[Retric]

That was just a nice round number. According to Wikipedia from ~1970 - 2000 Russia had 10,000+ nukes with a peak of ~40,000 in ~1985. No idea what the actual numbers where though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race

Mostly, I was just pointing out that fairly soon they could branch out and target just about any population center. I don't think they ever actually targeted death valley for example.

Anyway, the important thing to remember is by the mid 1970's many of these bomb shelters had been unused for 20+ years. It's very natural to look at something like that and say spending more on this is probably pointless.