Nuclear War Survival Skills
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| Author | Cresson H. Kearny |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject |
Civil Defense Nuclear War |
| Genre | Reference |
| Publisher | Oak Ridge National Laboratory |
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Publication date
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September 1979 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 277 pages |
| ISBN | |
Nuclear War Survival Skills or NWSS, by Cresson Kearny, is a civil defense manual. It contains information gleaned from research performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory during the Cold War, as well as from Kearny's extensive jungle living and international travels.
Nuclear War Survival Skills aims to provide a general audience with advice on how to survive conditions likely to be encountered in the event of a nuclear catastrophe, as well as encouraging optimism in the face of such a catastrophe by asserting the survivability of a nuclear war.
The main chapters are preceded by forewords from Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner. Following this is an introduction which explains that even the fruition of the Strategic Defense Initiative program would not make "self-help civil defense" obsolete. A comparison is made of the civil defense preparations of Switzerland, Russia, and the United States, where it is concluded that: "Switzerland has the best civil defense system"; "The rulers of the Soviet Union... continue to prepare the Russians to fight, survive, and win all types of wars"; and that "the United States has advocated... a strategy that purposely leaves its citizens unprotected hostages to its enemies." Thus, "The emphasis in this book is on survival preparations that can be made in the last few days of a worsening crisis."
The first chapter aims to give background information to dispel various demoralizing myths and reaffirm the potential survivability and reality of nuclear weapons. "An all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States would... be far from the end of human life on earth." Myths listed include: "Fallout radiation from a nuclear war would poison the air and all parts of the environment. It would kill everyone."; "Fallout radiation penetrates everything; there is no escaping its deadly effects."; and "Unsurvivable "nuclear winter" surely will follow a nuclear war."
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