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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 4,027 ratings

Editors' pick Best History

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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.

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 ‏ : ‎ 5.51 x 1.3 x 8.42 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #47,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #18 in Military Policy (Books)
- #23 in Nuclear Weapons & Warfare History (Books)
- #277 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 find the book informative and well-researched. They describe it as a gripping narrative that covers the entire scope of nuclear weapons. The prose is clear and concise, with enough detail for lay readers. Readers appreciate the compelling story and the author's detailed look into the problems of command and control.

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Readability Enlightened content Scariness level Written quality Story quality Look Pacing Narrative length

503 customers mention "Readability"503 positive0 negative

Customers find the book engaging and informative. They say it's a must-read for Baby Boomers and provides an excellent refresher course.

"...the Titan disaster and the history is just about perfect and a great author hook (like a guitar riff from an Eric Clapton song)...." Read more

"...nuclear weapons development, but Mr. Schlosser provides an excellent refresher course...." 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

"...Anyway, it's a great read, but existentially... worrying...." Read more

345 customers mention "Enlightened content"318 positive27 negative

Customers find the book informative and engaging. They appreciate the eyewitness accounts and good research. The book contains many facts and details about serious bombings. It is objective and well-referenced, with revelations about nuclear weapons safety. Readers appreciate the thorough research and deep appreciation of the characters involved in history. Overall, they describe it as a compelling and relevant non-fiction read.

"...I appreciated this approach because it informs without preaching a conclusion...." Read more

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

"...The author does an excellent job in developing the issue of who control nuclear weapons, by going over the various ways in which the weapons flowed..." 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

315 customers mention "Scariness level"239 positive76 negative

Customers find the book a fascinating and frightening account of the US nuclear weapons programs. They appreciate the history of accidents and the development of nuclear weapons. The book opens their eyes to the dangers we face at home with nuclear weapons, and it advocates for fewer and better control of them. It also discusses in detail the development of war plans, civilian and military authorities, and weapon technology.

"...discussions of the political in-fighting and the pros and cons of military control over the weapons...." Read more

"...It's well written, filled with enough absolute bonkers horror to even make one sympathize with McNamara. Poor poor McNamara......" Read more

"...an objective book, that talks about nuclear weapons safety, the culture of secrecy, what could have happen, what did happen and what nearly happened...." Read more

"...The author also discusses in detail the development of war plans, how civilian and military authorities interact in implementing them, how emergency..." Read more

271 customers mention "Written quality"234 positive37 negative

Customers find the book well-written and engaging. They appreciate the concise, comprehensive narrative that provides enough detail for a layperson. The author does an excellent job of documenting in super detail just how close this country has come to nuclear weapons. The book is readable and informative, with a wealth of information that appears exhaustively and accurately researched.

"...not quite true (or shaded the truth) when the rest of the book is so well-written and not full of political drivel...." Read more

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

"This book is about nuclear weapons, and frankly, it's a ride. It's well written, filled with enough absolute bonkers horror to even make one..." Read more

"...Schlosser's book is well researched, informative, and very readable and it is written in a non-technical style for a general audience...." Read more

209 customers mention "Story quality"209 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's story compelling and gripping. They say it covers the entire scope of nuclear weapons, providing detailed historical information on nukes and their composition. The Damascus Titan incident is also covered in depth, with personal histories of people involved. Overall, readers praise the book as a comprehensive and detailed account of the subject.

"...The switch between the Titan disaster and the history is just about perfect and a great author hook (like a guitar riff from an Eric Clapton song)...." Read more

"...story, which he relates in exceptional detail and in an almost minute-by-minute chronology...." Read more

"...Overall the book contains some relevant materials that explain a world in the past...." 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

54 customers mention "Look"49 positive5 negative

Customers find the book engaging and informative. They appreciate its detailed story and lucid writing style. The graphic novel cover and opening cast capture readers' attention. The book provides an insightful look into the evolution of nuclear weapons and their security.

"...Well worth you time and effort, you will be amazed and scared. Recommended." Read more

"...workings of the site and the missile, but you also get a wonderful color and feel for what the people who were involved with the incident were..." Read more

"...Plus you'll look cool at your next cocktail party when you tell your friends about the differences between an implosion atom bomb and a tritium-..." Read more

"...and Control is a remarkable piece of work, and it will scare the heck out of you, although Eric Schlosser really has the material for not one but at..." Read more

65 customers mention "Pacing"33 positive32 negative

Customers have different views on the pacing of the book. Some find it fast-paced and engaging, with an authoritative narrative that never lags. Others feel the book jumps around in time too much and can be difficult to follow at times, especially with so many names.

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

"...It is dark. It is scary and real people died. Its a miracle millions more didn't...." Read more

"Reads like a novel fast paced" Read more

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

41 customers mention "Narrative length"7 positive34 negative

Customers find the narrative disjointed and lacking cohesion. They find the stories unclearly separated, with elements not distinguishable between them. The book's history is described as boring and repetitive, which is common in current affairs non-fiction.

"...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

"...narrative through the book of the Titan in Arkansas was so broken up by the short stories from many other events that I would forget the details of..." Read more

"...both minor and hugely significant facts and components of stories are not distinguished from one another, and much of the book reads like he is just..." Read more

"...Like most reviews have mentioned the book is essentially two different stories. Yes, one establishes the background and cause of the other...." Read more

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Narut Ujnat
Great read. Scary subject, but well written.
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2015
Verified Purchase
I picked up this book after reading David Hoffman's book The Dead Hand about the end of the Cold War between Russia and the US.

I had read Schlosser before as his title Fast Food Nation was another great and again scary read. Well, this book IS a great read but also certainly more scary.

Essentially this book uses a horrible incident in Arkansas involving a Titan II missile silo fire while discussing nuclear history from World War II onwards.

The narrative is excellent. The book (or paperback I read) is lengthy, but I would read through this so quickly that I would pick up the book and think I couldn't possibly be through so many pages. This means it's a good read. It is. Though some of the personalities mentioned I was familiar with, I learned a lot. There have been many incidents involving nukes, though certainly many more in the '50's and '60's then now. It would appear that this is a function partially of less need and less involvement - until just 20 years ago the Strategic Air Command (SAC) had planes armed and ready to strike 24/7. Also, technology has evolved significantly reducing the danger (somewhat).

The author does a terrific job and is fair. He is neither Cassandra deploring technology or nuclear policy, nor a silver-tounged Nestor informing us that nukes are wonderful and should be whenever possible. I appreciated this approach because it informs without preaching a conclusion.

Quibbles?: Well, early in the book the author discusses Curtis LeMay by discussing Jimmy Stewart. Great. But he says Ronald Reagan and John Wayne avoided active duty during World War II. However, having just read a excellent biography on Wayne, I thought that he didn't manage to avoid service, this wasn't Vietnam. In Wayne's case he tried to go, but he was 34 and not in perfect health and was a 3 level recruit - not so good. Early in 1942, the military had very high standards and Wayne didn't meet them along with MANY others (also LBJ pulled many strings at 42 just to get a uniform on. Heck, people served - Wayne made films that were pretty valuable, Reagan made training films you can watch on yourtuber that were also importnat - not everyone had to be Audie Murphy). As to Reagan, he had joined a Army unit involving horses in 1937 (this is why he was a fantastic horseman in his personal life), but after Dec 7, he also tried to go active and was designated 3 level and then assigned to a film training unit. This IS a minor quibble, but it suggested something that was not quite true (or shaded the truth) when the rest of the book is so well-written and not full of political drivel. The book makes the point; this is very dangerous stuff and we have avoided disaster many times with the evidence still buried at sea and on land!

Overall?: I blew through this book because it is really well done. The switch between the Titan disaster and the history is just about perfect and a great author hook (like a guitar riff from an Eric Clapton song). Well worth you time and effort, you will be amazed and scared. Recommended.

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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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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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