haphazard and unpredicted derivation of many of our discoveries emphasizes.
Moreover, it now appears that a massive attack with many large-scale
nuclear detonations could cause such widespread and long-lasting
environmental damage that the aggressor country might suffer serious
physiological, economic, and environmental effects even without a nuclear
response by the country attacked.

An effort has been made to present this paper in language that does not
require a scientific background on the part of the reader. Nevertheless it
must deal in schematized processes, abstractions, and statistical
generalizations. Hence one supremely important perspective must be largely
supplied by the reader: the human perspective--the meaning of these
physical effects for individual human beings and for the fabric of
civilized life.

Fred C. Ikle
Director
U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency



INTRODUCTION


It has now been two decades since the introduction of thermonuclear fusion
weapons into the military inventories of the great powers, and more than a
decade since the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union ceased
to test nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. Today our understanding of the
technology of thermonuclear weapons seems highly advanced, but our
knowledge of the physical and biological consequences of nuclear war is