million and Moscow at four million. Now they are claiming twenly-five million more
in the Union, and over a million increase in Moscow.” She thought a bit. “It’s a
lie. Unless they are breeding like flies everywhere outside Moscow, they have lost
population since the War-not gained. I haven’t found even one family with more than
three children. The average is less than two. And they marry late. Robert, they
aren’t even replacing themselves.”
She looked at that empty river. “Not quite as big as Copenhagen is my
guess.”
We stopped in many other cities-Alma Ata, Tashkent, Samarkand, Minsk, Vilno,
Kiev, Riga, Leningrad, etc.- and she continued her gentle questioning but never
found reason to change her opinion. Even out in the Muslim countries of Turkestan
the birthrate was low, or the answers seemed to show it. She did not write down her
figures (Well, I don’t think she did; I warned her not to) but she has a memory that
is effectively perfect as long as necessary.. . then she can wash out useless
details, which I can’t do.)
How was it possible for the Russians to claim that Moscow was seven times as
big as it actually was? How could I be right and the whole world wrong? The World
Almanac gave the same figures the Russians did, all news services seemed to accept
Russian population figures- how could a Big Lie that big not be noticed-and
denounced?
About a year later I had a chance to discuss it with an old shipmate, an
admiral now retired but then holding a
major command. I asked him how many people there were in Moscow.
He answered, “I don’t know. Why don’t you look it up?” (When a high brass
answers, “I don’t know,” he may mean, “Don’t be nosy and let’s change the subject.”
But I persisted.)
“Make a guess. You must have some idea.”
“Okay.” He closed his eyes and kept quiet for several minutes. “Seven
hundred and fifty thousand, not over that.”
(Jackpot!)
I said, “Mister Ought Ought Seven, have you made a special study of Russia?
Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“Not at all. is command] gives me all the trouble I need without worrying
about Russia. I simply worked it as a logistics problem, War College style. But I
had to stop and visualize the map first. Roads, rivers, railroads, size of
marshalling yards, and so forth. You know.” (I did, vaguely. But I wasn’t a War
College graduate. He is.) “That city just doesn’t have the transportation facilities
to be any bigger than that. Get much over three quarters of a million and they’d
starve. Until they double their tracks and increase their yards they can’t risk a
bigger population. You don’t do that over night. They can pick up some slack with
the river-but it doesn’t go where they need it most.”
And there it stands. Either all three of us are crazy despite the fact that
all three of us got the same answer to a numerical question using three entirely
different but logical methods. . . or for many, many years the Kremlin lie factory
has peddled their biggest and fanciest “Pravda” without ever being questioned.
Look-both the Pentagon and the State Department know exactly how big Moscow
is, and the Kremlin knows that they know. We were high-flying ’em with the U-2 for
four years; you can bet Moscow was carefully photographed many times. Our present
Eye-in-the-Sky satellites are so sharp-eyed that they can come close to reading the
license plate on your car; our top officials know precisely what the logistics
situation is for Moscow-and every economist knows that one of the parameters that
controls strictly the upper limit to the size of a city is how many tons of food it
can ship in, week in and week out, never failing. Most big cities are only a day or
two away from hunger, only a week or so away from beginning starvation and panic.
Moscow isn’t even a seaport; she’s a riverport and not a good one. Most food
must come overland by train or lorry.
Maybe she’s built enough more facilities since 1960
but in 1960 she just didn’t have what it takes. Since I can’t believe the