For the first time ever, the National Archives and Records Administration has released a detailed list of potential targets that the United States intended to bomb with nuclear weapons in the event of a war with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The 800-page document is titled “Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959,” and says, “Top Secret.”
The target list was produced by the Strategic Air Command in 1956, and projected where the United States should bomb in a potential war with the Soviet Union in 1959. The targets are referred to as DGZs or “designated ground zeros.”
William Burr, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive, said he believed the new documents are “the most detailed target list the Air Force had ever made public.
Many targets are industrial facilities, government buildings and over 1,100 Soviet-bloc airfields (To destroy Soviet bombers before they could take off and bomb the U.S. and Europe). However, there are major cities like Moscow and Leningrad on the list simply designated as “Population.” “It’s disturbing, for sure, to see the population centers targeted,” Burr said.
However, it wasn’t the Russians who would be nuked, the map also shows Eastern Europe and China. “Major cities in Soviet Bloc, including East Berlin, were high priorities in ‘Systematic Destruction’ for atomic bombings,” the newly declassified document states.
Germany, sorry for thinking about obliterating you with a nuke. We still cool?
Thankfully, both superpowers were intelligent enough to realize that the only winning move is not to play.
[NYT]