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

After Sputnik, the Air Force gained swift approval to construct the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), three huge radars that would spot Soviet missiles heading toward the United States. One of the radars would be built at Thule Air Base, Greenland; another at Clear Air Force Base, Alaska; and the third in the North Yorkshire Moors, England. Until the BMEWS was completed, however, the first sign of a Soviet missile attack would probably be mushroom clouds rising above SAC bases and American cities. Work immediately began on a bomb alarm system that would instantly let the president know when cities and air bases were being destroyed. Hundreds of small, innocuous-looking metal canisters were placed atop buildings and telegraph poles throughout the United States. Optical sensors inside the canisters, according to a classified account of the system, would detect the characteristic flash of a nuclear explosion, “locate precise blast locations, and indicate the intensity and pattern of the attack.” At SAC headquarters, green lights dotting a map of the United States would turn red to display each nuclear detonation. The amount of warning time that the Bomb Alarm System could provide was far from ideal, especially if the Soviets managed to synchronize their missile launches, so that all the warheads landed at once — but it seemed better than nothing.

General LeMay had been concerned for years about the threat that missiles could pose to the Strategic Air Command. In 1956, SAC had begun to test a plan that would keep some of its bombers constantly on alert and get them airborne half an hour after being warned of an attack. The logistics of such a “ground alert” were daunting. Crews would need to sleep near the runways and run for their planes the moment that a Klaxon sounded. Bombers would be parked fully loaded with nuclear weapons and fuel; the planes were said to be “cocked,” like the hammer of a pistol. Tankers for aerial refueling would be loaded as well and prepared for takeoff. By the fall of 1957, ground alerts had become routine at SAC bases in the United States, Great Britain, and Morocco. And the Strategic Air Command hoped that, within a year, at least one third of its bombers would always be parked beside runways, ready to get off the ground within fifteen minutes.

The successful launch of the two Sputniks created the possibility that, during a missile attack, SAC might not have fifteen minutes to launch the ground alert planes. LeMay had recently been promoted to serve as the vice chief of staff at the Air Force, and his replacement at SAC, General Thomas S. Power, pushed hard for approval of an even bolder tactic: the “airborne alert.” Power was widely considered, among fellow officers at SAC, to be a mean son of a bitch. Born in New York City and raised in Great Neck, Long Island, he’d dropped out of high school, worked in construction, returned to high school at the age of twenty, earned a degree, and joined the Army Air Corps in 1928. He later flew the lead plane during the firebombing of Tokyo and served as vice commander at SAC. He often played the role of LeMay’s “hatchet man,” firing people, enforcing discipline, and making sure that orders were carried out. The two men shared a strategic outlook but had different management styles. LeMay expressed disapproval with a stony silence or a few carefully chosen words; Power yelled and swore at subordinates. The warmth behind LeMay’s gruff exterior, the intense devotion to the well-being of his men, was harder to find in his successor. Even LeMay admitted that Power was a sadist, “sort of an autocratic bastard”—and yet “he got things done.” Kindness, sensitivity, and a genial disposition were not essential traits for a commander planning to win a nuclear war.