Naked City

The National Security Resources Board wanted to know what an atom-bomb attack would do to the city of Washington. Last week the Atomic Energy Commission was ready with an answer. The report did not make pleasant reading for Washingtonians or for the inhabitants of any city that is a worthwhile target.

The AEC does not agree with the theory--advanced by a Navy witness in the Congressional hearings on the Navy's revolt against unification--that atom bombs are not so destructive. They are extremely destructive, said the AEC report. The report considered only the effects of bombs like the one exploded at 1,800 feet over Hiroshima. Better bombs have been built, but the old ones were effective enough to make the AEC's case.

Three such "Model T" air bursts, said the AEC, would tear the guts out of Washington. A perfect three-bomb pattern would pinpoint the Capitol, the downtown-White House district and the brass-heavy Pentagon across the Potomac (see map).

Wreckage at Zero. The effect would be strongest at "zero": directly under the burst. The AEC's own building, a solid modern structure with four thick concrete floors, would be completely wrecked, and 80% of the people in the building would be immediate blast casualties; others would die later from radiation. Windows and partitions would be hurled about as missiles. More fragile buildings like the White House would be crushed like cardboard.

The blast and fiery wind spreading out from zero would strip the walls and partitions from reinforced concrete buildings half a mile away. For another half mile, steel-frame buildings of the factory type would be wrecked. Even at a radius 1 1/2 miles from zero, the brick walls of houses would be blown down. Many people spared by the blast and the flying rubble within the three-mile diameter of the seared circle would be killed or injured by the flash of heat and radiation.

Fiery Mop-Up. These immediate effects, the AEC pointed out, would be only the beginning. Through the wrecked or damaged buildings--littered with splintered timbers, furniture, papers and merchandise--fire would spring up and spread. Fire-fighting equipment would be trapped in demolished firehouses or hampered by rubble-choked streets. Even if it reached the fires, it would have no water to fight with: broken pipes would have reduced the pressure in the mains to near zero. The roaring flames, perhaps stirring up a "fire storm" as they did at a standard-bomb assault on Hamburg, would kill many people missed by the bomb itself.

The AEC does not estimate how much greater damage would be caused by the vastly more powerful bombs developed since those were dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But it hints that an enemy might prefer to explode its bombs underwater to spray Washington with radioactive water. A spray of far-flying radioactive rubble from a bomb that penetrated the ground or buildings before exploding might be even more effective.

How could the damage be minimized? Proper underground shelters might save many lives, but the AEC believes that a warning, though valuable, would not come soon enough to get everybody under cover. When the survivors emerged from hiding, they would wander helplessly through a useless city. As for restoring the nerve-center functioning of the U.S. Government and the military, AEC could see only one solution: disperse vital Government agencies, get some of them, at least, off the fat bomber's target that Washington presents.

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