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

The Air Force recommended … that black vinyl electrical tape be used: After the accident, the Air Force assembled a team of experts from Boeing, NASA, Martin-Marietta, and other aerospace groups to examine the RFHCOs involved in the Rock, Kansas, accident. They found, among other things, that the suits were vulnerable to leakage at the “glove-cuff interface,” especially when a forceful spray of liquid was applied there. Sealing the interface with vinyl electrical tape, the group decided, would be a possible, “very short term solution.” See “Class A Ground Launch Missile Mishap Progress Report No. 61,” Eighth Air Force Accident Investigation Board, McConnell Air Force Base, September 24, 1978; and Julie Charlip, “Missile Suit Flawed, Says AF Report,” Wichita Eagle, February 20, 1979.

Carl Malinger had a stroke, went into a coma: See Goodwin, “Victim of AF Missile Accident.”

his mother later felt enormous anger at the Air Force: Ibid.

failed to “comply with [Technical Order] 21M-LGM25C-2-12”: “Major Missile Accident, Titan II Complex 533-7,” p. 11.

“To err is human, … to forgive is not SAC policy”: Quoted in Moody, Building a Strategic Air Force, p. 469.

Its warhead was more than seven times more powerful: The single W-56 warhead on the Minuteman II had a yield of about 1.2 megatons. The W-62 warheads carried by Minuteman III missiles at the time had a yield of about 170 kilotons. Each Minuteman III had three of them, for a combined yield of slightly more than half a megaton. The 9-megaton warhead atop the Titan II was far more powerful.

the fifty-four Titan IIs represented roughly one third of their total explosive force: Cited in Walter Pincus, “Aging Titan II Was Time Bomb Ready to Go Off,” Washington Post, September 20, 1980.

one of Rutherford’s confidential sources later told him: Rutherford interview. See also Pincus, “Aging Titan II Was Time Bomb.”

a siren “might cause people to leave areas of safety”: “Letter, From Colonel Richard D. Osborn, Chief Systems Liaison Division, Office of Legislative Liaison, To Senator David Pryor,” November 7, 1979, David H. Pryor Papers, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

Colonel Richard D. Osborn told Pryor: Ibid. The sirens could prove especially dangerous, Osborn argued, “during periods of darkness.”

one half to two thirds of the Air Force’s F-15 fighters were grounded: The Tactical Air Command considered a plane “fully mission capable” if it could be flown with one day of preparation. In 1978 about 35 percent of TAC’s F-15 fighters were fully mission capable; the proportion was about 56 percent in 1980. Cited in Marshall L. Michel III, “The Revolt of the Majors: How the Air Force Changed After Vietnam,” dissertation submitted to Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, December 15, 2006, pp. 290–91.

The Strategic Air Command had lost more than half of its personnel: In 1961, SAC had 280,582 personnel; by 1978, it had 123,042. The 1961 figure is cited in Polmar, Strategic Air Command, p. 72. The 1977 figure comes from Alwyn Lloyd, A Cold War Legacy, 1946–1992: A Tribute to Strategic Air Command (Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., 1999), p. 516.

“bomber generals” who’d risen through the ranks at SAC: For the cultural battle within the Air Force, see Mike Worden, Rise of the Fighter Generals: The Problem of Air Force Leadership, 1945–1982 (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1998).

the inflexible, “parent-child relationship”: Tom Clancy and Chuck Horner, Every Man a Tiger (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1999), p. 96.

“I didn’t hate them because they were dumb”: Ibid., p. 86.

“never again be a part of something so insane and foolish”: Ibid., p. 96.

illegal drug use soared: Decades later, it seems hard to believe how widely the drug culture had spread throughout the American military. Between 1976 and 1981, the Department of Defense rarely performed mandatory drug tests. As a result, a great many servicemen were often high while in uniform. And their access to military equipment provided some unusual opportunities. Operating out of Travis, Langley, and Seymour Johnson air bases, active and retired military personnel imported perhaps $100 million worth of pure heroin into the United States during the mid-1970s. When their drug operation was broken up in 1976, a DEA agent called it “one of the largest heroin smuggling operations in the world.” See “U.S. Breaks $100 Million Heroin Ring; Charges GI Group Used Air Bases, Crew,” Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1976.

about 27 percent of all military personnel were using illegal drugs: Cited in Marvin R. Burt, “Prevalence and Consequences of Drug Abuse Among U.S. Military Personnel: 1980,” American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, vol. 8, no. 4 (1981–2), p. 425.

the Marines had the highest rate of drug use: Almost half of the young enlisted personnel in the Marines had smoked pot in the previous month. See ibid., p. 428.

About 32 percent of Navy personnel used marijuana: Cited in ibid., p. 425.