At Pershing II bases in West Germany, crews would install the warhead, erect the missile, remove the pin that locked the missile onto its launcher, run the countdown until one second before launch—and then stop the exercise. The countdown would be controlled by a computer. Stevens felt uncomfortable with the idea; in fact, he thought it was crazy. A software glitch could launch a Pershing II missile. And the Army’s software, written in 1980, was unlikely to be bug free.
