STATEMENTS CONCERNING CASUALTIES RESULTING FROM GENERAL NUCLEAR WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00429A001200030023-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2004
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: September 23, 1963
• Content Type: IM

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Current Intelligence
23 September 1963
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: Statements Concerning Casualties Result-
ing from General Nuclear War
1. Statements by officials of the United States
and Soviet governments on the subject of casualties
resulting from nuclear exchange tend to be grand in
scope and scanty in detail, reflecting the difficul-
ties of answering a complex and essentially theoret-
ical question. Meaningful comparisons between state-
ments by US and Soviet officials are therefore dif-
ficult to make. The following summary of statements
is intended to be selective rather than exhaustive.
An attempt has been made to eliminate general pro-
nouncements on the catastrophic nature of nuclear
war as well as those statements of a purely polemi-
cal or propaganda purpose. Classified US statements
are not included,
2. Open source Soviet statements on nuclear
warfare generally are heavily propagandistic and
avoid the use of details. In those instances where
specific figures are used, official US reports are
often cited as the sources:
"According to data submitted to the Senate
by American experts, losses after 24 hours of
nuclear war are expected to total 50 to 75 mil-
lion people,"
Premier Khrushchev, 6 January 1961;
Report on Moscow Conference.
"According to the US Health Service, in the
event of a nuclear blow on cities in America,
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whose population totals 188 million, the num-
ber of killed alone would amount to 53 million."
Marshal Malinovskiy, 23 October 1961;
XXII Party Congress.
3. Exceptions to this general lack of detail
in open source Soviet statements have been noted on
occasion in semiofficial Soviet publications. An
April 1962 article by Major General Talenskiy in
International Life, for example, noted that a 50-
mega ?n rogen omb could destroy any capital in
the world, would kill up to 12 million people, cause
total destruction over an area of 1,930 square miles,
considerable damage within 49.7 miles of the point
of impact, and contaminate a surrounding area of
7,867 square miles with lethal radiation.
4. One recent statement by Premier Khrushchev
did cite specific casualty figures, however, and is
comparable to a similar recent statement by a high-
level US official:
"According to the calculations of scientists
the very first blow would destroy between
700 and. 800 million people.. All large
towns, not only in the United States and the
Soviet Union--the two leading nuclear powers--
but also in France, Britain, Germany, Italy,
China, Japan, and many other countries would
be razed to the ground and destroyed. The con-
sequences of atomic and H-bomb war would be ef-
fective during the lives of many generations
and would result in disease, death, and would
cripple the human race."
Premier Khrushchev, 16 January 1963;
Sixth SED Congress.
"A full-scale nuclear exchange, lasting
less than 60 minutes, could wipe out more than
300 million Americans, Europeans, and Russians,
as well as untold numbers elsewhere. And the
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survivors, as Chairman Khrushchev warned the
Communist Chinese, "would envy the dead.' For
they would inherit a world so devastated by
explosions and poisons and fire that today we
cannot conceive of all its horrors."
President Kennedy, 26 July 1963; Ad-
dress to the Nation.
5. In no case, however, do Soviet leaders ad-
mit to an inferiority to the West:
"The American politicians more and more
persistently reiterate over and over again to
their people that in a thermonuclear war the
United States will suffer smaller losses than
the Soviet Union and will be able to gain the
upper hand. This is a fatuous illusion. The
imposition of such an interpretation of a ques-
tion aims at preparing the public opinion of
America and its allies for the unleashing of a
war."
Premier Khrushchev, 10 July 1962;
Moscow Disarmament Conference.
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Soviet Statements on Casualties Resulting from Nuclear
Warfare
1. "In the days of the (Cuban) crisis the American
people felt the scorching breath of thermonuclear
war on the threshold of their home, and began to
understand that if a world war was unleashed it
would take its course not somewhere over the ocean
in Europe or Asia but everywhere, including Ameri-
can territory, and bring grief and death to millions
of Americans."
Premier Khrushchev; 12 December 1962
Speech to the Supreme Soviet
2. "In the estimate of authoritative atomic scien-
tists in the West, the potential of nuclear death
in the present world is 250,000 megatons, or 250
billion tons of TNT. Thus, on an average over 80
tons of explosives are already in store for every
inhabitant of our globe, and the population of the
globe is plentifully supplied with this commodity.
"It assumes a universal. nature and will bring
destruction and death upon millions of people in
every part of the world. What does it mean in
terms of mankind? One of the outstanding fighters
against atomic death, the prominent American scien-
tist Linus Pauling, in his book "There Must Be No
More Wars," estimates the number of possible human
victims in a nuclear war at about 800 million.
"In such a war only a few thermonuclear bombs
can completely destroy not only major industrial
centers with multimillion populations but whole
states. American experts have calculated that one
hydrogen bomb of 20 megatons, exploded in the air,
would raze all brick and steel houses within a
radius of up to 24 kilometers from the epicenter
of the explosion. The firestorm would burn every-
thing flammable, all living creatures, in an area
extending from New York to Philadelphia.'"' Now bombs
of 50, 100, and even more megatons have been created.
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According to approximate calculations of scientists,
the world?s atomic weapons stocks are already equal
in yield to 12.5 million bombs of the type dropped
on Hiroshima."
Premier Khrushchev; 10 July 1962
Moscow Disarmament Congress (World
Peace Council)
3. "According to scientific calculations, the ex-
plosion of a single hydrogen bomb in an industrial
area can destroy up to 1.5 million people, and
cause death from radiation to another 400,000.
"Even a medium-sized hydrogen bomb is sufficient
to wipe a large town off the face of the earth.
British scientists have concluded that four megaton
bombs, one each for London, Birmingham, Lancashire,
and Yorkshire would destroy at least 20 million
people.
"Pawling, a well-known American scientist,
states: The areas likely to suffer strong nuclear
blows are inhabited by about 1 billion people-. In
60 days from the moment of atomic attack, 500 to
750 million people could perish. Nuclear war would
also bring innumerable hardships to the peoples of
those countries not directly subjected to bombing;
in particular, many millions would perish as a re-
sult of the lethal consequences of radiation."
Premier Khrushchev; 6 January 1961
Report on Moscow Conference
4. "In the event of another world war, all countries
would ultimately suffer in one way or another. We
too, would suffer great calamities; we would have
many losses, yet we would survive. Our territory
is immense and the population is less concentrated
in major industrial centers than in many other
countries. The West would suffer incomparably more."
Premier Khrushchev; 14 January 1960
Speech to the Supreme Soviet
5. "This year at a session of the UN General Assembly
we proposed universal and total disarmament. We
are ready to sink all our rockets. Incidentally,
let me tell you and let people abroad know this, I
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am not hiding it---that in one year a plant that we
visited produced 250 rockets with hydrogen warheads
on the assembly line. This is many millions of tons
in terms of ordinary explosives. You can imagine
that if such deadly weapons were dropped on any
country, nothing at all would be left there. This
is the sort of powerful weapons we have to defend
our homeland...."
Premier Khrushchev; 14 November 1959
Moscow, Meeting With Soviet Journalists
6. "Permit me to remind you now of certain data.
An official document of the US Congress states that
'263 thermonuclear strikes with an average TNT
equivalent of some 5 million tons each may be dealt
against the most important targets in the US in the
initial stage of war.' According to the American
calculations, 132 large military targets, many and
important industrial enterprises of various types,
and 71 large cities would be destroyed by these
strikes. The total area of radioactive contamina-
tion would cover almost one half the country's ter-
ritory. As a result of all this, one half the pop-
ulation would be subject to destruction by nuclear
weapons.... Moreover, a number of calculations
similar to those given above, but pertaining to
other countries, are cited. For example, they cal-
culate that no more than eight nuclear warheads,
each equivalent to 5 million tons (of TNT), are
necessary to put West Germany out of operation...."
Marshal Malinovskiy; 23 October 1961
XXII Party Congress
7. "If for purposes of clarification and analysis
we turn to the calculations of both our own and
foreign specialists, it appears that approximately
100 of these nuclear charges exploded in a brief
period of time over a state with developed industry
whose area comprises about 300,000-500,000 square
kilometers would be enough to turn all its indus-
trial areas and centers of political administration
into a heap of ruins and the territory into a life-
less desert contaminated with deadly radioactive
substances. Moreover, states of small area and high
population density are extremely vulnerable, while
states with extensive territory, on the other hand,
have less vulnerability and greater capacity to
survive.
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"We have taken all this into account, and having
at our disposal powerful modern means of fire in the
form of rockets with nuclear warheads, we find it
completely practical to undertake a substantial re-
duction in the numerical strength of the Soviet
Armed Forces without harm to our defense capabili-
ty....
Marshal Malinovskiy; 14 January
1960
Speech to the Supreme Soviet
8, "A 10-megaton bomb, of which there are already
large numbers in the thermonuclear arsenal, can
cause total destruction in an area with a radius of
12-15 kilometers and considerable damage, including
the burning of all combustible materials, within a
radius of 30-50 kilometers. This bomb can permanent-
ly blind a person looking toward the explosion at a
distance of up to 150 kilometers. It can cause the
death, by radioactive fallout, of all (exposed)
persons within an area over 300 kilometers long and
about 40 kilometers wide, depending on the direction
of the wind, within 48 hours following the blast.
According to average calculations, the explosion of
a thermonuclear rocket or bomb dropped on urban or
industrial centers can cause the death of from2
to 8 million people, not counting those who would
subsequently die from (exposure to) radiation. Such
casualties would range from 25 to 40 percent of the
total number killed in the blast.
"But a 10-megaton rocket or bomb has not been the
limit for a long time. Fifty-megaton rocket war-
heads or bombs--these too are now available in the
arsenal of rocket and nuclear means of combat--can
cause 50 to 100 percent more fatalities and destruct-
ion than the 10-megaton bomb, A 100-megaton thermo-
nuclear bomb can inflict still greater fatalities
and destruction. It can cause second-degree burns
over a distance of more than 100 kilometers; cause
injury (with 50 percent of the fatalities occurring
within the first 4 days) by radioactive fallout with-
in a range of more than 1,000 kilometers from the
epicenter of the explosion; and injure the retina,
to the extent of complete loss of vision, over an
additional 1,000 kilometers."
Major-General Talenskiy; October
1963
International Life
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U.S. Statements on Casualties Resulting from Nu-
clear Warfare:*
1. Q n general, the results of a series
of studies on the effects of nuclear war
show that between 40 and 120 million
Americans would survive the blast and
heat effects of a large scale nuclear
attack which might be possible in the
years ahead, but would be killed by the
fallout radiation which would blanket
large sections of the country--unless
they had access to a shielded place to
take cover from the radiation."
Steuart L. Pittman; 19 July 1962
Civil Defense Council Meeting,
Seattle
2. "Although the Soviets could in a nu-
clear exchange cause the gravest damage
to the United States and its population,
they do not possess at this time either
the first or second strike capability to
destroy the U.S."
Arthur M. Dean; 30 May 1962
Geneva Disarmament Conference
3. "A 20-megaton ground burst on downtown
Boston would seriously damage reinforced-
concrete buildings to a distance of 10
In view of the number of U.S. public
statements quoted by Soviet officials
and reported under Annex I, only a few
statements have been selected for in-
clusion in this Annex. Many of these
statements, as well as those U.S. and
Soviet statements included in Annex I,
have been used in numerous subsequent
statements on the subject by other gov-
ernment officials.
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miles, roughly 'to circumferential Route
128, and demolish all other structures.
"Within a circle of a radius of 16 to
21 miles second-degree burns would be
produced and clothing, houses, foliage,
gasoline and so forth would ignite, pro-
ducing a fire storm. Human survival in
this area would be practically impos-
sible, and an estimated 2,250,000 deaths
would occur in metropolitan Boston from
blast and heat alone."
"The Medical Consequences of
Thermonuclear War," New Eng-
land Journal of MediFirne l
9UT'-mss su m1 EtedTo the
House Armed Services Commit-
tee, June 1963)
4. "A five-megaton nuclear burst at ground
level would destroy most buildings two
miles from the point of the explosion.
Steel-frame buildings would be knocked
sideways and great fires started.
"The destruction five miles away would
be less severe, but fires and early fall-
out could be a significant hazard.
"At 10 miles, sturdy buildings would
remain intact. At this distance fires
probably would not be started by the
fireball, but might be started by the
blast wave which could rupture gas lines
and short-circuit wires. Flying glass
would present a major danger, as would
early fallout.
"At 50 miles from the bomb burst,
all buildings would remain standing.
The fading blast wave would take about
five minutes to arrive, but would still
shatter many windows. The greatest
danger at this distance would be from
early fallout which would begin arriv-
ing in some areas within three or four
hours, depending upon weather conditions
at the time."
Fallout Protection;
Zivv"=eTerise amp let
December 1961
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POPULATION
MILLIONS
200
LIFE SAVING POTENTIAL
OF
FALLOUT SHELTER SYSTEM
IN ATTACKS AGAINST
MILITARY-URBAN-INDUSTRIAL TARGETS
SURVIVORS WITHOUT SHELTER
1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000 8,000 9,000 10,000
RANGE OF MEGATONNAGE DELIVERED
In event of attacks against military targets alone, total fatalities would be reduced and
life saving potential of shelters would be increased.
SOURCE: Composite of damage assessment studies by Department of Defense
(from Highlights oft: ~51~'C00iLlifB~A~@0918es Committee July 163)