The Effects of Nuclear War

Authored by the Office of Technology Assessment at the request of the U.S. Congress, this report examines several nuclear attack scenarios. While a 3.3 Mb PDF version is available, we have also created a more accessible HTML only version of the report.

When this report was authored, the city of St. Petersburg was known as Leningrad. We choose not to update this in the document.

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• Foreword

Chapter

1. Executive Summary
2. A Nuclear Weapon Over Detroit or Leningrad: A Tutorial on the Effects of Nuclear Weapons
3. Civil Defense
4. Three Attack Cases
5. Other Long-Term Effects

Appendixes:

1. Letter From Senate Foreign Relations Committee Requesting the Study
2. Strategic Forces Assumed
3. Charlottesville: A Fictional Account by Nan Randall
4. Summary Of Report On Executive Branch Calculations
5. Suggestions for Further Reading
6. Glossary