DE CLASSIFIED Authority OFFICE OF THE OF DEFENSE - #1 Wm DECLASSIFIED Authority 72 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE OFFICE OF CIVIL DEFENSE WASHINGTON 25 D C ' '4 JAN 1963 MEMORANDUM FOR DR GERALD W JOHNSON SUBJECT Review of Hollister Study U A brief review has been made in this office of the draft report liThe Biological and Environmental Consequences of Nuclear Attacks Using IIClean Weapons as you requested Our general reaction is that the study is quite superficial and unnecessarily vague In this respect the paper adds very little to the DODDAC study of October 1962 which covers the immediate and short-term fatalities and casualties among people and livestock as well as providing the quantitative input to the study in question Although it is well-rec gnized that there is a great deal yet to be learned about the biological and ecological effects of nuclear radiation exposures it seems that the analysis could have treated these matters more quantitatively than has been done Furthermore the report seems to avoid commenting on the significance of such results as are arrived at 1 am somewhat at a loss as to why this should be the case since a considerable part of our knowledge in these areas was developed in the AEC To be more specific in commenting on the aforementioned weak nesses we have keyed the following comments to the conclusions of the study a The first six conclusions are restatements of the results of the DODDAC work and do not pertain directly to the presumed objective of this report On the other hand the scope of the present study is not clearly defined in the text and the intended objective must be inferred from the topics treated of which there appear to be two 1 exposure dose from internal emitters 2 the effects of ionizing radiation on terrestrial ecosystems EXCLUDED FROM AUTO ATIO REGRADING DOD DIR 5200 10 l OES NOT APPLY oeD CRET Centrol Nr s-_ _ o b The seventh conclusion states that survivors of clean-weapon attacks survive with a lower lifetime gamma exposure dose -- Ita factor relevant to the subsequent state of their health II The statement is derived from the DODDAC results It must refer to the potential decreased incidence of late somatic effects leukemia life-shortening etc and genetic effects Yet these biological effects are not discussed in the report and no indication is given of the potential significance of the difference in exposures Quantitatively the difference in average dose is a factor of about 3 or for the most severe attacks about 200 R for the clean weapon as against about 600R for the normal weapon The unanswered question is what is the likely significance of the difference in terms of the outcome for the survivors and their descendants c Conclusion 8 restates the generality that clean weapons will expose plant life to lower doses than normal weapons As an example it is stated that crop damage may be lessened by clean attacks However there is no analysis in the text to back this statement the only quantitative information Table IX referring to pine trees Even these data are not related to the attacks studied so that the reader is not able to judge how pine forests would have fared Cd Conclusions 9 through 11 apparently refer to the question of the uptake of internal emitters but only in general terms The implications in terms of the fate of agriculture are not drawn The text is somewhat more quantitative indicating that internal exposures from clean weapons would be about 4 percent of those from normal weapons But Table Vll shows that the estimated total dose from Strontium and Cesium for normal weapons is at most 30 to 130 rads This suggests that the problem is not significant for either weapon type Conclusion 13 bears somewhat on this question by proposing that if the population had better shelters the internal emitter dose might become relatively more important but the absolute significance is not estimated e The 12th Conclusion deals with the thyroid exposure to 1-131 The estimates do not represent the state of the art because as pointed out the upper part of the stated range is unlikely because the milk ows will not survive Both Carl Miller and George LeRoy have made calculations that account for this fact Their results give an upper limit of several thousand rads well below the ablative doses for either children or adults The whole problem is somewhat overplayed because this sort of damage could so easily be prevented by blocking the thyroid with stable iodine - - DECLASSIFIED Authority - _'1 l GBP 't 72 f The last conclusion lends some support to the position that radiological effects from normal weapons are not a significant limit on the pursuit of agriculture and then seems to present an apology for failing to be more definite It is of some interest for example that the Subcommittee on Postattack Ecology of the NAS Advisory Committee on Civil Defense is of the opinion that the ecological effects attributable to fires would be much greater than those attributable to nuclear radiation The fire problem is invariant in the matter of clean versus normal weapons In summary it would appear that the draft report is unnecessarily ' reluctant to do the necessary calculations perform the essential comparisons and make reasonable estimates of significance As I mentioned to you in a recent conversation we hope to do a more definitive job in this ji area shortly that may give you some additional information JLz Strope Walmer E Director for Research 3                     National Security Archive    Suite 701  Gelman Library  The George Washington University    2130 H Street  NW  Washington  D C  20037    Phone  202 994‐7000  Fax  202 994‐7005  nsarchiv@gwu edu