14, and thirteen percent are cesium 137.
Thus there are so many obstacles to the repopulation of the city that the Joint Chiefs were compelled to make the determination to undertake salvage instead of resettlement.
As you know, Manhattan is identified as a Red Zone, which means that unauthorized persons are liable to be shot for intruding. Nevertheless, the island supports a small population consisting of people who either refused to leave or have returned and are intent on protecting their former property. There is even an impromptu real-estate market. A few months ago, two individuals applied to the State Office of Title Reclamation in Albany for a grant to clear title to a property in the city, then the right to transfer that title between them. It turned out that both were active in this strange Manhattan real-estate market, and they lived in the city.
Both were arrested.
Of course, what they were doing is meaningless. All property in Manhattan has been sequestered by the Army. The state government in Albany has no authority over military areas. Salvage proceeds go to the Special Refugee Account for use in areas where the most former New York City residents now live.
You requested that I add as much personal color to this report as I can. I am married and have three children. My wife is Joyce Keltie Briggs. The kids are George Junior, Mark, and Nancy. We are members of the Baptist Church. My age is forty-three, and I have no living parents, sisters, or brothers. I was born on June 12, 1950, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. I am an army brat, the son and grandson of army brats. I live with my family in Bronxville, in a home on Birchbrook Avenue, which has been designated as Residence, Commanding General, New York Military Area, by the Continental Army Command. This home was not owned or occupied at the time it was commandeered by the U.S. Army.
I have held a commission since 1972, when I graduated from West Point. I was promoted to general officer on January 14, 1990, and assumed this command in February of the same year.
I see that I have a couple of minutes remaining before I have to inspect the Critical Minerals Salvage Holding Depot in the rail-yards, so I would like to make a statement to all Americans who read your book. My statement is this:
Since the war I have seen a tremendous change in our country.
It has been terrible for us all, but nevertheless it has revealed toughness and gristle and fellow-feeling that we didn’t even know we had. There was a time when I might have said, “If a nuclear war will toughen us up, let it come.” Having lived through one, I would not say that now. I was a damned fool ever to have thought such a thing. By 1984 there was a substantial body of opinion in the military that a nuclear war was possible, and that we should therefore devote our attention to planning methods that would encourage the Soviets to engage in a limited rather than an all-out exchange, or reduce their ability to project their warheads into U.S. territory. This is an error.
Not a day passes that I don’t wish for the soft old America with all its faults. But everything has an end, and that world and way of life ended.
Those were good times. May God grant that we remember them always, but also give us the strength not to torment our children with tales of what has been denied them.
Documents from the Lost City
It is hard to believe silence in relation to so big a place as New York. You can hear a single truck coming for miles on the New York State Thruway. And that is usually a military truck. I cannot help wondering what it will be like here when even the soldiers are gone.
The documents I have gathered for this section are related to the management of the human withdrawal from New York. In an odd way I find their crisp tone reassuring. After the first panic, we did our leaving well. We were told that the city picked up tens of thousands of shoes in the days after Warday. But later there were staged withdrawals and organized retreats from Dead Zone to Red Zone to Orange Zone to elsewhere.
Beyond those early assessments, there really isn’t much documentation about New York. I would have liked to include some sort of a list of paintings or books or valuables still in the city, or perhaps an evaluation of the present condition of buildings. Such documents did not present themselves.
I could have listed the orders of the day for the New York Military District, for every day since they have been here.
But those orders aren’t important. The remaining valuables aren’t even too important. There is no document that describes the emptiness of this city, no more than there is one to describe the immense complexity of the mind that caused it.
Nineveh, Babylon, and Rome each bustled a time in the sun. So also, New York. Nobody ever called it an eternal city, it was too immediate for that.
But we all thought it was one.
004 1500 ZULU April 92
PHILADELPHIA HDQ. RECONPAC 34AQ
CLASS: CONFIDENTIAL
You are hereby instructed that reconnaissance by RADPAC on 4/2/93 mandates following RADZONE assignments for New York area:
1.0 DEAD ZONE:
Original North/South strike centers from Bayville—Hempstead—Bellmore remain lethal and off limits to all personnel for foreseeable future. Radioactive levels remain at 300–500.
2.0 RED ZONE:
Eastern limit now set at Highway 27 with all entries to Dead Zone closed and monitored by electronic surveillance.
Eastern boundary now set at Highway 110 with similar observation. Radioactivity levels vary. Damage not rectifiable.
Looting reported by aerial reconnaissance. Shoot-to-kill order still in force.
1.0 ORANGE ZONE:
Radioactivity localized to standing structures and untreated ground surfaces. Highway 678 in Queens still usable with protected vehicles. No local traffic allowed. Eastern perimeter temporarily set at Highway 111.
The Brooklyn—Bronx—Manhattan areas remain under ORANGE ZONE designation. Radioactivity levels are negligible but damage is still largely uncorrected. Regular looting reported despite assignment of National Guard units. All major access points controlled as per continuing order.
4.0 BLUE ZONE:
New Jersey area to Hudson remains under control of 8th Army units. Radioactivity levels non-life-
