Author: Henry Barnard

I am a voracious reader and also enjoy writing. I often have a very different point of view than the popular one. I do see value in debate, and thought it might add to the public debate on controversial issues if I were to express my contrarian opinions. I also started keeping my poems recently (I've written little pieces my whole adult life but never kept any); and I've been a photographer now for over 25 years. So I will be adding an occasional poem and hopefully interesting photograph to the blog along the way, just to spice things up.

9/11 — Coming Down the Stairwell

wtcandbrooklynbridge

I stepped off the elevator on the 71^st floor of 1 World Trade Center only seconds before the first airplane hit. There was one person, a young man, still on the elevator when the doors closed.

The airplane jolted the building in such a sharp fashion that I lost my balance. I recall having the thought it was pointless to react to the lurch in the building because if the building went over, I was dead anyway.

Only a few feet from the elevator, I was standing near a stairwell entrance, which was situated next to the entrance to my department. A consultant I knew ran out of the department entrance, dashed to the stairwell door, and opened it hastily. As he did so, I asked him what he was doing, and he said he had been here in ’93 and was getting the hell out. Still stunned, I just followed him through the door without saying a word.

As we were the first into the stairwell, we were able to scurry down about 5 flights before the crush of people came in. The trip down the stairwell from that point on was like a crowded highway that backs up to a slow go and an occasional stop, now and then. Most of the time, the two rows of people were orderly, but when the lines slowed to a stop, panic set in, and a few people started to yell, but when the lines started up again, they would quiet down, until the next time.

Despite the fumes in the stairwell, enough to make people tear, I think most people were unaware of what had actually happened, and thought instead an accident had occurred – a plane had accidentally flown into the building. But when we got to around the 20s, three quarters of the way down, there was suddenly talk of a second plane! We discovered this not because we sensed anything from the second plane’s impact on 2 WTC, but because people had cell phones and the message got through to them. And so suddenly it was a lot scarier because two planes meant this was no accident. We were under attack.

Two fire fighters passed us by. Both were heavily loaded with gear, and were having a hard time with the gear going up all those stairs. When we got to around the 10^th floor, I looked through an open door, and there were many firefighters on this one floor as a kind of staging area, I guess. The water retardant system had been activated because there was a lot of water on that floor and on the stairwell steps from that point to the bottom.

When we got to the bottom of the stairwell, which ended at an inconspicuous door on the plaza or mezzanine level, there were a number of people guiding us to the down escalator and under the plaza in a complex route that brought us to the up escalator or staircase and out the door next to the bookstore facing Church Street. This route made a lot of sense as it protected people from falling debris from both towers. I would be curious to know who – what person – came up with this strategy? The strategy clearly saved a lot of lives, and demonstrated cool thinking in a desperate situation. Whoever came up with the strategy deserves recognition for it, yet I have never heard who that person was.

Of course, one cannot say enough about the people who stayed behind, at grave danger to themselves in the underbelly of the complex, to guide the rest of us in our escape, like a human chain, to safety. They were in grave danger to themselves, indeed, because they were still there when 2 WTC came down upon them.

When I came outside, there was a policeman telling people don’t look up and hurry and don’t stop. And of course one had an immediate urge to look up, if nothing else to finally really see what in God’s name was going on. When I did, what I saw was a solid band of red fire high up on 2 WTC, with smoke streaming out the top of this red wall of fire.

My immediate gut reaction was that the fire was too intense for the building to withstand it. This was no barn fire that was mostly black smoke with occasional specks of red here and there, but a virtual wall of red fire. So I just wanted to bolt and get away because I instinctively thought the building was doomed — it would come down.

There was a large crowd across Church Street on the same block as St. Paul’s Chapel, and I remember dodging around these people to make my way through this crowd as they pressed forward to get a better view. These same people were in the bulls-eye when 2 WTC came down, all for the sake of a better view.

I made it to just before City Hall on Park Row before 2 WTC came down. I remember there was a kind of collective groan from the people around me, so I turned around to see, only to watch 2 WTC collapse, and then a huge cloud of soot burst out from between the buildings in the foreground.

Very scared, I made it all the way to an obscure side street just below Washington Square when 1 WTC came down. Moments after it came down, I had the strangest feeling of exultation – actually leaping in the air. Completely involuntary, this exultation, I realized later, was a kind of visceral relief and gladness at having survived, of still being alive. I had no control over it. It just swept over me.

I went back to the WTC site recently to step off the distance. I wanted to know how close a call it was. How much time had elapsed from when I was still trapped inside the complex to where I stood when 2 WTC came down? A brisk walk took just four and a half minutes. But for those four and a half minutes, the photography ebook listed below would never have seen the light of day.

Manhattan, A Photographer’s Journey by Henry Barnard

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“Spirit of Achievement” at Night

My Story

Digital download of the JPEG file for this photograph.

If you buy this photograph, I will be sending you an email in a day or two with a link to its JPG file. You will then download the file into your computer in its Download or Picture folder or whichever folder you choose. You can use it on your PC as you will, just to look at now and then or as a screen saver after you configure your computer to use it as such. Up to you.

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Curated Galleries on Flickr

Click on the link below to see my curated galleries on Flickr, all with the same theme — Imagination: Photographs in the Mind’s Eye. When you get to Flickr, click on each gallery and scroll through the selected photographs with a glance at my written explanation why I included each photograph in the gallery. As a photographer myself, I think it is the most challenging thing to display imagination in a photograph, even though imagination in photographs can take many forms.

Imagination: Photographs in the Mind’s Eye

Then and Now

thenandnow

People, A Photographer’s Perspective by Henry Barnard

My Story

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A Speech Like No Other

It was the greatest speech ever given in American history: Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremonies at Gettysburg, given on November 19, 1963. The speaker before Lincoln, Edward Everett, a very famous orator in his own right, droned on for over 2 hours. After the respectful — and perhaps thankful — applause upon the conclusion of Everett’s speech, Lincoln took the podium. His speech lasted less than 2 minutes. When it ended, there was dead silence from the massive audience that had assembled to hear the speeches and pay their respects at Gettysburg. There was dead silence because no one realized the speech, so brief and to the point, had actually ended. Slowly there was hesitant clapping from the audience. This — silence and confusion — was the immediate and ironic response to the greatest speech ever given in American history. Of course, all the Northern newspapers picked it up for their next edition, and when those 272 words were actually read by the public, an immense reaction took place that reverberates to this day. Such is the power of the printed word.

Gettysburg Address Text

Gettysburg Address History

Where Is Our Leader?

LBJ

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LBJ

If you study the JFK assassination and get into the weeds – read many books about it, listen to many YouTubes, and join several Facebook JFK assassination groups to discuss the event – you will inevitably come across quite a bit of material critical of LBJ. I must admit that, at the time in the 1960’s and until recently, my view of LBJ, apart from his role in the Vietnam War, was a fairly positive one, as he came across on TV as a kind of benign uncle looking out for the welfare of the American people.

There is no question about his stellar record in the civil rights movement. One could make the argument that JFK was pulled kicking and screaming into civil rights for Afro-Americans, but LBJ jumped in with both feet, and was certainly one of the important leaders of that movement, if not an indispensable one. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would not have happened without him. As for his declaration of war against poverty, how can any American not tip his hat to a president who is that idealistic and that bold — the goal being a “Great Society” where you have actually eradicated all poverty. Wow! Just wow.

But when you begin to delve into the JFK assassination material, a frequent critical commentary you come across immediately concerning LBJ is the assertion that just before he was assassinated, JFK was about to pull the plug on our involvement in Vietnam, but that when LBJ was sworn into office, he reversed that decision and ordered full steam ahead. There seems to be documentation that proves that this actually is what happened – that the Vietnam War might have been avoided had JFK lived, but LBJ instead proceeded with the war with a vengeance. We all now know about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that was in response to an event that never actually happened — when you really want war, you become inventive, it seems.

You will find many allegations about LBJ’s use of his political office for graft to enrich himself. There is no doubt that, like many politicians, he ended up an extremely wealthy man – with assets in excess of what one would expect him to have amassed based on his various salaries as an office holder, although he could have just made some shrewd and lucrative business decisions to amass said wealth. But the graft allegations really don’t surprises me or even bother me very much. American politicians and graft go together like peanut butter and jelly. In fact, my somewhat cynical view is that graft is just part of the compensation we owe our politicians for doing what is often a nasty and certainly contentious job. Look at all the abuse and venom we heap upon them, even the good ones. (I wouldn’t want the job.)

But the one allegation that you will come across that really was surprising to me and kind of shocking, given my view that LBJ was a sort of kindly old man looking out for the country, that is, the image that he managed to project on TV, was that LBJ was indirectly involved in several murders (Henry Marshall, Agriculture Secretary; George Krutelnik, an FBI informant; Ike Rogers and his secretary; Harold Orr, another FBI informant; Coleman Wade, yet another FBI informant; Josefa Johnson, LBJ’s own sister; John Kinser, Josefa’s boyfriend; and, last but not least, President John Kennedy).

It is alleged that several of these murders were carried out by LBJ’s supposed personal hit man, Malcolm (“Mac”) Wallace, who was actually convicted of one murder, sentenced to only 5 years despite the murder being described as “murder with malice,” but the judge in the case — guess this! — suspended even that modest sentence, which is itself kind of astonishing, that is, suspending a sentence for a murder conviction. All of this legal chicanery in a murder with a conviction when there was talk of the death sentence happened when LBJ was governor — what the governor wants the governor gets. That LBJ may have had his own sister murdered certainly takes the cake. (I confess I did not know LBJ even had a sister or that she and her boyfriend had been murdered.)

People who put the murder allegations out there usually point out that the image LBJ projected in public was a far cry from the real person – that the real LBJ had this ferocious, uncontrollable temper that could erupt at any moment, and that in fact the man had strong psychopathic tendencies. I must admit I was shocked to read about these provocative revelations not once, but over and over again, from many different authors. I felt like the dopey American who believed, naively, his champion politician was some kind of a saint when in fact he was anything but. But allegations are a far cry from proven facts, and I really have no way of knowing whether there is a scintilla of truth to any of the murder allegations. He may not have been guilty of anything more criminal than showing us that scar. (See the site below for just one reference in regard to the murder allegations — there are many others.)

I won’t go into all the JFK assassination theories related to LBJ — the conspiracy theorists have a field day with him, as he was after all next in line and so had motive, and there’s some credible evidence that he wasn’t all that fond of Jack his boss, Mr. Ivy League as well as Jack’s condescending brother — but let’s just say my view of LBJ, the sweet old man looking out for his country, as projected on TV, has been modified somewhat.

LBJ Murder Conference

Where Is Our Leader?

A Speech Like No Other

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TV

Back in the 1950s when TV was still young, all you needed to get content was an antenna. You put up your antenna and connected it to your TV set, and voila! TV shows appear on the channel you select. It was magic, and the only cost for getting these TV shows was the cost of the antenna and the TV set. The ads that accompanied the TV shows as well as the endorsements put out during the shows paid for the service. One immediately thinks of Wheaties, the Breakfast of Champions, or Dinah Shore belting out: “See the USA in your Chevrolet.” And you got it all for free — what a miracle!

Today, you don’t get TV content for free anymore, but the ads are still there. Think about that for a moment. In effect, you are paying to watch ads that you don’t really want to watch, and the ads are interfering with what you do want to watch. Ad money still underwrites the service, but, in addition to that, you are also paying for the service — a double whammy, no magic here.

It is true that some programming is now ad free. And how much more enjoyable is it to watch a full-length movie without constant interruptions by annoying ads — a lot! But shouldn’t all content paid for directly by the consumer getting it be ad free?

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North Korea — What to Expect

It is hard to see what direction Secretary of State Pompeo will take negotiating with North Korea. I say this because the ultimate objective for the United States is for North Korea to denuclearize, but having nuclear weapons is really the only card North Korea has to play. So why would they give them up? They wouldn’t.

If they do give up their only winning card, the question remains, how would North Korea be protected from a US attack, which is what they really fear? A treaty could be arranged so that Russia or China, even Russian and China, would guarantee the North Korea borders from attack — that if North Korea were attacked by anyone, one or both would come to their aid. But why would North Korea trust such an agreement, as it would put one or both of these countries at odds with the United States without much to gain from it themselves?

Furthermore, everyone is keenly aware of what happened in Libya. The United States negotiated with Muammar Gaddafi to back away from having nuclear weapons. He agreed, but subsequently the United States became very involved in his overthrow. Remember the once all-powerful Gaddafi hiding in a storm drain, and then slaughtered by his angry captors? That lesson of how vulnerable a country and its leader are without having the ultimate weapon was not lost on Kim Yong-Un or anyone else. So that the United States might guarantee the North Korean borders if the regime agrees to denuclearize — all of that rings kind of hollow in this light.

Consequently, I see the basic negotiation of denuclearizing North Korea going nowhere. But does that mean there is no benefit from further negotiation? Here there is some hope, for there is a subtle benefit that is realistic and achievable.

North Korea and South Korea are technically still at war. What was signed way back in 1953 was an armistice, not a treaty that ended the war. So technically they are still at war. In fact, up until recently, the tension in the demilitarized zone was palpable and very threatening. The two sides down through the years have shown recurring bouts of open hostility, including an active series of “war games” with American participation in South Korea and unrelenting warlike broadcasts by North Korea.

It could very well be the case that some wars are not started from a sudden decision, but rather a series of small steps and irritations that slowly lead to a crescendo of outrage on either side, so that the slightest spark reaches — to use a nuclear metaphor — critical mass, and so you have an explosion of outright hostilities. You have yourself a war. This was certainly the case in World War 1 where the spark was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Just imagine — an entire world set ablaze because just one person is shot dead.

But it might be that peace works in the opposite direction — a series of small steps at forgiveness and reconciliation until the parties involved become surprised at and even taken aback by any animosity, so that the thought of war seems preposterous, remote. That first step toward peace in this case might be a much ballyhooed peace treaty that finally ends the war between North Korea and South Korea. That’s the achievable benefit. It would in fact change little about the current circumstances, but it would change the mood dramatically, and would be that tiny but real first step away from war, away from the abyss. A journey of a 100 miles begins with the first step.

But, unfortunately, there is further reason for pessimism about the Korean predicament. It has to do with the prospects for the country to become unified again. What you have in South Korea is a Western-style democracy and a capitalist society. It is a wealthy, industrious, and innovative country with its citizens used to quite a bit of personal freedom as well as civil rights and voting rights. In short, the people are independent, well to do, and exercise a good deal of self-determination in the conduct of their own lives.

Contrast all of that to what exists in North Korea. North Korea is a hereditary military dictatorship based on the cult of a supreme leader. It is a poor country that is barely able to feed itself. We’ve all seen the satellite night photographs of a pitch black North Korea. Much of the country’s productive capacity is spent on developing an overly massive military or wasted by the regime for showy propaganda structures that serve no useful benefit for its society. Its people have no rights and have been thoroughly indoctrinated in a Stalinist-like regime where individuals who voice the slightest disagreement with the regime simply disappear, either permanently or to Gulag-like prisons. So there is no dissent to speak of, and the people are like robots in their total submission to the state and its supreme leader. I submit that two such disparate regimes will never ever be reconciled, certainly not without a lot of bloodshed and civil war.

It’s interesting to sit back and look at the Korean situation from the point of view of what would be the worst case scenario from the American perspective and from the North Korean perspective. The American perspective is pretty easy to understand. We would not want to see South Korea overrun by North Korea. This could happen in either of two ways. The United States might negotiate to leave South Korea if there was sufficient guarantees that North Korea would not invade. But the United States having left, North Korea might renege on this agreement and invade anyway. Alternatively, an outright war could break out. Seoul would be destroyed by the artillery bombardment, the tactical nuclear weapons used by the United States might not be effective in deterring the million-man North Korean army that invades South Korea, and so the whole peninsula, or what’s left of it, would fall to North Korea. In either of these possibilities, the net result would then place Japan at severe risk — the next domino to fall. And there is also the outside chance of a North Korean nuclear-armed missile managing to hit American soil. That’s the American nightmare.

The North Korean worse case scenario is pretty obvious. The United States military always has its “hawks” recommending that now is the time to take advantage of the enemy — that any further delay is to our disadvantage. The hawks are always there pressing this argument in every international conflict. After all, fighting and killing are what they do. Actually, in this case, the hawk argument, that time is not on our side, is not a hard one to make. North Korea today probably does not have the reentry technology or the accuracy to hit specific targets in the continental United States, but in 5 years? Today it is estimated they may have 15 nuclear weapons, but in 5 years? The clock is ticking.

Nevertheless, should the perception unfold that the North Korean regime is consciously trying to play us along in order to deceive the United States to gain the upper hand in a game of nuclear chicken, such a growing perception would play into the hands of the hawks who would merely reiterate that time is running out on our advantage to ATTACK. The worse case scenario for North Koreans unfolds when leadership in Washington becomes persuaded by this argument and ultimately agrees with it. If that synergy between Washington and the hawks were to happen, all of North Korea would hang by a nuclear thread hovering above an annihilation one can scarcely imagine.

Crimea

Nuclear Winter

European Union (EU) and Tariffs

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My Story

empirestateandnewyorkersign

“I Just Love Landscapes,” The Positive, The Camera Club of New York Official Members’ Newsletter, April, 1999

Henry Barnard always intrigued me. I would watch him tirelessly printing and toning his many prints very early in the morning and very late in the evening, and I would wonder what he was doing with all those prints. When I finally got up the courage to ask him, he told me the most remarkable story. Henry is one of those hardworking New York street vendors. Here is his story in his own words. CL

It is one of those things you’ll never forget. Not that it would be that important to anyone else. But it made a big difference to me. Let me start at the beginning. The very first time I took my stuff out, I went to Madison to sell in front of a bank. I had seen other photographers selling there, so I decided to give it a try. But what happened was the banker came out and said, “You know, you’re doing something illegal. I’ve called the police. They should be here any minute.” This made an impression on me. I grabbed my stuff and was around the corner and out of site in a twinkle. I remember running in the direction of 5^th Avenue and sitting on one of those long benches they have on the park side.

I was just sitting there with my heart still pounding when I got the idea of going over to the Met. I had seen artists there as well. So I picked up my stuff and went to the museum and sure enough, there they were, a bunch of artists and vendors in the tree line in front of the Met, as well as extending beyond the parameter of the museum along the stone wall that runs to the street light on 79^th Street. I didn’t have a real display at the time, just propping the stuff up against a wall or whatever was available. What was available here was that stone wall running to the street light. There were many artists along the wall but there were a few open “spots.” So I propped a dozen or so matted photographs, encased in a protective clear plastic sleeve, up against the wall. Unfortunately, about every five minutes, a few of them would blow over haplessly, and I would jump off the ledge of the wall to put them back.

It soon became clear to me that just leaning such a flimsy object against the wall in such a windy environment was not working at all. And what was worse, no one paid any attention to my stuff. Anything right on the ground was ignored in favor of artwork on any sort of display – evidently no one wanted to buy from off the ground. That was taboo. After sitting there for the better part of three hours with my pictures getting blown all over the place and no one paying the slightest attention to my things, I decided to call it a day.

But I was not defeated. I had seen the experienced vendors had cardboard displays that they taped their pictures to. The cardboard displays were in turn taped to the ground. These displays were solid as a rock, whether the wind blew or not. Even better, they were getting plenty of attention while my stuff was swirling in the wind. This brought me to Pearl Paint the next day, where I found some reinforced cardboard that was about the right size. I bought a bunch of these and made some pyramid-type displays fashioned after what I had seen. I also bought a nice wooden print stand made in Italy. So I was ready for the next weekend. Ready, with high expectations.

Despite these expectations, it rained on Saturday. But Sunday was a pearly blue day. Everything you could ask for. I had noticed that on Sundays, artists also set up on the north side of the Met – an area that was nicer than the wall where I had been – so that is where I went with my new cardboard displays, my Italian print stand, and my pictures. There was one spot left when I got there around 1 o’clock – I subsequently learned that it was unheard of for a spot to be still available that late in the day. I proudly set up my cardboard displays, taped them to the ground, and then taped a half dozen pictures to them. I also set up the elegant wooden print stand with another dozen or so pictures and the silent invitation to come and see. When it was all up, I stood back with obvious self-satisfaction. It was solid – no more pictures blowing in the wind…an attractive and clean presentation in fact.

I can still remember the pleasure – no, not pleasure, the fascination – I experienced simply watching people look at my stuff. When someone looked in a certain captivated way, as if they had seen something that had unexpected delight for them and held them, almost involuntarily, that was virtually a transcendental moment for me then, in the early days of selling photographs when I had a certain innocence or maybe purity. I still do experience this wonderful kind of pleasure but sadly with nowhere near the same intensity as in the early days when showing my stuff was such a novelty.

But that afternoon, the number of people who even just stopped to look at my things were far and few between, and as the minutes grew into hours and the afternoon began to wane, my feeling of dejection was growing larger and larger even as the light was growing dimmer and dimmer. Others in front of the Met had sold, sold all afternoon in fact, to my envy, but I had sold absolutely nothing, not even close – and this was my best stuff, prints I had slaved over, prints I was proud of! (I would later learn that this lacerating confrontation with the ego was a big part of being able to sell photographs, that it would never go away, that it would never get any easier, and that many who try selling their own artwork, perhaps many much more talented than I, succumb to it, this brutal attack on the ego.) And now there was only perhaps a half hour of good light left. Yes, there was only about a half hour of good light left – when it happened.

What I remember – and will never forget, ever – was that she was a very large jolly type of woman full of exuberance. That type bursting with life in sync with her oversized proportions. She had in toe a husband who was a thin reed of a man, way beyond inconspicuous, as well as a tiny waif of a daughter. The husband and daughter were like two pebbles strung to a virtual maelstrom blowing past the Met in the form of this gigantic person, a force of nature.

Even from a somewhat dazed state of mind from dejection, I could not help but hear her emphatic declaration, “I just lllllluuuuuuvvvvvv landscapes,” as she rifled through the prints in the Italian print stand with obvious relish, while clutching one print in her free, meaty left hand – a good sign. When she finished, she asked the daughter if there was one she liked, and the daughter went through the print stand once again, but timidly, carefully, and finally, after excruciating deliberation – and a great deal of silent agitation on my part, I can tell you – settled upon yet another landscape, a picture of a wooded stream in Vermont lit up by a shaft of light on white water.

They were Midwesterners, and forthright and honest as the day is long. The mother asked the price of the two pictures and paid without dickering. And so, in just a matter of minutes, no more, I had made my first sale of a hand-made, darkroom photograph – no, two photographs! – to these three unlikely strangers who changed my landscape forever.

Postscript to this article: There would follow 13 years of selling my darkroom prints in five different states including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, with many photography awards along the way, perhaps reaching a zenith winning “Best in Show” at an art show sponsored by the Newport Artists Guild in Newport, Rhode Island, a far stretch from the humble beginnings in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But none of the experiences over this 13 year span ever equaled the intensity – one might even proffer the word “miracle” – of that very first sale to three total strangers who happened to be visiting New York, a city where dreams do come true.

Manhattan, A Photographer’s Journey by Henry Barnard

Nuclear Winter

68_Statue silhouette black flat

The New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was signed in 2011, replacing START 1, and runs until 2021. It limits the number of warheads of the US and Russia to 1550 each. It’s interesting to try to imagine what the United States would turn into if 1550 nuclear warheads were to hit their target here. These modern warheads are not comparable to the two nuclear bombs dropped in WW2, which are puny in comparison. The modern warheads are much more powerful – some, for instance, more than 3000 times the explosive capacity of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Major targets are assumed to be hit with not just one but multiple warheads to ensure that at least one warhead gets through. So it is safe to assume that all major cities would simply be obliterated, given the magnitude of these weapons, leaving intense radiation in the surrounding area. Most of the smaller cities would also be hit, creating more radiation zones. All the strategic military sites would be targeted, of course, as well as major industrial sites, producing still more radiation zones. Basically, every missile that struck would create a large radiation zone where it would be hazardous for humans to tread, perhaps for decades.

The electrical grid would be destroyed so that there would be no power and no electricity. All 61 of the nuclear power plants in the US, without power, would no longer be serviced with the necessary cooling process and so they would all have unstoppable melt downs, creating radiation zones around them of approximately 50 miles in every direction – and these radiation zones would be permanent and very lethal.

Food distribution would simply end; and most of the population would not know how to grow food and therefore would be unable to feed itself, so that perhaps 90% of the population would die from starvation within a few months, or even sooner, depending on when their existing food supplies run out. Tap water would be a thing of the past, so that finding and purifying water would be a major and constant challenge (the human body can be in starvation mode for prolonged periods of time and can go without food entirely for up to 3 weeks, but cannot do without water for more than 3 or 4 days at most).

There would be no government and no law and order, and those who managed to survive the initial attack would quickly drop the thin veneer of civilization and turn into savages willing to do anything for food and water. There would be no hospitals or medical services, and cadavers would not be buried, as there would be no one to bury them. All the radiation would of course have an enormous impact on wildlife as well as the once fertile soil.

There would be small pockets of survivors in the remote countryside far removed from urban areas and from the various radiation zones. These rare individuals would survive because they just happened to know how to survive in the wild, like the fabled mountain men of the Old West. They would also be able to survive because they would be able to separate themselves and stay far away from the desperate.

The survivors in the northern states would consider their predicament facing harsh winters without heat. Many would attempt to migrate to the south to avoid severe winters. But this trek would be on foot, as the roads would be a shamble and many sections would simply be destroyed by missile strikes. And the trek would have to give a wide berth to urban areas, as these would be a radiation hazard. One option for survivors in the northern states like New England, facing the difficult urban corridor from Boston to Washington, might be to go north instead, to Canadian communities that were still intact.

All of the above would also take place in Russia. It would start in just 20 minutes and be over in a matter of a few hours. To the rest of the globe, these two countries would be considered no-go zones to be avoided at all cost. The world economy would collapse, so that destitution would be the rule rather than the exception.

Nuclear Weapons Around the World

Map of the World’s 17,000 Nuclear Weapons

North Korea — What to Expect

On the Brink

Crimea

European Union (EU) and Tariffs