
[BOR]
0: Safe
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[EOR]
[BOC]
Uh, no, they could not. This is a myth. Let me calculate this: 

1. [Let's take the arsenal at the peak of the Cold War](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_States) and assume that the mean power of every single one of the 31,255 nukes is 1.2 megatons (B-83, the largest bomb in U.S. service). It's an obvious fantasy, of course.
2. That gives us a mean area of effect of [550 square kilometers](http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/) per nuke. 
3. Assuming a fantastic scenario where a nuke annihilates everything in the blast radius, and each of them hits non-overlapping areas, providing perfect coverage, this gives us a coverage of 17,190,250 square kilometers. 
4. It's a lot, though it's still barely over 12% of the Earth's 148,940,000 km2 surface area (landmass). And, mind you, this thought experiment assumes fantastic nuclear weapons and a combined tonnage far exceeding the actual power of the weapons deployed.


[EOC]

0: Safe