13 Comments
Sep 2Liked by Alex Wellerstein

The illustrations are so vivid that they look like representations of a historical event rather than a possible calamity.

Expand full comment

The British used a 20kT "nominal bomb" in their Civil Defence planning too.

Expand full comment
Aug 21·edited Aug 21

I am currently listening to the audiobook of Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka's terrifying 80s post-nuclear oral history WARDAY, which opens with a slightly botched USSR attack on the greater NYC area and always brings to mind these Bonestell paintings. Recommended book (I've read it probably 10 times since 1987), despite Strieber eventually going off the deep end with UFO stuff later in his career. The description of the events leading up to the nuclear exchange from a character who relates being with the President in the NEACP is harrowing, as is the description from a survivor's perspective of the attack on NYC. I am always reminded that, in this telling, I would have been vaporized in an instant the day before my little sister's 12th birthday based on the detonation of a warhead in eastern Queens.

Expand full comment

All anyone has to do is to read Nuclear War by Annie Jacobson to understand how a nuclear exchange will mean the end of the world. Pax

Expand full comment

I watched the entire interview of Annie Jacobson by Lawrence Krauss, and commented extensively on the interview on Krauss's Critical Mass blog.

https://lawrencekrauss.substack.com/p/ad-free-video-this-is-the-way-the

Annie Jacobson seemed very well informed and quite articulate on the subject. Krauss is as well. What obsesses me however is that none of the books, articles, papers, documentaries or any other form of media on the subject of nuclear weapons really do any good. The same goes for my comments and blog. All of it goes in one ear and out the other.

I want to read a book by experts which just admits that nothing anyone has said or done for 75 years has even come close to removing the threat. What's happening instead is that we are engaged in a process whereby we keep doing the same things over and over and over to no effect while expecting that will someday somehow lead to a different result than complete failure.

As example, Annie Jacobson's book, like all such books, seems built upon an assumption that if we had adequate information that would make a difference. There is actually no credible evidence to support such an assumption, but instead 75 years of evidence to the contrary.

I once suggested to Krauss that scientists might stage a series of strikes, that is, replace information with leverage. He immediately dismissed the idea, and he was right, not going to happen. So the plan elites have in mind seems to be to keep on writing books that never work while ignoring anything new that might.

Expand full comment

The problem is that the genie 🧞 is out of the bottle and will never return. All we can do is try to contain the technology and to find ways not to use it. A truly sad state of affairs. Pax

Expand full comment

The images are indeed harrowing, but what's sticking with me is the subtitle. "Hiroshima, USA" is a pretty darn effective title, but "Can Anything Be Done About It?" seems particularly poignant, plaintive.

Of course, as your work on civil defense has frequently made clear, the only answer is the one Joshua comes to in War Games.

Expand full comment
Aug 25·edited Sep 6

Very excited to see this new venue! You have always posted excellent material and am always waiting for more. As a aerospace/ defense illustrator I've studied this painting many times. It's the first picture at the start of the article I find particularity interesting. The one with the detonations instead of the later aftermath. I believe Bonestell actually did the painting over an underlayment of an enlarged photo of that view of Manhatten. He's worked with paint over the entire surface and I'm not saying he simply painted explosions over a photo. It's a very good solution to the problem of creating so much detail. My curiosity is peaked and I wonder if there was a deadline looming and he needed a short cut. The other painting is done differently (though the photographic part may be farther buried beneath semi- tansparent paint). I worked on a similar project for the National Space Society showing the aftermath of an meteor hitting Los Angeles and the Bnestell work was at my elbow the whole time. It's nice to see a good reproduction- they are hard to find and this seems to be the best! Thanks again!

Expand full comment

Gad, I came across these images in the early 80s researching a project in the archive of my old university. They've stayed with me all these because the stark quality of them had an imapct that no photo could ever capture. Think about that for a second, all anyone at Hiroshima who was taking pictures would have to do is simply point the camera at any scene of devestation and click: he would probably have an image that would have been quite memorable if not harrowing. Paintings like those here on the other hand require a long chain of deliberate decisions on the part of the painter as to color and shading, angle of view etc, all of which demand an immense knowledge of the subject, far more than the average person would have: it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the painter had trouble sleeping at night given what he Had to know to get this as right as it seems,...

Funny thing, for me at least, is that these images arn't the most powerful of the moment of a nuclear attack or the seconds after the Bombs detonate: that honor would have to go with the scene of nuclear devastation that appeared in the Twilight Zone Episode called "Time Enough To Last" . I've watched the episode about a dozen times since first seeing it as a kid and it never fails to impress me in the way that it conveys a sense of utter desolation after a nuclear exchange while at the same time avoiding all the cliches of a nuclear attack(mushroom cloud image, raging fires, charred bodies etc): all you get in that episode are visuals that imply an immense power visiting Burgess Merideth and the community he lives, one so powerful that it might not even be possible to look at without being destroyed(shades of the Gorgon!).

Expand full comment

Somehow I’d never come across those images. Terrifying but no surprise. Many thanks for a fascinating essay.

Expand full comment

As you say, imagery likes this is widely available, almost pervasive, but none of it seems to do much good. There are thousands of books and papers on the subject too, and they also seem to have little effect upon culture wide nuclear weapons denial. As best I can tell, this is just too big of a subject for human beings to grasp in the abstract. Nothing meaningful is likely to happen on nuclear weapons until after the next detonation, at which point anything can happen, for the better and the worse.

I get the focus on NYC given what an iconic American city it is. And of course it was the target of the 911 attacks, which makes it seem more real. That said, Washington DC seems a much more inviting target. Here's a list of the federal agencies that might be put out of commission in an nuclear attack on Washington DC.

General Services Administration

Office of Personnel Management

Department of Education

Department of Veterans Affairs

Internal Revenue Service

National Archives and Records Administration

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Securities and Exchange Commission

Commodity Futures Trading Commission

United States Mint

Small Business Administration

National Endowment for the Arts

Commission on Civil Rights

Administrative Office of the United States Courts

Federal Labor Relations Authority

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Department of Commerce

Department of Homeland Security

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

Office of Management and Budget

International Development Finance Corporation

Natural Resources Conservation Service

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Science and Technology Policy

Export–Import Bank of the United States

Department of State

National Labor Relations Board

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service

Department of Justice

Department of the Interior

Environmental Protection Agency

Department of Labor

Department of Health and Human Services

Bureau of Indian Affairs

Federal Trade Commission

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Library of Congress

Department of the Treasury

AmeriCorps

Federal Maritime Commission

Defense Intelligence Agency

Department of Agriculture

Federal Bureau of Prisons

National Security Council

Legal Services Corporation

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Department of Homeland Security

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Department of State

Department of Justice

Defense Intelligence Agency

The White House

The Capitol

The Supreme Court

Pentagon

CIA

Expand full comment

Does Collier’s provide a response to its own question: “can anything be done about it?”

Expand full comment

Very harrowing perspective.

Expand full comment