re: #99 Eric The Fruit Bat
Some light reading:
U.S. Cold War Nuclear Target Lists Declassified for First Time
According to 1956 Plan, H-Bombs were to be Used Against Priority “Air Power” Targets in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe
Major Cities in Soviet Bloc, Including East Berlin, Were High Priorities in “Systematic Destruction” for Atomic Bombings
Plans to Target People (“Population”) Violated International Legal Norms
SAC Wanted a 60 Megaton Bomb, Equivalent to over 4,000 Hiroshima Atomic Weapons
Don’t know if any of you watched the second season of Manhattan. On the target committee the lead scientist, Charlie Isaacs, argued the target had to be a populated city where they could maximize civilian casualties, not to win this war, but prevent the next one. He said they had to be the monsters, because people couldn’t imagine how awful a nuclear war would be, they had to be shown. Its obviously monstrous logic, and I don’t even know if any real person on the real target committee said such a thing, but we did get through the Cold war without nuclear weapons ever being used again.