“Charlottesville: A Fictional Account”

1979 Randall, Nan. “Charlottesville: A Fictional Account.” In The Effects of Nuclear War (Washington, DC: Office of Technological Assessment, Congress of the United States, 1979), 124-38. OTA-NS-89 Hathi

A day-by-day account of the effects of nuclear war on Charlottesville, Virginia. The story provided the basis for the television film The Day After (1983) written by Edward Hume (b. 1936) and directed by Nicholas Meyer (b. 1945). The female author was a journalist who wrote for The Washington Post and Newsweek, who had previously worked on nuclear stories with the executive director of the Arms Control Association, and who had been program director of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. She had written with William Kincade (1939-2017), the executive director of the Arms Control Association, a series describing the effect of two nuclear bombs dropped on the Tampa Bay area. See “Doomsday.” St. Petersburg Times (February 25-28, 1979): 1A, 20A; 1A, 13A-14A; 1A, 7A; 12A.  For background to the story, see Alexis C. Madrigal, “The People Who Would Survive Nuclear War.” The Atlantic.com (January 25, 2018). https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/that-time-the-government-commission-fiction-about-nuclear-war/551303/