Customer Reviews

Fighting Chance: Ten Feet to Survival

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I can't add much to what the previous two reviewers have said, other than to add that the materials presented in support of a system of home and local civil defense preparations make total sense--far more than any kind of SDI system so far proposed. The Russians have a saying that "the Americans send men into space with the latest and most advanced technology. We send men into space in tin cans." There are times when low-tech makes the most sense, and in terms of civil defense, this is one of those times, as the authors make clear. One thing I found startling is the documented degree to which the Russians and the Chinese already have these low-tech solutions already in place, and so are not as threatened as we might think by the American "nuclear deterrence."

Buy this book. Read it. Figure out how to apply it to your own life even if you cannot persuade the politicians to abandon their high-tech fantasies for low-tech practical solutions. You will sleep better at night knowing that at the very least you are taking care of your family.

Technology as old as the spade is the centerpiece of this book's thesis on how Americans can be defended against nuclear attack. Leaving aside SDI or any other anti-missile system, this book concentrates on civil defense. The argument made is that MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), in which each nuclear power holds the others' undefended cities hostage to ensure the peace, is seen as immoral (with which this writer agrees). The solution offered is to go low-tech. Pointing out how England and Germany bombed each other into rubble, North notes that war production was largely unaffected (Germany's peaked in August of '44), because bomb shelters protected the populace. Hiroshima survivors within several hunderd yards of ground zero lived because they had enough overhead cover to absorb both the blast and the radiation. (My own military training stressed that 2 feet of packed earth would absorb over 99% of the fallout of a nuclear blast.) The authors propose that America adopt a nationwide system of shelter construction, designed to house the population in the event of a nuclear confrontation. They take pains to discuss stockage of food, water, and medecine, as well as the likely amount of space per person. The benefits are that, by being defended, we are less a target for nuclear blackmail, and the system could be used for natural and man-made disasters. Gary North's reputation may have taken a deserved hit over his call on Y2K, but he's on the money here, and quotes Mao on Chinese thinking on the subject: "Dig tunnels dep, store grain everywhere, and never seek hemegeony." This book should be at the center of the national debate over defense policy in this year's election. -Lloyd A. Conway

The second half of this book REALLY drags, but it's still well worth the read. Civil defense has been entirely neglected in this country, whereas many other countries (Russia, China, Sweden, Switzerland, etc.) have prioritized it beyond belief. What civil defense adds to deterence is almost immeasurably high; and what it adds to daily life (storm shelters, shelters against toxic spills, etc.) is incalculable as well. North and Robinson show how it can be done for very, very little cost. If we're about to deploy some form of SDI, this should go hand-in-hand.

This book was really not what I expected. If you are looking for reference material on preparedness in the event of a nuclear attack of any kind, don't spend the money on this book. Instead buy the book Nuclear Survival Skills by Kearny. This might make a decent backup to that book, but only to reassure you of what you have already read from Nuclear Survival Skills.

The world was a lot more scared of nuclear war when this book was published in 1986, and the idea of digging tunnels to save us all seems a little silly to me today. The emphasis on the fact that that besides tunnels we also need the Lord to save us added no credibility to this book. I think the book's only redeeming quality is as some kind of historical document.