pounds of frozen vegetables, one-half pound of fats and oils, two pounds of potatoes and one-half pound of sweets. “That’s about two thousand to twenty- five hundred calories per person per day,” Gay points out, “about two-thirds of normal caloric input right now, if you could take something from each grouping.” (“A daily intake of 2200 calories would probably be adequate for a month or more,” another postattack food expert asserted in 1967, “or perhaps even beneficial in view of estimates that twenty percent of all adults and...children are obese.”) To conserve as many farm resources as possible, rationing will not be confined to food for people. The distribution of seed and farm-equipment repair parts will also be contro'led, and farm animals will be put on rationed diets. (Lactating sows will be allowed twelve pounds of feed a day, laying chickens one-fifth of a pound. If there’s not enough feed for both, the chickens will take precedence over the sows. Fatally irradiated animals will be allowed no feed at all.) Defense Food Order No. 5 limits the use of fertilizer following “a surprise enemy attack on the United States” to essential crops, specified to include all food grains, vegetables, fruits, fiber crops, oil crops—and tobacco, which seems to be a case of postattack planners working at cross-purposes. “The long-term effect” of a nuclear attack on the United States, postattack health researcher Dr. Conrad Chester told a congressional committee in 1976, “could be an increase of thirty percent in cancer incidence in some parts of the country. While this increase is undesirable, it does not threaten national survival. It could be cancelled out by neglecting to rebuild the cigarette industry.” One of the toughest resources to handle will in fact be labor. “Individuals and small groups foraging and hoarding of found supplies consume available resources and do nothing to bring about future resupply,” one civil defense manual observes. “Means must be found for satisfying the survivors’ basic needs while, at the same time, motivating and directing the efforts of survivors in other critical recovery activities.” The actual means for directing survivors into useful “A daily intake of 2200 calories would probably be ■ adequate for a month or more, or perhaps even beneficial in view of estimates that twenty percent of all adults and...children are obese.” activities are only hinted afin unclassified postattack planning documents. But the Civil Emergency Preparedness Handbook of the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration does state that, following a nuclear attack, “previously prepared mobilization plans...would be implemented. These plans include workforce registration.” Additional measures that “will be undertaken only as a last resort when voluntary actions prove insufficient” include “mandatory controls in the area of workforce mobilization.” Such measures may include the “requirement that certain workers provide their services to meet essential survival needs.” The planning for medical workers is more straightforward. “In the event of a nuclear attack on the United States,” another Labor Department manual says, “many physicians, dentists, veterinarians, podiatrists and optometrists would suspend private practice and become salaried employees of emergency treatment centers.” Several physicians’ groups opposed to the nuclear arms race have in recent years argued at great length that it is hopeless to plan for any meaningful medical care after a nuclear attack, but the planners are not discouraged. “We have a zillion allergy doctors out there,” says one FEMA official. “Their work can be redirected.” A 1972 government-wide study conducted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, based on a “computer-processed simulation” of a 1971 nuclear war involving a 6800- megaton attack on the United States, concluded that the nation “could survive, continue the conflict and recover.” Six years after the war, the study said, the economy would have recovered to such an extent that survivors “would have approximated a 1965 per capita standard of living, except for automobile production.” By the seventh year, a 1970 standard of living would have been achieved, it said. It did not say whether new Thunderbirds would be available by then. (Other studies have pointed out the paradox inherent in measuring the per capita standard of living. The more people are killed, the better it is. “Return to preattack GNP per capita has been used in other studies as a reasonable recovery goal,” a 1979 study said. “But would we have achieved recovery if there were ten survivors living at this level?") ou can have all the plans •BB you want,” said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) at a Senate committee hearing in 1982, “and I think it’s going to be an illusion for us.” He was addressing General Louis Giuffrida, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is responsible for American civil defense and coordinating all postattack planning. “You’re going to delude this country into thinking that somehow we can survive a nuclear war.” “Is it better,” asked Giuffrida, “to have a realistic, long-term plan to address this kind of emergency, and then use every effort we have to preclude ever having to implement it, or to have no plan at all? I agree th^t the ideal alternative would be to immediately abolish nuke [s/c] weapons. Failing to do that, it seems to me that this is a morally prudent action to take.” “Have you ever seen the movie Dr. Strangelove?" asked Leahy. “As you work with these plans do you ever get a Strangelovian feeling at all?" “I didn't think the movie was very good,” said Giuffrida. “I’m not surprised,” said Leahy. The Day After World War III was published by Viking Press, 1984. 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