Command and Control

He thought that one or two hundred missiles: Right after taking office, President Carter asked Secretary of Defense Harold Brown to prepare a study of what would happen if the United States and the Soviet Union both possessed only 200 to 250 strategic missiles. The study addressed but failed to resolve one of the central questions of nuclear deterrence: How many weapons are enough? “Some have argued that the capability to destroy a single major city — such as Moscow or New York — would be sufficient to deter a rational leader,” the study said. “Others argue that a capability for assured destruction of 80 percent or more of the economic and industrial targets of adversaries is necessary and critical.” See Brian J. Auten, Carter’s Conversion: The Hardening of American Defense Policy (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2008), p. 146; and “Memorandum for the President, Subject, Implications of Major Reductions in Strategic Nuclear Forces, From Harold Brown,” January 28, 1977 (SECRET/declassified), NSA, p. 2.

“the elimination of all nuclear weapons from this Earth”: Carter had also called for the abolition of nuclear weapons in December 1974, when announcing his candidacy for president. See Auten, Carter’s Conversion, p. 95; and “Text of Inauguration Address,” Los Angeles Times, January 21, 1977.

“Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight and Win”: Richard Pipes, “Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight and Win,” Commentary, July 1977, pp. 212–34.

To achieve a 95 percent certainty of wiping them out: President Kennedy’s former science adviser, Jerome Wiesner, outlined how difficult it would be for the Soviet Union to win a nuclear war against the United States. “Even after a surprise attack,” Wiesner observed, “U.S. strength would actually be slightly greater than the Soviet Union’s.” Indeed, if all the land-based missiles in the United States were destroyed, its submarine-based missiles could still hit the Soviet Union with 3,500 equivalent megatons — almost ten times the explosive force that the Kennedy administration had once thought sufficient to annihilate Soviet society. For these calculations, see Jerome Wiesner, “Russian and American Capabilities,” Atlantic Monthly, July 1982.

somewhere between two and twenty million Americans: According to a study conducted in 1979 for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, a Soviet attack on missile silos and submarine bases in the United States would kill between two and twenty million people within a month. The wide range of potential fatalities was due to the unpredictability of fallout patterns, which would be largely determined by the wind, rain, and other weather conditions at the time of the attack. See “A Counterforce Attack Against the United States,” in “The Effects of Nuclear War,” Office of Technology Assessment, Congress of the United States, May 1979, pp. 81–90. The mortality estimates can be found on page 84.

a “countervailing strategy”: In July 1980, President Carter endorsed a new and top secret “Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy.” Known as Presidential Directive/NSC-59, it called for a shift in targeting — a renewed emphasis on counterforce, limited war, and the destruction of Warsaw Pact forces while they moved on the battlefield. It sought to “countervail,” to resist with equal strength, any Soviet attack. It also sought to provide Carter with the ability to launch on warning. See Odom, “The Origins and Design of Presidential Decision-59,” and “Presidential Directive/NSC-59,” July 25, 1980 (TOP SECRETSENSITIVEdeclassified), NSA.

The MX missile system embodied the strategic thinking: For the clearest description of the Carter administration plan for the MX, see “MX Missile Basing,” Congress of the United States, Office of Technology Assessment, September 1981. And for a sense of the missile debates at the time, see John D. Steinbruner and Thomas M. Garwin, “Strategic Vulnerability: The Balance Between Prudence and Paranoia,” International Security, vol. 1, no. 1 (Summer 1976), pp. 138–81; William C. Potter, “Coping with MIRV in a MAD World,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 22, no. 4 (1978), pp. 599–626; Wayne Biddle, “The Silo Busters: Misguided Missiles, the MX Project,” Harper’s, December 1979; and William H. Kincade, “Will MX Backfire?” Foreign Policy, no. 37 (Winter 1979–1980), pp. 43–58.

scattered across roughly fifteen thousand acres: See “MX Missile Basing,” pp. 64–65.

Eight thousand miles of new roads: Cited in ibid., p. 61.

About a hundred thousand workers would be required: Cited in ibid., p. 75.

The total cost of the project was estimated to be at least $40 billion: Ibid., pp. 13–14.