Living with Mega-Death

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have encouraged the Soviets to conclude that perhaps they need not make any concessions at the bargaining table as long as there is a chance that West European politicians, goaded by their noisy constituents, will block the deployment of new U.S. weapons on the Continent in any event.

Now the fear of holocaust has taken root in the U.S., as exemplified in the numerous initiatives of the nuclear-freeze movement. It is as though the spotlight of public attention—and public anxiety—had finally focused on "the football," illuminating that curious, innocuous-looking fixture of the President's entourage. More intensely and skeptically than before, people are wondering about that briefcase, not so much what it contains as what it represents. Under what circumstances would the President actually call for it to be unlocked? And what would happen if the codes inside were actually unsealed and transmitted? And what then? And then?

And after the missiles are fired, would there be anything—and anyone—left? Should nuclear weapons be regarded simply as new and more destructive instruments for waging war? And thereby, in Karl von Clausewitz's famous phrase, continuing politics by other means? Some strategists, including a number who are either members of or consultants to the Reagan Administration, believe that with proper improvements in American defenses, the U.S. could wage and win a nuclear war. Despite the disclaimers of their leaders, some Soviet strategists almost certainly believe their country could do the same thing. Other specialists, both American and Soviet, are convinced that such thinking is almost insane, that it contributes to the likelihood of a war, and that once the conflict begins, it will not end until the planet has been destroyed.

By the nature of the topic, the debate cannot be resolved conclusively one way or the other. There are no true experts on what could happen in a nuclear war, for the simple and merciful reason that mankind has had practically no experience from which to make judgments and predictions with any certitude. In the final analysis, answering some of the most elementary questions is largely a matter of guesswork, intuition and ideological—almost theological—conviction. Even what might at first blush seem to be matters of objective fact, established by empirical evidence, turn out to be elusive.

For example, the Soviet Union and the U.S. carried out many A-bomb and H-bomb tests in the atmosphere between 1945 and 1963, after which they agreed to confine all future tests to underground. Yet considerable conjecture remains over the effects of these explosions. Extrapolating from some equipment failures after an American test over Johnston Island in the North Pacific 20 years ago, defense planners concluded that high-altitude blasts send out a shock wave called electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which can burn out transistorized and computerized communications for thousands of miles around.

General David Jones, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, fears that the Soviets might use a single multimegaton airburst over the U.S. to strike the entire nation—and its defense nerve centers—deaf, dumb and blind. Insulating the American command-and-control network against EMP, to preclude the possibility that the U.S. might be unable to fire a single shot, is one of the many