28 December 1961

Dear Linus and Anita,

Mama and I have felt rather tired since getting back from the Soviet Union. We lost some weight there. Everything went along well on the trip. Both she and I spoke at a public meeting arranged by the Society for American-Soviet Friendship, with about 800 people present - a peace meeting at which we said about the same thing that we have said at home, and showed a film on the peace movement in Southern California.

On New Year's Day we take off for Chile, by way of St. Louis, where we are stopping for one day to have a conference with our lawyer there. He is our lawyer in our libel suit against the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, one of the four libel suits that we are prosecuting.

The one against the Bellingham Herald is the farthest along. It may come to court in a couple of months.

We are staying about sixteen days in Chile, on invitation of the University of Concepcion, and we shall be back home on the 19th of January. I've been having a hard time completing the revision of my book College Chemistry, which is now overdue.

We had a nice time at Christmas, with Linda and Barclay as well as the twins. Barclay's sister Bobo and her husband and little boy spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with us.

We send much love to you and all the children.

[Linus Pauling]

28 December 1961

Dear Bill:

I thank you for your letter, answering my letter to you of 21 December.

The first paragraph of your letter reads as follows: "The intent of my fourth newspaper article was to show that a protection factor of 10,000 fold could be gotten with shelters i.e. the radiation dose inside would be smaller by this factor than outside. The caption of the photograph when taken by itself does not make this clear but I hope when read with the context of the article is clear."

I do not believe that the above statement by you is correct. The caption of the photograph reads "Shelters such as this can increase your chances of survival at least 10,000 fold."

The heading of the article, in our local newspaper, is "You can survive atomic attack: A real shelter is a real life saver." The heading in another newspaper from which I have a clipping is "Nuclear survival: Real shelter is a real life saver." These headings support the statement about great increase in chances of survival.

The text of the article does not include any statement contradicting the clear statement under the photograph "Shelters such us this can increase your chances of survival at least 10,000 fold," or replacing it by the statement mentioned in your letter, that the radiation dose would be 10,000 similar inside the shelter than outside.

There are only three sentences in the text of the newspaper article that are significantly related, to the caption of the article.

The first of these sentences is the following: "The better, the sturdier and better supplied the shelter is, the more protection there is against fallout, and even blast effects."

This first sentence does not in any way contradict the clear statement under the photograph.

The second of the pertinent sentences is the following: "My own simple shelter, in which I could use sleeping bags, increases fallout protection 100-fold."

This sentence contains the expression "fallout protection," but does not define it and does not contradict the straight forward statement under the photograph.

The third pertinent sentence is the following: "But a $5,000 shelter could give 10,000-fold protection."

This third sentence contains the expression "10,000-fold protection." This expression is, however, not defined. There is no way that the reader of this article would know that you meant that the radiation dose inside would be smaller by this factor than outside.

The reader of the article might well conclude, after reading the caption under the photograph, that the meaning of "10,000 fold protection" is that it "increases your chances of survival at least 10,000 fold."

It is evident accordingly that the statement in your letter that the caption of the photograph when read with the context of the article makes it clear that "increase your chances of survival at least 10,000 fold" means that the radiation dose inside the shelter would be smaller by this factor then outside simply is not true.

I regret that I have to reject the explanation that you give in your letter.

The statement in the caption of the photograph illustrates your fourth article is untrue. There is nothing in the text of the article itself that contradicts the clear statement in the caption under the photograph. Instead, the title of the article would encourage the reader to believe that in fact his chance of survival would be increased very greatly (10,000 fold) if he were to construct a shelter.

I continue to be shocked that you would be guilty of misleading the American people about this extremely important matter.

In your letter to me you did not answer my question as to whether you yourself had or had not written the series of fifteen articles published under your name. You are a very able scientist, and you write well. You know how to express facts in a clear way, such that the reader will not be mislead. This is one reason why I have surmised that you did not, in fact, write these articles. I even feel that you must not have read them carefully, because I find it difficult to believe that you would have given your approval to such a false statement as that in the caption of the photograph illustrating your fourth article.

I should like now to comment on two sentences in the fourth article of your series - two sentences that in my opinion are false.

The first sentence is the following: "After the first two or three days, the x-radiation from the fallout would not kill you."

In any nuclear attack using superbombs with a big third stage there will be regions where people will survive blast, fire, and immediate radiation effects but in which the intensity of radiation from local fallout, even after two days, would be lethal. I have used the testimony before the Congressional Subcommittee in estimating the areas of the United States involved, as quoted below. My figures apply to a hypothetical attack with 10,000 megatons which X consider to be within the bounds of possibility. If the attack were smaller, the areas would be somewhat smaller.

I estimate that two days after a 10,000-megaton attack an area of the United States equal to one percent of the total area, but not including the areas of complete devastation, would have 200 roentgen per hour. The people in these areas who expose themselves at the surface for three hours would die of acute radiation sickness. Accordingly the sentence quoted above is not true. The succeeding sentence in your article is "In very heavily dusted areas it might be strong enough to cause illness, or shorten life if you got too much exposure." I do not think that you can contend that this sentence qualifies the preceding one sufficiently to make it true. No sensible person would interpret your second sentence as meaning that your life might be shortened to such an extent that you would have only a few days to live, because surely in this case it would be said that the fallout had killed you.

The second sentence on which I shall comment is the following: "With no harm, you could make quick trips in and out to hunt necessities."

This statement is false. I am sure that you do not put yourself in opposition to the geneticists of the world, who state, without significant dissent, that even small amounts of high energy radiation cause genetic mutations. I may refer to the 1956 report of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council Committee on Genetic Effects of Atomic Radiation. In this report, after a discussion of the doubling dose of higher energy radiation and the estimate that something like 30 r to 50 r of extra radiation dose would do mankind twice the harm it is now experiencing from spontaneous genetic mutations, the statement is made that "In any case in which a figure is stated, it is with the idea: stay just as far under this as you can; do not consider that this is an amount of radiation which is genetically harmless, for there is no such figure other than zero." Here again, I feel that you yourself would not have written such a sentence, containing the words "with no harm," because I am sure that you know that this sentence is not true.

I hope that you will reply to this letter. I think it is better that we continue the discussion through correspondence, rather than by conversation, as you have suggested in your letter.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:lh

cc: President John F. Kennedy