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Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety Paperback – Illustrated, August 26, 2014

by Eric Schlosser (Author)

4.6 4,008 ratings

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The Oscar-shortlisted documentary Command and Control, directed by Robert Kenner, finds its origins in Eric Schlosser's book and continues to explore the little-known history of the management and safety concerns of America's nuclear aresenal.

“A devastatingly lucid and detailed new history of nuclear weapons in the U.S. Fascinating.” —Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine

“Perilous and gripping . . . Schlosser skillfully weaves together an engrossing account of both the science and the politics of nuclear weapons safety.” —San Francisco Chronicle

A myth-shattering exposé of America’s nuclear weapons

Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved—and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. While the harms of global warming increasingly dominate the news, the equally dangerous yet more immediate threat of nuclear weapons has been largely forgotten.

Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States.

Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with people who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age.

Print length

656 pages
Language

English
Publication date

August 26, 2014
Dimensions

5.5 x 1.3 x 8.4 inches
ISBN-10

9780143125785
ISBN-13

978-0143125785
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Deeply reported, deeply frightening . . . a techno-thriller of the first order.” —Los Angeles Times

“An excellent journalistic investigation of the efforts made since the first atomic bomb was exploded, outside Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, to put some kind of harness on nuclear weaponry. By a miracle of information management, Schlosser has synthesized a huge archive of material, including government reports, scientific papers, and a substantial historical and polemical literature on nukes, and transformed it into a crisp narrative covering more than fifty years of scientific and political change. And he has interwoven that narrative with a hair-raising, minute-by-minute account of an accident at a Titan II missile silo in Arkansas, in 1980, which he renders in the manner of a techno-thriller . . . Command and Control is how nonfiction should be written.” —Louis Menand, The New Yorker

“A devastatingly lucid and detailed new history of nuclear weapons in the U.S. . . . fascinating.” —Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine

“Command and Control ranks among the most nightmarish books written in recent years; and in that crowded company it bids fair to stand at the summit. It is the more horrific for being so incontrovertibly right and so damnably readable. Page after relentless page, it drives the vision of a world trembling on the edge of a fatal precipice deep into your reluctant mind... a work with the multilayered density of an ambitiously conceived novel . . . Schlosser has done what journalism does at its best when at full stretch: he has spent time—years—researching, interviewing, understanding and reflecting to give us a piece of work of the deepest import.” —
Financial Times

“The strength of Schlosser's writing derives from his ability to carry a wealth of startling detail (did you know that security at Titan II missile bases was so lapse you could break into one with just a credit card?) on a confident narrative path.” —The Guardian

“Perilous and gripping . . . Schlosser skillfully weaves together an engrossing account of both the science and the politics of nuclear weapons safety . . . The story of the missile silo accident unfolds with the pacing, thrill and techno details of an episode of 24.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Disquieting but riveting . . . fascinating . . . Schlosser’s readers (and he deserves a great many) will be struck by how frequently the people he cites attribute the absence of accidental explosions and nuclear war to divine intervention or sheer luck rather than to human wisdom and skill. Whatever was responsible, we will clearly need many more of it in the years to come.” —New York Times Book Review

“Easily the most unsettling work of nonfiction I've ever read, Schlosser's six-year investigation of America's ‘broken arrows’ (nuclear weapons mishaps) is by and large historical—this stuff is top secret, after all—but the book is beyond relevant. It's critical reading in a nation with thousands of nukes still on hair-trigger alert . . . Command and Control reads like a character-driven thriller as Schlosser draws on his deep reporting, extensive interviews, and documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act to demonstrate how human error, computer glitches, dilution of authority, poor communications, occasional incompetence, and the routine hoarding of crucial information have nearly brought about our worst nightmare on numerous occasions.” —Mother Jones

“Eric Schlosser detonates a truth bomb in Command and Control, a powerful expose about America’s nuclear weapons.” —Vanity Fair

“Nail-biting . . . thrilling . . . Mixing expert commentary with hair-raising details of a variety of mishaps, [Eric Schlosser] makes the convincing case that our best control systems are no match for human error, bad luck, and ever-increasing technological complexity.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Vivid and unsettling . . . An exhaustive, unnerving examination of the illusory safety of atomic arms.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“The lesson of this powerful and disturbing book is that the world’s nuclear arsenals are not as safe as they should be. We should take no comfort in our skill and good fortune in preventing a nuclear catastrophe, but urgently extend our maximum effort to assure that a nuclear weapon does not go off by accident, mistake, or miscalculation.” —Lee H. Hamilton, former U.S. Representative; Co-Chair, Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future; Director, the Center on Congress at Indiana University

About the Author

Eric Schlosser is the author of The New York Times bestsellers Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness. His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The Nation.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

On September 18, 1980, at about six thirty in the evening, Senior Airman David F. Powell and Airman Jeffrey L. Plumb walked into the silo at Launch Complex 374-7, a few miles north of Damascus, Arkansas. They were planning to do a routine maintenance procedure on a Titan II missile. They’d spent countless hours underground at complexes like this one. But no matter how many times they entered the silo, the Titan II always looked impressive. It was the largest intercontinental ballistic missile ever built by the United States: 10 feet in diameter and 103 feet tall, roughly the height of a nine-story building. It had an aluminum skin with a matte finish and U.S. AIR FORCE painted in big letters down the side. The nose cone on top of the Titan II was deep black, and inside it sat a W-53 thermonuclear warhead, the most powerful weapon ever carried by an American missile. The warhead had a yield of 9 megatons—about three times the explosive force of all the bombs dropped during the Second World War, including both atomic bombs.

Day or night, winter or spring, the silo always felt the same. It was eerily quiet, and mercury vapor lights on the walls bathed the missile in a bright white glow. When you opened the door on a lower level and stepped into the launch duct, the Titan II loomed above you like an immense black-tipped silver bullet, loaded in a concrete gun barrel, primed, cocked, ready to go, and pointed at the sky

The missile was designed to launch within a minute and hit a target as far as six thousand miles away. In order to do that, the Titan II relied upon a pair of liquid propellants—a rocket fuel and an oxidizer—that were “hypergolic.” The moment they came into contact with each other, they’d instantly and forcefully ignite. The missile had two stages, and inside both of them, an oxidizer tank rested on top of a fuel tank, with pipes leading down to an engine. Stage 1, which extended about seventy feet upward from the bottom of the missile, contained about 85,000 pounds of fuel and 163,000 pounds of oxidizer. Stage 2, the upper section where the warhead sat, was smaller and held about one fourth of those amounts. If the missile were launched, fuel and oxidizer would flow through the stage 1 pipes, mix inside the combustion chambers of the engine, catch on fire, emit hot gases, and send almost half a million pounds of thrust through the supersonic convergent-divergent nozzles beneath it. Within a few minutes, the Titan II would be fifty miles off the ground.

The two propellants were extremely efficient—and extremely dangerous. The fuel, Aerozine-50, could spontaneously ignite when it came into contact with everyday things like wool, rags, or rust. As a liquid, Aerozine-50 was clear and colorless. As a vapor, it reacted with the water and the oxygen in the air and became a whitish cloud with a fishy smell. This fuel vapor could be explosive in proportions as low as 2 percent. Inhaling it could cause breathing difficulties, a reduced heart rate, vomiting, convulsions, tremors, and death. The fuel was also highly carcinogenic and easily absorbed through the skin.

The missile’s oxidizer, nitrogen tetroxide, was even more hazardous. Under federal law, it was classified as a “Poison A,” the most deadly category of man-made chemicals. In its liquid form, the oxidizer was a translucent, yellowy brown. Although not as flammable as the fuel, it could spontaneously ignite if it touched leather, paper, cloth, or wood. And its boiling point was only 70 degrees Fahrenheit. At temperatures any higher, the liquid oxidizer boiled into a reddish brown vapor that smelled like ammonia. Contact with water turned the vapor into a corrosive acid that could react with the moisture in a person’s eyes or skin and cause severe burns. When inhaled, the oxidizer could destroy tissue in the upper respiratory system and the lungs. The damage might not be felt immediately. Six to twelve hours after being inhaled, the stuff could suddenly cause headaches, dizziness, difficulty breathing, pneumonia, and pulmonary edema leading to death.pPowell and Plumb were missile repairmen. They belonged to Propellant Transfer System (PTS) Team A of the 308th Strategic Missile Wing, headquarters was about an hour or so away at Little Rock Air Force Base.

They’d been called to the site that day because a warning light had signaled that pressure was low in the stage 2 oxidizer tank. If the pressure fell too low, the oxidizer wouldn’t flow smoothly to the engine. A “low light” could mean a serious problem—a rupture, a leak. But it was far more likely that a slight change in temperature had lowered the pressure inside the tank.

Air-conditioning units in the silo were supposed to keep the missile cooled to about 60 degrees. If Powell and Plum didn’t find any leaks, they’d simply unscrew the cap on the oxidizer tank and add more nitrogen gas. The nitrogen maintained a steady pressure on the liquid inside, pushing downward. It was a simple, mundane task, like putting air in your tires before long drive.

Powell had served on a PTS team for almost three years and knew the hazards of the Titan II. During his first visit to a launch complex, an oxidizer leak created a toxic cloud that shut down operations for three days. He was twenty-one years old, a proud “hillbilly” from rural Kentucky who loved the job and planned to reenlist at the end of the year.

Plumb had been with the 308th for just nine months. He wasn’t qualified to do this sort of missile maintenance or to handle these propellants. Accompanying Powell and watching everything that Powell did was considered Plumb’s “OJT,” his on-the-job training. Plumb was nineteen, raised in suburban Detroit.

Although an oxidizer low light wasn’t unusual, Air Force technical orders required that both men wear Category I protective gear when the silo to investigate it. “Going Category I” meant getting into a Rocket Fuel Handler’s Clothing Outfit (RFHCO)—an airtight, liquidproof, vaporproof, fire-resistant combination of gear designed to protect them from the oxidizer and the fuel. The men called it a “ref-co.” A RFHCO looked like a space suit from an early-1960s science fiction movie. It had a white detachable bubble helmet with a voice-actuated radio and a transparent Plexiglas face screen. The suit was off white, with a long zipper extending from the top of the left shoulder, across the torso, to the right knee. You stepped into the RFHCO and wore long johns underneath it. The black vinyl gloves and boots weren’t attached, so the RFHCO had roll-down cuffs at the wrists and the ankles to maintain a tight seal. The suit weighed about twenty-two pounds. The RFHCO backpack weighed an additional thirty-five and carried about an hour’s worth of air. The outfit was heavy and cumbersome. It could be hot, sticky, and uncomfortable, especially when worn outside the air-conditioned silo. But it could also save your life.

The stage 2 oxidizer pressure cap was about two thirds of the way up the missile. In order to reach it, Powell and Plumb had to walk across a retractable steel platform that extended from the silo wall. The tall, hollow cylinder in which the Titan II stood was enclosed by another concrete cylinder with nine interior levels, housing equipment. Level 1 was near the top of the missile; level 9 about twenty feet beneath the missile. The steel work platforms folded down from the walls hydraulically. Each one had a stiff rubber edge to prevent the Titan II from getting scratched, while keeping the gap between the platform and the missile as narrow as possible.

The airmen entered the launch duct at level 2. Far above their heads was a concrete silo door. It was supposed to protect the missile from the wind and the rain and the effects of a nuclear weapon detonating nearby. The door weighed 740 tons. Far below the men, beneath the Titan II, a concrete flame deflector shaped like a W was installed to guide the hot gases downward at launch, then upward through exhaust vents and out of the silo. The missile stood on a thrust mount, a steel ring at level 7 that weighed about 26,000 pounds. The thrust mount was attached to the walls by large springs, so that the Titan II could ride out a nuclear attack, bounce instead of break, and then take off.

In addition to the W-53 warhead and a few hundred thousand pounds of propellants, many other things in the silo could detonate. devices were used after ignition to free the missile from the thrust mount, separate stage 2 from stage 1, release the nose cone. The missile also housed numerous small rocket engines with flammable solid fuel to adjust the pitch and the roll of the warhead midflight. The Titan II launch complex had been carefully designed to minimize the risk of having so many flammables and explosives within it. Fire detectors, fire suppression systems, toxic vapor detectors, and decontamination showers were scattered throughout the nine levels of the silo. These safety devices were bolstered by strict safety rules. Whenever a PTS team member put on a RFHCO, he had to be accompanied by someone else in a RFHCO, with two other people waiting as backup, ready to put on their suits. Every Category I task had to be performed according to a standardized checklist, which the team chief usually read aloud over the radio communications network. There was one way to do everything—and only one way. Technical Order 21M-LGM25C-2-12, Figure 2-18, told Powell and Plumb exactly what to do as they stood on the platform near the missile. “Step four,” the PTS team chief said over the radio. “Remove airborne disconnect pressure cap.” “Roger,” Powell replied. “Caution. When complying with step four, do not exceed one hundred sixty foot-pounds of torque. Overtorquing may result in damage to the missile skin.” “Roger.” As Powell used a socket wrench to unscrew the pressure cap, the socket fell off. It struck the platform and bounced. Powell grabbed for it but missed. Plumb watched the nine-pound socket slip through the narrow gap between the platform and the missile, fall about seventy feet, hit the thrust mount, and then ricochet off the Titan II. It seemed to happen in slow motion. A moment later, fuel sprayed from a hole in the missile like water from a garden hose. “Oh man,” Plumb thought. “This is not good.”

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0143125788
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Reprint edition (August 26, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 656 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780143125785
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143125785
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.3 x 8.4 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #104,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #34 in Military Policy (Books)
- #51 in Nuclear Weapons & Warfare History (Books)
- #706 in American Military History

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Eric Schlosser

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ERIC SCHLOSSER is the author of The New York Times bestsellers Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness. His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The Nation.

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Customers say

Customers find the book fascinating and detailed from beginning to end. They praise the research quality as carefully researched, thorough, and informative. Readers describe the story as frightening, disturbing, and unsettling. They describe the pacing as impressive, well-done, and serious. Opinions are mixed on the narrative quality, with some finding it riveting and well-written, while others say it jumps around.

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Readability Research quality Scariness level Pacing Character development Value for money Narrative quality Safety

546 customers mention "Readability"517 positive29 negative

Customers find the book fascinating from beginning to end. They say it provides rich and detailed historical information on the composition of nukes. Readers also say the book is an excellent stimulus for further thought and reading. They mention it's written like a great Tom Clancy novel and leaves them dumbfounded.

"...extremely well footnoted and powerfully told in a fast-paced, highly readable style, "Command and Control" presents two stories in interleaved..." Read more

"...and security, and who shaped SAC into a modern, reliable, and efficient force...." Read more

"...Thus the book is well worth the read even if at times it can be a bit off-putting in style." Read more

"...This book was great, and it offered a rare glimpse - into the sky, beneath the waves, and under the prairie, into the secret lives of young men who..." Read more

322 customers mention "Research quality"286 positive36 negative

Customers find the book carefully researched, detailed, and informative. They say it's replete with cogent observations on past and present nuclear weapons. Readers also mention the author provides enough detail for a layperson.

"...Scrupulously accurate, extremely well footnoted and powerfully told in a fast-paced, highly readable style, "Command and Control" presents two..." Read more

"...This is both a tremendously informative, and at times gripping, narrative that should be read by anyone concerned with the safety of nuclear weapons..." Read more

"...This book was great, and it offered a rare glimpse - into the sky, beneath the waves, and under the prairie, into the secret lives of young men who..." Read more

"...The book is so well researched, and the researched so well put together, you don't have to be fan of history, or non-fiction to enjoy reading it...." Read more

185 customers mention "Scariness level"164 positive21 negative

Customers find the book fascinating, disturbing, and terrifying. They say it reads like a suspense novel. Readers also mention the real-life stories are riveting and interesting.

"...This is both a tremendously informative, and at times gripping, narrative that should be read by anyone concerned with the safety of nuclear weapons..." Read more

"...This part of the book reads like a techno thriller and could have stood alone...." Read more

"...It's terrifying, exhilarating and leaves you dumbfounded by the dichotomy of brilliance and madness inherent to the human condition...." Read more

"...He is a brilliant reporter and has written a gripping and fascinating story. And it's all true." Read more

88 customers mention "Pacing"76 positive12 negative

Customers find the pacing of the book impressive, well-organized, and solid. They say the material is serious and timely. Readers also mention the book is riveting and well-footnoted.

"...Scrupulously accurate, extremely well footnoted and powerfully told in a fast-paced, highly readable style, "Command and Control" presents two..." Read more

"An excellent read. Riveting. Gripping. Chilling. I am amazed that we actually survived the Cold War...." Read more

"...Overall?: I blew through this book because it is really well done...." Read more

"...The book is so well researched, and the researched so well put together, you don't have to be fan of history, or non-fiction to enjoy reading it...." Read more

11 customers mention "Character development"8 positive3 negative

Customers find the character development in the book nice, with a thorough job of covering the personalities and issues of the missile system. They also say the central figures are well-brought to life.

"...part of the book is told in riveting narrative, with a fascinating cast of characters and blow-by-blow recollection of their actions and..." Read more

"...It is supremely researched and portrays the real humans who did all the work with compassion and heart...." Read more

"...sounding 'Damascus Accident' is compelling, with the central figures brought to life well...." Read more

"...On top of that, the cast of characters is so immense that I also found myself getting lost in who is who...." Read more

10 customers mention "Value for money"10 positive0 negative

Customers say the book is worth the money.

"...after you read this, but it is profound reading, and absolutely worth the price of admission...." Read more

"...It's a little pricey for my taste, even on Kindle, but well worth your time and money." Read more

"...I was thrilled with your price for the book. The book is thicker and will take longer to read lhan I expected...." Read more

"...An enjoyable weekend, not wasted." Read more

74 customers mention "Narrative quality"39 positive35 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the narrative quality of the book. Some mention it's riveting, well-written, and easy to read. However, others say the story jumps around and is broken up by short stories.

"...If one can work around the style, the book tells a compelling tale...." Read more

"...Damascus incident was, I thought, the best part, but it is broken up into so many pieces by intervening historical pieces that keeping the narrative..." Read more

"...The narrative is excellent...." Read more

"...He jumps around in time far too much and I got lost...." Read more

17 customers mention "Safety"6 positive11 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the safety of nuclear weapons. Some mention they're secure, reliable, and vital to world stability. Others say there are no satisfactory safety mechanisms on the operational nuclear warheads. They also mention accidents have occurred and the lack of security involved in all our nuclear weapons is chilling.

"...a stray electrical signal from triggering a detonation, were not “one point safe”..." Read more

"...The SWDs were reasonably well guarded but their very number often gave one concern not just because of what they contained but often because one..." Read more

"...of nuclear warheads the United States produced, the lack of safety devices on them, and the hundreds of mistakes or accidents that resulted in a..." Read more

"...The author pays special attention to the armed forces’ lack of regard for the safety of those weapons..." Read more

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Terry S

If This Book Doesn't Scare You, You Must Be Brain-Dead

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2014

Verified Purchase

Eric Schlosser's "Command and Control" is a GREAT book. Every American--nay, every citizen of any country who is concerned about the hole we've dug ourselves with our unending pursuit of ever-more-powerful means of mass destruction--should read it. It's one of the most well written, compelling and important books I've read in years.

Scrupulously accurate, extremely well footnoted and powerfully told in a fast-paced, highly readable style, "Command and Control" presents two stories in interleaved narratives, which basically flip back-and-forth in alternate sections. One narrative tells the history of America's development of nuclear weapons and the means to deploy and control them, and, perhaps more importantly, to assure none of them could detonate accidentally. The other narrative is the story of the accident in Titan II ICBM silo 374-7, near Damascus, Arkansas, on September 18, 1980, when a worker dropped a socket that punctured the missile's first-stage fuel tank and resulted, eventually, in a huge (but non-nuclear) explosion.

I already knew quite a bit about nuclear weapons development, but Mr. Schlosser provides an excellent refresher course. Readers unfamiliar with that history should find those parts of his book very informative and technically fascinating. I knew little about the Damascus "Broken Arrow," though, and, thanks to his use of copious reference sources and exclusive interviews, I have no doubt that Mr. Schlosser totally nails that story, which he relates in exceptional detail and in an almost minute-by-minute chronology.

We normally think of "command and control" in the big-picture sense. For example, how do we know for sure whether the nation is under attack, and how do we mobilize military forces in an appropriate response if it is. Perhaps the ultimate "command and control" icon is the "football" (actually an innocuous briefcase) that accompanies the President of the United States everywhere, and that contains the means to command (and, hopefully, to control) the nation's nuclear forces in the event of an attack. But there's another, small-scale aspect of command and control that becomes clear in Mr. Schlosser's book. It is that aspect that should frighten everyone with the mental capacity to think beyond the next minute.

The response to the Damascus accident illustrated that there was very little meaningful command and control even at the lowest levels of the military and civilian organizations that were trying to deal with the crisis. For example, people who really needed to talk to each other couldn't because their radio systems used different frequencies or weren't compatible. Tools that were supposed to be stored in certain locations weren't there. A key door that should have opened didn't because someone secured an interlocked door in the wrong position. Protective suits had rips and would not seal properly. Critical valves did not operate because they had corroded. The entire disaster response, as Mr. Schlosser documents in chilling detail, was a textbook example of Murphy's Law at its most perverse.

Consider the nuclear reactor meltdowns at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima Dai Ichi as other examples of what Murphy's Law, combined with inevitable human errors, can wreak, and every thinking person should be very concerned about what surprises our technology may hold for us in the future. "Command and Control" shows what happened in a situation involving America's most powerful thermonuclear weapon that had never happened before. How many other technological Armageddons await, undetected and unplanned-for, in the world, and how many of them will stop short of utter disaster, as did the Damascus accident, only by dumb luck? Are we willing to trust the future of life on this planet to luck? Read "Command and Control" and think about it.

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Michael J

A gripping, compelling, and fascinating narrative of US nuclear weapons technology and policy

Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2015

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On the 18th of September, 1980, at around 6:30 pm, a USAF Senior Airman conducting routine maintenance on a Titan II liquid-fueled ICBM near Damascus, Arkansas, dropped a wrench socket down the silo of the missile he was working on. This in and of itself was not an unusual occurrence; tools and other material were often dropped in the silo, usually resulting in nothing more serious than a trip to the bottom to retrieve the item. This time, though, the socket bounced at struck the thin skin of the missile, puncturing a hole in the fuel tank. Fuel began to pour out. What followed was almost a textbook example of how complex systems and a complicated bureaucracy can take a serious, but controllable, situation and allow it to spiral out of hand into a disaster.

The events that took place that day, and the following day, serve as the backdrop for Eric Schlosser's detailed history of the technology and the policies that evolved to control the US Military's nuclear arsenal in the post-WWII period. The first bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were very much cobbled together by scientists, engineers, and machinists in the heat of war. There was a tremendous pressure to deliver a weapon to the Pacific theater to forestall the need for an invasion of Japan, and that meant that there was only one major consideration- that the bombs work. Considerations like safety, security, and the ability to stockpile weapons would have to come later.

With the end of the war came a new enemy- the USSR- and new demands and new questions. Who should be responsible for controlling the weapons- the AEC, or the military? How should they be stored? Was there a way to make them fail-safe, that is, to insure that accidents and malfunctions wouldn't result in an unintended nuclear detonation? And what was the proper balance between having a nuclear weapon that was secure from theft, misuse, and rogue commanders, and making sure that the weapons could be delivered in response to a Soviet attack? For some time the US nuclear arsenal included a great many weapons that were deployed in overseas bases and which contained the real safeguards other than an armed Airman or an AEC official a clipboard. There was the Davy Crocket, a jeep-mounted recipes rifle that could throw a variable-yield nuke about a mile and a half, and the nuclear demolition devices- mines that were to be armed and set in the path of an oncoming Soviet armored invasion.

Schlosser delves deep into the history of the weapons, the people involved, the policies, and the politics. I was particularly impressed with some of the little known facts he uncovered, like that noted philosopher, pacifist, and anti-nuclear activist Bertrand Russell had actually called for a first strike against the the USSR after they'd managed to explode a nuclear weapon. Russell acknowledged that yes, thousands or millions would die, but it was a better alternative than leaving allowing the Soviets to assemble a large nuclear arsenal that they could threaten the world with. General Curtis LeMay, often portrayed as a bloodthirsty buffoon in the press and in some histories, comes across as a very thoughtful and intelligent leader in Schlosser's narrative, a man who was one of the first to consider the issues of safety and security, and who shaped SAC into a modern, reliable, and efficient force. There's also Thomas Schelling, who, inspired by a novel, proposed the US-USSR Hot Line; Fred Ikle, who is considered to be the father of the PALs or Permissive Action Links that secure every US nuclear weapon, and several other, lesser known figures who helped shape US nuclear weapons policies and protocols.

Schossler also does a good job of explaining the physics and the technology of nuclear weapons as it applies to safety- the problems of designing a warhead that won't explode if his by a bullet, dropped on the runway, or jettisoned into the ocean (water slows neutrons, and can make a certain unarmed nuclear cores go critical.) The reader learns the difference between symmetrical implosion and linear implosion devices, and the problems in making both designs fail-safe. There's a history of the aforementioned PAL codes and devices, and the technologies to used to insure that a hollow plutonium core or "pit" cannot go critical, like filling it with a neutron-absorbing cadmium chain that can be quickly withdrawn to arm it.

This is both a tremendously informative, and at times gripping, narrative that should be read by anyone concerned with the safety of nuclear weapons, or with US nuclear deterrence policy.

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Carlos Alberto Ferreira

Revealing!

Reviewed in Brazil on June 10, 2023

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The book provides a frightening glimpse of how close to the abyss we all have got during the Cold War.

AMOD DEO

A must read.

Reviewed in India on January 13, 2019

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Lovely book with great research by the author and every character and story has come out totally credible. Makes you shudder on what treacherous and slippery ground we all walk.

2 people found this helpful

Stephen Ross

5 Stars is not enough!

Reviewed in Canada on December 4, 2016

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This is a masterful exposition of the history of the development of the US nuclear weapons program - particularly concerned with safety (or, more to the point, the lack thereof). It is an amazingly captivating read, interleaving the story of a particular accident with the history of the entire program. I could not help but share what I was learning with colleagues - at least one of whom has started reading the book as well. Reading the book it feels like a miracle that we are still actually here - there were so many close calls where chance alone was between us and disaster.

After reading the book I started reading the notes: There is another entire book hidden in just reading the notes! These also ended up sending me back to re-read parts of the book.

After finishing this book I read 15 Minutes. These two books make a very interesting pair, covering similar territory but with completely different styles and depth. I am very happy to have read both but Command and Control is a masterpiece of careful research, well documented, and absolutely captivating.

Stefano F.

Un resoconto dettagliato ed avvincente sullo sviluppo degli armamenti nucleari statunitensi

Reviewed in Italy on February 7, 2016

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Inizio con alcune note "di servizio" per un lettore italiano: il libro è scritto in un inglese semplice e scorrevole e si legge facilmente; l'unica difficoltà è tenere a mente i nomi di tutte le persone citate, ma per questo viene in aiuto lo specchietto riassuntivo all'inizio nelle pagine iniziali.
Questo libro, usando come filo conduttore ed esempio principale un incidente avvenuto con un missile Titan II (che per poco non ha fatto detonare una testata termonucleare in mezzo agli Stati Uniti), descrive la storia dello sviluppo delle armi nucleari statunitensi, dai primi test fino agli ultimi trattati di riduzione degli armamenti; particolare attenzione viene rivolta ad alcuni significativi incidenti occorsi e alle resistenze dei militari alle misure di prevenzione di tali episodi. Il tutto è narrato come se si trattasse di un racconto, quasi un thriller. Il calce al testo è presente anche una ricca bibliografia suddivisa per tematiche per chi volesse approfondire ulteriormente alcuni aspetti delle vicende narrate.

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Marius Goppelt

Der Stoff aus dem Alpträume sind

Reviewed in Germany on January 4, 2015

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Dies ist ein erschreckendes Buch. Der prosaische Stil hilft dabei, ein bisschen Distanz zum Inhalt zu schaffen. Es geht dabei vorwiegend nicht um den nuklearen Krieg, sondern vor allem um den Umgang mit Nuklearwaffen in Friedenszeiten. Runter vom politischen Klima bis hin zu den Personen die direkt damit umgehen, wird aufgeschlüsselt welche Risikofaktoren es bei Nuklearwaffen gibt, welche Sicherheitsmaßnahmen greifen und welche nicht. Dies wird größtenteils nüchtern und sachlich vorgelegt, und mit unzähligen Quellen belegt.
Der Autor schwingt dabei nicht mit dem moralischen Zeigefinger, er verurteilt niemanden, und geringschätzt auch nicht die Arbeit des Militärs. Wenn er über Fehler redet, dann mit dem größtmöglichen Respekt.

Unter der Oberfläche befindet sich aber mehr als nur ein Appell gegen den Bau von Atomwaffen.
Dies ist auch ein Buch über Unfälle, über die Grenzen des menschlich machbaren, was an der Grenze der menschlichen Wahrnehmung passiert, die Kosten und Limitierungen von Sicherheit, und wie man mit schwer beherrschbaren Situationen umgeht. Die Nuklearwaffe dient da nur als Extrembeispiel, für einen Unfall der schlicht nicht passieren darf.

Ich habe das Buch verschlungen. Die Rahmengeschichte liest sich wie ein Thriller. Man braucht kein Fachwissen um dem Inhalt zu folgen, aber die Informationsdichte ist mitunter gewaltig. Und es ist ein Stück weit Zeitgeschichte, über eine Epoche die heute fremd und unwirklich scheint.
Ich habe auch beruflich daraus ein bisschen mitgenommen, denn hier und da finden sich so einige Tipps wie man Sicherheit und Robustheit verbessern kann - oder was eben nur scheinbar Sicherheit erzeugt.

Kurzum: tolles Buch!

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