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

“a nation would die just as surely”: Quoted in Robert F. Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine, Volume 1, Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907–1960 (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1989), p. 240.

a “devastating, annihilating attack”: Quoted in Jeffrey G. Barlow, Revolt of the Admirals: The Fight for Naval Aviation, 1945–1950 (Washington, D.C.: Government Reprints Press, 2001), p. 109.

“It will be the cheapest thing we ever did”: Quoted in Moody, Building a Strategic Air Force, p. 109.

“The negative psycho-social results”: The State Department official was Charles E. Bohlen, quoted in Futrell, Ideas, vol. 1, p. 238.

the Harmon Committee concluded: An abridged version of the Harmon Report—“Evaluation of Effect on Soviet War Effort Resulting from the Strategic Air Offensive” (TOP SECRET/declassified) — can be found in Etzold and Gaddis, Containment, pp. 360–64.

reduce Soviet industrial production by 30 to 40 percent: Ibid., p. 361.

kill perhaps 2.7 million civilians: Ibid., p. 362.

injure an additional 4 million: Ibid.

“For the majority of Soviet people”: Ibid.

“the only means of rapidly inflicting shock”: Ibid., pp. 363–64

The Soviets detonated their first atomic device: For the making of the Soviet bomb, see ibid. David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994).

The yield was about 20 kilotons: Cited in ibid., p. 218.

Each of its roughly 105,000 parts: For the extraordinary story of how the B-29 was reverse-engineered, see Van Hardesty, “Made in the U.S.S.R.,” Air & Space, March 2001; and Walter J. Boyne, “Carbon Copy,” Air Force Magazine, June 2009.

Soviet Union wouldn’t develop an atomic bomb until the late 1960s: In 1947, General Groves predicted it would take the Soviets another twenty years. See Gregg Herken, “‘A Most Deadly Illusion’: The Atomic Secret and American Nuclear Weapons Policy, 1945–1950,” Pacific Historical Review, vol. 49, no. 1 (February 1980), pp. 58, 71.

without a single military radar to search for enemy planes: See Wainstein et al., “Evolution of U.S. Command and Control,” p. 90.

twenty-three radars to guard the northeastern United States: Cited in ibid., p. 94.

a bitter, public dispute about America’s nuclear strategy: For an excellent overview of the military thinking that led not only to the “revolt of the admirals” but also to Pentagon support for a hydrogen bomb, see David Alan Rosenberg, “American Atomic Strategy and the Hydrogen Bomb Decision,” Journal of American History, vol. 66, no. 1 (June 1979), pp. 62–87. For the cultural underpinnings of the revolt, see Vincent Davis, The Admirals Lobby (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967). And for the dispute itself, see Barlow, Revolt of the Admirals, p. 109.

“precision” tactical bombing: See John G. Norris, “Radford Statement Sparks Move for Curb Over Money Powers of Johnson,” Washington Post, October 8, 1949.

“I don’t believe in mass killings of noncombatants”: Quoted in Ibid.

“random mass slaughter”: See “Text of Admiral Ofstie’s Statement Assailing Strategic Bombing,” New York Times, October 12, 1949.

“ruthless and barbaric”: Ibid.

“We must insure that our military techniques”: Ibid.

“open rebellion”: Quoted in William S. White, “Bradley Accuses Admirals of ‘Open Rebellion’ on Unity; Asks ‘All-American Team,’” New York Times, October 20, 1949.

“Fancy Dans”: Quoted in ibid.

“aspiring martyrs”: Quoted in Hanson W. Baldwin, “Bradley Bombs Navy,” New York Times, October 20, 1949.

“As far as I am concerned”: Quoted in New York Times, “Bradley Accuses Admirals.”

“The idea of turning over custody”: Quoted in David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Volume 2, The Atomic Energy Years, 1945–1950, (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 351.

“to have some dashing lieutenant colonel decide”: Quoted in Millis and Duffield, Forrestal Diaries, p. 458.

“Destruction is just around the corner”: Quoted in Futrell, Ideas, Volume 1, p. 216.

Demobilization had left SAC a hollow force: For a book that makes that point convincingly, see Harry R. Borowski, A Hollow Threat: Strategic Air Power and Containment Before Korea (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982).

almost half of SAC’s B-29s failed to get off the ground: See Thomas M. Coffey, Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay (New York: Crown, 1986), p. 271.

SAC had just twenty-six flight crews: Cited in “The View from Above: High-Level Decisions and the Soviet-American Strategic Arms Competition, 1945–1950,” Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., with the collaboration of Steven L. Reardon, Office of the Secretary of Defense, October 1975 (TOP SECRET/declassified), p. 118.

Perhaps half of these crews would be shot down: Cited in Wainstein et al., “Evolution of U.S. Command and Control,” p. 14.

An estimated thirty-five to forty-five days of preparation: See ibid., p. 18.

Lindbergh found that morale was low: See Moody, Building a Strategic Air Force, pp. 226–27.