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

The odds of a nuclear detonation during a crash or a fire: According to the Air Force, “There was a 15 percent probability of up to 40,000 pounds of nuclear yield in the event of one point detonation of a weapon requiring the insertion of an in-flight capsule.” The Air Force also claimed that “with the sealed pit weapon the plutonium hazard was not significant.” See “History of the Strategic Air Command, 1 January 1958—30 June 1958,” pp. 78–79.

“operationally unsuitable”: Those are the words of the official SAC history. See ibid., p. 82.

“degrade the reaction time to an unacceptable degree”: Quoted in ibid., p. 83.

“crew morale and motivation”: Quoted in ibid.

The typical air base had only seven dummy weapons: Cited in ibid.

The AEC refused to allow any fully assembled bombs: At a briefing on the proposed airborne alert in July 1958, Eisenhower was told that during SAC exercises, “Completely assembled or war-ready weapons have never been flown before.” See “Briefing for the President on SAC [Strategic Air Command] Operations with Sealed-Pit Weapons,” Briefing Paper, July 9, 1958 (TOP SECRET/declassified), NSA, p. 2.

likely to miss its target by about one hundred miles: On average, the V-2 went about four miles off-course during a two-hundred-mile flight. An American missile with the same “average error,” launched from Colorado and aimed at Moscow, would fly about five thousand miles — and miss the Soviet capital by roughly one hundred miles. For the V-2’s accuracy and relevance to the Air Force’s missile aspirations, see Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), p. 99.

He wanted SAC to develop nuclear-powered bombers: Not only did General LeMay believe that such aircraft were essential, his successor, General Power, thought that SAC also needed a Deep Space Force — a fleet of twenty spaceships that could carry nuclear weapons and remain in orbit near the moon for years. The spaceships would be propelled by the detonation of small atomic bombs. The secret effort to build them, “Project Orion,” was funded by the Pentagon from 1958 until 1965. The program to develop nuclear-powered bombers lasted from 1946 until 1961. Having a nuclear reactor on an airplane posed a number of design problems: the shielding necessary to protect the crew would be extremely heavy; without the shielding the crew might be exposed to hazardous levels of radiation; and if the plane crashed, the area surrounding the crash site could be badly contaminated. Nevertheless, LeMay thought these challenges could be overcome. For the story of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP), see Herbert F. York, Race to Oblivion: A Participant’s View of the Arms Race, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970), pp. 60–74. For the attempt to harness “Nuclear Pulse Propulsion” for a Deep Space Force, see George Dyson, Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), pp. 193–207.

“the ultimate weapon”: See “SAC [Strategic Air Command] Position on Missiles,” letter from General Curtis E. LeMay, commander in chief of Strategic Air Command, to General Nathan F. Twining, chief of staff, U.S. Air Force, November 26, 1955 (SECRET/declassified), NSA.

The interservice rivalry over missiles: For the fierce bureaucratic warfare over these new weapons, see Michael H. Armacost’s Politics of Weapon Innovation and Samuel P. Huntington, “Interservice Competition and the Political Roles of the Armed Services,” American Political Science Review, vol. 55, no. 1 (March 1961), pp. 40–52.

a Soviet “peace campaign”: Through organizations such as the World Peace Council and the World Federation of Scientific Workers, the Soviet Union tried to turn public opinion in Europe against the nuclear policies of the United States. See Laurence S. Wittner, Resisting the Bomb, 1954–1970: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), pp. 86–92.

The Eisenhower administration tried to strike a balance: For a fine account of the conflicting demands that the president faced, see “Eisenhower and Nuclear Sharing,” a chapter in Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 146–200.

The Mark 36 was a second-generation hydrogen bomb: See Hansen, Swords of Armageddon, Vol. V, pp. 395-7.

at a SAC base in Sidi Slimane, Morocco: My account of the accident is based primarily on “Accidents and Incidents Involving Nuclear Weapons,” pp. 4–5, Accident #24; “Summary of Nuclear Weapons Incidents (AF Form 1058) and Related Problems, Calendar Year 1958,” Airmunitions Letter, Headquarters, Ogden Air Material Area, June 23, 1960 (SECRET/RESTRICTED DATA/declassified), p. 13; and interviews with weapon designers familiar with the event.

long past the time factor of the Mark 36: The weapon’s time factor was only three minutes. See “Vulnerability Program Summary,” p. 58.