Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

of government and communication which will throw the survivors-that’s you, chum!-on

their own as completely as ever was Dan’! Boone.

No government-remember that. The United States will cease to be a fact

except in the historical sense. You will be on your own, with no one to tell you

what to do and no policeman on the corner to turn to for protection. And you will be

surrounded with dangerous carnivores, worse than the grizzlies Daniel Boone

tackled-the two-legged kind.

Perhaps we had better justify the assumption of complete breakdown in

government. It might not happen, but, if the new Hitler has sense enough to write

Mein Kampf, or even to read it as a textbook, he will do his very best to destroy

and demoralize us by destro~ing our government-and his best could be quite

efficient. If he wants to achieve political breakdown in his victim, Washington,

D.C., will be his prime target, the forty-eight state capitals his secondary

targets, and communication centers such as Kansas City his tertiary targets. The

results should be roughly comparable to the effect on a man’s organization when his

head is chopped off.

Therefore, in this bad dream we are having, let us assume no government, no

orders from Washington, no fireside chats, no reassurances. You won’t be able to

write to your congressman, because he, poor devil!, is marked for the kill. You can

live through it, he can’t. He will be radioactive dust. His profession is so

hazardous that there is no need for him to study up on how to snare rabbits.

But you should- if you are smart, you can live through it.

Now as to methods-there is just one known way to avoid being killed by an

atomic bomb. The formula is very simple:

Don’t be there when it goes off!

Survival methods in the atomic age can be divided into two headings,

strategical and tactical. The first or strategical aspect is entirely concerned with

how not to be where the bomb is; the second, tactical part has to do with how to

keep yourself and your family alive if you live through the destruction of the

cities and the government.

Strategy first-the simplest way to insure long life for yourself and family

is to move to Honduras or some other small and nonindustrialized country, establish

yourself there, and quit worrying. It is most unlikely that such places will be

subjected to atomic bombardment; if war comes, they will move into the economic

and political sphere of the winner, to be sure, but probably without bloodshed,

since resistance would be so obviously futile.

However, you probably cannot afford, or feel that you can’t afford, any move

as drastic as that. (Whether or not you can in truth afford it is a moot point, to

be settled by your own notion of the degree of danger. The pre-War refugees from

Nazi Germany could not “afford” to flee, either, but events proved the wisdom of

doing so. There is an old Chinese adage, “In the course of a long life a wise man

will be prepared to abandon his baggage several times.” It has never been more true

than it is today.)

There are several moves open to you which are less drastic. If you live on a

farm or in a small village, several miles-fifty is a good figure-from the nearest

large city, rail junction, power dam, auto factory, or other likely military target,

strategy largely takes care of itself. If you are blasted, it will probably be an

accident, a rocket gone wild, or something equally unforeseeable. If you are not in

such a location, you had better make some plans.

Just a moment-a gentleman in the back row has a question. A little louder

please. He asks, “Isn’t it true that the government is planning to disperse the

cities so we will be safe from atomic bombs?”

I don’t know-is it? The only figure I have heard mentioned so far is

$250,000,000,000. Quite aside from the question of whether or not large scale

dispersion can be made effective, there is still the question as to whether or not

Congress would appropriate a quarter of a trillion dollars in peacetime for any