The dubious assumption that "only the cockroaches" would survive the post-war fallout environment was frequently used in an attempt to criticize "Duck and Cover" during the height of the Cold War, contextually at a time when discussion of a total war involved the much greater US-Soviet arsenal of nuclear weapons that were then in existence. However even at that time, this assumption was shown to be misled, as scientifically detailed in areas including the 1988 book "Would the Insects Inherit the Earth and Other Subjects of Concern to Those Who Worry About Nuclear War".