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Breter Vol. IT No.1 ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI SEPTEMBER. 195% (Reprinted be ~~ RUGEEAR WAR Wt ST. LOGES: GUE YEAR LATER CAMP G ~ 2-27, OCTOBER 16, 196-, Tomorrow it will be just one year since That Day -- the day that ended the wor we used to live in, and reduced our lives to an elemental struggle against hunger, sickness, grief, and despair. Here in this camp outside Vermillion, 17,000 of us who managed to pull through, more ot less, are living in huts, tents, and sod houses. Among the St. Louisans here, by some ironical chance, are three of us who were active in CN]. Yesterday we de cided to mark this grim anniversary by writing down the history of this terrible year, as we know it, Not that anyone will publish this mock Nuclear Information -- not much is printed nowadays, and a sheet of clean white paper is a rare Juxury But we have managed to get hold of some scraps of packing material to write on. Maybe at some remote time, when some thing like civilization is restored, if it ever is, historians would like to know what we have seen. 1, THE DESTRUCTION OF ST. LOUIS My nume is George Scott. I'm a physicist — or at least, I was. My being alive today is just chance. { was preparing 8 paper that had to be finished on That Day, so] stayed home to work on it in the little study ! had built for myself in the basement of my new house out beyond Creve Coeur. Qn the campus, hardly anybody survived. It has been pretty hard to separate sound information from the rumors that fil) the air, but it’s now generally agreed that the continenta] U.S. was hit by nearly 1500 megatons on the one day that the war Jasted.! Seventy cities were hit, as well as major defense installations and atomic facilities.2 About 23 million people were killed that first day. More than that have died since, but nobody agrees about the exact figure. J remember that when the Holifield Committee held hearings on the subject, back in 19591 think, one expert estimated that a massive attack would injure about 43 million people, of whom more thaa a third would survive.3 That's not the way it was, though, the injured didn’t have much chance, with the hospitals pone and medical supplies burned up and the doctors mostly dead. As for the uninjured -- well, there was starvation, and there was typhus, and then there were a Jot of people who just went out of their minds and either killed themselves or died because they couldn't ma the effort to survive, Two Weapons St. Louis was hit by two weapons, of eight and ten me tons equivalance.2 The ten megaton bomb exploded at 11 and Pine.4 They say there’s a crater there now, a mile across and several hundred feet deep. The force of the blast, and it's heat, destroyed nearly everything, in a cir extending north and south to the city limits, and westwa as faras Big Bend. East of Grand almost everybody wa wiped out at once. From Grand to Big Bend some people survived the atiack itself, but not many are stil] alive. § The ferocious heat of the explosion caused the worst havoc. Fires were started instantaneously as far away as Weldon Spring.® People who were out in the open sufferer third degree burns even in Ellisville? Second degree buri were common several miles beyond that. And many peojle were burned by fires started by the explosion, The destruction uf major firchouscs, and the panic Continued on next pene. e e . described last June in hearings before the [ot on radiation of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atumic Energy, The assumption was thac the 7U largest cities inthe country had heen destroyed by nuclear weapons. Technical experts discussed the effects of such an attack, Physicists estimated the levels of radiation and the destruction of buildings. Weather experts told how fallout would | sions. Physic ibed the $licers of blast, heat and radia agricultural 3 neussed the damage to livestock and crops and disti- ans des, on bu: sence was Presented, but nobody put ittoyether to 1 the fundamental question: Whet weuld life be ihe for the survivors of o nucleor wor? This issue of Nuclear Injormaticr is an answer to that op in tke form of fiet but not to be regarded ck of iunpination. The pr facts in this. account re taken fiom the testimony. The frotiotes give die specific ter Hobitic shi sted bees pantitiee sty bay seponty th that it * ield subcommittee AN EXPLANATION ° . . The probable effects of nuclear war in the United States were which need 1 be understood, considered and discussed.” CN) offers this interpretation in the hope thar it will help accomplish this aim. In this account some assumptions have been made. Wt has been assumed that the Army is able to take control of rhe situation; since many mi} areas, this assumption 2 A technical assumption is that in St. Louis County the water system cone tinaes 16 function; de location of the Howard Bend plant umption is that the survivors to cope with their desperate stic, ar wir might be far mare grim than the side of urban in the a situacion, H chy the aftermath of stay presented here. re This account of three St. Lovisans a year alter the day of Uevastation was acitten by Dr. Florence Moog, prot of zooloyy in Washington University, widh the rect assistance of Dry Wa te Mauer, instinctor in suryical patholoyy, Schoat of Ki, Reynolds: assistant profe é a Uni hopes erat yowill belj its readers to bear stand the efthe facts that were presented before the Mo lifield tee.