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

Paul Bracken, a management expert: See Paul Bracken, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983).

Daniel Ford, a former head of the Union of Concerned Scientists: See Daniel Ford, The Button: The Pentagon’s Strategic Command and Control System — Does It Work? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985).

“within bazooka range”: For the quote by a security expert, see Ford, The Button, p. 64.

“its low accuracy and its accident-proneness”: See “Strategic Force Modernization Programs,” p. 59.

on alerts for five months after his first contact with the Soviet embassy: See Richard Halloran, “Officer Reportedly Kept Job Despite Contact with Soviet,” New York Times, June 4, 1981.

“a major security breach”: Quoted in George Lardner, Jr., “Officer Says Cooke Lived Up to Immunity Agreement Terms,” Washington Post, September 9, 1981. In a legal case full of bizarre details, Cooke made a deal with the Air Force, confessed to the espionage, and received immunity from prosecution. At the time, the Air Force was more concerned about the possible existence of a Soviet spy ring than about the need to imprison this one young officer. But when it became clear that there was no Soviet spy ring and that Cooke had acted alone, the Air Force decided to prosecute him anyway. All of the charges against Cooke were subsequently dismissed by the U.S. Court of Military Appeals on the grounds of “prosecutorial misconduct.” See George Lardner, Jr., “Military Kills Lt. Cooke Case,” Washington Post, February 23, 1982, and “A Bargain Explained,” Washington Post, February 27, 1982.

Funding would not be provided for a new vapor detection system: See “Item 010: Toxic Vapor Sensors (Fixed and Portable)” in “Titan II Action Item Status Reports,” Headquarters, Strategic Air Command, August 1, 1982.

additional video cameras within the complex: The Air Force decided that the estimated $18 million cost of adding more cameras did “not justify the marginal benefits.” See “Item 0134: L/D TV Camera,” in ibid.

“modern nuclear safety criteria for abnormal environments”: The need to put “modern safety features” inside W-53 warheads had to be balanced against the cost: about $21.4 million for the remaining fifty-two Titan II missiles. Many of the missiles would be decommissioned before the work could be completed. And so none of the warheads were modified. They remained atop Titan II missiles for another six years. See “Item 090: Modify W-53,” in ibid.

“It’s the dirt that does it”: Quoted in Ronald L. Soble, “Cranston Demands Official Justify View That U.S. Could Survive a Nuclear War,” Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1982.

membership in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament soon increased tenfold: Cited in Lawrence S. Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), p. 131. Wittner is the foremost historian of the international effort to eliminate nuclear weapons.

A quarter of a million CND supporters: Cited in Leonard Downie, Jr., “Thousands in London Protest Nuclear Arms,” Washington Post, October 25, 1981.

In Bonn, a demonstration … also attracted a quarter of a million people: Cited in John Vinocur, “250,000 at Bonn Rally Assail U.S. Arms Policy,” New York Times, October 11, 1981.

“On the one hand, we returned to business as usual”: Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth and The Abolition (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 149.

Carl Sagan conjured an even worse environmental disaster: Sagan became concerned about the atmospheric effects of nuclear war in 1982, and it seems almost quaint today — as global warming looms as a pending threat — that a generation ago Americans worried that the world might get dangerously cold. But the threat of a nuclear winter never went away. And recent calculations suggest that the detonation of fifty atomic bombs in urban areas would produce enough black carbon smoke to cause another “Little Ice Age.” For the summation of Sagan’s work on the issue, see Carl Sagan and Richard Turco, A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race (New York: Random House, 1990). For the latest findings on the global environmental impact of a nuclear war, see Alan Robock, “Nuclear Winter Is a Real and Present Danger,” Nature, vol. 473 (May 19, 2011).

perhaps three quarters of a million people gathered in New York’s Central Park: The estimates of the crowd varied, from more than 550,000 to about 750,000. See Paul L. Montgomery, “Throngs Fill Manhattan to Protest Nuclear Weapons,” New York Times, June 13, 1982; and John J. Goldman and Doyle McManus, “Largest Ever U.S. Rally Protests Nuclear Arms,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1982.

“the largest political demonstration in American history”: See Judith Miller, “Democrats Seize Weapons Freeze as Issue for Fall,” New York Times, June 20, 1982.