The purpose of this book is to provide Americans and other unprepared people with information and self-help instructions that will significantly increase their chances of surviving a nuclear attack. It brings together field-tested instructions that, if followed by a large fraction of Americans during a crisis that precedes an attack, could save millions of lives. The author is convinced that the vulnerability especially of Americans to nuclear threat or attack must be reduced and that the wide dissemination of the information contained in this book will help preserve peace with freedom.
Underlying the advocacy of Americans learning these down-to-earth survival skills is the belief that if one prepares for the worst, the worst is less likely to happen. Effective American civil defense preparations would reduce the probability of nuclear blackmail and war. Yet in our world of increasing dangers, it is significant that the United States spends much less per capita on civil defense than many other countries. The United States' annual funding is about 50 cents per capita, and only a few cents of this is spent on war-related civil defense.
Nuclear War Survival Skills in the Book
The topics covered in this books range pretty wide and are all comprehensive. They include the following:
- The dangers from nuclear weapons: myths and facts
- Psychological preparations
- Warnings and communications
- Evacuation
- Shelter, the greatest need
- Ventilation and cooling of shelters
- Protection against fires and carbon monoxide
- Water
- Ventilating pump
- Food
- Fallout radiation meters
- Light
- Double action piston pump and filter
- Shelter sanitation and preventive surviving without doctors
- Expedient shelter furnishings
- Improvised clothing and protective items
- Minimum pre-crisis preparations
- Permanent family fallout shelters for dual use
- Instructions for six expedient fallout shelters
- How to make and use a homemade shelter ventilating pump
- A homemade fallout meter, the K.F.M. - How to make it and use it
- Expedient blast shelters
- How to make and use a homemade plywood double action piston pump and filter
- Means for providing improved natural ventilation and daylight to a shelter with an emergency exit
