6 November 1961

Dear Friend:

I have just returned from London. I was only on the television show for a few minutes, but I think that it was well worth while to take the three days for this purpose - one day to travel to London, one day there, and one to get home. The television show was the one called This Week, from 8:00 to 8:30 P.M. on Friday 3 November. It is estimated by the British Independent Television Company that there are 10 million viewers, and I was told that for the first time a really vigorous statement had been made to the British people that they would all be killed if there were to be a great nuclear war. I commented on the damage to the human race that is being done now by the radioactive elements produced by the great Russian tests of the last weeks. My estimate is that 4,400,000 children will be caused to be born with gross physical or mental defect as a result of these tests, provided that the human race survives. I did not include an approximately equal number of embryonic deaths and stillbirths, because they do not cause so much human suffering as the neonatal deaths, childhood deaths, and viable children with gross physical or mental defect. The response to the program was excellent. A number of scientists and other intellectuals immediately planned, I was informed, to write letters to the newspapers about the statements that I had made. Perhaps Great Britain can be stimulated to take a vigorous lead in the fight for disarmament.

Then on Saturday I flew home, by the Polar route, and immediately on arrival went to a Los Angeles television station, where for two hours I carried on a debate with Congressman Chet Holifield, who is the Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy. He made use of every trick, including those used by McCarthy, to attack me and support his thesis that the United States should construct a great system of fallout shelters. I characterized this action as one form of militarism, the effect of which, in providing protection to the people, can be completely neutralized by an increase in the scale of the nuclear attack.

It is unfortunate that our system of government, which is excellent in most respects, has a flaw, in that the leading men in Congress are the ones who have held office longest. For example, the Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, Mr. Holifield, has this position because of seniority - because he has been in the Congress for twenty years and happened to be appointed a member of this Committee fifteen years ago - rather than on the basis of ability.

I bought a copy of Punch while in London and was pleased to see that there were many references to nuclear destruction and to the fallacy of fallout-shelter construction in it. I am sending you two pages. One shows a cartoon of Khrushchev that refers to the pollution of milk with radioactive fission products. The strontium-90 content of milk will begin to go up seriously in a few months, and will have a high level for years. The Russian tests were more serious in this respect than the earlier tests carried out by the United States and Great Britain in the Pacific. In the earlier tests the bombs were exploded close to the ground, so that soil was vaporized in the fireball. As it condensed, it entrapped about 80 percent of the fission products, and carried them into the ocean. Some of the carbon 14 was also trapped in this way. The Russian tests were carried out at rather high altitudes in the atmosphere, because the local fallout, if the bomb were exploded close to the ground, would no doubt have killed many people in Siberia. However, as a result these Russian tests liberate about five times as much radioactive material per megaton as the Pacific tests.

We can expect the content of radioactive iodine, iodine 131, in milk to go up rapidly during the next few weeks. Iodine 131 has a half life of only eight days, but tremendous amounts are made in a nuclear explosion, and the radioiodine is concentrated in the thyroids of people, especially of infants and children, and damages them in such a way as to cause cancer of the thyroid. I estimate that during the next twenty years about 50,000 children will die of cancer of the thyroid because of the Russian tests. A possible preventive measure is to give the infants and children and also pregnant and lactating women ordinary potassium iodide, for a period of about a month after the great tests. This decreases greatly the amount of radioiodine that goes into the thyroid. However, very few people in the world will take such preventive action. Also, very few will use mineral calcium in the diet to decrease the amount of strontium 90 built into the bones of children.

The other sheet from Punch has a short poem on the Nobel Peace Prizes. You probably have seen it, but on the chance that it has escaped your attention I am sending it to you. The poem contains a mild criticism of the Award Committee - in large part, of course, not justified. I myself felt that it was fine that Luthuli should have been given the Prize for 1960. With Hammarskjöld, my principal feeling is one of regret that he did not receive the Prize while he was alive.

There is now a great ferment in the United States and other countries about nuclear war. Nearly every day demonstrations are being held in various American cities. I think that I mentioned to you the peace walk that was held two weeks ago in Los Angeles, which ended in a public park, where I spoke to the marchers. Then last week there were 1000 Los Angeles women in a demonstration against fallout shelters, outside of the principal government buildings in the city. There seems to me to be much less tendency on the part of the press to ridicule the demonstrators than there was a year or two ago.

Cordially yours,

[Linus Pauling]

6 Nov. 1961

To: Linus Jr., Peter, Linda and Crellin

From: Linus

Subject: Iodine 131

I have estimated, on the basis of E. B. Lewis's estimates, that probably about 50,000 children will die of cancer of the thyroid during the next 20 years, as a result of irradiation from the iodine-131 from the recent Russian bomb tests, which probably will begin to get in the milk in a week or so and will continue at high level for a month or so.

The Committee on Nuclear Information, St. Louis, has issued a bulletin pointing out that the readings might get as high as 5,000 to 10,000 micromicrocuries per liter, and that there might be some delay in reporting the high values.

The bulletin, which I have shown to Dr. Perry, also points out that it is possible to cut down the amount of iodine-131 that will settle in the thyroids of infants and children (and in smaller amounts older people) by adding iodine ion to the diet. The bulletin says that the effect would be cut down by a divisor 100 if every day a child is given one drop of a tenfold diluted saturated solution of potassium iodide. That is, the amount of iodide proposed per day is one tenth of a drop of a saturated solution.

I have brought a small bottle of potassium iodide home. You might think it worth while to make a saturated solution, to dilute some of the solution ten-fold, and to give the kids one drop a day for a month or two, starting now, and at some later period if there is another series of great atmospheric tests.