Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

Nuclear war is defined by horrific paradoxes. Weapons that are fast and accurate are more likely to precipitate Wolrd War 3, with a scenario of a border skirmish leading to a "use it or lose" mentality that devolves to a general apocalypse. "Counter-value" weapons, the ones deemed least likely to actually be fired, are only useful for massacring millions of civilians in futile revenge. Nuclear weapons are so serious that they should be fired only with authorization from the highest of commands, but the President will be the first target of an attack. The basic paradox is encapsulated in "always/never", a stated design goal of the Atomic weapons complex. A bomb should always explode when it is needed, and never explode show more otherwise.

Schlosser traces the dangerous history of nuclear weapons, full of near-misses and lucky accident, in parallel with the 1980 Damascus Incident at a Titan II silo in Arkansas. At Damascus, during a routine refueling a dropped socket wrench penetrated the oxidizer tank of the massive ICBM, spilling thousands of gallons of nitrogen tetroxide. The crew of the silo and response teams from nearby airbases faced a rapidly evolving disaster. The Titan II was essentially an aluminum balloon, and when enough oxidizer vented the missile would collapse and explode. Or the oxidizer could explode due to a spark. The response was complicated by having to work in a cloud of toxic fumes wearing heavy and balky hazmat suits, and poor communication channels between the silo, the Airforce base at Little Rock, and SAC HQ, which tried to manage the response at long distance. Eventually, time ran out and the missile exploded. One crew member, David Livingston, eventually died of wounds and nitrogen tetroxide exposure. The official report scapegoated Livingston, the only casaulty of the accident, and exonerated SAC command, despite decades of ignoring complaints about hazards involved with the Titan II.

The drama of the Damascus incident is interleaved with the broader story of nuclear weapons. Schlosser traces the absurdity and obscenity of nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War. The bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were hand-built experimental devices. The arguments over control of America's nuclear stockpile between the Air Force, Navy, and civil Atomic Energy Commission, were done in ignorance that the 'stockpile' was as low as a single weapon, which would have to undergo weeks of assembly before it could be mated to a B-29 and dropped. As the Cold War spun up, second generation weapons were dispatched to airborne and forward alerts, which exposed them to the vagaries of aviation and overseas security that was nominal at best. It is a miracle that a bomb did not accidentally explode, or was not stolen by terrorists or coup-oriented NATO officers. Finally, the realities of nuclear war were universes apart from the theories of defense planners like McNamara and Kissinger. If the ball went up, America would deploy the SIOP (single integrated operations plan), which on a "go code" would unleash 10 hours of thermonuclear devastation on the USSR, China, and Eastern Europe. Thousands of bombs would drop, millions of people would die. The SIOP could not be altered or stopped. Theories of nuclear strategy which involved pauses to negotiate before the absolute end of the world, or limited destruction, had no physical means by which they could be implemented. The communication networks simply didn't exist to actually control a nuclear war in progress, even if the President were somehow still alive. The survivors would probably envy the dead.

Though the 21st century has reduced the risk of a nuclear war between superpowers, the bombs are still very much real, and proliferation increases the risks that a second sun will light on Earth, whether as part of clash between India and Pakistan or Israel and Iran, or simply by accident. We have been very very lucky, but eventually those snake-eyes will come up.

I'll confess to having strange attitudes towards nuclear war. I don't remember the Cold War at all, and I've probably learned to stop worrying and love the bomb a little too much, through atomic kitsch media like the video games Fallout and DEFCON, or even deserved classics like Dr. Strangelove. Command and Control is absolutely my jam. If you react with revulsion to nuclear weapons, like a normal person, this may not be. Still, an amazing book, and I'm somewhat amazed that I waited this long to read it.

Now Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb is staring at me from the shelf... show less

This review is based on the Blinkist version of the book...thus a summary and my review needs to be qualified as such. Presumably the original full text has much more details and research.....but it also takes much longer to read. If I like the Blinkist version, I might seek out and read the full book. Meantime here are a few nuggets that particularly struck me:
This is a rather scary book. After years of intense research, scientists had eventually discovered that there were two materials that could cause a fission kind of explosion: uranium-235 and plutonium-239. Nuclear bombs rely on fission–when atoms split and release energy.....When fission happens under strictly controlled circumstances, such as in a nuclear power plant, the show more produced energy can be used to fuel electrical generators. However, on July 17, 1945, during the first bomb test, no one was exactly sure what was going to happen. A scientist Donald Horning came up with the X-Unit. This was an electronic triggering device that would simultaneously set off all 32 explosives in the bomb......completely surrounded the core in the shape of 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons; it looked like a big soccer ball.
Horning’s triggering device worked perfectly. With the massive explosion and mushroom cloud. The US military, along with the president, decided to deliver an unannounced bombing on Hiroshima. This occurred on August 6, 1945. The bomb was called “Little Boy,” and it was ten feet tall and weighed ten thousand pounds. Its core contained 0.7 grams of uranium-235, an amount that weighed less than a dollar bill but would unleash an explosion equivalent to 12 to 18 kilotons of TNT......Despite the massive death and destruction caused by the bomb, the Japanese Emperor refused to surrender. So a second bomb, this one with a plutonium core and the code name “Fat Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki just three days later. Remarkably enough, while the bomb was being loaded onto a plane, a technician noticed that it had been incorrectly wired. So a quick and dangerous rewiring was done on the spot, using a soldering iron right next to five thousand pounds of high explosives.
It is believed that only one-fifth of Fat Man’s plutonium actually fissioned, but it was still a bigger explosion than Hiroshima, equivalent in yield to 21 kilotons of TNT.
US Air Force General, Henry H. Arnold called for the bomb to be immediately outlawed. [A sensible individual ...though banning something like this seems to be impossible for humans]. Eventually, the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 was issued, giving America’s nuclear program civilian oversight through the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which was made up of politicians.
There were two events in particular that put the United States and the Soviet Union at loggerheads. In 1948, the Soviets staged a violent takeover of Czechoslovakia’s democratic government; and in 1949, the Soviets successfully tested their first nuclear bomb, the RDS-1......So the big question facing Congress in 1949 was how the United States should respond to such an invasion. One side argued for conventional warfare; the other, for an “atomic blitz,” which relied on nuclear weapons and minimal ground forces.....The atomic blitz side won, and the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC) was formed to prepare for a potential nuclear strike.
Both sides started out with the implosion bombs–also known as Mark 3 bombs
But in 1949, the United States began working on the Mark 4, which stored its nuclear core separately from the rest of the bomb. It also featured a safer detonation device that could detect a change in altitude and therefore remain unarmed until it was released from the plane.....But the Mark 4 was soon replaced by the Mark 6, which was ten times as powerful. And then the Mark 6 was supplanted by the Mark 7, which was smaller and lighter but no less powerful......For the United States, the first full-scale experimental test of a liquid-fuelled H-bomb was on November 1, 1952. The explosion was equivalent to roughly 10.4 megatons of TNT–five hundred times more than the Nagasaki bomb.....This was followed on March 1, 1954, by the famous Bikini Atoll test of a solid-fuelled H-bomb that yielded 15 megatons.
And the Soviets weren’t far behind; their own thermonuclear test of the RDS-6 occurred in August of 1953.
The Strategic Air Command (SAC) took preparedness very seriously. There were countless checklists and endless drills.......But this meant that nuclear weapons were constantly being loaded and unloaded from planes that were routinely flying over populated areas.
And after the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, the stockpile increased considerably.....One primary concern was over “one-point safety,” which is how vulnerable the bombs were to having just one of the explosive detonators accidentally go off. There are a number of theoretical scenarios where this might happen, such as a fire causing a short circuit in the wiring or a bullet puncturing the bomb’s shell and striking or sparking the explosive. If just one detonator around the bomb’s core goes off, it wouldn’t result in a 15-megaton explosion–but it would likely release the core’s poisonous radioactive material into the air. And even small traces of plutonium dust can be deadly.
Two of the most vocal proponents for trying to get more safety features built into the bombs were scientists Robert Peurifoy and Carl Carlson, both of whom worked for Sandia...a civil contractor working on the bomb. Many in the government and military were opposed to more safety features. They saw them as increasing the likelihood that the bombs might fail to go off when needed, and retrofitting old bombs was just too costly. [Which is one good reason why we should not entrust the decisions about usage to the Defence establishment].
Accidents weren’t at all uncommon. One of the most dangerous accidents is known as “the Moroccan incident.”...In January of 1958, a plane loaded with a Mark 36 hydrogen bomb, capable of a 10-megaton yield, blew a tire and caught fire at an American airfield in Morocco. US Air Force personnel tried to put out the flames that were feeding off a full tank of jet fuel–but couldn’t. The base was evacuated. Luckily, the melted 8,000-pound bomb was recovered two hours later and the radioactive material was buried.
A month later, a Mark 6 atomic bomb was accidentally jettisoned from a plane flying over South Carolina. Thankfully, the fissile core was not inside the bomb, which detonated upon impact, leaving a 50-foot crater in the yard of a home,
When the first detailed safety report on nuclear weapons was issued, it revealed that an average of seven bombs were being accidentally dropped every year. On top of that, there were twelve crashes or accidents that involved a plane carrying a nuclear bomb...There was also a genuine threat that someone drunk, high or in the throes of a psychotic episode could accidentally or purposely detonate a nuclear device.
Amazingly, there were hardly any security measures in place to stop a pilot in Germany from taking off in a plane and launching a nuclear missile; or for a soldier in Italy to knock a guard unconscious, take the key from around his neck and launch a rocket......in 1957, an atomic bomb or a hydrogen bomb was accidentally jettisoned once every 320 flights.....In 1961, a malfunction caused a B-52 to crash into a barley field in northern California after the crew safely evacuated. It was carrying two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs that luckily shattered without incident.....Just weeks later, a B-52 was flying over the Appalachian Mountains when turbulence caused its tail to break apart. The plane was carrying two Mark 53 H-bombs. It crashed into the side of a mountain, and only two of the five crew members survived. The bombs were recovered from the wreckage, undetonated and intact.....And in 1966, a mid-air collision occurred when a B-52 was attempting to refuel over the coast of southern Spain.
the United States denied there was any threat. Yet one bomb had partially detonated, excavating a 20-foot crater near a cemetery and releasing a cloud of plutonium onto a nearby farm.
In the 1970s a different kind of threat emerged as military servicemen began to take part in the growing drug culture. Even the ones who handled nuclear bomb storage weren’t immune to the cultural changes.
In the 1950s, NORAD became the first computer network, its purpose being to link the radar systems of Air Force bases across the United States to detect a Soviet first strike.
The Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) dates back to the late 1950s
On December 2, 1960, SIOP called for 3,423 nuclear weapons to be directed at 1,000 different ground zeroes. The plan would eliminate 3,729 targets and along with an estimated 220 million lives, with far more dying from the subsequent fallout and aftereffects.....Another disturbing thing about SIOP is that once it starts, there’s no stopping it. [Great....who were the genius thinkers who dreamed this up]....What’s also disturbing is that, on more than one occasion, SIOP came close to going into effect......In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the SAC was ordered to be at DEFCON 2, the level of readiness just below imminent nuclear war. Sixty-five bombers were in the air, and multiple nuclear submarines were in striking position. Fortunately, the Soviet Union agreed to remove their weapons from Cuba, and the crisis was averted.
On multiple occasions, NORAD mistakenly identified incoming Soviet missiles. Once, this was due to the accidental running of a test program that was believed (By the Russians) to be a real scenario. But thankfully, cool heads prevailed. GPS was originally invented in the 1980s as part of the nuclear defence program.
According to a report in 1968, there were an average of 130 significant accidents per year that involved nuclear weapons. That’s 1,200 incidents between 1950 and 1968, with 13 of those incidents getting labelled as “broken arrows”–when a weapon gets accidentally fired or detonated and releases radioactive materials.
The Titan II rocket comes with other inbuilt dangers. Its fuel tank is especially dangerous, containing highly toxic liquid propellants and an oxidizer that releases an even deadlier explosive vapor. On the evening of September 18th, the maintenance crew was doing a routine fill-up of the oxidizer tank, when a metal socket was accidentally dropped; it fell 70 feet before striking the side of the rocket, and immediately, a nasty looking cloud of vapor began to fill the underground silo. Alarms and warning lights went off, but the staff were confused and started to panic because, even though they had checklists to follow for every procedure, there wasn’t one for this scenario....In total, it took nearly eight hours for a plan to be approved, and it started off with a bad choice. Technicians were ordered to enter the silo using the main access door instead of the escape hatch, which would’ve been a whole lot quicker, easier and safer.....Then the final bad decision of the night was made. An order came to turn on the ventilation fan to clear the vapor from the silo. Kennedy knew that it would only take a tiny spark to instantly turn the silo into a roaring fireball, but Livingston agreed to turn the switch and activate the fan. And sure enough, just after Kennedy stepped outside, the place exploded........The official report of the incident blamed the low-ranking officers involved and decided that the Titan II was still “basically safe.” It was clear that very little would change during the 1980s. [How can one trust official reports like this that are clearly sanitised and censored].
The Pershing II, a missile with a mere 1,000-mile range that was scheduled to arrive in West German bases in November of 1983. With a range that small, it was clear to the Soviets that these missiles had only one purpose–to annihilate Moscow in under ten minutes.
Making tensions worse, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and the United States began a campaign of psychological warfare by routinely sending SAC bombers into Soviet airspace and conducting Navy exercises close to Soviet bases. [This doesn’t sound particularly intelligent to me...and the Americans and others are doing the same sort of thing in the South China Sea].
But the most dangerous incident occurred a week later when NATO conducted a drill called Able Archer 83, which was designed to simulate the authorization of nuclear warfare.
With the delivery of the Pershing II only weeks away, the timing for this simulation couldn’t have been worse. When the KGB overheard communications from the drill, they thought they were hearing the real thing, bringing the Soviet Union perilously close to launching a pre-emptive attack. Luckily, the drill ended soon, alleviating the worst fears of the Soviets.
On November 20, 1983, Ronald Reagan and millions of other Americans watched a made-for-TV film called The Day After. It was a realistic portrayal of how average people would cope with the outbreak of nuclear war, and Reagan was among those extremely shaken by what they had seen...When the president appeared on TV shortly after seeing the film, his rhetoric had dramatically changed. He announced that a “nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought.” [I find it especially scary that it takes a film star president to watch a fictional movie to decide that a nuclear war cannot be won...what happened to SIOP and the system that once launched couldn’t be stopped. That is really dumb. And who is doing the real thinking about nuclear policy if this is how decisions are made?].
The military finally heard Robert Peurifoy and agreed to spend money on retrofitting some of its stockpile with improved safety devices. It was clear how needed these improvements were when the House Foreign Affairs Committee graded the safety of every type of weapon in the US arsenal. On a scale from A to D, only three got an A, and 12 received a D.
More recent safety additions include a barcode system that was introduced to prevent the accidental transport of armed weapons on training missions. This is exactly what happened in 2009 when six nuclear missiles sat in an unguarded plane for two days.
While Russia possesses around 3,740 nuclear weapons, France around 300, China 240 and the United Kingdom 160, it’s the nations of India and Pakistan that could pose the biggest threat. [Where are the figures for the USA?...why are these omitted?]...Pakistan recently doubled its arsenal to around 100 weapons.....But the added threat here comes from the number of Islamic radicals in the area who have already made multiple attempts to steal a nuclear weapon
The key message in this book: Nuclear weapons are not something that can be safely controlled with strict bureaucratic checklists and procedures. As long as computers and humans are involved, something is bound to go wrong. Humans will make mistakes and computers will malfunction, and the more secretive nations are about those mistakes and the technology behind their weapons, the harder it will become to improve safety and design, making all of us more vulnerable to a catastrophic accident.
My take on the book. Yes seriously scary. And one really has to question the MAD strategy. (Mutually Assured Destruction). I recall someone asking about this of the US military:
Q: What should the president do if he detects a Russian nuclear missile approaching the USA?
A: He should trigger the automatic (MAD) response.
Q: What happens then?
A: The Russians will respond with all their (MAD) missiles.
Q: what happens then?
A: Well Russia will be a pile of radioactive smoking rubble and so will the USA.
Q: So why did the President trigger the response?
A: ...no answer....just some nervous shuffling of feet.
It seems clear that the quality of thinking around nuclear weapons is not of the highest calibre. And maybe, it should not be left mainly to the military. Maybe we should get the housewives associations of the USA and Russia to be working together on setting some guidelines. It might lead to some clearer thinking.
And really scary that Ronald Reagan made critical decisions about nuclear war after watching a fictional movie. Surely, this is no way for nuclear policy to be formulated? Four stars from me. show less

Command and Control is the terrifying reality of nuclear weapons accidents and the near misses that have occurred throughout the nuclear age. It’s a meticulously researched and gripping exploration of the history, technology, and politics of nuclear weapons, and the complex and often precarious systems put in place to manage these weapons. Schlosser examines the 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash, the 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion, and sheds light on the challenges and shortcomings of nuclear command and control systems, including issues of communication, decision-making processes, and the potential for unauthorized use. He emphasizes the fallibility of these systems and the inherent dangers they pose—even in the hands of show more well-intentioned individuals. Schlosser raises important questions about the ethics and morality of possessing such destructive capabilities, as well as the need for greater accountability and transparency in nuclear policy. Command and Control is a risks and consequence analysis highlighting the inherent risks of human error, technical malfunctions, and the potential for catastrophic accidents. You might never sleep again. show less

Always - Never. The dichotomous motto for the nuclear bomb. ALWAYS detonate when we want you to - NEVER detonate when we don’t want you to. Against all probability, this unlikely dichotomy has been held upright for the last 75 years. However, as Schlosser’s well-researched expository work Command and Control uncovers and then describes in detail, one close shave after another, we get the terrible presentiment that our time is running out. We have been playing with Fire for too long and our luck simply cannot last forever. The neutrons have been stacked against us for so long now and they are getting restless.
Schlosser makes it quite clear that there is an incredible profusion of nuclear devices all around us. With brutal, in your show more face, clarity Schlosser provides a disconcerting tour into the insane, even macabre world of MAD (mutually assured destruction) that thoroughly disillusions us of any false notions we may have held prior as to the perceived safety of nuclear weapons or trust in the people that store and handle such weapons. No matter how so-called foolproof our safety measures are supposed to be, it is in the nature of things that all the fail-safes smart minds may install will, sooner or later, be overwhelmed by the sheer infinite foolishness of average men or by unforeseeable circumstances. Once you have read about the irresponsible and ignorant behavior of some of the weapons handlers, I believe you may agree with the prior statement.
Command and Control is so informative that even if you consider yourself reasonably well-read on the topic, you may learn a thing or two - to express it mildly. For its scope is encompassing, and at the same time it manages to be incredibly detailed and thorough.
Until such time I am taught better, I dare say this is the eminent work on the subject of nuclear bomb safety and chain of command - period. show less

For those who like very scary horror stories, you can do no better than reading about the real history of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, and all the things that can go and have gone wrong (or perhaps worse, can go right). As Schlosser says, if you think having some 3,000 Americans killed as they were on 9/11 was bad, contemplate the possibility of having at least half a million killed not even in a war but in an accidental nuclear detonation.

This story uses a 1980 accident at the missile silo complex in Arkansas to frame the history of the command and control of America’s nuclear arsenal since its beginning. In the course of the frightening exposé of America's nuclear weapons mishaps, you’ll be covering your eyes (not actually show more good while driving, as I did) when you hear about the litany of accidental fires, crashes, explosions, near misses and barely averted disasters. Most of them were not disclosed to the public, nor were warnings about the plutonium released in many of the incidents (not to mention, from the testing).

You can only shake your head when you hear about how, for instance, the armed services objected to safety features on bombs because it implied they weren’t careful, and they wouldn’t even approve of safety devices unless they were given more euphemistic names. (Wait, you ask, are we talking about the 68 words banned by General Motors employees when documenting potential vehicle-safety issues, such as “safety” “problem” and “defect”? No, the GM revelation is a current issue. But interesting how some (bad) things never change….)

You will cringe when hearing about the bomb that dropped in 1958 in someone’s yard in Mars Bluff, South Carolina, after a hapless air crew member inadvertently grabbed a manual bomb release lever to support himself (the conventional explosives detonated on impact but not the nuclear device); tremble over the hydrogen bomb dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina in 1961 when a SAC B-52 disintegrated in mid-flight (only one of the bomb's six safety devices functioned, barely saving the East Coast from a nuclear holocaust); shudder over a blown-out airplane tire in Morocco resulting in a fire that could have led to a nuclear explosion, or the time a seat cushion caught on fire on a B-52 bomber in 1968, causing the crew to bail out, the bomber to crash onto sea ice in North Star Bay, and the nuclear payload to rupture and disperse, resulting in radioactive contamination. (The contaminated snow was packed up and shipped for burial in South Carolina.)

Then there was the training tape that was accidentally put into the computer at NORAD with a very realistic simulation of a Soviet attack, almost triggering an all-out “counter attack.” Not that long afterward, during the tense period after the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, there was a computer error at NORAD that falsely indicated more than 1,000 missiles were on their way. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski was woken up in the middle of the night and told that it looked like the US was under attack. He waited for more confirmation before calling President Carter, but he was fully prepared for this nuclear strike and to order a counter-attack. And the examples go on and on. In fact, the author found evidence that at least 1,200 nuclear weapons had been involved in “significant” accidents between 1950 and March 1968.

There is also a recital of many instances in which armed services personnel working with nuclear weapons were suspended or arrested for drug use on duty (including marijuana, hashish, cocaine, and LSD).

All that is old history, you say, and everything is "safe" now? How about this announcement in January 2014:

"The Air Force announced yesterday that it had suspended and revoked the security clearances of 34 missile launch officers at the Malmstrom base in Montana after it came to light that they were cheating—or complicit in cheating—on monthly exams to ensure that they were capable of safely babysitting the nuclear warheads atop their missiles. Eleven launch officers, two of whom where also implicated in the cheating episode, were targeted in a separate investigation of illegal drug use.”

Evaluation: As far as I’m concerned, this should be required reading (or listening) for every American. Even if you don’t want to take the time to read or listen to the book, I hope you will at least check out this interview with the author, who reviews some of the findings in his book here. show less

This is a sobering look at U.S. nuclear policy from immediately after WW II until the end of the Cold War. Inserted among this history is a minute by minute account of an accident in a nuclear missile silo in Damascus Arkansas in the 1980's.

After the end of WW II, there was no cohesive plan for how to handle nuclear weapons, and in fact no one was even sure that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be replicated. A rivalry between the military and civilians for control of nuclear weapons immediately began, with control swinging toward the military each year until there was no longer even the pretense of civilian control. Each successive president was pressured by the military to to delegate the authority to "push the show more button," to the military, as well as to allow foreign governments, i.e. NATO) to possess and control some of the bombs.

There has also been an ongoing conflict between policies of safety and reliability, with the scientists arguing for more safety controls to prevent accidental detonation, and the military pushing for bombs that would go off every time. Needless to say, the military has won, and each time defense spending is authorized the funds are used to make bigger and better bombs, rather than to alter the bombs we already have to make sure they don't accidently go off.

Throughout this history, Schlosser details the thousands (yes I said thousands) of nuclear accidents that have occurred, many minor, but an unsettling number major, including crashes of planes carrying nuclear weapons and the accidental dropping of nuclear bombs. I personally remember the incident in which a plane crashed near Spain in the mid-60's and weeks were spent looking for a lost nuclear bomb. (The other two bombs the plane was carrying were immediately found). And a lot of us of a certain age remember the Cuban missile crisis, and many think that this incident was the closest we've come to nuclear war. Not true--behind the scenes we apparently came even closer during the Berlin Wall crisis.

My criticism of this book is that it basically ends with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the so-called end of the Cold War. I don't think anyone can assume that because the US and the USSR are no longer facing each other down the barrel of a nuclear bomb we are safe, or even safer. There is obviously the problem of the possibility of regional nuclear wars (Indian/Pakistan; Israel/Arab country). Many experts believe, however, that if there is a nuclear holocaust it will most likely be because of a mistake or accident. One of the scariest events the book describes took place during the early 60's when the early warning radar screens at NORAD showed dozens of Soviet missiles headed for the US. The officer in charge had mere minutes to decide whether to launch in retaliation. Fortunately the officer remembered that Khruschev was at the UN in NYC that week, and reasoned that the Soviets wouldn't start a nuclear war while their leader was in the US. It was later determined that the "missiles" that showed up on the radar screen was the moon rising over Norway. show less

This book reads like a techno-thriller, more compelling than fiction because its depiction of near nuclear catastrophe is true. Schlosser combines the riveting and frightening story of an accident in a missile silo in Arkansas with the history of other accidents involving nuclear bombs. He delves deeply into design safety weaknesses that could have brought about unintended detonation of nuclear bombs. In one incident, an aircraft accident over North Carolina resulted in the release of a hydrogen bomb whose arming required four electro-mechanical steps. Three of the four steps were completed and the fourth depended on a simple electric switch that fortunately, in a disintegrating, burning plane, did not trip. In light of the many show more accidents he recounts, that there never was a detonation is probably a matter of good luck. Several accidents caused fissile material, including plutonium, to be exposed to people and the environment.

The book also relates the evolution of command and control strategies employed by civilian and military leadership since the advent of the nuclear age. The control over nuclear weapons shifted over time from tight civilian oversight to a frighteningly loose control by the military. The ability of low-level commanders to engage nuclear weapons via such processes of "pre-delegation" and "launch on warning" meant that the chances of use of weapons leading to full-scale nuclear holocaust were not small. Moreover, the security of weapons from seizure by lunatics or rogue players was exceptionally weak. One feature of our nuclear arms inventory that I didn't know is the variety and number of low-yield tactical weapons intended for battlefield and anti-aircraft use. Some of these weapons were to be operated by individual soldiers and while not intended for strategic use could have been the trigger for escalation to the use of the weapons meant for mass destruction.

Schlosser writes about the shifting conceptions of political-military nuclear strategy in the Cold War milieu. There is a perverse logic in possessing an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction to deter aggression. On the pretext that their use would result in inconceivably horrific consequences the logic of limiting them creates more rather than less danger, i.e. fewer or smaller would lower the threshold of inhibition. Targeting mass civilian populations, on its face a morally reprehensible strategy, prompts each side to be exceedingly cautious about bringing nuclear weapons into play. By the same odd logic, deploying anti-nuke weapons (e.g. so-called counterforce systems like SDI - "Star Wars") would be destabilizing since one side may use its weapons without suffering (as much) consequence of the other's retaliation. Notwithstanding, throughout the 1980's and beyond, the US vacillated between the so-called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) strategy and the use of tactical weapons to stop the Soviets on the battlefields of Western Europe and the development of anti-nuke defense weapons systems. Schlosser note that the Europeans were very much opposed to the idea of limited use of nuclear weapons since they believed their protection from Russian aggression was the US strategic nuclear arsenal and that a limited exchange of nuclear strikes would target them first. He also describes the military's plan for nuclear war (the so-called SIOP) which successive civilian administrations found horrifying, but could not materially alter.

Another amazing revelation is the lack, for many years, of effective communication channels between the super powers essential to quickly de-escalating tense situations. He relates that during the Cuban missile crisis messages from Soviet leaders to the Kennedy administration took hours for our embassy to encode and were then given to a Western Union messenger to take on his bicycle to the transmitting office. As one participant noted with dark humor, the fate of the world depended on the messenger not stopping along with way to chat with a girl.

The fallibility of detection and warning systems is also highlighted. The Russians came close to pulling the trigger when a radar warned of incoming US missiles. This turned out to be a Norwegian weather satellite whose launching was pre-announced to the Soviets, but not shared with the right authorities. On the US side, the NORAD computers more than once picked up a massive Soviet missile attack which turned out to be false (but, remember, the decision time to launch a counter strike was minutes). Because the decisional reaction time to a strike by the other side was so short, our nuclear gun was cocked at all times. So many fingers were on hair triggers that there was real danger that, through machine or human error (or depraved intention ala Dr. Strangelove scenarios), the weapons could have been used.

It is fallacious to think that because accidental or inadvertent nuclear exchange never happened it never could have or never will. Schlosser in his thorough history makes the point strongly that behind the incredible technology of the weapons and their control systems are error-prone humans.

Are we beyond the risk of nuclear weapons use in the post-Cold War world of the 21st century? Likely not. While the tensions between east and west have lessened, there are still massive numbers of nuclear weapons held by the super powers. One could imagine that, with the de-emphasis of nuclear weapons as a first-line defense, the attention to safety and control could fade further from attention and resources. Nukes are now held by a few small states of questionable stability and malevolent intent toward others. There are fanatical terrorist groups who are probably seeking to gain control of a nuclear weapon and one is not comforted to learn that even at the height of the nuclear age the security and control of the weapons was not great.

This book compellingly points out that our attention to the presence of nuclear weapons in the world must not wane. show less