If the above picture is too bleak, let us not prate about dispersion. There are only three real alternatives open to us: One, to form a truly sovereign superstate to police the globe; two, to prepare realistically for World War III in which case dispersion, real and thorough dispersion, is utterly necessary, or, third, to sit here, fat, dumb, and happy, wallowing in our luxuries, until the next Hitler annihilates us!
The other necessary consequences of defense by dispersion are even more chilling than the economic disadvantages. If we go it alone and depend on ourselves to defend ourselves we must be prepared permanently to surrender that democratic freedom of action which we habitually enjoyed in peace time. We must resign ourselves to becoming a socialistic, largely authoritarian police state, with freedom of speech, freedom of occupation, and freedom of movement subordinated to military necessity, as defined by those in charge.
Oh, yes! I dislike the prospect quite as much as you do, but I dislike still more the idea of being atomized, or of being served up as a roast by my starving neighbors. Here is what you can expect:
The front door bell rings. Mr. Joseph Public, solid citizen, goes to answer it. He recognizes a neighbor. "Hi, Jack! What takes you out so late?"
"Got some dope for you, Joe. Relocation orders—I was appointed an emergency deputy, you know."
"Hadn't heard, but glad to hear. Come in and sit down and tell me about it. How do the orders read? We stay, don't we?"
"Can't come in—thanks. I've got twenty-three more stops to make tonight. I'm sorry to say you don't stay. Your caravan will rendezvous at Ninth and Chelsea, facing west, and gets underway at noon tomorrow."
"What!"
"That's how it is. Sorry."
"Why, this is a damned outrage! I put in to stay here—with my home town as second choice."
The deputy shrugged. "So did everybody else. But you weren't even on the list of essential occupations from which the permanent residents were selected. Now, look—I've got to hurry. Here are your orders. Limit yourself to 150 pounds of baggage, each, and take food for three days. You are to go in your own car—you're getting a break—and you will be assigned two more passengers by the convoy captain, two more besides your wife I mean."
Joe Public shoved his hands in his pockets and looked stubborn. "I won't be there."
"Now, Joe, don't take that attitude. I admit it's kinda rough, being in the first detachment, but you've had lots of notice. The newspapers have been full of it. It's been six months since the President's proclamation."
"I won't go. There's some mistake. I saw the councilman last week and he said he thought I would be all right. He—"
"He told everybody that, Joe. This is a Federal order."
"I don't give a damn if it's from the Angel Gabriel. I tell you I won't go. I'll get an injunction."
"You can't, Joe. This has been declared a military area and protests have to go to the Provost Marshal. I'd hate to tell you what he does with them. Anyhow, you can't stay here—it's no business of mine to put you out; I just have to tell you—but the salvage crews will be here tomorrow morning to pull out your plumbing."
"They won't get in."
"Maybe not. But the straggler squads will go through all of these houses first."
"I'll shoot!"
"I wouldn't advise it. They're mostly ex-Marines."
Mr. Public was quiet for a long minute. Marines. "Look, Jack," he said slowly, "suppose I do go. I've got to have an exemption on this baggage limitation and I can't carry passengers. My office files alone will fill up the back seat."
"You won't need them. You are assigned as an apprentice carpenter. The barracks you are going to are only temporary."
"Joseph! Joseph! Don't stand there with the door open! Who is it?" His wife followed her voice in.
He turned to tell her; the deputy took that as a good time to leave.
At eleven the next morning he pulled out of the driveway, gears clashing. He had the white, drawn look of a man who has been up all night. His wife slept beside him, her hysteria drowned in a triple dose of phenobarbital.
That is dispersion. If you don't believe it, ask any native-born citizen of Japanese blood. Nothing less than force and police organization will drive the peasants off the slopes of Vesuvius. The bones of Pompeii and Herculaneum testify to that. Or, ask yourself—will you go willingly and cheerfully to any spot and any occupation the government assigns to you? If not, unless you are right now working frantically to make World War III impossible, you have not yet adjusted yourself to the horrid facts of the Atomic Age.
For these are the facts of the Atomic Age. If we are not to have a World State, then we must accept one of two grim alternatives: A permanent state of total war, even in "peace" time, with every effort turned to offense and defense, or relax to our fate, make our peace with God, and wait for death to come out of the sky. The time in which to form a World State is passing rapidly; it may be gone by the time this is printed. It is worthwhile to note that the publisher of the string of newspapers most bitterly opposed to "foreign entanglements," particularly with Russia, and most insistent on us holding on to the vanishing "secret" of the atomic bomb—this man, this publisher, lives on an enormous, self-sufficient ranch, already dispersed. Not for him is the peremptory knock on the door and the uprooting relocation order. Yet he presumes daily to tell our Congress what must be done with us and for us.
Look at the facts! Go to your public library and read the solemn statements of the men who built the atomic bomb. Do not let yourself be seduced into a false serenity by men who do not understand that the old world is dead. Regularly, in the past, our State Department has bungled us into wars and with equal regularity our military establishment has been unprepared for them. Then the lives and the strength of the common people have bought for them a victory.
Now comes a war which cannot be won after such mistakes.
If we are to die, let us die like men, eyes open, aware of our peril and striving to cope with it—not as fat and fatuous fools, smug in the belief that the military men and the diplomats have the whole thing under control.
"It is later than you think."
HOW TO BE A SURVIVOR
The Art of Staying Alive
in the Atomic Age
Thought about your life insurance lately?
Wait a minute—sit back down! We don't want to sell you any insurance.
Let's put it another way: How's your pioneer blood these days? Reflexes in fine shape? Muscle tone good? Or do you take a taxi to go six blocks?
How are you at catching rabbits? The old recipe goes, "First, catch the rabbit—" Suppose your supper depended on catching a rabbit? Then on building a fire without matches? Then on cooking it? What kind of shape will you be in after the corner delicatessen is atomized?
When a committee of Senators asked Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer whether or not a single attack on the United States could kill forty million people, he testified, "I am afraid it is true."
This is not an article about making the atom bomb safe for democracy. This is an article about you—and how you can avoid being one of the forty million knocked off in the first attack in World War III. How, if worst comes to worst, you can live through the next war, survive the aftermath, and build a new life.
If you have been reading the newspapers you are aware that World War III, if it ever comes, is expected to start with an all-out surprise attack by long-distance atomic bombing on the cities of America. General Marshall's final report included this assumption, General Arnold has warned us against such an attack, General Spaatz has described it and told us that it is almost impossible to ward it off if it ever comes. Innumerable scientists, especially the boys who built the A-bomb, have warned us of it.
From the newspapers you may also have gathered that world affairs are not in the best of shape—the Balkans, India, Palestine, Iran, Argentina, Spain, China, The East Indies, etc., etc.—and the UNO does not seem as yet to have a stranglehold on all of the proble
ms that could lead to another conflict.
Maybe so, maybe not—time will tell. Maybe we will form a real World State strong enough to control the atom bomb. If you are sure there will never be war again, don't let me waste your time. But if you think it possible that another Hitler or Tojo might get hold of the atomic bomb and want to try his luck, then bend an ear and we'll talk about how you and your kids can live through it. We'll start with the grisly assumption that the war will come fast and hard, when it comes, killing forty million or so at once, destroying the major cities, wrecking most of our industry and utterly disorganizing the rest. We will assume a complete breakdown of government and communication which will throw the survivors—that's you, chum!—on their own as completely as ever was Dan'l Boone.
No government—remember that. The United States will cease to be a fact except in the historical sense. You will be on your own, with no one to tell you what to do and no policeman on the corner to turn to for protection. And you will be surrounded with dangerous carnivores, worse than the grizzlies Daniel Boone tackled—the two-legged kind.
Perhaps we had better justify the assumption of complete breakdown in government. It might not happen, but, if the new Hitler has sense enough to write Mein Kampf, or even to read it as a textbook, he will do his very best to destroy and demoralize us by destroying our government—and his best could be quite efficient. If he wants to achieve political breakdown in his victim, Washington, D.C., will be his prime target, the forty-eight state capitals his secondary targets, and communication centers such as Kansas City his tertiary targets. The results should be roughly comparable to the effect on a man's organization when his head is chopped off.
Therefore, in this bad dream we are having, let us assume no government, no orders from Washington, no fireside chats, no reassurances. You won't be able to write to your congressman, because he, poor devil!, is marked for the kill. You can live through it, he can't. He will be radioactive dust. His profession is so hazardous that there is no need for him to study up on how to snare rabbits.
But you should—if you are smart, you can live through it.
* * *
Now as to methods—there is just one known way to avoid being killed by an atomic bomb. The formula is very simple:
Don't be there when it goes off!
Survival methods in the atomic age can be divided into two headings, strategical and tactical. The first or strategical aspect is entirely concerned with how not to be where the bomb is; the second, tactical part has to do with how to keep yourself and your family alive if you live through the destruction of the cities and the government.
Strategy first—the simplest way to insure long life for yourself and family is to move to Honduras or some other small and nonindustrialized country, establish yourself there, and quit worrying. It is most unlikely that such places will be subjected to atomic bombardment; if war comes, they will move into the economic and political sphere of the winner, to be sure, but probably without bloodshed, since resistance would be so obviously futile.
However, you probably cannot afford, or feel that you can't afford, any move as drastic as that. (Whether or not you can in truth afford it is a moot point, to be settled by your own notion of the degree of danger. The pre-War refugees from Nazi Germany could not "afford" to flee, either, but events proved the wisdom of doing so. There is an old Chinese adage, "In the course of a long life a wise man will be prepared to abandon his baggage several times." It has never been more true than it is today.)
There are several moves open to you which are less drastic. If you live on a farm or in a small village, several miles—fifty is a good figure—from the nearest large city, rail junction, power dam, auto factory, or other likely military target, strategy largely takes care of itself. If you are blasted, it will probably be an accident, a rocket gone wild, or something equally unforeseeable. If you are not in such a location, you had better make some plans.
Just a moment—a gentleman in the back row has a question. A little louder please. He asks, "Isn't it true that the government is planning to disperse the cities so we will be safe from atomic bombs?"
I don't know—is it? The only figure I have heard mentioned so far is $250,000,000,000. Quite aside from the question of whether or not large scale dispersion can be made effective, there is still the question as to whether or not Congress would appropriate a quarter of a trillion dollars in peacetime for any purpose. That is a political question, beyond the scope of this discussion. We are concerned here with how you, unassisted, with your two hands, your brain, and your ability to plan ahead, can keep yourself alive during and after any possible Next War.
If you have to live in a large city or other target area, your strategical planning has to be a good bit more detailed, alert, and shifty. You need an emergency home, perhaps an abandoned farm picked up cheaply or a cabin built on government land. What it is depends on the part of the country you live in and how much money you can put into it, but it should be chosen with a view to the possibilities it offers of eating off the country—fish, game, garden plot—and it should be near enough for you to reach it on one tank of gasoline. If the tank in your car is too small, have a special one built, or keep enough cans of reserve permanently in the trunk of your car. Your car should also be equipped with a survival kit, but that comes under tactics.
Having selected and equipped your emergency base, you must then, if you are to live in a target area, keep your ear to the ground and your eyes open with respect to world affairs. There will be no time to get out after rockets are launched. You will have to outguess events. This is a tricky assignment at best and is the principal reason why it is much better to live in the country in the first place, but you stand a fair chance of accomplishing it if you do not insist on being blindly optimistic and can overcome a natural reluctance to make a clean break with your past—business, home, clubs, friends, church—when it becomes evident that the storm clouds are gathering. Despite the tragic debacle at Pearl Harbor, quite a number of people, laymen among them, knew that a war with Japan was coming. If you think you can learn to spot the signs of trouble long enough in advance to jump, you may get away with living on the spot with the X mark.
* * *
Let us suppose that you were quick-witted, far sighted, and fast on your feet; you brought yourself and your family safely through the bombing and have them somewhere out in the country, away from the radioactive areas that were targets a short time before. The countryside is swarming with survivors from the edges of the bombed areas, survivors who are hungry, desperate, some of them armed, all of them free of the civilizing restrictions of organized living. Enemy troops, moving in to occupy, may already be present or may be dropping in from the skies any day.
How, on that day, will you feed and protect yourself and your family?
The tactical preparations for survival after the debacle fall mainly into three groups. First is the overhaul of your own bodily assets, which includes everything from joining the YMCA, to get rid of that paunch and increase your wind and endurance, to such things as getting typhoid and cholera shots, having that appendix out, and keeping your teeth in the best shape possible. If you wear glasses, you will need several pairs against the day when there will be no opticians in practice. Second is the acquisition of various materials and tools which you will be unable to make or grow in a sudden, synthetic stone age—items such as a pickax or a burning glass, for example, will be worth considerably more than two college degrees or a diamond bracelet. Third is training in various fundamental pioneer skills, not only how to snare and cook rabbits, but such things as where and when to plant potatoes, how to tell edible fungi from deadly toadstools without trying them on Junior, and how to walk silently.
All these things are necessary, but more important, much more important, is the acquiring of a survival point of view, the spiritual orientation which will enable you to face hardship, danger, cold, and hunger without losing your zest and courage and sense of humor
. If you think it is going to be too hard to be worthwhile, if you can't face the prospect of coming back to the ruins of your cabin, burned down by drunken looters, other than with the quiet determination to build another, then don't bother to start. Move to a target area and wait for the end. It does not take any special courage or skill to accept the death that moves like lightning. You won't even have the long walk the steers have to make to get from the stockyard pens to the slaughterhouse.
But if your ancestors still move in your bones, you will know that it is worthwhile, just as they did. "The cowards never started and the weaklings died on the way." That was the spirit that crossed the plains, and such was the spirit of every emigrant who left Europe. There is good blood in your veins, compadre!
It is not possible to tell exactly what to do to prepare yourself best to survive, even if this were a book instead of a short article, for the details must depend on the nature of the countryside you must rely on, your opportunities for planning and preparing, the numbers, ages and sex of your dependents if any, your present skills, talents, and physical condition, and whether or not you are at present dispersed from target areas or must plan for such dispersal. But the principles under which you can make your plans and the easiest means by which to determine them can be indicated.
Start out by borrowing your son's copy of the Boy Scout Manual. It is a practical book of the sort of lore you will need. If you can't borrow it because he is not a member of the Scouts, send him down at once and make him join up. Then make him study. Get him busy on those merit badges—woodcraft, cooking, archery, carpentry. Somebody is going to have to make that fire without matches, if that rabbit is ever to be cooked and eaten. See to it that he learns how, from experts. Then make him teach you.
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