San Jose Mercury News Editorial
9/28/1981

A Program Too Important to Miss

It is 3 o'clock on a sunny October afternoon when the one-megaton warhead detonates 7,000 feet in the sky over downtown San Francisco.

The shock wave and 500-mile-per-hour winds obliterate every structure within 1.5 miles of ground zero. All human being within that radius are instantly vaporized or killed by third-degree burns. People up to 35 miles away -- in San Jose to the south, in Marin County to the north -- are permanently blinded by the fireball. As the shock wave moves outward, air rushes in to fill the vacuum, giving birth to a firestorm eight miles wide with temperatures as high as 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit.

When it is over there are 780,000 dead and more than 380,000 wounded. Nearly all of the wounded will be dead within hours or days because of their injuries, because of radiation, because there is little or no safe food or water, and because there are at most 2,000 doctors and 2,000 hospital beds to handle them. Those who live will think the dead are the lucky ones.

The scenario is not a science fiction writer's fantasy, it reflects the informed judgment of H. Jack Geiger, M.D., professor of community medicine at the City College of New York. Geiger was envisioning the results of a single, one-megaton blast over one American city. To get a rough idea of the horror of a full-scale U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange, multiply the picture by a factor of 20,000.

Dr. Geiger was one of the principal speakers at the conference of Physicians for Social Responsibility last November in San Francisco. His presentations and those of other conference participants have been assembled into a powerful 30-minute program entitled “The Last Epidemic: Medical Consequences of Nuclear War.”

“The Last Epidemic” is not pleasant viewing. It is disturbing, frightening, at times excruciating. It should be seen by every American who cares about the survival of himself, his decendants, his country or his species. It is especially recommended to anyone who believes this nation or any nation could “win” a nuclear war.