basically a trench with excavated earth piles at the sides, doors placed on top, then a layer of earth piled on top of the doors).

All these shelters can be constructed very quickly under emergency conditions (in a time of some hours, e.g., comparable to the time taken for fallout to arrive in the major danger area downwind from a large nuclear explosion). For the known energy of gamma rays from fallout including neutron induced activities with low energy gamma ray emission (Np-239, U-237, etc.), a thickness of 1 foot or 30 centimetres of packed earth (density 1.6 grams per cubic centimetre) shields 95% of fallout gamma radiation, giving an additional protective factor of about 20. A thickness of 2 feet or 60 centimetres of packed earth provides a protective factor of about 400. Caravans have a protective factor of 1.4-1.8, single storey modern bungalows have a protection factor of 5-6, while brick bungalows have a protective factor of 8-9. British brick multi-storey buildings have protection factors of 10-20, while British brick house basements have protective factors of 90-150. These figures can easily be increased by at least a factor of 2-3 by making a protected ‘inner core’ or ‘refuge’ within the building at a central point, giving additional shielding:



Dr Saad Z. Mikhail's report, Beta-Radiation Doses from Fallout Particles Deposited on the Skin (Environmental Science Associates, Foster City, California, report AD0888503, 1971) quantified the beta contact hazard for fallout particles while they are descending in the open:

'A fission density of 10 to the 15th power fissions per cubic centimeter of fallout material was assumed. Comparison of computed doses with the most recent experimental data relative to skin response to beta-energy deposition leads to the conclusion that even for fallout arrival times as early as 1000 seconds (16.7 minutes post-detonation), no skin ulceration is expected from single particles 500 micron or less in diameter. Absorbed gamma doses calculated for one particle size (100 microns) show a beta-to-gamma ratio of about 15. Dose ratio for larger particle sizes will be smaller. Doses from arrays of fallout particles of different size distributions were computed, also, for several fallout mass deposition densities; time intervals required to accumulate doses sufficient to initiate skin lesions were calculated. These times depend strongly on the assumed fallout-particle-size distribution. Deposition densities in excess of 100 mg per square foot of the skin will cause beta burns if fallout arrival time is less than about three hours, unless the particles are relatively coarse (mean particle diameter more than 250 microns).'

Keeping the highly visible particles off the skin by wearing clothing, or removing them quickly by brushing or washing after contamination, eliminates the beta burn hazard, as demonstrated by the examples of Marshallese Islanders who washed after fallout contamination.

Manual of Civil Defence, Volume 1, Pamphlet No. 1, Nuclear Weapons, published for the Home Office and Scottish Home Department by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1956, 55 pages. This publication was written by the Scentific Advisory Branch of the Home Office, including Dr R. H. Purcell (the Home Office Chief Scientific Advisor) and his scientists Frank H. Pavey who had been in the British Mission to Japan in 1945, surveying Hiroshima and Nagasaki to examine the effects of nuclear weapons, and George R. Stanbury who (with Frank Pavey) had travelled to the Monte Bello Islands in Australia to measure the heat, blast and fallout effects as the Civil Defence Study Team at the Australian-British 25 kt nuclear test Hurricane on 3 October 1952 (including many Anderson and Morrison type World War II shelters, which stood up to the nuclear explosion very well indeed). Stanbury retired in 1967 but continued advising the Scientific Advisory Branch until his death in 1974, while Frank Pavry retired aged 65 in 1976. The 'Nuclear Weapons' 1956 report is with respect to firestorm hazards and other effects generally the best overall treatment of the problem and was influenced by Glasstone's 1950 Effects of Atomic Weapons which was based on empirical observations rather than guesses.

As with The Effects of Nuclear/Atomic Weapons (1950, 1957, 1962, 1964, 1977), the 2nd (1959) and 3rd (1974) editions of the British publication Nuclear Weapons moved away from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and nuclear test data and more towards theoretical discussions of hypothetical problems which has not been seen in practice.

HISTORY OF THE BRITISH CIVIL DEFENCE WORK BY THE HOME OFFICE SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BRANCH / EMERGENCY PLANNING DIVISION AND ITS PUBLICATION OF THE "FISSION FRAGMENTS" NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS JOURNAL

To explain the history of the British Home Office's Scientific Advisory Branch, here are quotations from Scientist in Civil Defence written by George R. Stanbury, published in two parts in Fission Fragments magazine (part 1 in issue 17, June 1971, edited by P. R. Bentley and part 2 in issue 18 of January 1972, the first issue of Fission Fragments to be edited by M. J. Thompson):

'The use of scientists in Civil Defence had its origin in a circular (how appropriate!) issued by the Home Office in July 1935 in which local authorities were told that the Government would issue general instructions on air raid precautions, based on expert study of the problems, and the first of the official ARP [air raid precautions] handbooks [handbook "No. 2" because of a delay, the "No. 1" handbook also concerned with gas was not issued until August 1936!], concerned with measures against gas attack, was issued with commendable alacrity at the end of the same month (Porton having been working on the problems for almost 10 years!).

'On the structural side [damage from blast effects of TNT bombs], a Bombing Tests Committee which which had been formed in 1934 as a sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence, was reconstituted in 1935 to work closely with the Home Office, and the Superintendent of Experiments at Shoeburyness was put in charge of the experimental work. A Structural Precautions Committee was appointed by the Home Secretary in February 1936 to report on the nature of material damage likely to result from air attack and on appropriate countermeasures. An interim report based on trials carried out by the research Department at Woolwich provided the information for Handbook No. 6 on Air Raid Precautions in Factories and Business Premises, and the fact that the final report was not issued until 1939 is an indication of the lack of relevant information at the time which had to be made good by a rapid expansion of testing facilities at the Building Research Station, the Road Research Laboratory, and elsewhere.

'In the last quarter of 1938 [e.g. the time of the Munich Crisis of September 1938 when Britain's Prime Minister Chamberlain had to visit Hitler in Germany to sign a peace pact on paper in a desperate effort to avert the impending war by appeasement of pacifist sentiments] the menacing political situation quickened interest in civil defence, and there was a rapid increase in the rating of civil defence research. ... In February 1939, therefore, the Research and Experiments Branch of the ARP Department was set up with Dr (later Sir) R. E. Stradling (the Director of the Building Research Station) as the Chief Adviser. The new branch started in two rooms in Horseferry House but soon moved across to Cleland House, where there was a staff of 24 at the outbreak of war in 1939. ... before the end of the war, over 600 people had been used in one capacity or another. ... in May 1939 a Civil Defence Research Committee was set up to advise on the formulation and execution of a programme of research by the branch [Chaired by Dr E. V. Appleton, FRS, and including such famous scientists as J. D. Bernal FRS, C. G. Darwin FRS, R. V. Southwell FRS, and G. I. Taylor FRS, the mathematician who - as part of this committee - in a famous paper predicted the blast wave and fireball growth rate for a nuclear explosion successfully ahead of the Trinity nuclear test in 1945; a paper which was only published openly in 1950 due to secrecy]. ...

'When it was decided to issue helmets to fire watchers the Department had the greatest difficulty in gaining acceptance of the idea that the metal crown should be several inches above a supporting cradle to allow any pressure from a suddenly applied load to be spread over the whole head instead of being concentrated into one place. [This is now the standard design for not just wartime use against the risk of falling bricks, but also a legal requirement for construction workers on building sites.] ...

'A similar difficulty was experienced by prof. (now Sir John) Baker and his colleagues in gaining acceptance of the idea that a shelter should be designed to absorb some part of the applied energy in its own partial collapse; complete resistance was far too costly and even unnecessary. The Morrison table shelter was an excellent example of this. It was designed to withstand the debris load of a house by its own partial collapse, whilst still giving adequate protection to the occupants. Sir John recalls with relish the long argument he had with the PM [prime Minister] before the latter was convinced about this and he still believes that it was only accepted eventually because it could also be used as a dining table! ... [End of Part 1; the following is from Part 2.]

'The British Mission to Japan with profcessor W. N. Thomas (later the Senior Regional Scientific Adviser in Wales) as its Scientific Director, had brought back to this country a vast amount of data on the effects of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and this now had to be analysed and translated into the very different [not predominantly frammable wood-frame, but brick and concrete] conditions of British cities.

'The members of the Mission were mainly drawn from the staff of the R and E Department (including Mr F. H. Pavry) whose accumulated experience in the field was now found to be invaluable. In 1946 an open report was published which served as the basis for all future Civil Defence training in this field and shortly afterwards, detailed reports were prepared on special aspects of the Mission's studies which likewise served as the basis of most of our subsequent appreciations in Scientific Advisory Branch of the effects of atomic bomb attacks on British cities.

'Reactivation of Civil Defence

'In 1948, in view of the uncertain international situation, the Home Office decided to reactivate civil defence, and appointed Dr E. T. Paris from the Ministry of Supply as its Scientific Adviser. Dr Paris had a staff of 5 scientists under Mr E. Leader Williams and Mr J. W. Martin and a small clerical staff still trying to cope manfully with the Bomb Census and the War Damage Commission, and the [bomb damage] records which were pouring in from the Regions and the various war-time out-stations of the Department. ... One interesting outcome of the study of debris problems initiated by the Working Party was ... that any incipient fires in this [blast devastated brick or concrete building] area would be crushed out by the collapse of the buildings, the fire zone being confined to the annular ring beyond this where building structure was still identifiable.

'Operation Hurricane

Above: Anderson shelters (which survived the explosion, with merely a few sandbags blown off by the blast wave after they had done their essential job of screening out the initial nuclear radiation flash, but long before fallout arrived) near the bomb ship HMS Plym, Monte Bello, 1952. The ship carrying the bomb can be seen moored in 40 feet of water 400 yards off the island (Trimouille Island, Monte Bello group). The public information film on Operation Hurricane states:

'At Montebello the advance party is already at work: 200 Royal Engineers had arrived in April to find an empty wilderness of salt, bush and spinifex... Control points and test buildings rise from the wasteland but the only local materials are sand and rock for making concrete. There wasn't even a jetty until this one was built by an Airfield Construction Unit of the Australian Air Force. ... Within the danger zone they erected the familiar Anderson shelters, well-protected by sandbags, and there too they built concrete structures of varying sizes and strengths to test the impact of blast and the penetration of gamma ray. These tests would influence the pattern of civil defence against some future atomic attack. This was one of the problems Montebello would help to decide. ... survey boats set out on patrol to find and chart the limits of contamination in the island waters before anyone can dare approach the shore. In due course recovery teams land on the stricken beach. On shore, they find many of the Anderson shelters have survived the ordeal remarkably well – better than some of the concrete-block houses.'

(The full report on the Anderson shelters exposed at Operation Hurricane is 'Operation Hurricane: Anderson Shelters', AWRE-T17/54, 1954, UK National Archives refences ES 5/19 and also duplicated at DEFE 16/933. See also 'Penetration of the gamma flash into Anderson shelters and concrete cubicles', AWRE-T20/54, 1954, UK National Archives ref ES 5/22 duplicated at DEFE 16/935.) The photos below show the effects of Operation Hurricane.


'In 1952, Scientific Advisory Branch were invited to participate in the first British atomic explosion at Monte Bello - Operation Hurricane. [Dr William Penney, in charge of the test, had witnessed the Nagasaki explosion and the base surge contamination from the Baker underwater test at Bikini Atoll in 1946, and decided that the first British test should be predominantly concerned with checking the civil defence effects of a terrorist burst of a nuclear bomb smuggled into a harbour inside the hull of a ship and detonated in shallow water. Hence, he gave civil defence special consideration at Operation Hurricane.]

'Our particular interests at the time were the resistance of reinforced concrete structures to atomic [long duration] blast, the performance under practical field conditions of the range of radiac instruments which had just been developed by AERE Harwell for the use of civil defence and the Services, the performance of ground zero indicators and the contamination of food packages by deposited fallout. The small team consisted of myself and Mr Pavry, with Mr Westbrook from the Ministry of Works. The Task Force itself was under the Command of Rear Admiral A. D. Torlesse CB who later became the Regional Director for Civil Defence in No. 3 Region. Sir William (later Lord) Penney was the chief scientist.

'The Royal Engineers erected 3 specially designed reinforced concrete box-like test structures under Mr Westbrook's direction at appropriate distances from HMS Plym, which was anchored in the nearby lagoon and which was to house the device. The front face of the closest box was completely stove in, the second received only minor damage, and the third none at all.

'As there were no other substantial structures on the island, and the camp on the shore was completely blown away, there was little else to prove to an outsider that the thing had actually gone off except a photograph of this front box, and this was in fact one of the first things shown to the PM [Winston Churchill] by Sir Wm. Penney on his return.

'As I was one of those who, a few years earlier, had recommended the Home Office to spend several millions on radiac [radioactivity detection, identification and computation] equipment, I was naturally very interested in their performance. [The Home Office ordered the manufacture of 20,000 of the 0-300 R/hr No. 2 version Radiac survey meters for civil defence fallout survey work in the 1950s. By 1990 when Cold War stockpiles of equipment peaked, Britain's Home Office Emergency Planning Division had stockpiled 100,000 digital 0-300 cGy/hr PDRM82 fallout survey meters, 1,000,000 pen-sized quartz fibre electrometer self-reading dosimeters with ranges of up to 0-500 cGy, and 66,000 dosimeter chargers of four types. A further 2,000 portable military PDRM82s and 2,000 fixed-type PDRM82Fs - which used an external probe in an above ground housing above Royal Observer Corps monitoring post fallout shelters - have been sold off since the Royal Observer Corps was stood-down at the end of the Cold War. ] On one occasion I was in a contaminated area for 20 minutes where the dose rate as measured on a No. 2 Survey meter was 10 r/hr; I must say I was quite relieved to find at the end, that according to my personal dosemeter I had just clocked up slightly over 3 r! Such are the wonders of science! ...

'At later dates, a number of other members of Scientific Advisory Branch staff together with representatives from Training Division attended British atomic trials in Australia and gained much useful experience. We were always kept fully in touch with these trials and had ready access to all the results of weapons effects tests which were gradually incorporated into our doctrine and training. ...

'The period from 1954 onwards for a few years was one of intense activity in the Branch now removed to the Home Office Building in Whitehall. Dr Paris had retired and his place was taken by Dr R. H. Purcell from the Admiralty Research Laboratory.

'The first thermonuclear device had been exploded and the whole problem of heavy fallout was beginning to rear its ugly head. Sir John Hodsoll resigned from his post as Director General of Civil Defence and was appointed Civil Defence Adviser to NATO where he soon persuaded the Civil Defence Committee to set up a Scientific Working Party for the exchange of weapons' effects data between member countries, which became a useful source of information for many years. ... conferences were being held with the Americans under various auspices at which information on weapons' effects obtained from atomic trials was exchanged and digested. The staff were augmented to cope with this flood of activity.

'Early in 1957 at one of the NATO Civil Defence Scientific Working Party Meetings an address was given by Dr Willard F. Libby [discoverer of carbon-14 dating] of the US Atomic Energy Commission based on an advance proof copy of the Effects of Nuclear Weapons which he had before him. I asked him afterwards how long it would be before we received copies, and without hesitation he gave me his own. On my return the book was broken down into Chapters so that members of Scientific Advisory Branch could burn the midnight oil over them to the exclusion of everything else. for a few months at least, until the book was published, we held the lead over other Departments and Agencies in the United Kingdom and established an advanced knowledge in this field which we never really lost. ENW was of course followed by ENW Revised [1962, 1964, and 1977] so that we have much to thank our American colleagues for. ...

'In 1962 Dr Purcell left us to be replaced by Mr H. A. Sargeaunt. The exciting period of adventure and development of the previous 8 years was coming to a close and we were entering a period of consolidation.

'One of the most important functions of any scientific establishment is the maintenance of an adequate library of relevant records and reports. We never had any difficulty in getting stuff in; the problem was almost how to keep it out! We were on the circulation lists of most of the service establishments working directly or indirectly in fields of interest to use, and we had a large intake from most of the corresponding establishments in the United States and Canada.

'Even today, after some recent severe pruning and the destruction of all duplicates, we are still left with 125 feet of closely packed shelving with corresponding card indexes and summary sheets. Early in Dr Purcell's time we found that we were spending so much time reading reports that there was hardly any time left to do any work ... The supply of new material I believe is now just beginning to fall off which is just as well as the staff has likewise been decimated. Our American friends seem to have developed the custom of paying some of their research agencies according to the thickness of the reports produced and this is taxing our resources of manpower and shelf space to the limit.

'The Birth of 'Fission Fragments'

'In 1961 we started to issue this magazine Fission Fragments [edited by Mr Greenhalgh who joined the Scientific Advisers Branch in 1959] for Scientific Intelligence Officers. ... So far 18 editions have been published at approximately 6-month intervals. The early productions looked rather poverty stricken, but since 1968 we have been allowed to produce something rather more stylish which we hope has been found useful. There was always some danger of Scientific Advisers Branch becoming a closed shop, but Dr Purcell and Mr Sargeaunt were always keen for us to use every possible opportunity of passing information on.'

According to the originally 'Restricted' classified U.K. Home Office Scientific Adviser's Branch journal Fission Fragments, W. F. Greenhalgh, Editor, London, Issue Number 3, August 1962, page 2: '... Dr R. H. Purcell, who has been Chief Scientific Adviser to the Home Office for the past eight years, took up a new post as head of the Royal Naval Scientific Service at the beginning of April. Dr Purcell was only the second holder of the post of C.S.A., which was created in 1948 [from 1939-45 the Research and Experiments Department of the Ministry of Home Security was headed by its Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Reginald Stradling, and from 1945-8 the Scientific Adviser's Branch of the Ministry of Works was responsible for assessments of nuclear and high explosive weapons], and he took office at a critical time when Civil Defence philosophy was being re-oriented away from the nominal A-bomb and towards the H-bomb.' His immediate successor, Mr Sargeaunt, was more interested in broadening the branch activities into areas such as helping the police service, prison service and fire service with scientific problems, not just focussing on civil defence - the Civil Defence Corps was closed by the Labour Government in 1968.

There was a resurgence of interest in civil defence in the 1970s and early 1980s. Mr J. D. Culshaw replaced Mr Sargeaunt as Director of the Scientific Advisory Branch, and in 1972 when Mr J. K. S. Clayton, BA, became the Assistant Director of the Scientific Advisory Branch of the Home Office, London. Culshaw as Director of Scientific Advisery Branch wrote an interesting article on pages 9-15 of issue No. 19 (September 1972) of Fission Fragments, stating:

'Apart from those who don't want to know or can't be bothered, there seem to be three major schools of thought about the nature of a possible Third World War involving the use of strategic nuclear, bacteriological or chemical weapons ...

* 'The first group think of something like World War II but a little worse ['a period of tension will precede the outbreak of war so allowing time for the implementation of emergency civil defence measures'],

* '... the second of World War II but very much worse ['the idea that one's enemy will deliver a massive attack without warning at a time calculated to cause maximum damage ... although there may be many different ways of delivering an attack this represents the worst that the enemy can do and therefore is the most likely ... this concept makes passive civil defence look very unattractive compared to having a powerful second strike capability sufficient to inflict as much or more damage on the would be enemy so as to deter him'],

* 'and the third group think in terms of a catastrophe ['Armageddon - upset the balance of ecology in favour of predator insects etc.'] ...

'When the Armageddon concept is in favour, the suggestion that such [unobserved, indirect nuclear war guesswor like brick and concrete buildings burning in mass firestorms, nuclear winter, etc.] problems exist leads to "way out" research on these phenomena, and it is sufficient to mention a new catastrophic threat to stimulate research into the possibilities of it arising. The underlying appeal of this concept is that if one could show that the execution of all out nuclear, biological or chemical warfare would precipitate the end of the world, no one but a mad man would be prepared to initiate such a war.'

Clayton was soon appointed Director after Culshaw. J. K. S. Clayton was formerly with the Weapons Department of the RAE Farnborough which he joined in 1946, and oversaw the Protect and Survive publicity campaign of British civil defence, which was controversial because it presented facts about how to protect against nuclear weapons blast, heat and fallout without giving the nuclear test data which validated those facts. The booklet Protect and Survive was first prepared and printed in 1976, but was only used for training purposes until it was published and placed on sale in May 1980. J. K. S. Clayton wrote in his lengthy and brilliant introduction, The Challenge - Why Home Defence?, to the 1977 Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch Training Manual for Scientific Advisers:

'Since 1945 we have had nine wars - in Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam, between China and India, China and Russia, India and Pakistan and between the Arabs and Israelis on three occasions. We have had confrontations between East and West over Berlin, Formosa and Cuba. There have been civil wars or rebellions in no less than eleven countries and invasions or threatened invasions of another five. Whilst it is not suggested that all these incidents could have resulted in major wars, they do indicate the aptitude of mankind to resort to a forceful solution of its problems, sometimes with success. ...

'Let us consider what a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom might mean. It will be assumed that such an attack will only occur within the context of a general nuclear war which means that the UK is only one of a number of targets and probably by no means the most important. It follows that only part of the enemy's stock of weapons is destined for us. If the Warsaw Pact Nations constitute the enemy - and this is only one possible assumption - and if the enemy directs the bulk of his medium range and intermediate range weapons against targets in Western Europe behind the battle front, then Western Europe would receive about 1,000 megatons. Perhaps the UK could expect about one fifth of this, say 200 Mt. Let us assume rather arbitrarily that this would consist of 5 x 5 Mt, 40 x 2 Mt, 50 x 1 Mt and 100 x 1/2 Mt.

'An attack of this weight would cause heavy damage over about 10,000 square kilometres, moderate to heavy damage over about 50,000 square kilometres, and light damage over an additional 100,000 square kilometres. (Light damage means no more than minor damage to roofs and windows with practically no incidence of fire.) We can compare the heavy damage to that suffered by the centre of Coventry in 1940. This will amount to approximately 5% of the land area of the UK. Another 15% will suffer extensive but by no means total damage by blast and fire; another 40% will suffer superficial damage. The remaining 40% will be undamaged. In other words, four-fifths of the land area will suffer no more than minor physical damage. Of course, many of the undamaged areas would be affected by radioactive fallout but this inconvenience would diminish with the passage of time.

'Policy to meet the Threat

'The example just given of the likely severity of the attack - which is, of course, only one theoretical possibility - would still leave the greater part of the land area undamaged and more people are likely to survive than to perish. Government Home Defence policy must therefore be aimed to increase the prospects of the survivors in their stricken environment.'


Above: J. K. S. Clayton as Director of the Scientific Advisory Branch of the British Home Office (formerly with the Weapons Department of the RAE Farnborough which he joined in 1946), oversaw the Protect and Survive publicity campaign of British civil defence, including a booklet of that name and the films above on how it is easy to shield radiation from fallout while it rapidly decays.

I should also quote here a note on page 39 of the Scottish Home and Health Department Scientific Advisers' Operational Handbook, H.M. Stationery Office, Edinburgh, 1979:

'The density of initial ignitions in the main fire zone, for UK houses, is likely to be very roughly one house in thirty, with a fire-spread factor of about 2 [i.e., the total number of house fires is 2 times the initial number of house fires]. About one house in fifteen is expected to become burnt out. This situation would not constitute a "firestorm" or "mass fire", and the number of fire casualties should be small.'

(We will consider in great detail the very solid evidence for this claim which has provided by Stanbury, later in this blog post.)

Clayton's decisive civil defence actions were later strongly supported by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who echoed his pragmatic outlook on war in her address to the United Nations General Assembly on disarmament on 23 June 1982, when she pointed out that in the years since the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 10 million people were killed by 140 non-nuclear conflicts, so:

‘The fundamental risk to peace is not the existence of weapons of particular types. It is the disposition on the part of some states to impose change on others by resorting to force against other nations ... Aggressors do not start wars because an adversary has built up his own strength. They start wars because they believe they can gain more by going to war than by remaining at peace.’

On 29 October 1982, Thatcher stated of the Berlin Wall:

‘You may chain a man, but you cannot chain his mind. You may enslave him, but you will not conquer his spirit. In every decade since the war the Soviet leaders have been reminded that their pitiless ideology only survives because it is maintained by force. But the day comes when the anger and frustration of the people is so great that force cannot contain it. Then the edifice cracks: the mortar crumbles ... one day, liberty will dawn on the other side of the wall.’

On 22 November 1990, she was able to declare: ‘Today, we have a Europe ... where the threat to our security from the overwhelming conventional forces of the Warsaw Pact has been removed; where the Berlin Wall has been torn down and the Cold War is at an end. These immense changes did not come about by chance. They have been achieved by strength and resolution in defence, and by a refusal ever to be intimidated.’



Above: The two posters on the left and the leaflet on the right were printed by the British Government in January 1964 and stockpiled in case of a repetition of the Cuban missiles crisis or similar escalation of the nuclear arms race. The idea was to evacuate all children under 15 with their mothers, children between 15-18 either alone or accompanied by a parent, expectant mothers, and all invalids to safe areas well away from potential targets like major cities, before war broke out. These people would have been billeted (by defence regulations laws, pertaining to a national state of emergency) on the rural population, which would be paid an allowance for the accommodation provided. (This evacuation plan was abandoned after the civil defence corps was abolished in 1968.)

In Britain, after being stood down in 1945, civil defence was restarted from 1948-68 with the voluntary Civil Defence Corps including rescue, warden, ambulance, and welfare sections. There were also a separate Auxiliary Fire Service (which was equipped with 1,000 Green Goddess fire engines for use in nuclear war or even by military personnel during firemen's strikes), the Royal Observer Corps (which existed from 1925-95, operating during World War II to identify enemy aircraft and generate air raid warnings - since radar could not identify friend or foe - and during the Cold War it was ready to detect and record information on nuclear explosions and fallout, which is now fully automated by computerised detectors called AWDREY, Atomic Weapons Detection, Recognition, and Estimation of Yield, which detects and analyses the long-range EMP and light flash signatures from a nuclear explosion), and National Hospital Service Reserve.

Ignoring these other volunteer run organizations organized by the Government, and just focussing on the numbers of recruits in the basic Civil Defence Corps, statistics are available which show that the number of members increased from 24,649 by May 1950 (according to the The Times 4 May 1950, p 8) to 205,392 by August 1952 (The Times 15 August 1952, p 3), and peaked at 336,265 by May 1956 (The Times, 2 May 1956, p 6). Membership remained over 300,000 at the time of the Cuban missiles crisis in October 1962, but dropped below 300,000 in 1963, was only 211,570 in November 1964 (The Times, 26 November 1964, p 8), and reached 122,000 by December 1966 (The Times, 15 December 1966, p 6). The Civil Defence Corps was closed in 1968.

The first edition (1956) of Nuclear Weapons is based on scientific facts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and scientific facts from nuclear tests. The later editions are full of speculations and assertions followed by vague statements that the assertions have no real validity, such as speculation on the radiation recovery rate being 10 roentgens/day to the bone marrow irrespective of the dose rate or time after exposure. Anyone can see clearly that in fact recovery will be slower at higher dose rates than at lower dose rates, because of increasing damage to the biological repair mechanisms, and that the recovery rate will also not be a constant but vary with time and will decrease to a minimum when the white blood cell count is most depressed, which occurs about 30 days after exposure for humans. Another speculation consists of various political doctrines about what types and sizes of nuclear detonation a hypothetical enemy will use in a hypothetical war, and other completely speculative rubbish. For example, if to begin with you speculate that any nuclear war will involve enough nuclear weapons of high enough yield to totally wipe out everything, then you can forget the science altogether and get on with the more important business of brainwashing everyone that civil defence is a joke and surrender is worth while.

Many of the vital scientific facts based on observations of nuclear explosions in wars and in weapon trials were deleted from later editions of Nuclear Weapons and the American Effects of Atomic Weapons to make way for speculative theorising and political doctrines about procedures. I'll give examples below. (I've already given examples for The Effects of Nuclear Weapons in a previous post on this blog; 1950 fallout maps of the Baker underwater test and Trinity air burst upwind fallout data were removed and not replaced in later editions, etc.)
Nuclear Weapons is clear and concise with just four well-organised informative chapters:


  • Features of Nuclear Explosions (Types of Burst: air bursts, surface bursts, underwater bursts, etc.)

  • The Fire Risk (Thermal radiation; Effects on people; Primary fires; Secondary fires; Firestorms)

  • Nuclear Radiation Hazards (Types of radiation; Initial nuclear radiation; Neutron induced activity; Fallout; Decay rates of fallout; Distance and shielding to reduce dose, Decontamination of clothing, vehicles, streets, etc.)

  • Blast (Height of burst in relation to blast damage; Cratering and ground shock; casualties)


Pages 2-4: TYPES OF BURST


Air burst


'When the explosion takes place in the air, light and heat and the nuclear radiations are radiated outwards through the air in all directions and their effects at a distance are felt almost instantaneously [although the duration of the pulse is long and it takes 1 second for the final peak in thermal power to be reached by a 1 megaton low altitude burst] because they travel at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). The blast takes the form of a pressure wave in air which travels at [a minimum of] the speed of sound 1,100 ft. (one-fifth of a mile) per second [the speed is much higher initially as the shock wave heats the air isothermally and this increases the initial speed way beyond sound speed, but it slows down and degenerates into a sound wave quickly]; this is accompanied by a powerful blast wind of short duration. Close to the explosion the pressure produced ... drops rapidly as the blast wave moves outwards. It is this pressure and the accompanying wind that are responsible for most of the damage caused to structures. ...


'When it has reached its full size the fireball is extremely light, only a tiny fraction of the density of the air surrounding it [hence initial gamma radiation is less shielded by the air causing a second gamma radiation pulse when the fireball density falls during expansion; this is 'hydrodynamic anhancement']; it therefore shoots upward very rapidly [like a hot air balloon at immense temperature], quickly losing its brilliance as it cools by [radiation of energy, by] expansion, and by turbulent mixing with the surrounding air. ... The immense suction created as the fireball rises, draws up water droplets and dust from the surrounding atmosphere into the base of the ascending mass where they mix with the products of the explosion. ...


Ground surface burst


'If the explosion takes place close to the ground about a third of the total heat produced may be lost by absorption into the ground itself. [Photo of fireball in the 1953 Australian-British Totem-1 nuclear test just 30 metres above ground level.] If, in addition, the explosion takes place in a built-up area there is a considerable reduction in heat effects because of the shielding provided by buildings which have not yet been reached by blast.


'Some of the immediate nuclear radiation is also absorbed into the ground and again the shielding of buildings on the remainder is considerable.


'The blast wave through the air is reduced in power because some of the energy is used up in producing a crater and in sending a shock wave through the ground itself. The reinforcing effect of the reflection (Mach) wave which is a feature of the air burst is reduced. ...


'The result is that the cloud contains much more solid matter than with an air burst and this increases the fall-out of radioactive material immediately downwind, the heavier particles falling out first and the lighter particles later, producing a residual radiation hazard to people on the ground. The seriousness of the hazard depends on the amount of fall-out deposited in a given area and this is more dependent on the closeness of the burst to the ground than on the power of the weapon.


An underground burst (nuclear 'earth penetrator' against hardened targets)


'In this case a large part of the heat radiation and the immediate nuclear radiation is absorbed in the crater [photos of Nevada 1951 shallow underground nuclear test Uncle and Nevada 1955 deeper underground nuclear test Ess shown] produced by the explosion, and the surrounding buildings provide considerable shielding against the remainder.


'Much of the blast energy goes into the production of a shock wave in the earth, a feature which is absent from the air burst and less important when the burst is on or near the ground. This shock will cause damage to underground structures and services as well as to buildings above ground, but the power of the blast wave in the air above is reduced.


'A greater proportion of the radioactivity is trapped in the debris of the crater, mingling with the material which spills out around the crater and immediately downwind. This gives rise to a serious but more localised residual radiation hazard; the radioactive fall-out beyond is less widely distributed.


An underwater burst (terrorist attack by trawler, cargo ship or submarine)


'The United States authorities caried out a test of this kind at Bikini in 1946 from which most of he information about such explosions has been obtained [photos of American 1946 Crossroads-Baker test and also Australian-British 1952 Hurricane nuclear underwater test at Monte Bello are shown]. The explosion took place well below the surface of a lagoon 200 ft. deep.


'The effects of light and heat, and immediate nuclear radiation were almost entirely absent since the fireball was still below the surface at its most brilliant stage. As the fireball reached the surface, however, water was thrown up with great force in a gigantic hollow cylinder of spray. Gases from the fireball were vented through this column, forming the typical mushroom shaped cloud at the top. As the water from the column fell back to the surface, a rapidly moving surge of mist, known as the base surge, travelled outwards. This was highly radioactive mist since much of the radioactive material of the explosion had been trapped in it.


'The explosion was accompanied by a strong shock wave through the water. The remaining pressure energy appeared as a blast wave through the air, but the range of its effectiveness was about 40 per cent. less than that from a surface burst.


'The explosion also produced big surface waves which would have added to the damage to harbour works and installations if the explosion had taken place in a harbour with a similar depth of water.'


Pages 5-9: THE FIRE RISK


Thermal radiation


'For convenience both the visible radiation and the radiation in the infra-red part of the spectrum (the "light and heat" ...) will be referred to as thermal radiation, since they both heat surfaces into which they are absorbed.


'With the nominal [20 kt] bomb the pulse of thermal radiation from the fireball lasts for only about 1.5 seconds though most of the energy is radiated in about half a second; because it is so transient, this pulse has been called the "heat flash". With a 10 megaton bomb the thermal radiation lasts much longer and can hardly be described as a "flash"; it may persist for 20 seconds or more though most of its energy will be radiated in the first 10 seconds.


'The heat rays from the fireball are similar to those from the sun. They travel in straight lines with the speed of light and heat up surfaces into which they are absorbed, although the degree of absorption depends upon the colour of the surface because a large proportion of the radiation is in the visible range. Just as some surfaces appear dark because they reflect little of the heat of the sun's light into the eyes, so a dark surface reflects little of the heat radiated from the explosion, most of it being absorbed to produce a rise in temperature. On the other hand, just as some substances appear white because they reflect most of the sun's rays to the eye, so a white substance reflects mos of the heat radiation and consequently absorbs little into its surface. Light coloured objects are less likely, therefore, to catch fire than dark coloured ones.


'In a clear atmosphere the intensity of the thermal radiation falls off according to the inverse-square law. Thus when the distance from the source is doubled, the intensity is reduced to a quarter. In a misty atmosphere some of this radiation may be scatered out of the direct beam, but any reduction from this cause is not as great as was at one time supposed. On the other hand, whatever may be the effect of scattering, some reduction in distance results from the fact that part of the energy of the thermal rays - especially in the infra red [infrared is strongly absorbed by both water vapour and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere] - is actually absorbed in heating the atmosphere.


Effects on people


'People directly exposed to the heat flash from an air burst nominal [20 kt] bomb within 2.5 miles of ground zero would receive burns on exposed skin; even at a distance of 5 miles it would feel as though an oven door had suddenly been opened nearby. The nearer to ground zero the greater is the danger to life, and those directly exposed within 0.5 mile of ground zero [unshielded by white paper or anything opaque] would undoubtedly be killed because of serious burns, if not from other causes. Severe third degree burns (charring) would result up to about a mile, second degree burns (blistering) up to about 1.5 to 2 miles, and first degree burns (reddening) up to about 2.5 miles.


'It is relatively easy to gain protection, since [because atmospheric scattering of thermal radiation has been found to be trivial compared to absorption] one has only to be out of the direct path of the rays from the fireball. Complete protection from heat-burn could be achieved if everyone took cover [just get out of the fireball line-of-sight from windows and skylights]...


'The clothing of exposed people, though it may itself catch fire, affords some degree of protection to the skin underneath at ranges greater than 0.5 mile, paricularly if the clothing is not in close contact with the body, and provided that the burning clothing can quickly be removed or the flames extinguished. The risk of ignition is reduced if the outer garments ... are of light rather than of a dark colour. One of the reasons for the heavy burn casualties in Japan [Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear attacks, 6 and 9 August 1945] was the fact that most people were only wearing thin cotton garments [another reason is that people were out of doors at the times - morning commuting hour for Hiroshima and lunch time for Nagasaki - and most who suffered the worst facial burns had actually stood watched the B-29 bombers drop the nuclear bombs, totally unaware of any danger at their distance, let alone of the fact they could have avoided urns by turning away or 'duck and cover'].


'The importance of covering as much of the skin as possible is illustrated by the fact that the risk of death from burns depends on the proportion of the area of the body burnt. ... Even with 50 per cent. of the body area burnt the chance of recovery with young people is 50 per cent.


Primary fires


'Many strong buildings near the centre [in Hiroshima and Nagasaki] which survived the blast were gutted by fires started earlier by the heat flash which had entered through windows and open doors and ignited combustible contents [paper screens, bamboo furniture, etc.]. Fires started in this way are usually referred to as "primary fires".


Secondary fires


'There is also a risk of fires resulting from damage caused by the blast, e.g. the collapse of buildings on to domestic fires [the overturning of breakfast time and lunchtime charcoal cooking braziers in paper screen and bamboo furniture filled Japanese wooden houses caused the firestorms], the breaking of gas pipes and short-circuiting of electrical wiring. These fires are called "secondary fires". The risk can be reduced by such simple precautions as shutting up stoves, covering open fires with sand or earth, and by turning off gas and electricity at the main [modern circuit breaker switch boxes which replace old fuse boxes reduce the electrical fire risks].


'Research into the causes of fire in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, combined with a study of the secondary fire risk from the flying bomb [V1 and V2] damage in this country during the last [1939-45] war has shown that with nuclear attack the secondary risk is likely to be small compared with the primary risk ofdirect ignition by thermal radiation.


Fire precautions


'Although the fire risk even from a nominal [20 kt] bomb is always serious, targets in this country, where the great majority of buildings are of brick, stone or concrete, are less vulnerable to fire than were those Japan, where most of the buildings were of wood. ... since the thermal radiation has no great penetrating power, any opaque screen, especially a white one, will keep it out ...


'Another obvious fire precaution is the removal of all readily combustible material from the direct path of any heat radiation that could possibly enter windows or other openings.


'Both these precautions apply only to those windows and other openings that have a direct view of some part of the sky. In a built-up area they would apply more particularly to the windows of upper floors; even for an air burst, in a closely built-up area one building shields another to a considerable extent.


The probable fire situation in a British city


'... most Japanese houses are constructed of wood and once they were set on fire they continued to burn even when knocked over. In this country only about 10 per cent. of all the material in the average house is combustible, and under conditions of completecollapse, where air would be almost entirely excluded, it is doubtful whether a fire could continue on any vigorous scale. The main fire zone will be around this central area of heavy destruction, in the region where buildings are damaged but standing sufficiently to allow free burning ... The range of ignition is affected to some extent by the state of the atmosphere and on a dull misty day will be reduced ...


The possibilities of a fire storm


'The chief feature of a fire storm is the generation of high winds which are drawn into the centre of the fire area to feed the rising column of hot air and flames. These in-rushing winds prevent the spread of fire outwards, but ensure the almost complete destruction by fire of everything within the fire area. This inevitably increases the number of casualties, since it becomes impossible for people to escape by their own efforts because they succumb to the effects of suffocation and heat stroke.


'The Hiroshima bomb (but not the Nagasaki one) caused a fire storm. A fire storm occurred in [the medieval multistorey wooden building region of] Hamburg and possibly also in several other German cities as a result of accurate and very dense attacks with incendiary and high explosive bombs by the R.A.F. ... it has been fairly well established that during these particular raids on Germany half the buildings in the target area were set on fire in about half an hour. ...


'Whether a fire storm develops depends also on the nature of the target; where there are tall buildings closely packed together with plenty of combustible material to burn, the risk is much greater than in areas less densely built up.


'It seems unlikely from the evidence available that an initial density of fires equivalent to one in every other building would be started by a nuclear explosion over a British city. Studies have shown that a much smaller proportion of buildings than this would be exposed to thermal radiation and even then it is not certain that continuing fires would develop. Curtains may catch fire, but it does not necessarly follow that they will set light to the room; in the last war it was found tha only one incendiary bomb out of every six that hit buildings started a continuing fire.


'Moreover after a nuclear explosion the large and almost completely flattened central area would counteract the development of a fire storm, since one essential requirement seems to be a continuous mass of fire over a large area. ... For a 10 megaton bomb, with its longer lasting thermal radiation, it takes about 20 calories per square centimetre to start fires [contrasted to 5 calories per square centimetres for a 20 kt low air burst] because so much of the heat (spread out over the longer emission) is wasted by conduction into the interior of the combustible material and by convection and re-radiation whilst the temperature of the surface is being raised to the ignition point. ...


'For a ground burst bomb, however, several other factors contribute to a further reduction in the fire range. Apart from an actual loss of heat by absorption into the ground and from the pronounced shielding of buildings [due to the much lower elevation of the fireball in the sky at the time of peak radiating power], the debris from the crater [some of which which gets melted to form glassy, spherical fallout particles like tiny marbles] tends to reduce the radiating temperature of the fireball and a greater proportion of the energy is consequently radiated in the infra red region of the spectrum - this proportion being more easily absorbed by the atmosphere [both carbon dioxide and water vapour in the air absorb the infrared]. ...


'An important point in relation to personal protection against the effects of hydrogen bomb explosions is that because the thermal radiation lasts so long there is more time for people who may be caught in the open, and who may be well beyond the range of serious danger from blast, to rush to cover and so escape some part of the exposure. For example, people in the open might receive second degree burns (blistering) on exposed skin at a range of 16 miles from a 10 megaton ground burst bomb. If, however, they could take cover in a few seconds they would escape this damage. Moreoer, at this range the blast wave would not arrive for another minute and a haf so that any effects due to the blast in the open (e.g. flying glass, etc.) could be completely avoided.


Pages 10-44: NUCLEAR RADIATION HAZARDS


General


'Whatever the size or nature of a nuclear explosion the material in the fireball is highly radioactive, emitting radiations which are referred to as either nuclear or ionising radiations. They are called nuclear because thet arise from disturbances taking place in the central nuclei of the atoms, and ionising because they possess the property of producing electrically charged atoms or molecules called ions in the materials through which they pass.


'Nuclear radiations consist of alpha rays, beta rays, gamma rays, and neutrons.


Alpha rays


'The alpha particle is now known to be identical with the nucleus of the helium atom, i.e. a helium atom which has been stripped of its two planetary electrons, leaving it positively charged. Alpha particles pass through only a few inches of air before losing all their energy by collisions with atoms. Those produced at the time of the explosion are all absorbed in the fireball itself; from the point of view of the immediate dager they can be disregarded. Any unfissioned uranium or plutonium that is subsequently deposited on the ground would radiate alpha particles, but since they cannot penetrate the skin they become a hazard only if the materials emitting them are taken into the body.


Beta rays


'These are streams of particles, called beta particles, which are identical in almost every respect with electrons. The electron is 1/1800 of the weight of a hydrogen atom and 1/7200 of the weight of an alpha particle. Because of its small mass the beta particle can travel several yards in air before its energy is used up in collisions producing ionisation. This range is so small that from the point of view of the immediate danger be disregarded; their contribution to the hazard from deposited radioactivity is discussed [later].


Gamma rays


'These contribute the chief danger of all nuclear radiations, and so are discussed in detail [later].


Neutrons


'These are uncharged particles, each equal in weight to a hydrogen atom, but very penetrating, since - being uncharged - they can pass close to the electrically charged nuclei of the atoms of the material through which they travel without being defected and thereby losing energy. They are discussed further [later].


The immediate danger from nuclear radiation


'There is a continuing emission of gamma rays as the fireball expands and cools, but in rapidly decreasing intensity. It is not until the cloud moves into the upper air [the radiation shielding of the full atmosphere is equivalent vertically to a water shield 10 metres thick] that the immediate danger can be said to be over. Whatever the power of the bomb, this time may be taken to be about a minute.


'The explosion products continue to emit nuclear radiations for a long time, and wherever they are subsequently deposited as fall-out the radiation hazard from them persists.


'Gamma rays ... are similar in their general nature to X-rays although they are usually shorter in wavelength and more penetrating. They travel at the speed of light and are scattered by atoms of oxygen and nitrogen in the air. At each encounter [a Compton collision between a gamma ray and an orbital electron of an air molecule, leading to the ejection of the electron and the re-emission of the gamma ray in a slightly different direction; the Compton effect mathematics treats the gamma ray as a particle not as a wave, so it interacts with the electron simply like one billiard ball striking another] the direction of the rays is changed, charged ions are produced, and some of the energy is lost [as the kinetic energy of the electron].


'Although at any one place most of the radiation comes in the direct beam from the fireball, an appreciable proportion arrives from every other part of the sky, just as in strong sunlight a room which faces north [away from the sun, which is confined to the southern hemisphere of the observer] still receives light from the visible sky, and by reflection from other objects. The mechanism of scattering is somewhat different in the two cases, but the results are similar. ...


'The amount of gamma radiation absorbed in agiven time is usually referred to as the "dose" of radiation ... While gamma rays of themselves have no effect on the shielding materials through which they pass and do not make them radioactive, they do have a harmful effect on the human body or any living tissue because of the property of ionization already referred to. Ionisation produces chemical changes which are harmful to the body cells and eventually to the organs which are made up of these cells. ... Some of the effects do not appear for some time. Delays are due to the fact that different body cells have diferent life spans which vary from several days to several weeks, and although some of the cells are affected in such a way that they can no longer reproduce themselves, they go on living for some time. ... In buildings the dose inside would only be a small percentage of that in the open ...


'Neutrons ... are ... gradually slowed down and lose their energy as a result of continual collisions with light atoms of the same size in their path, just as for example one billiard ball will lose a lot of its energy in striking another of the same size, but will bounce almost unaffected off a much larger object. The nuclei of atoms of hyrogen, since they are the same weight as neutrons, are particularly effective in this way ...


'Neutrons are occasionally captured by nuclei of some of the atoms with which they collide, making them unstable and radioactive. This "induced radioactivity", as it is called, may be quite strong in the area immediately around ground zero, but the range of neutrons in air from a nominal [20 kt] bomb explosion is not much greater than about half a mile, and beyond this distance there will be little radioactivity from this cause. Induced radioactivity takes the form of the emission of gamma and beta rays similar to those from the explosion products.


Effect of neutrons on living organisms


'Neutrons do not cause ionization directly, but because they may collide with the nuclei of light atoms in the body they can produce ionisation indirectly and are therefore harmful.


The delayed danger from residual nuclear radiation


Fall-out and induced radioactivity


'Some of the products of the explosion (which are still radioactive) settle on the ground at the point of burst; some may spill over into the immediate area around and downwind; and some are carried into the upper air to be deposited eventually perhaps much further from ground zero, depending on the winds prevailing up to the height to which the products first ascend. Any such settling, spill over, or deposition of these radioactive products of the explosion (which may be mingled with the dust, pulverised debris and earth etc., sucked up with the ascending fireball is termed fall-out.


'If the explosion takes place close to the ground there is also likely to be a good deal of neutron-induced activity because of the very close contact between the neutrons produced in the explosion and materials on the ground. This induced radioactivity, which is limited to the area of the crater, tends to decay very rapidly and, except immediately after the explosion, is unimportant compared with the radioactivity from fall-out. ...


'Heavy clothing and thick boots and socks provide fairly complete protection against beta rays [even a single thickness of thin cotton summer clothing prevented beta burns to the Marshallese Islanders contaminated by fallout from a 15 megaton bomb test near Rongelap Atoll on 1 March 1954]. The skin itself acts as a barrier to most beta rays, but beta particles on the skin produce - in extreme cases - a burning effect similar to sunburn [but with the burn onset delayed for a long period of about 14-18 days after exposure, not just 5-8 hours as is the case for sunburn]. If, however, the gamma ray exposure is controlled within permissible limits, the beta hazard should not be serious. Nevertheless it would be a wise precaution to wear gloves when handling debris which may have been contaminated, so as to keep beta particles from direct contact with the skin, and it would be advisable to wash all exposed skin as soon as possible after leaving a contaminated area.


'Because the range of gamma rays in air is much greater than that of beta rays, an appreciable part of the dose received at any one spot is made up of gamma rays coming from quite long distances; [on rough ground] half of it comes in fact from within, and the other half from beyond, a distance of about 25 feet [the radius is greater on smooth ground because there is then less shielding by irregularities in the ground surface of direct gamma rays travelling from very large distances almost parallel to the ground, i.e., along very small angles of elevation].


Radioactive decay


'Radioactivity cannot be destroyed or interfered with chemically, and its decay can neither be accelerated nor slowed down. The average decay rate of all the various products of a nuclear explosion is such that as the time [measured from the time of the detonation] is doubled, its activity is somewhat more than halved. More precisely, the activity is reduced by a factor of 10 when the time [after detonation] is multiplied by a factor of 7. ... This assumes of course that the radioactive material stays where it is originally deposited. If some of it is buried e.g. by the continual turning over of debris, or is physically removed by rain or wind or by active measures of decontamination such as hosing down paved areas, then the dose rates will be much less ...


Radioactive poisoning


'This term is used to describe the results that may follow the introduction of radioactive materials into the body. Such materials may be taken into the body in various ways, for example:



  • by breathing in contaminated dust;

  • by eating contaminated food, or drinking contaminated [milk or] water;

  • by taking in contaminated dust into the blood stream through wounds or abrasions.

'For civil defence personnel working in contaminated areas, the chance of this happening to such an extent that a dangerous dose of any one of the radioactive explosion products can be accumulated in the body in any reasonable time is not very high [the fallout particles in local fallout where the activity concentration is significant, are simply too large to be inhaled, being similar to sand particles]. For those which are absorbed to any extent in the various organs of the body, there are recognised permissible levels just as there are for external gamma radiation.


'It has been found that this internal risk is small compared with the external risk due to the gamma radiation from the surrounding contaminated area which is producing the dust, and if exposure to the external gamma radiation is controlled within permissible limits, the risk of radioactive poisoning alone is comparatively small. It is, however, important to avoid taking radioactive material into the body and various precautions to deal with this matter are given later.


'The hazard may be much more serious in the case of fall-out from a ground burst hydrogen bomb which might cover a large area of country not affected by blast. In this case radioactive material would almost certainly be deposited on crops, grazing land, and open reservoirs, and might eventually find its way into the body without any corresponding external radiation hazard to act as a control. ...


The residual radiation hazard from a nominal [20 kt] bomb


'The nominal [20 kt] bomb produces its maximum area of blast damage if it is exploded in the air, the optimum height depending on various factors such as the nature of the target, type of buildings etc. For most British cities about 1,000 ft. is usually considered the optimum height. For heights of burst 1,000 ft. and above, radioactive ground contamination is only serious in a small area round ground zero which is within the area of general destruction by blast. ...


Contamination in the devastated area


'With a 10 megaton ground burst bomb the crater itself might be a mile in diameter [this is the crater size for saturated porous coral produced in the 10.4 megaton Mike test which erased Elugelab Island of Eniwetok Atoll on 1 November 1952; craters in silicate soil or rock are much smaller and don't obey the same scaling laws as saturated porous coral which is simply pulverised to sand by the shock wave]. The crater and the surrounding debris would be made strongly radioactive by neutron bombardment and by intimate admixture with the products of the explosion in the fireball. Work in the open in the central area of devastation and in the immediate area downwind would be quite impossible for some days [under peacetime radiation exposure constraints, it was 27 days before people could safely visit the crater lip of the 100 kt Sedan cratering test at Nevada in July 1962], so that in these areas rescue and fire fighting would have to be abandoned or severely restricted. From the upwind side, approach to the devastated area would have to be under strict radiological control.


'It is likely that two main working areas would have to be established; an outer area where the surveyed activity did not exceed a certain figure and where a man could work on a shift basis for several days; and an inner area where special tasks might have to be undertaken but where it might be necessary to let a man take the whole of his permissible dose in one shift. Both areas would contract towards ground zero as time went on because of the decay of radioactivity, so that fresh operational areas would continuously be opened up.


Contamination in the undamaged area


'American tests have shown that the fall-out from a hydrogen bomb burst on the ground can be very extensive. Most of the heavy material sucked up by the rising fireball spills out of the mushroom stem fairly close to the crater. Lighter material is carried higher and deposited further downwind, perhaps clear of the actual devastated area. Finer material still, is swept up into the upper atmosphere and carried along by the prevailing winds for great distances before falling out over areas quite unaffected by blast and fire.


'This very fine material may have been sucked into the rising fireball from the ground or from the atmosphere, or may have been formed by recondensation of matter which was actually vapourised in the fireball. As the cloud drifts downwind its radioactivity decays and by the time the finest particles reach the ground they are widely dispersed and present a negligible hazard.


'The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, in a report issued on 15th February, 1955, stated that the "thermonuclear device" (estimated at equivalent to 14 megatons of T.N.T.) exploded at ground level on an island in the Pacific [Bravo was exploded on an artificial island consisting of a pile of coral sand, dredged up from the Bikini lagoon and deposited on to a remote part of the coral reef] on 1st March, 1954, contaminated a cigar-shaped area ... At a range of 190 miles it was estimated that the dose received over 36 hours in the open would have been about 300r (5 to 10 per cent. lethal dose), at 160 miles the 36 hour dose would have been 500r (50 per cent. lethal dose) and at 140 miles it would have been lethal to everyone expose in the open for 36 hours [800r shown on illustration]. People, however, do not usually spend 36 consecutive hours in the open, and it is now necessary to consider to what extent the lives and health of the people in the whole of the contaminated area could be saved by taking the appropriate protective measures.


Protection against fall-out


'Because the risk is mainly from the gamma rays from the contamination on the ground and roofs of buildings, a considerable degree of protection can be obtained by remaining under cover. There are two factors involved in this protection:



  • the distance between the person and the nearest contamination, and

  • the shielding effect of the material between him and the contamination.

Distance


It was pointed out that half the total effect from a [rough but] uniformly contaminated area comes from the fallout within a distance of 25 ft. - actually one third comes from that within a range of 12.5 ft. Thus in a house whose walls are - on the average - about 12.5 ft. from the centre, one is automatically protected from almost one third of the outside dose because the contamination which would have fallen on this area is now up on the roof. In a bungalow this would not be much of an advantage because of the low roof, but in a building with two or more storeys the contribution from the contamination on the roof would be comparatively small.


Shielding


'The intensity of the radiation coming from outside the house, i.e. from beyond 12.5 ft., is reduced by the walls to an extent depending on their thickness. Windows of course provide no protection against gamma rays, so that it would be necessary to block them up with - for example - sandbags to the equivalent thickness of the walls.


Practical protection


'Large buildings with a number of storeys, especially if they are of heavy construction, provide much better protection than small single-storey structures. Houses in terraces likewise provide much better protection than isolated houses because of the shielding effect of neighbouring houses. ... In choosing a refuge room in a house one would select a room with a minimum of outside walls and make every effort to improve the protection of such outside walls as there were. In particular the windows would have to be blocked up, e.g. with sandbags. Where possible, boxes of earth could be placed round an outside wall to provide additional protection, and heavy furniture (pianos, bookcases etc.) along the inside of the wall would also help. A cellar would be ideal. ...


'Streets and other public places: In addition to the natural decay of radioactivity and the physical removal of contamination by rain, hosing down can make an effective contribution to the decontamination of such places. If carried out with powerful jets, as for example from fire pumps, the contamination can be reduced by factors of between 5 and 10 according to circumstances. If the water thus used can be removed by the ordinary drainage system it is not likely to constitute a hazard elsewhere.


'Food: Gamma rays have no harmful effects upon foodstuffs and the only significant hazard is the deposition of contaminated dist which may eventually find its way into the human system. In the area beyond that of general destruction, where buildings are still standing though damaged, stocks of food, especially those in containers or under cover, are unlikely to be affected. Deposition of contamination on growing crops will, however, be a hazard [although nearly all of it can be removed by washing crops, milling wheat and discarding husks, or by simply discarding the outer leaves of leafy crops]. Only food within the area of complete destruction could be affected by neutron irradiation and become radioactive.


'Water: Broadly the same principles apply as with food. Gamma rays have no effect upon water, but certainly in the case of hydrogen bomb explosions the deposition of contaminated dust on catchment areas and open reservoirs would constitute a serious hazard. A special version of the contamination meter has been designed for testing water, and water undertakings are well aware of the problems which face them from this type of hazard should it arise. It is worth noting that an ordinary domestic water softener in good condition completely removes the dangerous elements (strontium and barium) from contaminated water [since fallout from surface bursts on silicate based soil is insoluble glassy spheroids, it doesn't dissolve in water and the soluble activity hazards are trivial unless the detonation occurs on coral, limestone or chalk].


Pages 45-52: BLAST


Nature of nuclear blast


'As explained in Chapter I, the expansion of the hot gases in the fireball starts a pressure wave which travels outwards through the surrounding air ... the rear part of the wave, as it moves outwards, moves through a region which has already been compressed and heated by the leading part of the wave. This enables it to move more quickly and [merge with] the leading part of the wave ... The "wave front" therefore grows progressively steeper and in a short distance becomes almost abrupt ... The wave front continues to move outwards unchanged in form, but with gradually decreasing intensity, behaving like a moving wall of highly compressed air. This is often referred to as the "shock front".


'The abrupt rise in pressure at the wave front is followed by gradually decreasing pressure, and then by a suction phase of intensity less than the pressure phase but lasting for a longer time. Associated with the rise of pressure is an intense wind which persists with diminishing velocity throughout the pressure phase, blowing in the direction in which the blast wave is travelling. The wind reverses its direction at the start of the suction phase, blowing with a lower velocity in the opposite direction, but for a longer time. The effect of these winds in the case of blast waves of long duration is to produce forces on structures for a relatively long time after the shock front itself has struct them and passed on.


'The duration of any particular feature of a blast wave varies approximately with the cube root of the power [power in common sense of energy release, not power in the physics definition of the rate of energy release] of the explosion. ... The familiar 500 lb. [230 kg] H.E. [high explosive] bomb of the last war contained about 1/15th of a ton of T.N.T. A nominal [20 kt] atomic bomb contains the equivalent explosive energy of 20,000 tons of T.N.T. The ratio of equivalent weights is therefore 300,000 to 1, and the ratio of the cube roots of these weights is about 70 to 1. The duration of the blast pressure from a 500 lb. bomb is about 1/100th second, so with a nominal atomic bomb it should be 0.7 seconds (actually the duration of the wave increases also with its distance from the source and at distances of 2 miles is about 1 second). Applying the same scaling law, the blast pressure from a [10 megaton] 500 x nominal bomb will last 5 seconds or more.


'These large differences in duration of the positive pressure phase for different sizes of explosion result in the mechanism of damage from an atomic or hydrogen bomb being quite different from that for an H.E. bomb. ... The ability of a suddenly applied blow to cause damage is determined both by the pressure and by its duration. In fact, it is the product of these two (known as the "impulse") which measures the damaging ability of the blast from an H.E. bomb.


'This point can easily be demonstrated on an ordinary door. If the door is unlatched it can be pushed open by a force of only a few ounces applied somewhat slowly by one's little finger. However, if the unlatched door is struck quite a hard blow with the fist it will not move very far, even though the instantaneous force between the fist and the door (corresponding to the blast pressure) may have been many pounds. If the door is hit hard enough it is quite likely to be torn off its hinges, and this of course is just what H.E. blast does. It gives things a hard sharp blow rather than a gentle push, and many of the so-called freaks of blast in the last war can quite easily be explained once this point is fully appreciated. ... the suction in the negative phase is only about one third of the pressure in the positive phase, but the duration is about twice as long. Thus the impulses in the two phases are of roughly the same order and their potential abilities to cause damage are also approximately equal. However, since the suction phase occurs last, there is a tendency for its effects to be noticed more - for example the wall of a building may have been badly cracked in the pressure phase and then collapse outwards in the suction phase, and it is the latter effect which is of course noticed.


'With nuclear weapons, sheer blast pressure rather than impulse tends to be the criterion of damage. If the effective blast pressure exceeds the static strength of the structure, failure must be expected. If it is less, no failure can occur however long the duration of the blast. In fact nuclear bomb blast is more like a strong wind than the sudden blow of H.E. blast, and many of the failures observed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and in subsequent tests resemble closely the kind of damage that might be done to buildings by a hurricane.


'The scarcity of suction damage from the nominal [20 kt] bombs in Japan was due to high blast pressures produced and to the fact that these were three or four times as great as the blast suction. With all such large explosions, if a building does not fail from blast pressure it is unlikely to fail under the lower stresses in the suction phase.


Scaling laws


'As already seen, the various time factors connected with the blast from a powerful explosion can be estimated from the known time values of a much less powerful explosion by applying the cube root scaling law. The distance at which a given pressure is experienced also scaled accoding to the cube root law providing the height of burst is adjusted in the same way ... the ranges of blast damage from a 10 megaton (500 x nominal) air burst bomb are those of a nominal bomb multiplied by a factor of 8 (the approximate cube root ot 8). ...


Effect of blast on structures


'When the front of the blast wave strikes the [rigid] front wall it is reflected back, and the pressure in the wave front builds up to more than double the original pressure. However, this build-up only lasts for a very short time and is mainly important for large flat surfaces such as walls of big buildings. As the blast wave passes over the building, the sides, roof, and finally the rear wall are subjected to what is known as the "side-on" pressure in the wave, but since they are side-on and not face-on there is no extra pressure due to reflection. At this stage the front, roof, sides and back of the building are all subjected to more or less the full blast pressure, and the principal tendency then is for the building as a whole to be crushed.


'But the pressure at and behind the blast front is accompanied by the blast wind which, while it exerts additional pressure on the front, exerts a suction [not to be confused with the suction in the negative phase of the blast wave] on the back (since it is sucking air away from the back wall and to some extent also from the sides and roof) which tends to cancel out the pressure on the front of the building, and most of the direct blast damage is produced there with comparatively little elsewhere. The building as a whole tends to be pushed over away from the explosion.


'However, this related only to a building with blank walls. If the blast gets inside through openings in the front wall, the pressure inside, acting upwards on the roof, is the full side-on blast pressure, whereas the pressure outside is the blast pressure less the wind suction. The net result is therefore that the roof tends to be forced violently upwards, a feature which was noted in Japan and has been observed in published photographs of American nuclear weapon trials, where houses have appeared to "explode" when struck by the blast wave [stills from movie film of the two storey brick house exposed to 5 psi peak overpressure blast at the Apple-2 nuclear test, Nevada, 1955].


'The ability of a building to withstand the shock of the blast wave depends upon its strength, its shape, and the number of openings into the building which serve to relieve the pressure on the outside walls. The strongest structures are heavily framed steel ad reinforced concrete buildings, while the weakest are probably certain shed type industrial structures having light frames and long roof spans. The resistance to blast of brick structures is rather poor, partly because of their low resilience and partly due to their weakness against pressure from inside, since a comparatively small outward movement of the walls causes the floors to collapse.


'The effect of shape on blast damage is not very marked in most conventional structures, where streamlining is usually absent. It is, however, most pronounced with such objects as large smoke-stacks and factory chimneys which, because of their relatively low wind drag, are surprisingly resistant to blast. Such chimneys often remain erect when other structures near to them are levelled to the ground in explosions of this kind. On the other hand, flat surfaces such as windows in an extensive wall surface, have a high probability of failure even at comparatively low blast pressures.


'Bridges, which are built to stand high wind pressures, stand up to blast fairly well, though if they are close to the ground zero of a ground or near-ground bomb they may be shifted bodily sideways off their abutments.


Height of burst in relation to bomb damage


'When a bomb is burst in the air the pressure wave is reflected from the ground, and since the reflected wave travells through air which has been compressed and heated by the direct wave, it tends to travel faster than, and to catch up with, the direct wave. When the reflected wave catches up with the direct wave the two join together to form what is called a Mach wave, and this accounts for a pronounced increase in range of damage.


'On the other hand when a bomb is burst on or near the ground much of the blast energy is expended in forming a crater, and in causing much heavier destruction of buildings immediately around ground zero. There is also considerable shielding of one building by another [blast cannot cause destruction without doing mechanical work, which irreversibly expends blast energy, so it is impossible for the blast not to be depleted in energy as a result of causing destruction], and by topographical features (e.g. ridges and hills), which tend to reduce the range of damage.


'The radius of blast damage from air burst bombs therefore tends to be greater than from bombs burst on or near the ground. However, if the bomb is burst too high in the air the advantage of the Mach reflection is counterbalanced by the greater distance between the explosion and the ground, so that for all powers of bombs there are optimum heights of burst which give the greatest area of blast damage.


'The optimum height also depends on the type of target being attacked. If the target area contains a high proportion of strongly constructed buildings then the bomb must be burst nearer to the ground in order to do the required damage in the central area around ground zero and so cause the maximum number of casualties. For more easily damaged types of property the maximum area of destruction can be obtained by bursting the bomb higher in the air. In Japan the height of burst of 2,000 ft. caused destruction over a very wide area to flimsy traditional Japanese buildings, but produced very little blast effect on the few earthquake-resisting buildings which were even as close as 0.25 mile to ground zero. For the average British city the height of burst which would produce the most serious blast situation from a nominal bomb is usually considered to be about 1,000 ft. ...


Effects of an air burst bomb on public utility services


'The effects of an air burst bomb, whether nominal or larger than nominal, on public utility services would be largely confined to damage above ground. Underground gas and water mains would be undamaged, except possibly where they were carried on bridges, or where they were fairly close to the surface and liable to damage by a collapse of neighbouring heavy masonry. Sewers too should be undamaged. Overground installations and services, such as gas holders, water pumping stations, electricity generating stations and sub-stations, overhead electricity, telephont and telegraph cables, buses and motor cars would be damaged more or less severely up to 1 mile or so from ground zero for a nominal [20 kt] bomb, and up to 8 miles for a 10 megaton bomb. Railway and tramway [street car] tracks would probably remain intact but might be affected by debris, overturned rolling-stock, adjacent fires, etc.


Cratering and ground shock from a ground or near-ground burst 10 megaton bomb


'A 10 megaton bomb bursting at ground level is expected to produce [according to data from the 10 megaton 1952 Mike test on water saturated porous coral, which results in a far bigger crater than a burst of similar size on earth] a saucer-shaped crater about a mile in diameter. The debris from the crater would be scattered around in a ring about 2 miles in diameter and the remains of any structures in this area might consequently be buried. Severe earth movements might be caused at greater ranges and underground structures might be affected up to a few miles. Some underground services should survive at ranges considerably less than that of general destruction on the surface. ...


Effect of blast on people


'In Japan the direct effect of blast from atomic bombs on people was found to be less than might have been expected. Where people were safe from the secondary effects of the blast there was little evidence that they had suffered from any internal injury due to the blast itself.


'Most of the blast casualties in this country would be caused by the indirect or secondary effects of the blast, such as falling masony, flying debris and glass. Such injuries would occur up to 1.25 to 2 miles from an air burst nominal bomb [20 kt], with casualties from glass fragments predominating at the greater distances. People would also be trapped by the collapse of buildings and might become casualties for this reason or even be suffocated without receiving other physical injuries.


The debris problem


'In Japan debris was not a very serious handicap because most of the material of the Japanese houses, being combustible, was destroyed by fire leaving a fairly uniformly flattened area covered with a comparatively thin layer of semi-burned or unburned material, e.g. tiles. Moreover, because the bombs were burst at 2,000 ft. the few strong buildings near to ground zero were not destroyed and therefore produced very little debris.


'The situation would be quite different in a modern city, where a large proportion of the material of almost every building is incombustible. Even if every building was affected by fire there would still remain a large amount of incombustible material to contribute to the rubble and debris which could collapse into the streets. ... At the shorter ranges, road blockage might be caused by fallen trees, etc. It will be seen at once that debris is going to be one of the outstanding problems. ... Roads with houses having front gardens or wide footpaths will obviously not be so seriously affected by debris as narrow streets, and many wide roads exist through which a way, at any rate for single line traffic, and certainly for pedestrians, could always be opened with a small amount of effort. By means of surveys in major cities suitable traffic routes can be earmarked for use should the emergency arise and ground zero occur at a variety of possible locations. Parks, open spaces, railway embankments, wide roads, rivers and canals etc., might all provide entry and exit routes because of their comparative freedom from debris.'




Above: Fission Fragments, the restricted-classified journal of the Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch. W. F. Greenhalgh was the editor of early issues in the 1960s, P. R. Bentley and later M. J. Thompson were editors in the 1970s. Here is a spoof metaphoric letter attacking 'ambulances' (civil defence) published in the originally 'Restricted' classified U.K. Home Office Scientific Adviser's Branch journal Fission Fragments, W. F. Greenhalgh, Editor, London, Issue Number 3, August 1962, pages 14-15 (these declassified magazines are now in the UK National Archives category HO229; if you are at the UK National Archives please also see HO338 and DEFE16 in the printed catalogues, which have useful lists of related file locations on the first page):


'Ambulance Service in Road Accidents


[Picture of a three-spoked car steering wheel with the shaft vertical so that it just co-incidentally forms a CND-type symbol!]



'Sir,


'It has been brought to our attention that certain elements among the driving public, no doubt inspired by the motor car manufacturers and an irresponsible clique of hospital surgeons interested in narrow sectional interests, favour the use of ambulances to take the victims of road accidents to hospital. These elements have used the excuse that such action would save lives and suffering in the event of an accident. Although we share their concern, we remain unalterably opposed to any consideration of this course of action, for the following reasons:


'1. The cost would be prohibitive. If it were borne by the state, an economic and social re-orientation would be needed; our country would be taking a step towards totalitarianism and the militarisation of society.


'2. These proposals will distract the government's attention from more important things e.g. the complete prevention of accidents by road-widening schemes. Increasing the penalty for dangerous driving is no answer. The only answer, befitting the dignity of human beings, is to ban the car.


'3. This programme would lull all road users into a false sense of security and reduce public initiative to seek means of reducing the accident rate.


'4. It would cause undue alarm and reduce the joys of motoring.


'5. It demonstrates lack of faith in the rational behaviour and self-restraint of our drivers.


'6. The road-accident hysteria is being whipped up by demagogic career politicians. Where do road-accident figures come from anyway?


'7. Motor car manufacturers will make cars which are unsafe. Big business is obviously hoping to profit from a demand for ambulances.


'8. Why should attention be directed to only one type of accident? Just because something can be done about road accidents, but not about accidents in the home, for example.


'9. All ambulance drivers will have to be medically qualified: this at a time when our hospitals are understaffed!


'10. If you had an accident, a traffic jam would ensue, and the ambulance would not be able to reach you.


'11. If the ambulance reached you, you would still be in danger from shock. Even if you do not die from shock your resistance to disease will be lowered. If you escape these horrors, you may well fall into a decline in the unfamiliar environment of hospital.


'12. If you survive your period under the strict regime of the hospital, you will have lost your belief in the freedom of the individual.


'13. If the hospital saves you and not the other occupants of the car, you will spend a life of remorse mourning your lost loved ones.


'14. Most car drivers carry in their minds a load of guilt and frustration about their affluence. It is this which subconsciously forces them to desperate deeds in difficult traffic. Even if a driver is not responsible for the accident he will either spend a life of remorse or become homicidal. If he is in fact responsible for the accident, it is clear that he ought not to survive. Better dead than discomforted.


'15. The panic engendered by a road accident would destroy all vestiges of civilised human behaviour. We shudder at the vision of one man struggling with another to get into the ambulance.


'16. Since the first motor car accident in 1850, the speed of cars has increased tenfold and, moreover, the number of cars on the roads has increased a millionfold at least. Road accidents have, in fact, become unthinkable.


'It is apparent that all measures to reduce the horror of road accidents are futile and, worse than that, they are morally wrong and contemptible since they increase the probability that an accident will occur. Anyone who does contemplate road accidents obviously advocates them.


'- Committee for a Rational Accident Policy.'


The same magazine: originally 'Restricted' classified U.K. Home Office Scientific Adviser's Branch journal Fission Fragments, W. F. Greenhalgh, Editor, London, Issue Number 3, August 1962, pages 22-26:


'The fire hazard from nuclear weapons


'by G. R. Stanbury, BSc, ARCS, F.Inst.P.


'We have often been accused of underestimating the fire situation from nuclear attack. We hope to show that there is good scientific justification for the assessments we have made, and we are unrepentant in spite of the television utterances of renowned academic scientists who know little about fire. ...


'Firstly ... the collapse of buildings would snuff out any incipient fires. Air cannot get into a pile of rubble, 80% of which is incombustible anyway. This is not just guess work; it is the result of a very complete study of some 1,600 flying bomb [V1 cruise missile] incidents in London supported by a wealth of experience gained generally in the last war.


'Secondly, there is a considerable degree of shielding of one building by another in general.


'Thirdly, even when the windows of a building can "see" the fireball, and something inside is ignited, it by no means follows that a continuing and destructive fire will develop.


'The effect of shielding in a built-up area was strikingly demonstrated by the firemen of Birmingham about 10 years ago with a 144:1 scale model of a sector of their city which they built themselves; when they put a powerful lamp in the appropriate position for an air burst they found that over 50% of the buildings were completely shielded. More recently a similar study was made in Liverpool over a much larger area, not with a model, but using the very detailed information provided by fire insurance maps. The result was similar.


'It is not so easy to assess the chance of a continuing fire. A window of two square metres would let in about 10^5 calories at the 5 cal/(cm)^2 range. The heat liberated by one magnesium incendiary bomb is 30 times this and even with the incendiary bomb the chance of a continuing fire developing in a small room is only 1 in 5; in a large room it is very much less.


'Thus even if thermal radiation does fall on easily inflammable material which ignites, the chance of a continuing fire developing is still quite small. In the Birmingham and Liverpool studies, where the most generous values of fire-starting chances were used, the fraction of buildings set on fire was rarely higher than 1 in 20.


'And this is the basis of the assertion [in Nuclear Weapons] that we do not think that fire storms are likely to be started in British cities by nuclear explosions, because in each of the five raids in which fire storms occurred (four on Germany - Hamburg, Darmstadt, Kassel, Wuppertal and a "possible" in Dresden, plus Hiroshima in Japan - it may be significant that all these towns had a period of hot dry weather before the raid) the initial fire density was much nearer 1 in 2. Take Hamburg for example:


'On the night of 27/28th July 1943, by some extraordinary chance, 190 tons of bombs were dropped into one square mile of Hamburg. This square mile contained 6,000 buildings, many of which were [multistorey wooden] medieval.


'A density of greater than 70 tons/sq. mile had not been achieved before even in some of the major fire raids, and was only exceeded on a few occasions subsequently. The effect of these bombs is best shown in the following diagram, each step of which is based on sound trials and operational experience of the weapons concerned.


'102 tons of high explosive bombs dropped -> 100 fires


'88 tons of incendiary bombs dropped, of which:


'48 tons of 4 pound magnesium bombs = 27,000 bombs -> 8,000 hit buildings -> 1,600 fires


'40 tons of 30 pound gel bombs = 3,000 bombs -> 900 hit buildings -> 800 fires


'Total = 2,500 fires


'Thus almost every other building [1 in 2 buildings] was set on fire during the raid itself, and when this happens it seems that nothing can prevent the fires from joining together, engulfing the whole area and producing a fire storm (over Hamburg the column of smoke, observed from aircraft, was 1.5 miles in diameter at its base and 13,000 feet high; eyewitnesses on the ground reported that trees were uprooted by the inrushing air).


'When the density was 70 tons/square mile or less the proportion of buildings fired during the raid was about 1 in 8 or less and under these circumstances, although extensive areas were burned out, the situation was controlled, escape routes were kept open and there was no fire storm.'


Further in the article, Stanbury gives metereological data for the U.K. which indicate a mean cloud cover of 70% of the sky at any time, and on page 24, he gives U.K. research on thermal radiation transmission: 'Lane, Stone and Edwards of the Chemical Defence Experimental Establishment at Porton have done work in this field and have shown for example that at 20 [statute] miles [32 km], the diffuse transmission of luminous flux at ground level is only 0.2 for a visibility of 16 miles; 0.1 for a visibility of 8 miles; 0.035 for a visibility of 4 miles.'


I will point out that these experimental figures are surprisingly close to the values of 0.29, 0.082 and 0.0067 you get using transmission T = e^{-R/V} where R is range and V is visibility (in same units as R, of course!). This formula is based on my analysis of all Nevada and Pacific nuclear test data, where the average visibility was 10 miles in the Pacific (Bikini and Eniwetok) and about 50 miles in Nevada due to the generally drier air over the arid desert than that in the hot, humid mid Pacific Ocean. (The raw source of this nuclear test data can now be found online in a chart and reference in: http://worf.eh.doe.gov/data/ihp1c/0439_a.pdf.)


The American manuals make a mess of thermal transmission. Glasstone and Dolan inaccurately claim that scattered radiation prevents a simple exponential law being valid, but they are thinking of a 'build-up' factor, i.e., a contribution from scattered radiation, which does not contribute significantly to thermal injury in most cases. Filtering actually offsets the 'build-up' factor. The American book Glasstone and Dolan relies on M. G. Gibbons' August 1966 report Transmissivity of the Atmosphere for Thermal Radiation from Nuclear Weapons (U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, USNRDL-TR-1060) which is based on measurements using monochromatic green light. The problem is that the true fireball radiation output covers a wide range, and some components like ultra violet and infrared tend to get filtered out more quickly than visible light, so this 'filtering' effect increases the mean penetrating powerof the remaining (filtered) thermal radiation as you get further from the bomb (at long distances, only visible light survives). The 'build-up' effect, i.e., the increased contribution of less-penetrating scattered radiation with greater distance from bomb, tends to decrease the mean penetrating power of the radiation as you get further from the bomb. So the 'filtering' effect is offset in practice by the 'build up' effect. Hence the exponential law holds good in nuclear test data!


For a variety of different American estimates (Brode 1964, Glasstone and Dolan 1977, and the 1974 NATO edition of Philip J. Dolan's Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, EM-1) of thermal transmission (some of which are nonsense) see page 11 of Dr Harold L. Brode and Richard D. Small, Fire Damage and Strategic Targeting, Pacific-Sierra Research Corporation, Los Angeles, California, Defense Nuclear Agency report DNA-TR-84-272 (1 June 1984), accession number ADA159280.


Dr Harold L. Brode in his May 1964 report A Review of Nuclear Explosion Phenomena Pertinent to Protective Construction (the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, report R-425-PR) had suggested that the transmittivity of the atmosphere is about T = (1 + 1.4R/V)e^{-2R/V}, where R is distance from detonation and V is atmospheric distinct visibility distance. But a later paper of Brode's, A Review of the Physics of Large Urban Fires, co-authored with Dr Richard D. Small, quotes the substantially greater attenuation of thermal radiation suggested by the empirical green light transmission formula, T = (1 + 1.9R/V)e^{-2.9R/V}, from M. G. Gibbons' August 1966 report Transmissivity of the Atmosphere for Thermal Radiation from Nuclear Weapons (U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, USNRDL-TR-1060).


For comparison, Philip J. Dolan's NATO version of the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency manual Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, DNA-EM-1(N), Washington, D.C., 1 November 1974, gives the Gibbons formula T = (1 + 1.9R/V)e^{-2.9R/V} for burst altitudes below 400 metres, but gives a transmissivity of T = e^{-1.9R/V} for the case of a burst altitude of 1,000 metres.


I will just mention that Dr Harold L. Brode and Dr Richard D. Small, in their report Fire Damage and Strategic Targeting (Pacific-Sierra Research Corporation, Los Angeles, California, DNA-TR-84-272, June 1984) assume that 50% of houses are ignited by a thermal exposure of 16 calories per square centimetre from a 50 kt weapon or 22 cal/(cm)^2 for a 1 Mt weapon. They don't provide precise reasons for these specific numbers. It is not clear that the realistic ignition energy for curtains, armchairs, carpets, beds, and so on are in that range. Brode and Small seem to be assuming folded newspapers are everywhere. However, you need to actually work out what fraction of buildings have rooms in line of sight to the fireball and then you need to estimate the probability that something inflammable is actually in the line of sight. If only 50% or fewer of buildings will have a single room in line-of-sight of a fireball (as the British studies referred to by Stanbury above indicate to be the case), then any figure for an 'average ignition energy' produced out of the hat by Brode and Small will be wrong, misleading, and deceptive. Many modern fabrics used in furnishings are fire-resistant by law and hard to ignite properly. It is true that the blast wave could throw smouldering curtains into a room, starting fires, but only if the curtains have been exposed to the thermal flash, which depends on whether a line of sight of the fireball exists from the window in question.


In reality, in a surface burst or low air burst, the nearest buildings the the explosion will 'shadow' all the more distant buildings, and this will continue - as shown in nuclear test films - even after the blast blows to pieces the nearby buildings (the dust cloud produced by the mechanical destruction from the blast stops the thermal radiation).


Brode and Small do usefully quote a study of secondary fires caused by blast in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; J. McAuliffe and K. Moll, Secondary Ignitions in Nuclear Attack, SRI International, Menlo Park, California, SRI Project 5106, July 1965. This study found that for every 1000 square feet of modern-type damaged buildings, there was 0.006 'secondary' fire created by the blast effect on electrical or gas equipment. This estimate does not include the many thousands of wood-frame houses which were ignited by overturned charcoal cooking braziers in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Brode and Small however ignored that hard experimental data and preferred to use a completely non-validated assumption that 100% of buildings with heavy damage - which is caused by a peak overpressure of 4 psi for American wood-frame residences - will be ignited by blast damage.)


A few more details about the Fission Fragments magazine No. 3, August 1962: inside the front cover there is the warning 'Restricted: The information given in this document is not to be communicated, either directly or indirectly, to the Press or to any person not authorised to receive it.' (It is now long since declassified, since it is openly viewable at the National Archives in Kew, London.) Below that warning, there is published a quotation from American strategist H. A. Kissinger:


'As weapons grow more destructive, and forces-in-being more invulnerable to surprise attack and to defense systems, the real contest in an all-out war will be between the vulnerabilities and the degrees of resilience of the opposing societies.'


To give a taste for the wide range of problems covered (ranging from fire, fallout, electromagnetic disruption due to high altitude tests, and detecting nerve gas in chemical warfare), it is telling to quote a couple of sentences from page 37, dealing with the use of early electronic computers to assess fallout decay rates and radiation doses:


'A danger with the use of computers is that things tend to become stereotyped. Thus people get used to a narrow range of circumstances and will be flummoxed "on the day" when - and nothing is more certain - something different will happen. It is hoped that this rigidity has been avoided to some extent here by such things as having irregular plume shapes ... and by introducing clean bombs and neutron-induced isotopes into the decay laws.'


Page 38 quotes the following extract from the May 1959 issue of Wireless World magazine:


'Man-made blackouts


'One gathers that there has been considerable uneasiness in the U.S.A. owing to the discovery that wireless and radar signals can be blocked by bursting a nuclear bomb at a great height above the earth's surface. Before any announcement on the subject was made officially in America, Russian scientists had attributed the unexpected density of the inner radiation zone (which at the magnetic equator is 1,500-4,000 miles above the earth) to the effects of nuclear explosions. Later, an official statement was made in the U.S.A. that, as part of the I.G.Y. [International Geophysical Year] programme, three such tests had taken place last year at heights of about 300 miles [actually these Argus test burst heights were 200, 240 and 540 km]. In each case the flash of the explosion was followed at once by a faint luminosity extending along the magnetic line of force through the burst point. This line of force returns to our atmosphere in the northern hemisphere near the Azores. Aircraft stationed in the region for observation purposes noted a short auroral glow. The work was then taken up by the satellite Explorer IV which, travelling day after day "through the man-made 'shell' of trapped radiation", sent back to earth measurements which enabled its intensity and shape to be worked out. It has been suggested that anyone mad enough or wicked enough to start a nuclear war could put the other side's distant early warning radar system almost, if not entirely, out of action by leading off with a number of bursts in the right places.'


The same page (38) then gives this:


'Extract from Estimated effects of nuclear explosions of various megaton yields, United States Atomic Energy Commission news release 31st October, 1961.


'Electromagnetic Effects on World Communications


'Communication blackouts due to low-altitude, high-yield explosions are probably too localised to be of interest. If the cloud stabilizes at an altitude of about 25 miles, however, the possibility exists of producing observable effects on radio waves over distances of about 100 miles from air zero.


'As a result of a 50-megaton detonation at an altitude of about 50 miles, large-scale high-frequency communications blackouts could be expected within a region of 2,500 miles radius and for a time span of the order of a day. At 30 miles altitude the radius of effect would be about 1,000 miles.'


The last page of the magazine contains a notice to the reader by the Editor, W. F. Greenhalgh which states 'Fission Fragments is in the Restricted security class. ... Views expressed in Fission Fragments are not necessarily endorsed by the Scientific Adviser's Branch of the Home Office. ... Si vis pacem, para bellum. [If you wish for peace, prepare for war.]'


Some other particularly valuable articles in Fission Fragments are:


(1) A. Preston (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Fisheries Radiobiological Laboratory, Lowestoft), 'The Effect of Fallout on Fisheries', Fission Fragments, Issue No. 14, February 1970, pages 32-41, 48.


This relates the gamma dose rate at a standard time after burst to the deposited activity of those fission product nuclides which become significantly concentrated in the aquatic food chain (in order of decreasing fission product activity in fish flesh soon within days of a nuclear explosion): iodine-131, cerium-141, cerium-144, zirconium-95, strontium-89, ruthenium-103, caesium-137, strontium-90, ruthenium-106.


Account was taken of fission product fractionation in fallout (the relative depletion from local fallout in surface bursts of those nuclides which will not have condensed or decayed into solids at the time that the large fallout particles drop out of the fireball), but neutron-induced activity in the weapon casing was ignored.


This gives the amount of nuclide deposited per square metre of surface on the water. To get the concentration of the nuclides in a cubic metre of water, the water solubility of the radioactive material in the fallout is used (this is where a knowledge of the chemistry and physical properties of fallout particles is vital):


'Using these depositions and solubilities, the activity was assumed to mix uniformly to 100 m, the average depth of the surface mixed layer of the oceans, or to the bottom in shallower water, within 48 hours. This assumption has been borne out by weapon test data in the Pacific. The resulting water activities were then used to assess the specific activities in fish flesh by the use of suitable concentration factors selected for each radionuclide.'


The doses from ingested fish were then computed. The largest fish ingestion threat within 2 weeks of a nuclear explosion thyroid irradiation from I-131 in fish. Since I-131 has a half life of only 8 days, it is not a long-term problem. The article shows that in an area where the fallout gamma dose rate at 48 hours after burst is 1 R/hour on land, assuming 10% fallout solubility in water, the total thyroid I-131 radiation dose from eating 1 kg of fresh fish caught 48 hours after the explosion would be 0.205 R, compared to a dose to the bones of only 0.117 R. The relative importance of Sr-89 and Sr-90 in fish depends crucially on the concentration factor, which depends on the salts normally present in the water. In the ocean, there is plenty of dissolved calcium present as ions which, being chemically similar to strontium, 'dilute' the radioactive Sr-89 and Sr-90 problem, crowding it out and reducing the concentration factor in biological uptake. In rivers of 'soft' water with little dissolved calcium, however, strontium uptake is concentrated in the fish to levels far above those per kilogram of the water.


(2) Fission Fragments, Issue No. 21, April 1977, pages 18-25.



This issue has not been released to the U.K. National Archives, which lists it as a 'Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description... This document was closed under the Public Records Act or is exempt under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.' However, the information in it is vitally important for understanding the real EMP problems of nuclear attack, and it includes a report on the experimental research by the Home Office into EMP on portable radios. The reason for the continued secrecy seems to be articles by Dr J. McAulay (author of the article, 'Science in civil defence' published in Contemporary Physics, Volume 2, Issue 4 April 1961 , pages 245 - 252) and others dealing with EMP effects using classified American data from the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency's Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons. On page 18, Dr McAulay's article EMP in Proper Perspective states:


'In 1974 the US Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) issued a new 1600 page, 2 volume new edition of their classified (Restricted) document, "The Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons".


'Vol. I "Phenomenology" has 8 chapters of which chapter 4 deals with X-ray radiation phenomena, Chapter 6 with transient radiation effects in electronics phenomena, and chapter 8 with phenomena affecting electromagnetic wave propagation.


'Vol. II "Damage Criteria" has Chapters 9 to 17 of which Chapter 7 deals with radio frequency signal degradation relevant to communications and radar systems.'


On pages 20-24 there is an article by C. H. Lewis, MSc, The Effects of EMP, in Particular on Home Defence Communications which states:


'For a near ground-burst the downward component [of the outward Compton electron current in the air, produced by initial gamma radiation] is largely suppressed leaving the upward component to form what is virtually a conventional dipole aerial with a tremendously high current. ... Field strengths for a 5 Mt weapon may be about 20 kV/m at 3 miles, 5 kV/m at 5 miles and 1 kV/m at 8 miles, where blast pressure will be down to 2 psi. ... Consider first the possible effects on the power system. Fortunately the super-grid (which is designed to work at 400 kV) is not thought to be particularly vulnerable, but perhaps 1/4 of the pulse energy picked up by the supergrid may be passed on by the distribution transformers with consequent current surges in the lower voltage systems of perhaps 20,000 amps. Thus although the supergrid may survive, the current surges in the distribution system may result in major system instability with consequent serious breakdown ... It will be remembered that system instability in 1965 resulted in a total black-out of the north-east US for several days. ... Turning to communications ... transmitters appear to be vulnerable to EMP, which can generate peak currents in the aerials of medium wave transmitters (which may be of the order of 100 m long) of several kiloamperes. As a result there is a considerable risk of breakdown in the high voltage capacitors of the transmitters. Additionally, the continuity of broadcasting depends on power supplies, communication with the studio and the studio equipment. Ironically the ordinary domestic transistor receiver with ferrite rod aerials is likely to survive, but VHF receivers with stick aerials are vulnerable when the aerial is extended. ... At this stage the vulnerability of various devices may be considered. A 300 ft length of conductor may pick up between 0.1 and 40 Joules (1 Joule = 1 watt-second). According to US sources, a motor or transformer can survive about 10,000 J, electronic valves about 0.01 J. Small bipolar transistors are sensitive to about 10^{-7} J and microwave diodes, field effect transistors, etc., are sensitive to about 10^{-9} J. ... With a rise time of 10^{-8} secs, 10^{-8} J equates to 1 watt - well beyond the capacity of small transistors. Clearly, motors and transformers are likely to survive, thermionic valves are reasonably good, but transistors in general are vulnerable, whilst equipment using field effect transistors or microwave diodes is especially vulnerable.'


The remainder of that article discussed the effects of EMP on the British wired telephone system: 'The effect of any EMP pick-up in the system will be to cause flashover at one or more of a number of points - terminal boards, relay contacts, relay coil terminations, capacitors, etc. ... There are likely to be many domestic telephones connected in part by overhead lines, and these lines can pick up EMP currents, passing them into the exchange equipment. Because most telephone lines are underground, it is no longer Post Office policy to provide lightning protectors at the exchange or on subscribers premises. Within the exchange, all incoming cables are terminated at the Main Distribution Frame, and from this point the internal wiring to the exchange equipment is unshielded. In view of the tremendous amount and complexity of this internal wiring it appears that the major source of EMP pick-up may lie within the exchange. ... The limit of satisfactory direct speech transmission is about 25 miles and since this must include the subscribers lines to and from the exchange it is customary to provide "repeaters" (amplifiers [including inductance coils to prevent frequency-dependent distortion]) at intervals of 15 miles between exchanges.'


The next very interesting article in Fission Fragments, Issue No. 21, April 1977, is at page 25: A. D. Perryman (Scientific Advisory Branch, Home Office), EMP and the Portable Transistor Radio. Perryman states: 'In an attempt to answer some of these questions [about EMP effects on communications] the Scientific Advisory Branch carried out a limited programme of tests in which four popular brands of transistor radio were exposed in an EMP simulator to threat-level pulses of electric field gradient about 50 kV/m.



'The receivers were purchased from the current stock of a typical retailer. They comprised:


'1. a low-price pocket set of the type popular with teenagers.


'2. a Japanese set in the middle-price range.


'3. a domestic type portable in the upper-price range.


'4. an expensive and sophisticated portable receiver.


'All these sets worked on dry cells and had internal ferrite aerials for medium and long wave reception. In addition, sets 2, 3 and 4 had extendable whip aerials for VHF/FM reception. Set 3 also had one short wave band and set 4 two short wave bands... .


'During the tests the receivers were first tuned to a well-known long-wave station and then subjected to a sequence of pulses in the EMP simulator. This test was repeated on the medium wave and VHF bands. Set 1 had no VHF facility and was therefore operated only on long and medium waves.


'The results of this experimentation showed that transistor radios of the type tested, when operated on long or medium waves, suffer little loss of performance. This could be attributed to the properties of the ferrite aerial and its associated circuitry (e.g. the relatively low coupling efficiency). Set 1, in fact, survived all the several pulses applied to it, whereas sets 2, 3 and 4 all failed soon after their whip aerials were extended for VHF reception. The cause of failure was identified as burnout of the transistors in the VHF RF [radio frequency] amplifier stage. Examination of these transistors under an electron microscope revealed deformation of their internal structure due to the passage of excessive current transients (estimated at up to 100 amps).


'Components other than transistors (e.g. capacitors, inductors, etc.) appeared to be unaffected by the number of EM pulses applied in these tests.


'From this very limited test programme, transistor radios would appear to have a high probability of survival in a nuclear crisis when operated on long and medium bands using the internal ferrite aerial. If VHF ranges have to be used, then probably the safest mode of operation is with the whip aerial extended to the minimum length necessary to give just audible reception with the volume control fully up.


'Hardening of personal transistor radios is theoretically possible and implies good design practice (e.g. shielding, bonding, earthing, filtering etc.) incorporated at the time of manufacture. Such receivers are not currently available on the popular market.'



The slide rule above is the Nuclear Weapon Effects Computer No. 3, issued by the Home Office in 1988 based on brand new computer model of blast casualties developed in 1986 by Home Office scientists Dr S. Hadjipavlou and Dr G. Carr-Hill, a brief description of which is published in the article, 'A Revised Set of Blast Casualty Rates for Civil Defence Use: An Overview' by S. Hadjipavlou and G. Carr-Hill, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A (Statistics in Society), Vol. 152, No. 2 (1989), pp. 139-156.



The original 1986 Home Office report, A review of the blast casualty rules applicable to U.K. houses, U.K. Home Office Scientific Research and Development Branch, Publication 34/86, is about an inch thick and printed on both sides of each sheet of paper. The report is based largely on American detailed scientific nuclear test data collected during Operations Teapot and Plumbbob in Nevada, 1955 and 1957. At these tests, the effects of window glass fragments and debris from blast broken walls was analysed in detail, together with filmed displacement data showing the 'translation' of mechanically realistic dummy human beings by blast waves. In the case of glass fragments and debris from broken walls, the distributions of fragments by size and by velocity due to blast wind pressure acceleration were deduced, and were related to the physical measurements of the blast wave.


In this way, a physically reliable mathematical model was developed which would predict how many fragments and how much debris would hit someone in a house exposed to a blast wave, and what their velocities would be. Studies of the effects of fragments striking simulated human tissue allowed prediction of biomedical effects. In the case of human translation, the acceleration coefficient for a human and the cross-sectional area exposed in a variety of orientations allowed the acceleration and velocity to be deduced for any given blast wave, and separate studies showed the deceleration effects of striking rigid objects (walls for example), and effects of being slowed down by rolling along the ground.


Effects of building collapse were available from nuclear data collected in Japan and in conventionally bombed houses in World War II. The result is that casualty rate for people prone in British brick houses with 9 inch thick outer walls was calculated to be 1% killed by 20 kPa (2.9 psi) peak overpressure 7 km from a 1 Mt surface burst and 19% killed by 40 kPa (5.8 psi) peak overpressure at 4 km from a 1 Mt surface burst. Because the blast winds last longer in a bigger bomb explosion, 50% mortality in brick houses occurs at 50 kPa (7.2 psi) for a 10 Mt bomb, but requires 67 kPa (9.7 psi) for a 100 kt bomb. Hence the range for 50% mortality in brick houses from a surface burst would be 1.45 km for 100 kt and 7.3 km for 10 Mt. There would be a lot of survivors in a nuclear attack. The effects for physical reasons do not scale up in direct proportion from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki data.


More information on thermal ignition and fire storms is available in these previous posts:


http://glasstone.blogspot.com/2006/03/fires-from-nuclear-explosions.html


http://glasstone.blogspot.com/2006/04/ignition-of-fires-by-thermal-radiation.html


http://glasstone.blogspot.com/2006/05/assistant-professor-lubo-motl-and-big.html, etc.


Earlier post on the EMP effects at nuclear tests: http://glasstone.blogspot.com/2006/03/emp-radiation-from-nuclear-space.html




SELECTED HOME OFFICE SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BRANCH CIVIL DEFENCE REPORTS AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES:

HO 226/19 The numbers of deaths resulting from an attack on the British Isles with 29 atomic bombs and 27,000 tons of high explosive/incendiary bombs 1953

HO 226/16 Atomic attacks and water undertakings: the significance of the ratio of groundburst to airburst weapons 1953

HO 226/33 The protection afforded by trenches and refuge rooms against radioactive ground contamination 1954

HO 226/36 Refuge rooms as shelter against radioactive fallout 1955

HO 226/45 Casualty rates for a groundburst 10 megaton bomb omitting residual radiation, all in houses 1956

HO 226/52 The likely extent of fallout from a nominal groundburst bomb 1956

HO 226/54 Effectiveness of gamma radiation spread, over a period of time, in producing radiation sickness 1957

HO 226/68 The hazard due to exposure in the open in the damaged area during fallout 1957

HO 226/70 A survey of methods used for the removal of radioactive contamination from water 1958

HO 226/75 The contribution of U239 and Np239 to the radiation from fallout 1959

HO 226/83 Casualties due to immediate effects of groundbursts 1963

HO 226/93 Papers read at conference on radiological recovery, Berlin, October 1967

HO 226/92 Notes on radiological decontamination for Scientific Intelligence Officer refresher courses 1968

HO 226/91 Publications of interest: chemical weapons 1967

HO 338/8 Nuclear weapons: hazards of flying glass after explosions; effects of blast winds; protection of vehicles from fall-out 1957

HO 338/7 British Scientific and Service Mission to Japan: eye-witness account of the bombing of Nagasaki; comparison with traditional bombing effects 1947

HO 338/6 British Scientific and Service Mission to Japan: diary and progress of mission; disposal of materials to various museums 1947

HO 338/9 Nuclear weapons: protection provided by open trenches; personal anti-radiation protection; production and dispersal of gamma radiation 1957

HO 338/11 Nuclear weapons: effects of thermal radiation 1957

HO 338/25 Protection afforded by smoke screens against the effects of an atomic attack 1955

HO 338/69 Thermal and fire aspects of nuclear blast: risk of fire-spread following an attack 1965

HO 338/72 Radioactive decay rates: charts and papers 1966

HO 338/73 Distribution of fall-out in and around buildings 1959

HO 338/78 Hazards of direct exposure to fall-out 1962

HO 338/80 Biological recovery and effective residual doses from gamma radiation 1961

HO 338/82 Decontamination: use of water for washdown purposes 1961

HO 338/83 Decontamination: methods of decontamination of building roofs 1965

338/116 Communications: effects of a nuclear attack on GPO communications 1964 [NEVADA TEST EMP SUMMARY]

HO 338/115 Communications: effects of radiation on radio transmission and equipment 1963 [NEVADA TEST EMP SUMMARY]

HO 338/117 Fire Service Study `Torquemada', 20-22 July 1959

HO 228/1 Notes on the occupancy of shelters during attack by V1 weapons on London, 1944 1948

HO 228/2 USA Naval Technical Mission to Japan: extracts and notes on atomic bombs, Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1948

HO 228/3 Crater debris 1948

HO 228/5 Radiation hazards from atomic bombs 1948

HO 228/6 Some thoughts on the fire problem from atomic bombs 1948

HO 228/7 Notes on the distribution of the population of Greater London 1949

HO 228/8 The effect of window opening on the fire risk in domestic property 1949

HO 228/10 The resistance of concrete to explosions and projectiles 1950

HO 228/11 Papers read at the meeting held on 12 April 1950 between the staff of the Civil Defence Staff College, the Civil Defence Schools and the Scientific Adviser's Branch: radioactive ground contamination and civil defence; shelter policy and atomic casualties; problems of civilian morale; the potentialities of nerve gas as a chemical weapon agent 1950

HO 228/13 Papers read at the meeting held on 6-8 November 1950: deaths from the explosion of an atomic bomb more or less powerful than that used at Nagasaki; debris, its distribution and the means of negotiating it; the zoning of towns for fire susceptibility; mustard gas on cities; social and economic effects of German air raids on the UK in World War II; estimates of homeless from atomic, explosive and incendiary bomb attack; the possible economic effects of atomic attack on centres of UK population; the risk of inhaled or ingested fission products compared with the external radiation risk; a problem connected with fallout 1951

HO 228/15 Papers read at the meeting held on 7-9 April 1952: Lessons from incendiary attacks on Hamburg; fireguards, to be or not to be; assessment of an attack on a city area with mustard gas; shadowgraphs; influence of the height of burst on the effects of an atomic bomb; some chemical warfare problems; combined operations; obstruction by debris in city streets after an atomic attack 1952

HO 228/14 Summary of papers read at the meeting held on 16-17 May 1951: possible trend of future developments in atomic weapons; experimental developments in air raid warnings; regional scientific advisers and technical aspects of reconnaissance; decontamination; some aspects of the debris problem arising from an airburst atomic bomb assumed to burst over Trafalgar Square; respirators and protective clothing for civil defence personnel; an appreciation of radiological hazards in time of war; nerve and mustard gas; the atomic bomb as a fire raiser; memorandum on the use of radiation metering instruments in civil defence operations and training; discussion on practical monitoring and the present position regarding policy and organisation 1951

HO 228/16 Report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the CD Staff College Apr 1953: strategic assumptions for CD; CD aspects of the Monte Bello trial; warning systems and the general public; some factors affecting shelter design and policy; the allowable radiation dose in wartime and its implications; civilian behaviour under air attack; implications of FP (fission products) deposition 1953

HO 228/17 Report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the CD Staff College 1-3 June 1954: impact of hydrogen bomb on civil defence; a theoretical evacuation study; expected scale of types of attack; thermal effects of the British atomic bomb trials; gamma ray penetration at the Woomera tests; Admiralty gamma ray measurements at Monte Bello and Woomera; the work of the Scientific Advisers in the regions; training of radiac officers; radioactive training grounds; biological warfare; hazards of radioactive contamination from a water burst; agricultural problems resulting from a water burst; recent trends in radiac instrumentation 1954

HO 228/18 Report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the CD Staff College 23-25 May 1955: the consequences of a thermonuclear explosion; fallout from a groundburst bomb; the characteristics of residual radioactivity; the fallout and the metereological problems; the physiological effects of radiation; the contamination of water supplies; hazards to grazing animals in the period immediately following a nuclear explosion; hazards from fallout to vegetation immediately following a thermonuclear explosion; monitoring and plotting of fallout; problems in the fallout area; technical reconnaissance; leader equipment; concluding discussion 1955

HO 228/20 Report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the CD Staff College 4-6 June 1957: civil defence policy; fallout prediction from meteorological information; the work of the Radiobiologist Research Unit; introductory talk on fallout plotting; aerial survey and possible applications to civil defence; report on tests on structures, of atomic trials; radiological work during the Buffalo atomic trial; thermal radiation; chemical warfare-training of radiac officers 1957

HO 228/21 Report of a course given to university physics lecturers at the Civil Defence Staff College 8-11 July 1957: nuclear weapons and their effects; blast from nuclear weapons; thermal radiation; biological effects of nuclear radiation; radiological control in the damaged area; control of civil defence forces; protection afforded by buildings against gamma radiation from fallout; meterological aspects of radioactive fallout; fallout plotting; public control in a fallout area; introductory talk on fallout plotting; problems of water contamination; effects of nuclear weapon attack on agriculture and food; radiological decontamination; trends in radiac instrumentation; radiac fallout simulator; assessment of the protection afforded by buildings against gamma radiation from fallout 1957

HO 228/22 Report of the conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College 20-22 May 1958: the travel and deposition of radioactivity in the Windscale accident; fallout - an analysis of the most recent data; meteorology and the fallout prediction; fallout plotting and reporting up to the regional level; new plans for the control of civil defence operations; the regional scientific organisation in relation to new operational plans; the effects of ionising radiation on human beings; radiation hazards 1959

HO 227/1 The effect of a limit on the travelling distance allowed between private house and communal buildings on the spectrum of protective factors 1960

HO 227/2 Refuge space in communal buildings of various classes in a sample of six towns 1960

HO 227/6 Estimated casualties from an attack with two 3 megaton bombs on each of 71 different bases, with one 3 megaton bomb on each of 16 cities 1960

HO 227/7 The adaptation of basement garages under new office buildings for use as shelters 1960

HO 227/11 Hamburg shelters: some notes on occupancy, prepared May 1960

HO 227/23 Attenuation of thermal radiation by the atmosphere 1961

HO 227/24 Science in civil defence 1961

HO 227/27 Civil defence studies 1961

HO 227/32 Note by Scientific Adviser's Branch on washdown installations 1960

HO 227/31 Inter-departmental Committee on Shelter against Fallout: the effect on casualties of moving people from bungalows and pre-fabs into communal refuge 1961

HO 227/35 The effect of high explosive bombs on the estimation of ignition ranges for megaton explosions 1961

HO 227/40 Basic assumptions for use in the assessment of the radiological hazard to food from fallout 1962

HO 227/60 Probability of becoming a casualty due to a 3 megaton groundburst weapon having various CEP's as a function of distance from the target 1962

HO 227/53 Day and night populations of the administrative County of London 1962

HO 227/51 The Soviet strategic air threat to the United Kingdom 1962

HO 227/50 The scientific data and basic information required in preparing for protection by shelter against fallout: summary of presentation to NATO Shelter Working Party 1962

HO 227/61 Annuli for calculation of prompt casualties from groundburst bombs 1962

HO 227/62 Some effects of fallout on the operation of mobile fire columns 1962

HO 227/64 Some calculations and tables on the neutron-induced activity in fallout due to soil and sea water 1962

HO 227/65 Delayed fallout in the casualty area 1962

HO 227/72 Glass breakage by blast 1963

HO 227/74 Fallout and radiological counter-measures Vol 1 1963

HO 227/75 Protection of cities against thermal flash: USA feasibility studies 1963

HO 227/78 The implication of clean bombs for civil defence 1964

HO 227/90 The number of fires caused by nuclear attack atmospheric attenuation 1965

HO 227/97 The value of area decontamination in reducing casualties from radioactive fallout 1965

HO 227/100 The protection against fallout radiation afforded by core shelters in a typical British home 1965

HO 227/105 Summary and critical review of the basis of the new Medical Research Council concept on recovery from the effects of gamma radiation 1966

HO 227/106 Distribution of basement fallout shelters by size 1966

HO 227/108 The biological effects of nuclear radiation 1966

HO 227/107 The calculation of fallout risks for a set of localities 1966

HO 227/112 Comments on Management Research Group report: A Review of Biological Warfare 1966

HO 227/114 Extracts from a draft report entitled Operation Antler, the Attenuation of Residual Radiation by Structures 1976

HO 227/121 The beta radiation hazards in fallout 1967

HO 225/1 Some aspects of shelter and dispersal policy to meet atomic attack 1948

HO 225/4 The ‘builtupness’ of Inner London 1948

HO 225/5 An assessment of the effects of an attack on an average area of Inner London with nerve gas 1950

HO 225/115 Report to NATO Shelter Working Party on Fallout Shelters 1962

HO 225/119 Civil defence aspects of radioactive contamination in agricultural produce 1964

HO 225/120 The implications of clean bombs for civil defence 1964

HO 225/121 Ignition and fire spread in urban areas following a nuclear attack 1964

HO 225/125 The behaviour of simulant fallout on roof surfaces covered in polyvinyl chloride 1965

HO 225/128 The psychology of fear 1965

HO 225/129 Civil defence in tall buildings 1965

HO 225/103 Retention of fallout particles on roof surfaces and their removal by washdown with water 1961

HO 225/109 The fire ranges of nuclear explosions in the 10-100 megaton range 1962

HO 225/112 The estimation of ignition ranges for megaton explosions outside the earth's atmosphere 1962
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=1835755&CATLN=6&accessmethod=5

HO 225/114 Chemical protection against effects of ionising radiations 1962

HO 225/113 Report on road decontamination trials carried out at the Fire Service Training Centre, Moreton in Marsh, on 16 February 1962

HO 225/116 Research on blast effects in tunnels with special reference to use of London tubes as shelter 1963

HO 225/117 Experimental determination of protective factors in a semi detached house with or without core shelters 1964

HO 225/130 The energy required for ignition with very short exposure times 1966

HO 225/92 The deployment of civil defence forces into damaged area contaminated by fallout 1959

HO 225/94 Upwind fallout from megaton explosions 1959

HO 225/95 Survey of protection afforded in communal buildings and private houses against radiation from fallout 1959

HO 225/96 The decontamination of residential areas 1959

HO 225/97 Uptake of radioactivity in fire hoses 1959

HO 225/99 The decay of fallout radiation: lecture given at Regional Scientific Advisers' Conference 11 May 1960

HO 225/100 The hazards from direct exposure to fallout in a damaged area 1960

HO 225/101 Downwind fallout area from groundburst megaton explosions 1960

HO 225/68 Protection against gamma radiation from fallout 1956

HO 225/69 The penetration of gamma radiation from a uniform contamination into houses: first report on some field trials 1956

HO 225/30 Atomic warfare in relation to civil defence: lectures given to the staffs of HO Regional Scientific Advisers at AERE, Harwell, 4-6 December 1951

HO 225/31 The standard of protection of trench shelters 1952

HO 225/42 Estimates, for exercise purposes, of the radio-active contamination of land areas from an adjacent underwater explosion 1953

HO 225/45 Gamma radiation dose rates at heights of 3-3000 feet above a uniformly contaminated area 1953

HO 225/46 Basic studies on the casualties and homeless to be expected from heavy air attacks 1953

HO 225/47 The vulnerability of flour mills to atomic attack 1954

HO 225/51 Assumed effects of two atomic bomb explosions in shallow water off the port of Liverpool 1954

HO 225/52 Fatal casualties likely to result from an air attack on UK cities with 20 atomic or hydrogen bombs of varying power 1954

HO 225/58 Seriously injured casualties likely to result from an attack on UK cities with 20 atomic or hydrogen bombs of varying power 1954

HO 225/29 The increase in the number of atomic casualties due to large public gatherings 1952

HO 225/28 Deaths from fire in large scale air attack with special reference to the Hamburg fire storm: report by Kathleen F Earp 1953

HO 225/27 Deaths from fire in large scale air attack with special reference to the Hamburg fire storm 1952

HO 225/26 Some radiological hazards of atomic warfare in relation to civil defence 1951

HO 225/23 The hazard from inhaled fission products in rescue operations after an atomic bomb explosion 1951

HO 225/17 Comparison of day and night population distributions of Birmingham 1950

HO 225/16 The number of atomic bombs equivalent to the last war air attacks on Great Britain and Germany 1950

HO 225/15 Some advantages and disadvantages of a multi-standard shelter scheme 1949
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=1835658&CATLN=6&accessmethod=5

HO 225/14 The advantage of lying prone in reducing the dose of gamma rays from an airburst atomic bomb 1949

HO 225/13 The economic and social effects of the German air attacks on certain British cities 1949

HO 225/12 A comparison between the number of people killed per tonne of bombs during World War I and World War II 1949

HO 225/11 A summary of information on the effect of atmospheric conditions on heat flash, gamma radiation, and blast from an airburst atomic bomb 1949

HO 225/10 The fire risk attendant on the use of blackout curtains during an atomic bomb attack 1949

HO 225/9 Notes on a possible method of defining ‘bulls eye’ areas 1949

HO 225/8 The risk of fire from air attack (prepared for the Working Party on Emergency Fire Fighting) 1949

HO 225/7 The relative advantages of open and closed windows during air attack 1949

HO 225/6 The atomic bomb as a fire raiser: a study of the mechanism of initiation and development 1949

HO 225/5 An assessment of the effects of an attack on an average area of Inner London with nerve gas 1950

HO 225/61 Neptunium-239 as a residual radiation hazard 1955

HO 225/62 The effective energy of fission product gamma radiation 1955

HO 225/64 The protection afforded by trenches and refuge rooms against radioactive ground contamination 1954

HO 225/70 A comparison between observed and calculated protection against fallout radiation 1956

HO 225/71 Numbers of casualties from a groundburst megaton weapon likely to be personally contaminated by radioactive material 1956

HO 225/72 Casualty estimates for ground burst 10 megaton bombs 1956

HO 225/73 The hazard from inhaled fission products in rescue operations after an atomic bomb explosion 1956

HO 225/74 Durability of coated window glass as a heat radiation shield 1956

HO 225/87 Some recent information from USA about fallout from groundburst megaton weapons 1957

‘The evidence from Hiroshima indicates that blast survivors, both injured and uninjured, in buildings later consumed by fire [caused by the blast overturning charcoal braziers used for breakfast in inflammable wooden houses filled with easily ignitable bamboo furnishings and paper screens] were generally able to move to safe areas following the explosion. Of 130 major buildings studied by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey ... 107 were ultimately burned out ... Of those suffering fire, about 20 percent were burning after the first half hour. The remainder were consumed by fire spread, some as late as 15 hours after the blast. This situation is not unlike the one our computer-based fire spread model described for Detroit.’



- Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, U.S. Department of Defense, DCPA Attack Environment Manual, Chapter 3: What the Planner Needs to Know About Fire Ignition and Spread, report CPG 2-1A3, June 1973, Panel 27.

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All of this data should have been published to inform public debate on the basis for credible nuclear deterrence of war and civil defense, PREVENTING MILLIONS OF DEATHS SINCE WWII, instead of dDELIBERATELY allowing enemy anti-nuclear and anti-civil defence lying propaganda from Russian supporting evil fascists to fill the public data vacuum, killing millions by allowing civil defence and war deterrence to be dismissed by ignorant "politicians" in the West, so that wars triggered by invasions with mass civilian casualties continue today for no purpose other than to promote terrorist agendas of hate and evil arrogance and lying for war, falsely labelled "arms control and disarmament for peace": "Controlling escalation is really an exercise in deterrence, which means providing effective disincentives to unwanted enemy actions. Contrary to widely endorsed opinion, the use or threat of nuclear weapons in tactical operations seems at least as likely to check [as Hiroshima and Nagasaki] as to promote the expansion of hostilities [providing we're not in a situation of Russian biased arms control and disarmament whereby we've no tactical weapons while the enemy has over 2000 neutron bombs thanks to "peace" propaganda from Russian thugs]." - Bernard Brodie, pvi of Escalation and the nuclear option, RAND Corp memo RM-5444-PR, June 1965.

Update (19 January 2024): Jane Corbin of BBC TV is continuing to publish ill-informed nuclear weapons capabilities nonsense debunked here since 2006 (a summary of some key evidence is linked here), e.g. her 9pm 18 Jan 2024 CND biased propaganda showpiece Nuclear Armageddon: How Close Are We? https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001vgq5/nuclear-armageddon-how-close-are-we which claims - from the standpoint of 1980s Greenham Common anti-American CND propaganda - that the world would be safer without nuclear weapons, despite the 1914-18 and 1939-45 trifles that she doesn't even bother to mention, which were only ended with nuclear deterrence. Moreover, she doesn't mention the BBC's Feb 1927 WMD exaggerating broadcast by Noel-Baker which used the false claim that there is no defence against mass destruction by gas bombs to argue for UK disarmament, something that later won him a Nobel Peace Prize and helped ensure the UK had no deterrent against the Nazis until too late to set off WWII (Nobel peace prizes were also awarded to others for lying, too, for instance Norman Angell whose pre-WWI book The Great Illusion helped ensure Britain's 1914 Liberal party Cabinet procrastinated on deciding what to do if Belgium was invaded, and thus failed deter the Kaiser from triggering the First World War!). The whole basis of her show was to edit out any realism whatsoever regarding the topic which is the title of her programme! No surprise there, then. Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia are currently designing the W93 nuclear warhead for SLBM's to replace the older W76 and W88, and what she should do next time is to address the key issue of what that design should be to deter dictators without risking escalation via collateral damage: "To enhance the flexibility and responsiveness of our nuclear forces as directed in the 2018 NPR, we will pursue two supplemental capabilities to existing U.S. nuclear forces: a low-yield SLBM warhead (W76-2) capability and a modern nuclear sea launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) to address regional deterrence challenges that have resulted from increasing Russian and Chinese nuclear capabilities. These supplemental capabilities are necessary to correct any misperception an adversary can escalate their way to victory, and ensure our ability to provide a strategic deterrent. Russia’s increased reliance on non-treaty accountable strategic and theater nuclear weapons and evolving doctrine of limited first-use in a regional conflict, give evidence of the increased possibility of Russia’s employment of nuclear weapons. ... The NNSA took efforts in 2019 to address a gap identified in the 2018 NPR by converting a small number of W76-1s into the W76-2 low-yield variant. ... In 2019, our weapon modernization programs saw a setback when reliability issues emerged with commercial off-the-shelf non-nuclear components intended for the W88 Alteration 370 program and the B61-12 LEP. ... Finally, another just-in-time program is the W80-4 LEP, which remains in synchronized development with the LRSO delivery system. ... The Nuclear Weapons Council has established a requirement for the W93 ... If deterrence fails, our combat-ready force is prepared now to deliver a decisive response anywhere on the globe ..." - Testimony of Commander Charles Richard, US Strategic Command, to the Senate Committee on Armed Services, 13 Feb 2020. This issue of how to use nuclear weapons safely to deter major provocations that escalate to horrific wars is surely is the key issue humanity should be concerned with, not the CND time-machine of returning to a non-nuclear 1914 or 1939! Corbin doesn't address it; she uses debunked old propaganda tactics to avoid the real issues and the key facts.

For example, Corbin quotes only half a sentence by Kennedy in his TV speech of 22 October 1962: "it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States", and omits the second half of the sentence, which concludes: "requiring a full retalitory response upon the Soviet Union." Kennedy was clearly using US nuclear superiority in 1962 to deter Khrushchev from allowing the Castro regime to start any nuclear war with America! By chopping up Kennedy's sentence, Corbin juggles the true facts of history to meet the CND agenda of "disarm or be annihilated." Another trick is her decision to uncritically interview CND biased anti-civil defense fanatics like the man (Professor Freedman) who got Bill Massey of the Sunday Express to water down my article debunking pro-war CND type "anti-nuclear" propaganda lies on civil defense in 1995! Massey reported to me that Freedman claimed civil defense is no use against a H-bomb, which he claims is cheaper than dirt cheap shelters, exactly what Freedman wrote in his deceptive letter published in the 26 March 1980 Times newspaper: "for far less expenditure the enemy could make a mockery of all this by increasing the number of attacking weapons", which completely ignores the Russian dual-use concept of simply adding blast doors to metro tubes and underground car parks, etc. In any case, civil defense makes deterrence credible as even the most hard left wingers like Duncan Campbell acknowledged on page 5 of War Plan UK (Paladin Books, London, 1983): "Civil defence ... is a means, if need be, of putting that deterrence policy, for those who believe in it, into practical effect."