Clock factory where Dad worked used radium then phosphorous to make the dials glow...
when they demolished the factory, the walls were GLOWING, only one person who worked in the radiation section lived to be over 56....they had to get the international atomic energy agency to over see its safe removal.

idiots lied about the threat of nuclear war, Reagan copped out of going to his nuclear briefings while hawk psychos WANTED a first strike on Russia, jeesh. when he did go he was given the stark assessment that the projected minimum likely US death toll would be 110 million.
he pooped his pants, as any sane perosn would and started a dislaogue and stopped the "Evil Empire" bullshit against the Russians (for which the psychos in his party never forgave him)
See the "Able Archer" event on wiki, we almost all got nuked cause of American hotheads, ick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83

AMericans had a false sense of security in that their nation had never been slaughtered (well, apart from the Natives) so didn't have social grasp of what total war really meant (GI's dying is not the same as seeing your cities raised like Europe and others did, as a cultural horror), plus the illusion of a large landmass providing safety from harm.

the reality was different.  the Russians SS18 ICBM could fire ten warheads with 750kilotons EACH, or a 20 megaton bomb.
Russia has 8500 warheads ready, and 11,000 in storage in the 80s.
The incredible damage, firestorms and fallout means you don't need many warheads to waste an entire US state, especially if it goes "total war" and they decide to hit cities, civilian nuclear reactors etc

modern cities have about 5 times as much fuel sources for fire as those in 1940s, we're richer, more plastics etc, so firestorms form nuke attacks would be immense. Imagine the entire Chicago, LA, New York areas as hurricanes of fire.

the we have Nuclear Winter....anyone who says that's not poossible really does need their head examined. thousands of firestorms would cause perpetual twilight, just like immense voclanic eruptions do (flood basalts)

Human Beings are not fit to have such weapons.

 

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