20 August 1962
Dear Mr. Gilpin:
In answer to your letter, in which you ask me about a statement made in my comment of 6 August 1962, I may quote the Russian scientist A. D. Sakharov, in his article entitled Radioactive Carbon in Nuclear Explosions and Non Threshold Biological Effects, published in the book Soviet Scientists on the Danger of Unclear Tests, under the editorship of A. V. Lebedinsky (Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1960).
Beginning on page 39, he says "On these assumptions, the total number of victims of carbon 14 in a megaton explosion comes to 6,600 persons. They are distributed over a period of the order of 8,000 years. As follows from the data of O. I. Leipunsky, non threshold biological effects due to strontium 90 and external radiation by cesium 137 increase this figure of human loss by a factor of 1.5 due to losses in this and subsequent generations. The total number affected by nuclear tests to date (50 megatons of explosive energy) is estimated at 500,000 persons. Apparently, this is an underestimation. One should not disregard the fact that the total number of victims is already one million persons and that the annual increase is from 200 to 300,000."
I made use of the estimate of 6,600 persons in a megaton explosion. The estimate made by Leipunsky is 2,000 genetic victims per megaton. Because of this variation between the two, I did not include the factor 1.5 mentioned in the paragraph above. If I had, I might have rounded the number off to 500,000, instead of 300,000, for 50 megatons.
500,000 for 50 megatons is the number given above by Sakharov. Then he says that the total number of victims is already one million. I think that the number one million might refer to 100 megatons - in fact, 180 megatons had been exploded before 1960.
When Sakharov says that the annual increase is from 200 to 300,000, I think that he meant that at the average rate of testing in the years preceding 1960 the bomb tests of one year would produce about this number of victims.
The editorial in the National Guardian says that Sakharov contended that 50 megatons of fission would claim from 200,000 to 300,000 lives a year for several years and the harmful effects would continue in sharply reduced form for centuries. I surmise that this statement is based upon a misinterpretation of the quotation given above. One might well interpret the concluding sentences in Sakharov’s paragraph as meaning that the number of people already damaged amounted to 200,000 or 300,000 per year; but I feel pretty confident that he was referring to the total number of victims of the bomb tests carried out in one year.
I estimate that somewhere around one half percent or one percent of all victims come in the first generation. One percent of 500,000 would be 5,000 in the first generation, or a few hundred per year.
It is too bad that the English translation of the book Soviet Scientists on the Danger of Nuclear Tests is poor.
Let me know at once if you have any question about this matter.
Sincerely yours,
[Linus Pauling]
September
20, 1962
