Linus Pauling: I believe that we have more than the number of weapons needed to kill everybody on Earth. Perhaps as many as 5 times the
number of atomic bombs needed to kill everybody on Earth if they were be exploded as ground bursts, rather uniformly distributed
over the land surfaces of the Earth, but with a concentration in the regions where there is the greatest number of people
living. The USSR may have several times the number of atomic bombs needed to kill everybody on Earth.
On the 8th of January of 1960, President Eisenhower said "Even if there were to be a great surprise nuclear attack on the
United States launched by the USSR, we could still destroy Russia completely." And on the 13th of January, Mr. Khrushchev
said "Even if the US were to launch a great surprise nuclear attack on the USSR, we could still destroy the United States
completely."
This is the situation. It is impossible to prevent the direct attack or the retaliatory attack on the United states and the
USSR that would kill nearly everybody in these two countries and would damage the survivors in such a way that one can hardly
have hope that civilization would continue in these parts of the Earth.
