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

an American mechanic stole a B-45 bomber: The mechanic had just consumed half a dozen pints of beer after being dumped by his sixteen-year-old British girlfriend. See “Eight Killed in Plane Crashes,” The Times (London), June 14, 1958; “AF Mechanic Killed in Stolen Plane,” Washington Post, June 15, 1948; Iklé “On the Risk of an Accidental Detonation,” p. 66; and Larus, Nuclear Weapon Safety and the Common Defense, p. 61.

more than 250,000 copies of George’s novel: Cited in David E. Scherman, “Everybody Blows Up!” Life, March 8, 1963.

Writing under the pseudonym “Peter Bryant”: George had written thrillers for years under a number of other names. After the success of Red Alert, he wrote another, even darker, novel about the threat of nuclear war and — before completing a third book on the subject — took his own life at the age of forty-one. For George’s work and its influence upon the director Stanley Kubrick, see P. D. Smith, Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon (New York: St. Martin’s, 2007), pp. 402–30. See also “Peter George, 41, British Novelist: Co-Author of ‘Strangelove’ Screenplay Is Dead,” New York Times, June 3, 1966.

“A few will suffer”: Peter Bryant, Red Alert (New York: Ace Books, 1958), p. 97.

“the ultimate deterrent”: Ibid., p. 80.

doubts about the idea expressed by LeMay: President Eisenhower thought that an airborne alert might be useful during an emergency but saw no need for the Strategic Air Command to keep bombers in the air at all times. LeMay agreed with the president, concerned that an airborne alert would be too expensive and shorten the lifespan of its B-52 bombers. Secretary of Defense Neil H. McElroy and General Nathan F. Twining, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also thought that a full-time airborne alert was unnecessary. But General Powell had made it politically important and a symbol of American power. For LeMay’s doubts, see “The SAC Alert Program, 1956–1959,” pp. 94–99, 118–29, and “History of Strategic Air Command, June 1958—July 1959,” pp. 114–15. For Eisenhower’s opposition to making the alert permanent, see “Editorial Note,” Document 53, in United States State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States: 1958–1960, National Security Policy, Arms Control and Disarmament, Volume III (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), p. 201. For Twining’s opposition and the congressional pressure, see “Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, February 9, 1959,” Document 49, in ibid., pp. 49–50.

“positive control”: SAC thought the term was more “absolute in intonation than ‘Fail Safe’” and would thwart Soviet attempts to turn world opinion against the plan. See “History of the Strategic Air Command, 1 January 1958—30 June 1958,” p. 66.

“the probability of any nuclear detonation”: “Briefing for the President on SAC Operations with Sealed-Pit Weapons,” p. 8.

McCone thought that the bombers should be permitted: See “Memorandum of Conference with the President, August 27, 1958” (TOP SECRET/declassified), NSA, p. 1.

Iklé’s top secret clearance had gained him access: Iklé spoke to me at length about how his research was conducted.

“We cannot derive much confidence”: Iklé, “On the Risk of an Accidental Detonation,” p. iv.

“eliminated readily once they are discovered”: Ibid., p. 12.

inadvertently jettisoned once every 320 flights: Cited in ibid., p. 48.

crash at a rate of about once every twenty thousand flying hours: The rate of major accidents among B-52s was five per one hundred thousand flying hours. Cited in ibid., p. 75.

twelve crashes with nuclear weapons and seven bomb jettisons: Cited in ibid., p. 76.

“The paramount task”: Ibid., p. 10.

“makes it necessary to entrust unspecialized personnel”: Ibid., p. 16.

“someone who knew the workings”: Ibid., p. 34

“It can hardly be denied that there is a risk”: Ibid., p. 102.

“one of the most baffling problems”: Ibid., p. 21.

About twenty thousand Air Force personnel: Six thousand flight officers were assigned to nuclear missions at the time, and an additional sixteen thousand people tested, handled, or maintained the weapons. Cited in ibid., p. 32.

“a history of transient psychotic disorders”: Ibid., p. 27.

A few hundred Air Force officers and enlisted men were annually removed from duty: Eighty-eight officers and about twice as many enlisted men were “separated or retired from service” in 1956 due to psychotic disorders. See ibid., p. 29.

perhaps ten or twenty who worked with nuclear weapons: In 1956, the proportion of Air Force officers forced to leave the service because of psychotic disorders was 0.61 per 1,000; the rate among enlisted men was twice as high. Those rates, applied to the roughly twenty thousand Air Force personnel who worked with nuclear weapons at the time, suggest that about ten to twenty of that group would suffer a psychotic breakdown every year. See ibid., p. 29.

“a catalogue of derangement”: Ibid., pp. 120–49.

“A 23-year-old pilot, a Lieutenant”: Ibid., pp. 124–25.