On that day we performed sixteen pediatric euthanasias, for the most part on children suffering both pain and brain damage from radiation or other poisoning.
We found numerous cases of mental breakdown. Paranoia, schizophrenia, catatonic withdrawal were all present in the population. Our psychological pharmacopoeia consisted of a little Thorazine and Valium. We dispensed what Thorazine we could to the schizophrenics. We recommended that the mentally ill who were unable to function be euthanized, with the consent of their families. Nobody volunteered their psychotic relatives at first, but the prospect of being free from the burden of their presence caused people, as is usually the case, to come to us in the night to get the cyanide capsules.
We also faced numerous cases of partially stabilized radiation sickness. These individuals were usually covered with sores from 46 WARDAY
secondary infections and were in great agony. Upon being told of the hopelessness of their situation, most of them willingly accepted the death alternative.
Because of their oaths or religious objections, many British doctors have refused to dispense euthanasia treatment, so this aspect of the program was left to me. I spent my days living out tragedies with the victims, and my nights in dreams of indescribable horror, where I heard them calling me from the grave, and imagined that I had accidentally buried them alive. But it wasn't true, I was not the shadow of death. To these people, with their burns and their sickness and their tormented bodies, I was mercy.
Among the problems with which we could not cope were the various parasitic diseases. They are not much of a problem in Britain, and we simply failed to anticipate their presence here. Hookworm, tapeworm, ascaris, and giardiasis were the most serious of these. These diseases were in adults unattractive and debilitating, but in children they were devastating. The acuteness of the problem can be realized when one reflects that these people, forced to live on a below-starvation-level diet, one almost absent of proteins, were being consumed from within by their own worm loads. We instructed on the use of saline enemas, developed by the CDC as a means of temporarily reducing infestation, especially in the cases of hookworm and tapeworm. But the only real relief, namely proper medication and a good, clean source of food and water, simply was not available at this time.
Our contamination specialist surveyed the area in some detail, and found it seriously affected by radiation. Most of the population was radiation-poisoned to some degree at least. There was also malnutrition. Only a few children were free of rickets. Pellagra, the old curse of the South, had reasserted itself.
We realized, during that first day, that we were in the presence of a whole world, small though it was, that was dying before our eyes. There were only two babies under the age of six months. One had been blinded and had lost a hand, and the other was suffering from a severe systemic infection.
The county sheriff, Mr. Weaver, reported that they buried five or six people a day, generally in shallow graves in a field near the THE WEST 47
old town graveyard. The local Catholic priest, Father Menendez, and the Baptist minister, Mr. Harold, officiated at the brief cere-monies.
Our one overwhelming wish was to radio out and somehow get great loads of food and clothing and, above all, medicines for these people. But we knew exactly what would come: little, and too late.
Instead we settled on a recommendation, which we presented to the sheriff and the two religious leaders the next day, that the whole population start moving north. A hundred miles closer to Dallas there were communities that were still very much intact.
We also offered to send what supplies we could down from Dallas, but we couldn't provide much.
The situation was stark. If they stayed, all of these people were going to die. As the sheriff pointed out, a lot of them would also perish on the journey.
After we had dispensed all of our drugs and held as many information meetings as we could on every subject from personal hy-giene to the three signs of terminal malnutrition, we took our leave of the people of Yoakum and returned to Dallas.
Eventually a column of these refugees did set out. Along the way they had lost about two thousand stragglers, with five thousand dead or unable to continue. Only six thousand people arrived in North Texas, of whom three thousand were placed in isolation due to their infectious disease status. All three thousand of these eventually died.
Of the fifteen thousand people alive in Yoakum on the day we visited, approximately two thousand remain alive today.
Poll
What We Expect, What We Fear: American
Opinion in 1993
About six weeks ago there arrived in the offices of the Herald
News a familiar brown manila envelope that brought cheers when it was opened.
It was a production of the Consolidated American Polling Group, made up of former staff members of the Harris, Gallup, and Sindlinger organizations. After two years of reorganization and preparation, they were finally beginning to distribute national polls once again. Two documents were enclosed, one a poll of attitudes about the present state of the country, and the other concerning future expectations.
We will be presenting sections of these two polls throughout the book at points where they seem germane.
The samples used in the surveys each consisted of more than 1,400 American adults eighteen years of age and older. The samples are statistically representative of the nation in terms of geographic and demographic design. For comparison purposes, 1992
data are given where appropriate.
Naturally, neither the polls nor our use of them in any way reflects the opinions of the Consolidated American Polling Group Inc.
48
THE WEST 49
Do you think that the destiny of this country is presently in the hands of other nations?
1993 1992
A G R E E 4 6 % ' 4 9 %
D I S A G R E E 47 43
NO O P I N I O N 7 8
When queried about which regions or nations of the world were most influential, the responses were:
Region 1993 1992
W E S T E R N E U R O P E 4 5 % 4 1 %
J A P A N / A S I A 25 22
AFRICA 5 5
LATIN A M E R I C A 10 12
A U S T R A L I A / P A C I F I C 6 7
M I D D L E E A S T 7 9
O T H E R 2 4
When asked about specific nations, the responses were: Nation 1993 1992
U N I T E D K I N G D O M 3 2 % 3 3 %
W E S T G E R M A N Y 12 13
F R A N C E 10 11
S W E D E N 7 6
JAPAN 26 21
S A U D I ARABIA 4 6
A R G E N T I N A 3 4
BRAZIL 4 4
O T H E R 2 2
Will the United States ever again emerge as a world economic power?
1993 1992
A G R E E 3 7 % 3 2 %
D I S A G R E E 57 62
NO O P I N I O N 6 6
50 WARDAY
Will the United States ever regain its status again as a military p o w e r ?
1993 1992
A G R E E 32% 29%
D I S A G R E E 65 67
NO O P I N I O N 3 4
Documents _
from the Emergency
There was no doubt that it was fire. They felt it burn their skin, then their bones, then their brains.
—J. Hillyer, Passion for War
THE BUREAUCRAT'S COLD EYE
The first test of my ability to get sensitive documents from official sources came immediately. Both Whitley and I wanted to have a selection of documents that had been produced in the months following Warday.
Most people were too busy dealing with blown out radios, televisions, and telephones, and trying to understand what had happened to us, to worry about bureaucrats and their pronouncements.
But they were there, and they were pronouncing.
Many times since Warday I have imagined the places where the postwar planning and thinking
took place, the quiet offices at the edge of the fire. I have wondered who the men—or the women—
were who divided the doomed from the saved, who conceived of triage, who looked upon the rest of us with cold eyes.
Much of what I did to get documents was "illegal" in the old sense of the word. I not only took things off desks, I opened files that were supposed to be sealed. But the documents in those files cannot be stolen, especially not the two collected here, which relate to the most fundamental of wartime experiences.
Like the people behind the numbers and the places in the radioactive zones, they belong to all of us.
51
52 WARDAY
ESTIMATED CASUALTIES ASSOCIATED WITH THE OCTOBER 1988 WAR
Deaths as a Result of October 28, 1988 Attack
New York City Area
2,961,881
San Antonio* Texas
1,081,961
Washington, D.C. Area
2,166,798
The Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming
1,121,802
EMP-Related Accidents
8,106
Total Warday Deaths
7,340,548
Cumulative Deaths Since October 28, 1988 Attack
Cincinnati Flu
21,600,000
Famine of 1988
26,200,000
Radiation Related Illnesses
17,000,000
Other
3,000.000
Total Post-Warday Deaths
67,800,000
Total Deaths to Data
75,140,548
Total U.S. Population Changes
1987 U.S. Population
237,625,904
1992 U.S. Population, Estimated
174,384,000
[Source: CDC, 1993]
THE WEST 53
0 14 1500 ZULU MARCH 89
TO ALL DIVISIONS OF THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES
FROM JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
COLORADO HDQ/JCS. 173.A888
UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, THE FOLLOWING DESIGNATIONS WILL BE EMPLOYED IN DESCRIBING RADIOACTIVE ZONES:
DEAD ZONE
BLAST CENTER. VIRTUALLY UNPASSABLE.
RECON ONLY BY AIRPLANE. AVOID ALL
CONTACT. NO ATTEMPT WARRANTED TO
FOLLOW ILLEGAL ENTRIES.
RED ZONE
HIGH RADIOACTIVITY AREA. ADMITTANCE
LIMITED TO 10 MINUTES WITH PROTECTIVE
CLOTHING OR SUITABLE VEHICLE. ILLEGAL
ENTRIES MAY BE SHOT ON SIGHT.
ORANGE ZONE
VARIABLE RADIOACTIVITY. SUSTAINED
ENTRY WITH SUITABLE PROTECTION.
VIOLATORS SHOULD BE GIVEN WARNING
SHOT.
BLUE ZONE
VARIABLE LOW RADIATION, USE CAUTION
AND PROTECTIVE CLOTHING WHENEVER
POSSIBLE.
GREEN ZONE
PERIMETER AREAS. USE STANDARD
MILITARY PROCEDURES FOR SECURITY
IMPLEMENTATION.
ALL ROAD ENTRY TO ZONED AREAS SHOULD BE IDENTIFIED WITH APPROPRIATE NOMENCLATURE. SECURITY PROCEDURES APPLICABLE EXCEPT
WHERE NOTED FOR CONTAMINATED AREAS.
THIS ORDER TO TAKE EFFECT 1300 ZULU 15 MARCH 1989
Interview
Wilson T. Ackorman, Undersecretary
of Defense (Ret.)
[THE CONDUCT OP THE WAR. Wilson Ackerman is well known in Dallas, in the same way that somebody with an exotic contagion might be well known. People glance at him in the streets, ask him questions. Sometimes, I suppose, they do more than that.
Ackerman was aboard the Doomsday Plane on Warday. His testimony seemed essential, and he was available. I The man is deeply afraid. His eyes never stop moving. Although I don't think he is more than forty-five, like so many of us he seems much older. His hands touch and caress his face as he talks, in a dry, quick voice that seems at times too precise, and at other times curiously rich.
There is an almost lyrical terror in this man. It is an emotional state, perhaps, beyond guilt. I do not think it has a name.
As Wilson Ackerman spoke in his careful tones I thought of a lover's murmuring, and the quarrels of children, and the voices of the night]
I did not know that we were in a war situation until the Secretary telephoned my office and told me in a brusque tone to activate Case Quick Angel. I then set in motion the series of actions that were designed to disperse upper echelons of the Executive Branch 54
THE WEST 55
during a nuclear war. This order was given by me at exactly 1530
on 28 October 1988.
Shortly after that I joined the Secretary, as per plan, on the helicopter pad. We left the Pentagon via helicopter at once, heading for Andrews Air Force Base. With Secretary Forrest was Air Force General Potter Dawes, who was carrying the backup codes.
We reached Andrews at 1545 hours and found that the White House contingent had already entered the E-4B aircraft. Under the Quick Angel basing protocols, the E-4B had recently been returned to Andrews from a base in Indiana. Donald Meecham informed us that the President was aboard and the National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP) was ready for takeoff.
We then entered the aircraft and proceeded directly to the Presidential suite. The President greeted us and we sat down to a briefing from SAC General Joe Point. General Point indicated that there had been a Soviet response to the Space Shuttle's deployment of the first satellite in the Spiderweb warhead-killer system.
This response was to open the doors of a group of SS-18 silos in central Siberia. Altogether they were preparing a launch of twelve missiles containing a total of fifty-four warheads in the 5- to 10-megaton range. At that time they had not launched any missiles.
As our aircraft took off, we received telemetry from NORAD
indicating that there had been an explosion, probably nuclear, in near space over the western Pacific Ocean. NASA then announced that the Space Shuttle had ceased to communicate with Houston due to this detonation, and had probably been destroyed.
As the Spiderweb satellites were radiation hardened, the one deployed remained operational, but it was far from its intended orbit, and we now had no means to transport it. It was effectively useless, and in any case, formed only a small part of the total system. At that point the President decided that it was probable that we would soon be in a hot war. He therefore authorized Defense to transmit a War Warning to all U.S. military commands. I carried out that order at 1550 hours. Here is the text of the document: The Space Shuttle Enterprise was destroyed by a nuclear device of unknown origin at approximately 1545 hours U.S. Eastern Stan-
58 WARDAY
dard Time this day. It was engaged in a Defense Department mission. Please consider this a War Warning, and proceed to your designated alert level immediate.
This caused SAC and the U.S. Navy Submarine Command to go to One Alert status, and the other services to respond by entering their highest states of readiness. It was at this point that war became inevitable, but at the time there was still a sense of control in the NEACP The President activated the hot line to Moscow. The telephone at their end was not answered. At last the President put the instrument down. "Gentlemen" he said, "I am afraid that the Premier will not talk to me." We then instructed Ambassador Underwood in Moscow to call on the Premier at once and inform him that the United States was willing to negotiate a settlement of the question that had arisen between us. We further attempted communication by the hot line teletype on the chance that the telephone system might be out of order.
There had been a massive failure on the part of Western intelligence to correctly evaluate the Soviet response to the deployment of Spiderweb. This system, utilizing ultra-high-power laser beams, which targeted and destroyed warheads in space after they were ejected from their missile buses, was intended to render the United States invulnerable to land- or sea-based attacks. As the target ac-quisition system was optical, the Soviet low-radar-profile systems were no defe
nses. We did not know at the time how far in advance of existing Soviet weaponry this system was, or deployment would have been evaluated differently.
It was our stated intention before the deployment to begin dismantling the American offensive missile force once we were protected by the Spiderweb system. The Soviet leadership had given us no indication that they did not believe this, and had not even protested the deployment of Spiderweb.
In retrospect it is obvious that they were so far behind technologically that they were afraid to so much as whisper a protest, lest their weakness become known to us.
Although I was not a party to the decision to deploy Spiderweb, I am trying to come to grips with the fact that I was assisting in the management of a system of defense that had drifted into a THE WEST 57
state of extreme brittleness, in the sense that our own technological superiority was making our enemy increasingly desperate, and thus was actually causing the very war it was intended to prevent.
As per plan, the NEACP proceeded due south toward its intended operational area, approximately 100 miles SSW of the Cape Charles Lighthouse, over the Atlantic Ocean.
At 1555 the National Security Agency informed us that three Soviet satellites had begun unusual orbital maneuvers. NSA said that these were designated as unusually large communications relay satellites, and that there had been optical and electronic surveillance confirming this. However, this remarkable maneuver capability made them highly suspect. The President then ordered SAC to destroy these satellites, utilizing the ground-based Sling-shot missiles, which are a classified weapons system. The Sling-shots were fired. Less than two minutes passed before the threatening satellites were destroyed. But it was too late. We were soon informed that they had successfully ejected four large weapons, which were dropping to an altitude level of 100,000 feet over California, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Manitoba. The President made a sighing sound, as if he had been struck in the chest. We all knew what terrific damage the country was soon going to sustain.
It is far easier to create high-level electromagnetic energy in pulsed form than it is to shield against it.
War Day Page 6
