Americana: Absolutely, Positively

Dr. Strangelove walked into a House hearing room last week looking suspiciously like an official of the U.S. Postal Service. Testifying about a 1981 plan for mail delivery after a nuclear war, Ralph H. Jusell, the Postal Service civil defense coordinator, said, "Those that are left will get their mail." Under the plan, express, registered, certified and special delivery service would have to be suspended for a while, but first-class mail would continue to receive priority treatment; it would be delivered even if the survivors ran out of stamps. Some preparations are already in place: postal distribution centers have stocked food and medical supplies for their workers. "What good would that do?" fumed Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat. "There will be no addresses, no streets, no blocks, no houses." Branding these blueprints "idiotic" and "deceitful," subcommittee members pointed out that there would also be no trucks, trains or airplanes for delivering the mail. Later, Retired Rear Admiral Gene La Rocque, a defense policy expert, said, "I can assure you that while neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night will stay the postal couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds, nuclear war will."