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

the Air Force provided few additional details: Interview with Robert Lyford, Governor Bill Clinton’s liaison to various state agencies, including the Department of Emergency Services and the Department of Public Safety. See also “Missile Fuel Leaks; 100 Forced to Leave Area Near Arkansas,” Arkansas Gazette, September 19, 1980; Tyler Tucker, “Officials Had No Early Knowledge of Missile Explosion, Tatom Says,” Arkansas Democrat, September 25, 1980; and Carol Matlock, “Air Force Listens to Complaints, Says Notification Was Adequate,” Arkansas Gazette, September 25, 1980.

about fifty thousand gallons of radioactive water leaked: Cited in “Arkansas Office of Emergency Services, Major Accomplishments During 1979–1980,” Attachment 1, Highlights of Response to Emergencies in 1980.

Bill Clinton was an unlikely person: For a good sense of America’s youngest governor in 1980, see David Maraniss, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), pp. 352–86; Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), pp. 254–89; and Phyllis Finton Johnston, Bill Clinton’s Public Policy for Arkansas: 1979–1980, (Little Rock, AR: August House, 1982).

“tall, handsome, a populist-liberal”: Quoted in Wayne King, “Rapidly Growing Arkansas Turns to Liberal Politicians,” New York Times, May 14, 1978.

“He was a punk kid with long hair”: Quoted in Roger Morris, Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America (New York: Henry Holt, 1999), p. 218.

“the Three Beards”: See Maraniss, First in His Class, pp. 364–65.

“Captain Mazzaro, we have to get that propane tank”: Kennedy interview.

“Stay here”: Quoted in Powell interview.

“Hell no”: Ibid.

“I’ll give you three minutes”: Ibid.

“There’s not enough room for two people”: Quoted in ibid.

“Oh, God”: Quoted in Kennedy interview.

“Sir, this is what the tank readings are”: Kennedy interview and “Report, Major Missile Accident, Titan II Complex 374-7,” Kennedy statement, Tab U-46, p. 4.

“Where in hell did you get those?”: “Report, Major Missile Accident, Titan II Complex 374-7,” Statement of James L. Morris, Colonel, Tab U-60, p. 1.

Megadeath

Fred Charles Iklé began his research: Interview with Fred Charles Iklé. For his early work on the subject, see Fred C. Iklé, “The Effect of War Destruction upon the Ecology of Cities,” Social Forces, vol. 29, no. 4 (May 1951), pp. 383–91: and Fred C. Iklé, “The Social Versus the Physical Effects from Nuclear Bombing,” Scientific Monthly, vol. 78, no. 3 (March 1954), pp. 182–87.

killed about 3.3 percent of Hamburg’s population: Cited in Fred Charles Iklé, The Social Impact of Bomb Destruction (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), p. 16.

destroyed about half of its homes: Cited in ibid.

“A city re-adjusts to destruction”: Ibid., p. 8.

British planners had assumed that for every metric ton: For the lethal efficiencies of Second World War bombing, see ibid., pp. 17–18.

Iklé devised a simple formula: For the calculations on the relationship between bomb destruction and population loss, see ibid., pp. 53–56.

“the fully compensating increase in housing density”: Ibid., p. 55.

when about 70 percent of a city’s homes were destroyed: Ibid., p. 72.

Project RAND became one of America’s first think tanks: For an unsurpassed account of RAND and its influence on postwar strategic policy, see Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon: The Untold Story of the Small Group of Men Who Have Devised the Plans and Shaped the Policies on How to Use the Bomb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983). For a more recent look at the history, see Alex Abella, Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire (New York: Harcourt, 2008.)

“It is not a pleasant task”: Iklé, Social Impact of Bomb Destruction, p. viii.

The casualties were disproportionately women: Cited in ibid., p. 205.

Even in Hiroshima, the desire to fight back survived: Ibid., p. 180.

“the sheer terror of the enormous destruction”: Ibid., p. 120.

“It is my conviction that a peaceful settlement”: Quoted in Hansen, Swords of Armageddon, vol. 2, pp. 85–86.

“the policy of exterminating civilian populations”: Quoted in May et al., “History of Strategic Arms Competition,” Pt 1, p. 65.

“a weapon of genocide”: Quoted in Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, p. 384.

“a danger to humanity … an evil thing”: For the full text of the statement by Fermi and Rabi, see “Minority Report on the H-Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 1976, p. 58.

a “quantum leap” past the Soviets: Quoted in McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988), p. 204.

“proceed with all possible expedition”: Quoted in “View from Above,” p. 203.

“total power in the hands of total evil”: Quoted in Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, p. 402.

most likely “psychological”: Quoted in Herken, Winning Weapon, p. 316.