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Alas, Babylon
Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Pat Frank
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Post-apocalyptic novel
Publisher	J.B. Lippincott
Publication date	1959
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
ISBN	NA

Alas, Babylon is a 1959 novel by American writer Pat Frank (the pen name of Harry Hart Frank). It was one of the first post-apocalyptic novels of the nuclear age and remains popular fifty years after it was first published. The novel deals with the effects of a nuclear war on the small town of Fort Repose, Florida, which is based upon the actual city of Mount Dora.^[1]

Explanation of the novel's title

The novel's title is derived from Revelation 18:10, which is interpreted and quoted frequently in the book as the characters' way of warning each other of an impending crisis, such as the threat of a nuclear attack. It is loosely interpreted by the author as referring to nuclear holocaust.

In the King James Bible, this passage reads:

Plot summary

Randy Bragg, the protagonist, is a man who dabbles at law and lives a life with little purpose. The scion of a once prominent political family, Bragg is a former Korean War infantry officer whose own foray into public life was a run for the state legislature which proved disastrous because of his open support for racial desegregation based on the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education; this ended his first foray into public life. Randy's life changes abruptly with the receipt of a telegram from his older brother, Colonel Mark Bragg, an Air Force Intelligence officer serving with the Strategic Air Command (SAC). In the telegram, Mark informs Randy that he is sending his wife and two children to stay in Fort Repose, and that he wants to meet with Randy during a brief layover at McCoy AFB, in Orlando. The telegram ends the message with an ominous code: "Alas Babylon", a Biblical reference that the Bragg brothers employed throughout their lives to warn of danger. Only this time, it foretold a more ominous warning—nuclear war was imminent.

Randy later drives to McCoy Air Force Base and meets Mark's arriving plane. While the jet is refueled, Mark explains to Randy the background for sending the urgent message. The Soviets evidently perceive a weakness in US and Allied defense posture and plan to take advantage of the situation. A defecting Soviet military officer has brought the Russian "war plan" to the West. Mark believes the Russian plan is flawed and that the West would ultimately prevail, but danger lies in Moscow's belief that they can succeed. The brothers soon say their goodbyes, and Randy realizes that he may never see Mark again. Heading back to Fort Repose, Randy privately warns those people of Fort Repose whom he believes to be his friends, of the impending war.

At about the same time as Randy is picking up his brother's family at the Orlando airport, Ensign Cobb, flying a F-11 Tiger off the coast of Syria (a Soviet ally) fires a heat-seeking missile at a Soviet reconnaissance aircraft. The missile goes off course and hits an ammunition depot at Latakia, Syria, resulting in an explosion that may or may not have included nuclear devices. This event becomes the apparent casus belli for the Soviet Union to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States.

Early the following morning, Mark is on duty at SAC headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, known as "The Hole". He suspects an attack is imminent and recommends to SAC's commander, General Hawker, that SAC ask Washington to transfer the direct authority to use nuclear weapons, since the weapons-release process takes about a minute and a half, and the U.S. expects only about a fifteen minute warning if the Soviet Union were to attack. This is granted. Minutes later, radar stations report what appear to be inbound Soviet missiles from over the Arctic as well as submarines lying off the US coast. Mark realizes what he feared most has arrived and turns to walk back to his office. As Mark leaves, General Hawker says to him, "Thanks for the 95 seconds."

In Fort Repose, Randy and his houseguests are awakened by shaking due to the bombing of Miami. While looking at the glow to the south caused by the destruction of Miami, the family sees the nuclear explosion and mushroom cloud that destroy Tampa temporarily blinding Randy's niece, Peyton. Finally, there is another and more pronounced shaking followed by a huge rumbling, which can only be the same nuclear destruction of Orlando, the city closest to Fort Repose. These events culminate to what will later be called "The Day" by the residents of Fort Repose—in effect, a one-day war—has begun.

The effects of "The Day" on Fort Repose are varied. Tourists are trapped in their hotels. The local bank manager tries to get instructions from the Federal Reserve sub-branch in Jacksonville, but since Jacksonville has also been destroyed, no advice is available. The local disc jockey nervously reads instructions on the CONELRAD system. The only reliable method of news from the outside world is a shortwave receiver owned by one of Randy's neighbors, Sam Hazzard, a retired U.S. Navy admiral. Convicts escape; the local retirement homes are filled with panicked people; and a run on the bank results in the bank closing and local merchants selling out of nearly all supplies.

As the effects of the disintegration of society get worse, many prominent people fail. The local banker, Edgar Quisenberry, commits suicide once he realizes money is useless. Randy's political rival, Porky Logan, obtains looted radioactive jewelry and becomes seriously ill with radiation sickness. Randy organizes his immediate neighbors to provide housing, food, and water for themselves, organizes the community into self-defense, guides his family, and helps find salt and new supplies of food when they grow short. He fights "highwaymen" who murder residents and assault the local doctor, Dan Gunn. Some in Fort Repose discover faith; others degenerate into drunkenness. Randy eventually learns that, as an active-duty reservist, he has the legal right to exercise martial law—shortly after he had already begun to do so, albeit in a de facto mode. The authority comes from an order of acting Chief Executive Josephine Vanbruuker-Brown (who prior to The Day had been the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare) for any surviving active-duty or reserve officers to form local militias.

When the Air Force finally makes contact with Fort Repose again, and express a willingness to move the families out of the area, none accept the offer; they have come to believe that the life they have built in Fort Repose is at least as good, if not better, than the life they would face outside. The Air Force officer reveals that the United States won the war - but at a tremendous cost: it is now a secondary power at best, and is the recipient of aid from third world powers such as Brazil and Venezuela. He also explains nothing is left of Miami, Tampa, and Orlando. There are two huge craters where McCoy AFB and downtown Orlando once stood. This gives the reader the impression Fort Repose is now the only major city left in Florida.

Effects of the novel

Cover of Bantam Books 1979 paperback edition, ISBN 0-553-13260-1

Alas, Babylon depicts fallout and radiation as an invisible threat, rather than a roaming "cloud of death" as in other novels such as On the Beach. Its theme is "You can survive if you are ready and willing to adapt."

The book also portrays nuclear war as arguably winnable. When the Air Force personnel find Randy and his fellow survivors, they ask about the outcome of the nuclear exchange and are told: "We won it. We really clobbered 'em!" (The value of this victory is questioned, even by the speaker, who adds, "Not that it matters"; he has already explained that the "victorious" United States now has a smaller population than pre-war France, and will be accepting lend-lease shipments of foodstuffs from South America, Thailand, and Indonesia. This dialogue demonstrates the irony of a war in which there are few survivors; possibly a nuclear one in Frank's opinion. The U.S.A. doctrine of M.A.D. is the manifestation of the opinion that large-scale nuclear war is non-victorious.) The book presents the post-apocalyptic situation as grave but survivable, that even within the so-called "contamination zones", it is possible for some communities to continue. This book was written before the effects of Nuclear Winter and Electromagnetic pulses were widely known, but otherwise is reasonably accurate in the effects of a nuclear attack and its aftermath. The U.S. government is presented as functioning in uncontaminated areas, and working to help survivors as best as possible in contaminated zones. This depiction is very different from later books and films on nuclear war.

In the foreword of the 2005 edition of Alas, Babylon, David Brin admits that the book was instrumental in shaping his views on nuclear war and had an effect on his own book, The Postman (pp. xi-xii, ISBN 0-06-074187-2, Harper Perennial Modern Classics).

Detractors of the John Titor story have cited extreme similarities between his story and the plot of Alas, Babylon.

Adaptations

An adaptation of Alas, Babylon was broadcast on April 3, 1960 as the 131st episode of the Playhouse 90 dramatic television series.^[2] It starred Don Murray, Burt Reynolds, and Rita Moreno.^[3]

See also

• List of nuclear holocaust fiction
• Survivalism

References

1. ^ Owens, Vivian W. The Mount Dorans: African American History Notes of a Florida Town. Waynesboro: Eschar, 2000
2. ^ Playhouse 90 Episode Guide, TV.com
3. ^ IMDB "Playhouse 90" Alas, Babylon (1960)