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

“If a general atomic war is inevitable”: Quoted in “Memorandum of Conference with President Kennedy,” September 20, 1961 (TOP SECRET/declassified), in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume VIII, National Security Policy, p. 130.

Kennedy had just received a memo: … summarizing how an American first strike: See “Memorandum from the President’s Military Representative (Taylor) to President Kennedy,” September 19, 1961 (TOP SECRET/declassified), in ibid., pp. 126–29.

“There are risks as well as opportunities”: ibid., p. 128.

once again, Berlin was at the center of the crisis: For the events in Berlin during the Kennedy years, see McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988), pp. 358–90; Vladislav M. Zubok, “Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis (1958–1962),” Cold War International History Project — Working Paper Series, Working Paper No. 6, Washington, D. C., May 1993; Trachtenberg, Constructed Peace, pp. 251–351; Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), pp. 338–408; and Frederick Kempe, Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2011).

“It is up to the United States to decide”: Quoted in Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, p. 364.

“Then it will be a cold winter”: Quoted in ibid.

the Joint Chiefs of Staff seemed to have few options: The historian Marc Trachtenberg suggests that Eisenhower’s nuclear strategy may have been more “flexible” than was later claimed. But the pressure to launch a full — scale nuclear attack on the Soviet Union — once American and Soviet troops were fighting on a battlefield in Europe — would have been enormous. See Trachtenberg, Conflict & Stragegy, pp. 209–12.

It would be “explosive”: Quoted in Trachtenberg, Constructed Peace, p. 289.

“This is the time to create strength”: “Telegram from the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (Norstad) to Secretary of Defense McNamara,” April 25, 1961 (TOP SECRET/declassified), in United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XVI, Eastern Europe; Cyprus; Greece; Turkey (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994), p. 699.

“If a crisis is provoked”: Quoted in Kempe, Berlin 1961, p. 129.

“and we have given our word”: “Text of Kennedy Appeal to Nation for Increases in Spending and Armed Forces,” New York Times, July 26, 1961.

“Tell Kennedy that if he starts a war”: Quoted in Zubok, “Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis,” p. 25.

“[T]he current strategic war plan”: Quoted in Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, p. 297.

“spasm war” … a “ridiculous and unworkable notion”: “Memorandum of Conversation with Mr. Henry Rowen, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs,” May 25, 1961 (TOP SECRET/declassified), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume VIII, National Security Policy, p. 82.

“We should be prepared to initiate general war”: “Memorandum for General Maxwell Taylor, Military Representative to the President, Subject: Strategic Air Planning and Berlin,” September 5, 1961 (TOP SECRET/declassified), NSA, p. 3.

more than half the people in the Soviet Union — millions more in Eastern Europe and China: See ibid, “Annex B, SIOP-62 An Appreciation,” Table IX, p. 12.

it would “inevitably” tip off the Soviets: “Strategic Air Planning and Berlin,” p. 3.

“no more than fifteen minutes”: Ibid., “Annex A, An Alternative to SIOP-62,” p. 3.

“we should be able to communicate two things”: Ibid., Annex A, p. 6.

“less than 1,000,000”: Ibid., Annex A, p. 3.

“The plan is designed for execution”: General Lemnitzer made these comments during a meeting with President Kennedy on September 13, 1961. Although these remarks were not directed specifically at Kaysen’s proposal, Lemnitzer had been sent it the previous week and did not like it. The quote comes from ”SIOP-62 Briefing,” p. 50.

“If you have to go, you want LeMay”: Quoted in “Bomber on the Stump,” Time, October 18, 1968.

“some portion of the Soviet … nuclear force”: Quoted in Sagan, “SIOP-62: The Nuclear War Plan Briefing,” p. 22.

about 16 long-range missiles, 150 long-range bombers, and 60 submarine-based missiles: See Steven J. Zaloga, The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945–2000 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002), pp. 241–47.

“while small percentage wise”: “Strategic Air Planning and Berlin, Annex A, An Alternative to SIOP-62,” p. 10.

“In thermonuclear warfare”: Ibid.