Command and Control

I first heard about the accident at Damascus in the fall of 1999, while visiting Vandenberg Air Force Base. I was interested in the future of warfare in space, the plans to build laser beam, particle beam, and directed energy weapons. The Air Force Space Command invited me to watch the launch of a Titan II missile, and it seemed like an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed. The payload of the missile was a weather satellite. During the long delay of the scheduled launch, I spoke to officers who’d served on missile combat crews. They told me Cold War stories and showed me footage of warheads arriving at the Kwajalein Test Site in the South Pacific. A Peacekeeper missile had been fired from Vandenberg at night, and as one warhead after another fell from the sky and landed precisely within their target circles, it was an oddly beautiful sight. They looked like shooting stars.

The evening before the Titan II launch, I rode an elevator to the top of the tower and got to see the missile up close. I could just about reach out and touch it. The Titan II seemed a living, breathing thing, attached to all sorts of cables and wires, like an angry patient about to be released from intensive care. The tower hummed with the sound of cooling units. Looking down the length of the missile, I could hardly believe that anyone would be brave enough and crazy enough to sit on top of it, like the Gemini astronauts did, and ride it into space.

The next morning I signed a waiver, promising not to sue the Air Force for any injuries, and received training in the use of a Scott Air-Pak. I carried the breathing apparatus in case the Titan II misfired on the pad. The officer who served as my host had never been allowed to stand so close to a launch. When the missile left the ground, you could feel it in your bones. The blast, the roar, the sight of the flames slowly lifting the Titan II upward — they suddenly affected me. They were more visceral and more powerful than any Cold War story. I had grown up in the 1970s hearing about missiles and warheads, throw weights and megatons, half believing that none of those weapons really worked, that the fears of nuclear Armageddon were overblown and based on some terrible fiction. The Titan II hesitated for a moment and then really took off, like a ten-story silver building disappearing into the sky. Within moments, it was gone, just a tail of flame somewhere over Mexico.

Watching that launch, the imaginary became tangible and concrete for me. It rattled me. It pierced a false sense of comfort. Right now thousands of missiles are hidden away, literally out of sight, topped with warheads and ready to go, awaiting the right electrical signal. They are a collective death wish, barely suppressed. Every one of them is an accident waiting to happen, a potential act of mass murder. They are out there, waiting, soulless and mechanical, sustained by our denial — and they work.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Jeff Kennedy was the first person whom I interviewed for this book. More than a decade ago, I visited him in Maine, listened with amazement to his stories about the Titan II, and learned the extraordinary details of what happened in Damascus, Arkansas. Over the years, Kennedy was helpful, encouraging — and never shy about telling me how or why I was completely wrong. I admired his honesty. And I admired the bravery he showed not only in trying to save the missile that night but also in sacrificing his Air Force career to speak out about the Titan II. Kennedy passed away in the fall of 2011, at the age of fifty-six. I regret not having finished this book in time for him to read it.

Bob Peurifoy spent countless hours speaking to me about nuclear weapons, explaining fine points of physics and engineering, hoping that I’d use the knowledge well. I am grateful to him and Barbara Peurifoy for all their hospitality and their friendship. Sidney Drell played a crucial role in opening my eyes to this hidden world. And Bill Stevens patiently answered the same technical questions of mine again and again. Peurifoy, Drell, and Stevens truly are public servants.

Al Childers and Greg Devlin similarly spent untold hours helping me to understand the events at Launch Complex 374-7. Rodney Holder, Jim Sandaker, and Don Green talked to me at length as well. I am grateful for all the time these men devoted to my research. Colonel John T. Moser was extremely gracious in answering questions about perhaps the worst experience of his long Air Force career. And I’m grateful to General Chris Adams — a prolific author as well as a former chief of staff at the Strategic Air Command — for his many insights about the role of the Air Force in the Cold War. Although our political views differ, I have great respect for the way General Adams has served his country.