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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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!).
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.
The illustrations are so vivid that they look like representations of a historical event rather than a possible calamity.
The British used a 20kT "nominal bomb" in their Civil Defence planning too.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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!
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!).
Somehow I’d never come across those images. Terrifying but no surprise. Many thanks for a fascinating essay.
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
Does Collier’s provide a response to its own question: “can anything be done about it?”
Very harrowing perspective.