Command and Control

“the dumping ground for obsolete warheads”: “Report on U.S. Policies Regarding Assignment of Nuclear Weapons to NATO,” p. 45.

Holifield estimated that about half of the Jupiters: Transcript, Executive Session, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Meeting No. 87-1-4, p. 82.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff admitted: See Nash, Other Missiles of October, p. 56.

“It would have been better to dump them in the ocean”: Quoted in ibid., p. 3.

The Mark 7 atomic bombs carried by NATO fighters: Agnew, Stevens, Peurifoy interviews.

amazed to see a group of NATO weapon handlers pull the arming wires out: Agnew interview. The bombs lacked trajectory-sensing switches and therefore could detonate without having to fall from a plane. Senator Anderson noted that at Vogel Air Base in the Netherlands “a safety wire designed to keep the firing switch open had been accidentally pulled from a nuclear weapon and that device, if dropped, would have exploded.” See Anderson, Outsider in the Senate, p. 172. “Letter, From Harold M. Agnew,” p. 8; “Report on U.S. Policies Regarding Assignment of Nuclear Weapons to NATO,” p. 37.

A rocket-propelled version of the Mark 7 was unloaded, fully armed: See “Incidents and Accidents,” Incident #3, p. 21.

“During initial inspection after receipt”: See ibid., Incident #1, p. 52.

A screwdriver was found inside one of the bombs; an Allen wrench was somehow left inside another: See ibid., Incident #1, p. 70.

the training and operating manuals for the Mark 7: See “Letter, from Harold M. Agnew,” p. 2.

“In many areas we visited”: “Report on U.S. Policies Regarding Assignment of Nuclear Weapons to NATO,” p. 38.

“far from remote”: Ibid., p. 2.

a mishap on January 16, 1961: See ibid. and “Incidents and Accidents,” Incident #3, p. 38. I was able to confirm where the accident occurred.

the current “fictional” custody arrangements: “Report on U.S. Policies Regarding Assignment of Nuclear Weapons to NATO,” p. 39.

A lone American sentry… was bound to start “goofing off”: See ibid., p. 32.

Agnew brought an early version of the electromechanical locking system: Agnew interview.

The coded switch… weighed about a pound: A weapon often contained two of these switches as a redundancy, to ensure that at least one would work. See “Command and Control Systems for Nuclear Weapons,” p. 13.

the decoder weighed about forty: Ibid., p. 14.

anywhere from thirty seconds to two and a half minutes to unlock: Ibid., p. 13.

“No single device can be expected to increase”: Quoted in “Subject: Atomic Stockpile, Letter, From John H. Pender, Legal Adviser, Department of State, To Abram J. Chayes, Legal Adviser, Department of State,” July 16, 1961 (TOP SECRET/declassified), NSA, p. 4.

“adequately safe, within the limits”: Quoted in ibid.

“all is well with the atomic stockpile program”: Ibid.

Wiesner was deeply concerned about the risk: See Carl Kaysen, “Peace Became His Profession,” in Walter A. Rosenblith, ed., Jerry Wiesner: Scientist, Statesman, Humanist (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), p. 102.

the locks might help “to buy time”: The quote comes from “Memorandum for the President, From Jerome B. Wiesner, May 29, 1962,” in “PAL Control of Theater Nuclear Weapons,” p. 84.

“individual psychotics”: Ibid.

prevent “unauthorized use by military forces”: Ibid.

Known at first as “Prescribed Action Links”: See Stein and Feaver, Assuring Control of Nuclear Weapons, pp. 36–37.

the broad outlines of his defense policies: “The decisions of March 1961,” Desmond Ball has written, “determined to a very large extent the character of the U.S. strategic-force posture for the next decade.” The most important decisions had been made during the first two weeks of the month. See Ball, Politics and Force Levels, pp. 107–26. The quote is from page 121.

five of them would inflict more damage: The comparison was made between five 1-megaton weapons and one 10-megaton — with the larger number of small weapons achieving more blast damage. See Enthoven, How Much Is Enough? pp. 179–84.

the Navy had requested a dozen Polaris subs: See Ball, Politics and Force Levels, pp. 45–46.

Kennedy decided to build 41: See ibid., pp. 46–7, 116–17.

about half of SAC’s bomber crews, if not more: Cited in “Statement of Robert S. McNamara on the RS-70,” Senate Armed Services Committee, March 14, 1962 (TOP SECRET/declassified), NSA, p. 12. This document somehow escaped the black pen of a Pentagon censor — it discloses the nuclear yield and accuracy of the major strategic weapon systems at the time. That information can be found on page 18.

“pipe-smoking, tree-full-of-owls type”: I first encountered this quote in Fred Kaplan’s superb Wizards of Armageddon: The Untold Story of the Small Group of Men Who Have Devised the Plans and Shaped the Policies on How to Use the Bomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), p. 255. It comes from an article by White about the whiz kids running the Pentagon, “Strategy and the Defense Intellectuals, Saturday Evening Post, May 4, 1963.