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Show ; CAPITOL ?tf9L& , WATCHDOG Willi J By Bill Hendrix In the past few years U.S. political leaders have been complaining about the build-up of military capability by the Soviet Union. One area of particular concern is the Russian Civil Defense System which is unparalleled in the world and makes the U.S. Civil Defense System of the 10's look very inadequate by comparison. . The differences in the two systems has been traced to popular commitment com-mitment by the citizens of the "super powers". In the U.S. nuclear attack is considered, to be 'a holocaust the beginning of the end of the world. In the USSR, however, nuclear attack is considered just another form of warfare war-fare from which a large segment of the population will survive. This survival, according to reports from dissident Jews who have left the Kremlin, is dependent on the Russian Civil Defense De-fense System. Thus, the systems logical popularity and resulting growth. American Generals, interviewed at the Pentagon in Wasington, D.C., admitted, ad-mitted, though somewhat guardedly because of the reaction from their Commander in Chief, that the survival rate for U.S. citizens, if Russia threw everything she had at us, would be well over 100 million Americans. That's a population similar to the U.S. around 1915. They go on to say that with an adequate Civil Defense System we could expect that figure to rise dramatically up to 150 million, or the U.S. population in 1950. At least one of the U.S. Presidential candidates, George Bush, contends the United States should be preaching "survivability" rather than "holocaust" from nuclear attack. Bush claims such talk represents a def eatest attitude based on indefensible logic that there will be nothing left after a nuclear war. Recently, a conference of anti-war nhvsicians and researchers gathered at Cambridge, Massachusetts to review what they called, "medical consequences con-sequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear war". Without regard to' existing information on the affects of nuclear explosions, the group proceeded to "propagandize" the conference and the media through political attacks on most of the American candidates for office, and anyone else who suggests we improve our military, capability and Civil Defense System. As reported in the "Washington Star" newspaper the Cambridge Conference exclaimed, in contradiction to military scientists, that "all major populations and industrial in-dustrial centers would be hit, both in the U.S and the Soviet Union. That is in one hour, 90 percent of the population of the world die, just from the blast force. Because its tentacles seem to resemble the snakelike hair of Medusa in Greek mythology, the jellyfish has the scientific name medusae. The rest of the people, plants, mammals mam-mals and birds would be gone within two weeks. To the Southern Utah victims of atomic testing in the 1950's this scenario must sound close to comical. These patriotic citizens watched for years while the U.S. Government dumped radioactive ash on their homes, livestock and loved ones. Many were adversly affected and are seeking just compensation for their suffering. But none of the victims who withstood this-unnecessary punishment died within 60 minutes after exposure to radioactive fallout. In fact, none died after two weeks. Radiation victims in the Army who laid in fox holes and trenches five miles from the blasts 30 years ago are still alive and seek compensation for their injuries. It is true, if there is an attack many will get sick and many will die from radiation exposure. Many will die as a result of being without shelter from atomic blast. But to assert that 90 percent of the population would die within 60 minutes of a nuclear attack is the reason the U.S. has no Civil Defense System and the Russians are ready to receive anything we have to dish out. |