British planners feared tea shortage after nuclear attack
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080504/od_afp/britainhistorysecurityfoodoffbeat;_ylt...
Never mind the radiation: British contingency planners worried there
would be a dramatic shortage of tea in the aftermath of a nuclear
attack, recently declassified documents showed Monday.
The shortfall of the staple British beverage would be "very serious"
if the country were to come under attack with atomic and hydrogen
bombs, said according to a memo drafted between 1954 and 1956.
"The tea position would be very serious with a loss of 75 percent of
stocks and substantial delays in imports and with no system of
rationing it would be wrong to consider that even one ounce (28 grams)
per head per week could be ensured," it said.
"No satisfactory solution has yet been found."
Another memo, written in April 1955, warned: "The advent of thermo-
nuclear weapons ... has presented us with a new and much more
difficult set of food defence problems."
The contingency planning documents listed a number of issues for
discussion including arrangements to ensure stockpiles of food and the
availability of bread, milk, meat, oils and fats, and tea and sugar.
