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  LEVEL TWO SYMPTOMS: 100 to 200 REMS

  Short-term effects include fatigue and general malaise.

  Gastrointestinal effects may include nausea and vomiting on the first day. A two-week “latent period” may ensue in which symptoms disappear but then reappear in milder form. Generally, the more severe the symptoms in the beginning, the slower the process of recovery. Individuals with these levels of radiation dosages are excellent candidates for recovery.

  LEVEL THREE SYMPTOMS: 200 to 600 REMS

  Individuals with dosages in this range can display symptoms ranging from mild to severe. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, lack of appetite, etc., are the most obvious characteristics. The more severe the symptoms, the higher the radiation dosage absorbed may be assumed. Again, there may be a latent period of a week or perhaps only several days. Higher dosages produce skin hemorrhages, bleeding in the mouth and urine, and, with dosages above 200 rems, a loss of hair. A swelling of the throat is not uncommon. In the 600+ rem stage, high uncontrollable fevers may be present, as well as emaciation. Death in these cases is probable in 80 to 100 percent of the cases. Judgments as to the extent of medical services to be provided are therefore advised.

  LEVEL FOUR SYMPTOMS: 600 to 1000+ REMS

  Gastrointestinal symptoms are the most obvious: extreme vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, prostration, ataxia (loss of motor control), and difficulty in breathing. Individuals displaying these symptoms will almost certainly die within several days to two weeks. You are not likely to see individuals with such severe symptoms. All subjects arriving in a coma or comalike state should immediately be referred to medical authorities for handling.

  Undoubtedly, these guidelines are not complete, nor are they intended to be inflexible. However, the immediate need to process large numbers of incoming civilians is crucial in order to assure adequate distribution of medical supplies and attention, food and clothing, shelter, and relocation services.

  * * *

  MESSAGE BY COURIER

  SIGNED RECEIPT MANDATORY

  TO ALL DIRECTORS, CIVILIAN AND MILITARY MEDICAL FACILITIES IN THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES

  FROM U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL (CDCHDQ) ATLANTA

  REGARDING IMPLEMENTATION OF WAR EMERGENCY ACT AND EXECUTIVE ORDER 15

  10 FEBRUARY 1989

  Pursuant to the War Emergency Act (23 CFR 586, Sections 18-35) and Executive Order 15, you are hereby instructed to implement at once the emergency triage procedures necessary for the treatment of war victims. This action is taken in view of the catastrophic numbers of victims requiring medical attention and the overall burden on existing facilities. The unavailability of adequate numbers of trained personnel and supplies, presently and for the immediate future, poses a major health hazard. The unprecedented nature of the emergency facing this nation mandates the immediate implementation of selection procedures for treatment. Communities can expect severe resistance, but you are reminded that the first task facing this nation is that of survival; existing facilities, personnel, and supplies must be directed to those populations with the greatest probability of survival.

  Therefore, as of 1200 hours, 10 February 1989, you are instructed to triage victims according to the following requirements:

  1.0 GENERAL INJURIES (Non-radiation-induced)

  Mild to Severe: Injuries of this nature, such as burns, fractures, contusions, etc., may be treated as conditions allow.

  Severe to Critical: Treatment should be limited to victims with greatest possibilities of recovery. Medical supplies should be limited accordingly.

  Severely Critical: No treatment desirable.

  2.0 RADIATION-INDUCED INJURIES

  Treatment should be accorded on the basis of radiation dosage absorbed. Whole-body measurements should be taken whenever possible: in cases where this cannot be done, interviews should attempt to ascertain proximity to radiation zones and duration of exposure. The following schedule should then be utilized:

  0 to 100 REMS No treatment necessary.

  100 to 200 REMS Treatment limited to radiation symptoms such as flash burns, nausea, vomiting, etc. No other treatment desirable.

  200 to 450 REMS Medical assistance most valuable here. At upper levels (350+), chances of recovery with medical attention are 50 percent.

  450+ REMS No treatment desirable.

  It is not known at this time whether radiation injuries are more severe in cases where radiation is absorbed all at once or cumulatively.

  Your government is aware of the implications of this order.

  Steps are being taken by appropriate military authorities to provide assistance to you in implementation of triage instructions. You will be provided with further information as soon as it is available. You will be instructed as soon as possible regarding the cessation of triage requirements.

  Signed: William T. Adcock, M.D.

  Director ATCEN/DC

  INTERVIEW

  Hector Espinoza, Aztlan Leader

  [ENTRY IN TO AZTLAN: RUMOR TO REALITY. Officially, Aztlan starts in Monahans. The actual border, however, was not encountered until we reached the former town of Van Horn, now called Ciudad de Reforma.

  The Texas & Western Bus Company stops on this side of the big white gate that has been erected across I-20. When we arrived at the border, we found that we were expected. Governor Parker had sent a special message to the Foreign Minister of Aztlan, apparently right after our interview.

  Despite the differences between Texas and the new country, this letter smoothed our passage and enabled us to gain access to the highest Aztlan authorities. Once in El Paso, Aztlan’s capital, we found that the real power in the country is centered around the Foreign Minister, who has obtained recognition from most of Latin America, Spain, and a number of African countries. Even more important, he has obtained much friendly help from Japan.

  There is no reason, really, to introduce Senior Espinoza. He speaks very well for himself.]

  We in Aztlan have created a new nation, stretching from Texas to the California border. There is a constitution, and a national government, the only one presently active in the former United States.

  Aztlan is recognized by many countries. We have here in El Paso ambassadors from Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba, and Japan. Many other nations are favorably inclined toward Aztlan. We have received an agricultural team from the People’s Republic of China. Great Britain is providing medical help. Officially, Britain, France, and Germany have not recognized Aztlan. But we are confident that they will one day do so.

  Aztlan is a Hispanic country. The official language is Spanish.

  This must be understood. As U.S. citizens, you have the right to enter and leave without showing a passport, but you do not have the right to vote in our elections, or remain here more than thirty days without a visa.

  We have an army of four divisions, nearly forty thousand men.

  We have a national police force, which is why, when you crossed the border, there were suddenly no more bandits on the roads.

  Also, the Japanese have sent road-repair teams to Aztlan, so we have no more potholes in our interstates. And Japanese medicine has kept our disease rate low. We have not been affected by fallout. In fact, we drew the border through Fort Stockton rather than including San Angelo and San Antonio, because of the destruction and the radiation.

  You must understand that, as a new nation, Aztlan has had its share of growing pains. We have had to relocate many Anglos across the border in Texas, and there has been a certain very small amount of violence, inevitable when a new nation is formed.

  Aztlan is a strong, civilized, and free country. We have no political prisoners in our prisons, and nobody has ever been tortured in Aztlan. We do have a policy of encouraging Hispanic and Indian settlement of the territory. We are very frank about that. For five generations this land belonged to the Anglos, and look at the result. For ten generations before that it was Hispanic
land, and before that, Indian for twenty generations.

  We practice the same sort of enlightened socialism that is found in progressive countries across the world. We follow the Chinese example to some extent, but we also guarantee personal freedom as the Swedes do. And we do not keep people in prison because of their political views. There are many cooperative concerns in Aztlan, farms and factories and power establishments.

  When a farmer sells his holdings to the cooperative, he gets in return lifetime free medical care with no triage, an income based on his production capabilities, and the support that comes from being a part of our wonderful cooperative farm and ranch system.

  The Japanese have provided us with millions of dollars’ worth of advanced trickle-irrigation equipment, so we have been able to add many thousands of acres to the area cultivated in Aztlan. This acreage is planted with soybeans, which has become our largest export crop. We also sell oil and peanuts and wheat and corn and, of course, beef. Aztlan is a prosperous country. There is no unemployment here. If you want to work, you can work. If you don’t want to work, you can go to Texas or California.

  Officially, both of those states are part of Aztlan. But we do not want the part of Texas we don’t already have, and we would have to fight a war to get California. We are not yet prepared to do that.

  If we were ever to gain California, Aztlan would become one of the most powerful countries in the world. Not a superpower—we don’t want that. But a great power, perhaps as economically powerful as, say, Sweden.

  Do you know that we gave foreign aid last year? Can you imagine it? We sent five hundred thousand bushels of soybeans and two hundred thousand of corn to Mexico. Of course, you know that they are all dying down there. Officially, the border between Aztlan and Mexico is open. And in the past three years, perhaps a million immigrants have come here. Now we have an agreement with Mexico. They get our food aid, and in return they process all potential emigrants to Aztlan. Since we cannot take the sick and they will not let the able-bodied leave, the immigration from Mexico is presently very small. If they wish to enter North America, the Mexicans must cross the Rio Grande into Texas, not Aztlan.

  I am myself the Foreign Minister and official spokesman for Aztlan. We have a full portfolio of ministers. Our present capital is the Marriott here in El Paso. It has been renamed La Capitola, and contains our administrative apparatus. Our government is not organized around a president or prime minister. Instead, the two parties run against one another, and the party that gets a simple majority forms the governing committee for the next four years.

  We have the State Socialists and the Social Democrats. The SD is part of the International Social Democratic Movement, and is the less radical of the two parties, as they believe that private ownership of national industries, such as power and transport, should be allowed. At the present time, my party, the State Socialists, is in power.

  We believe in cooperatives but not in central planning. We do not want to repeat the disastrous mistakes of the Soviet Union and create a repressive and counterproductive bureaucracy. So we are not a rigidly planned community. Our socialism is strictly voluntary. If you join, you get the benefits of cooperative living. If not, then you go it alone, but nobody interferes with you. And the co-ops compete with one another in a free macromarket. Each co-op is autonomous. In soy farming, for example, there are sixty co-ops and fifty-one private farms, some owned by big international agricultural corporations, one by Central Soya, and eight by Japanese firms. The co-ops have an association that sets prices and provides a system of mutual assistance. Thus they are much more efficient than the private farms.

  We have our own currency. The Far Eastern Bank Note Company in Hong Kong makes the notes. They are backed by an equivalent amount in Japanese yen. Of course, this makes the currency very valuable, as it is exchangeable at any bank in the world for yen. Ten Aztlan pesos to a thousand yen. Better than the dollar!

  Our economy enjoys a balanced current account, which means that our exports pay for our imports. We have no inflation, as all prices are controlled. There is no hunger in Aztlan. And there is racial equality. Even Anglos, if they want to stay, are welcomed into the community of the Aztlan people!

  Our Indian population is free to live and worship as it pleases.

  We have Hopi, Apache, Pueblo, and Navajo tribes living in Aztlan.

  Their tribal areas are self-governing. We do not keep records of their activities, nor do we have any sort of Bureau of Indian Affairs. We just let them do as they please in their own territories.

  But, unfortunately, we cannot grant you safe conduct into the Indian lands. Among the Indians there is, frankly, a good deal of hostility toward Anglos.

  Now I suppose I ought to talk about what happened at Roswell, because you’ve probably heard about it from others. You must understand that we view the Mescalero Apaches as a separate, sovereign nation within Aztlan, and Roswell is within the boundaries of their tribal state. They took over the town about six months after the war, as soon as it became clear that the central government had collapsed. When we declared Aztlan in 1989, we went to the Mescalero, they did not come to us. All I can tell you is that the incident was overblown. Those Anglos who were killed had formed an armed resistance movement. People were not tortured or burned. And nothing like a thousand were killed. It was no more than half or at most two-thirds of that number. And there were trials, you understand. The whole process took months. All of it was before Aztlan. If it happened now, we would try hard to persuade the Indians to let the Anglos leave Indian lands peacefully.

  I am glad you suggest that this book will be distributed in England. We have to get an awareness among the British people that Aztlan exists. British recognition would confirm us as a permanent nation, and a British guarantee of sovereignty would mean that our chief worry of war with California or Texas would never come true. If we had such a guarantee, even a reconstructed United States would have to think very carefully about invading us or destroying this serene and happy nation.

  The territory we call Aztlan was originally part of the Spanish Empire and the Republic of Mexico. You must remember that Mexico was then a perfectly ordinary nineteenth-century republic, no more or less violent or repressive than the United States.

  But the United States first encouraged Anglo colonization of Texas and California, then supported internal insurgencies. When the Anglos won the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, less than one-third of the population of Texas was Anglo. And California was simply stolen. Mexico was forced to accede to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and give California to the United States. It was theft!

  As a result of the loss of its territory north of the Rio Grande, Mexico was emasculated and her people lost their sense of personal pride. The image of the lazy “Meskin” and the “Frito Bandido” was born, but it was not laziness, it was sorrow. We Hispanics are not lazy and we are not bandidos and we are not stupid. If we are so stupid, how come we have the only happy, safe, and well-organized nation north of the Rio Grande? While the Anglos fight bitterly among themselves for the rancid bits of the old United States, we Hispanics have quietly created this beautiful country, this beloved Aztlan!

  We even have our own poets, our own writers, our own film stars. Chito Hernandez, “El Nino,” Gabriela Jaime Nunez, all names of which you know nothing. But they are our stars! We make ten films a year in Aztlan, and when you combine those with the ten made in Mexico and the twenty in Spain, you have a new Hispanic movie almost every week. And we have a television and radio industry. The Japanese sell us more radios than we can possibly use. They put up a new station right here in El Paso. Radio “A,” it is called.

  We also have Japanese cars and a new Japanese train running on the Santa Fe tracks from Monahans all the way to Tucson, where it connects not only with the Sunset Limited but with the El Costero, which provides super-express service down the Pacific coast of Mexico. We are on the world map, I assure you. People want our soybeans and othe
r farm goods, not to mention our oil and gas and uranium, even coal.

  For many people in the old United States, the confusion that resulted from the obliteration of Washington was unbelievably destructive. But for us, the people of Aztlan, it was really almost a blessing. Of course, we are very sorry for all the death and suffering. But Warday also brought some good—our Aztlan.

  I do not want to lie to you, though, nor seem too bombastic. I suppose I can’t help it. I’m a natural enthusiast, and I’m excited by what we’re accomplishing here. Still, the way has not been as easy as all that. And Aztlan is far from perfect. You might find things wrong here. But you will also find love and a powerful sense of community. This is the great Chicano state, this Aztlan, and I love it so much that sometimes it hurts my heart, you know, when things are not as I would wish.

  We have to rely a great deal on the Japanese, and they are certainly exploiting us. But we have the brotherhood and sisterhood of our nation, and our great heritage. I trust our isolated little country to survive. Anyway, I hope it will.

  El Paso

  Hector Espinoza is afraid for his infant state, and so tries to hide its weakness behind bold words. But Espinoza does not know his own people. Whatever happens to Aztlan, the eager confidence of its citizens will not be utterly lost. They have created something new here, and it will have its effect. Obviously there have been excesses. There are no Anglo faces in the streets. The Mobil refinery that one sees on the way into town is closed. There are many Japanese soldiers about. Although we were not allowed to visit Fort Bliss, Jim and I both had the impression that it is now a Japanese enclave. No doubt they intend to protect the vast soya plantations that have sprung up in the desert, which must be providing essential foodstuffs to their homeland.