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

“The war of the future would be one”: For Truman’s remarks, see “Text of President’s Last State of the Union Message to Congress, Citing New Bomb Tests,” New York Times, January 8, 1953.

Project Vista, a top secret study: For a good account of the study, see David C. Elliott, “Project Vista and Nuclear Weapons in Europe,” International Security, vol. 11, no. 1 (Summer 1986), pp. 163–83.

an allied army with 54 divisions: Cited in May et al., “History of Strategic Arms Competition,” Pt 1, p. 140.

thought to have 175 divisions: Cited in ibid., p. 139.

a “trip wire,” a “plate glass wall”: Ibid., p. 172.

bring the “battle back to the battlefield”: Quoted in Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: Vintage 2006), p. 445.

“preventing attacks on friendly cities”: Quoted in Elliott, “Project Vista,” p. 172.

“Successful offense brings victory”: “Remarks: General Curtis E. LeMay at Commander’s Conference,” Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, January 1956 (TOP SECRET/Declassified), NSA, p. 17.

the “counterforce” strategy: For the thinking behind counterforce, see T. F. Walkowicz, “Strategic Concepts for the Nuclear Age,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 299, Air Power and National Security, May 1955, pp. 118–27, and Alfred Goldberg, “A Brief Survey of the Evolution of Ideas About Counterforce,” prepared for U.S. Air Force Project RAND, Memorandum RM-5431-PR, October 1967 (revised March 1981), NSA.

“Offensive air power must now be aimed”: Quoted in Futrell, Ideas, Volume 1, p. 441.

“for us to build enough destructive power”: Quoted in Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953–1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p. 3.

“In the event of hostilities”: “A Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary on Basic National Security Policy,” NSC 162/2, October 30, 1953 (TOP SECRET/declassified), p. 22.

“maintain a massive capability to strike back”: “Text of President Eisenhower’s State of the Union,” Washington Post, January 8, 1954.

“a great capacity to retaliate, instantly”: “Text of Dulles’ Statement on Foreign Policy of Eisenhower Administration,” New York Times, January 13, 1954.

“massive retaliation”: The name of the new strategy obscured the fact that General LeMay and the Strategic Air Command had no intention of allowing the United States to be hit first. For Eisenhower’s views about nuclear weapons and the threat that the Soviet Union seemed to pose, see Samuel F. Wells, Jr., “The Origins of Massive Retaliation,” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 96, no. 1 (Spring 1981), pp. 31–52; and Richard K. Betts, “A Nuclear Golden Age? The Balance Before Parity,” International Security, vol. 11, no. 3 (Winter 1986), pp. 3–32.

the number of personnel at SAC increased by almost one third, and the number of aircraft nearly doubled: In 1952 the Strategic Air Command had 1,638 aircraft and employed 166,021 people; by 1956 it had 3,188 and employed 217,279. Cited in Norman Polmar, ed., Strategic Air Command: People, Aircraft, and Missiles (Annapolis, MD: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1979), pp. 28, 44.

more than one fifth of its funding and about one quarter of its troops: According to the historian A. J. Bacevich, in 1953 Eisenhower cut the Army’s fiscal year 1955 budget from $13 billion to $10.2 billion and lowered the number of troops from 1,540,000 to 1,164,000. See Bacevich, “The Paradox of Professionalism: Eisenhower, Ridgway, and the Challenge to Civilian Control, 1953–1955,” Journal of Military History, vol. 61, no. 2, (April 1997), p. 314.

“national fiscal bankruptcy would be far preferable”: Quoted in ibid., p. 321.

151,000 nuclear weapons: For the number of weapons that the Army sought and how it hoped to use them, see “History of the Custody and Deployment,” p. 50.

“emergency capability” weapons: For the definition of the phrase, see “History of the Early Thermonuclear Weapons: Mks 14, 15, 16, 17, 24, and 29,” Information Research Division, Sandia National Laboratories, RS 3434/10, June 1967 (SECRET RESTRICTED DATA/declassified), p. 17.

Code-named Project Brass Ring: See ibid., p. 15; and Hansen, Swords of Armageddon, Volume 2, pp. 119–20, 262.

Agnew remembered seeing footage of Nazi tasks: Agnew interview.

“We’ve got to find out”: Ibid.

The program, known as Project Paperclip: For details of the program, see John Gimbel, “U.S. Policy and German Scientists: The Early Cold War,” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 101, no. 3 (1986), pp. 433–451; Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990 (New York: St. Martin’s 1991); and Tom Bower, The Paperclip Conspiracy: The Hunt for the Nazi Scientists (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987).

“rescue those able and intelligent Jerries”: LeMay, Mission with LeMay, p. 398.

“Oh yes,” Knacke replied: Agnew interview.