Command and Control

by Eric Schlosser

As Peterson sat in the commander’s chair, the number above the map began to climb. When it reached 4, NORAD officers ran into the room. When it reached 5, Peterson and the other executives were quickly escorted out and put in a small office. The door was closed, and they were left there believing that a nuclear war had just begun. The vice commander of NORAD, Air Marshal C. Roy Slemon, a dapper Canadian with a small mustache, managed to track down the head of NORAD, General Laurence S. Kuter, who was in an Air Force plane above South Dakota. “Chief, this is a hot one,” Slemon said. The BMEWS indicated that the Soviets had launched an all-out missile attack against North America. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were on the phone, awaiting confirmation. The United States had only minutes to respond. “Where is Khrushchev?” Slemon asked his officers. Khrushchev’s in New York today, at the United Nations, NORAD’s chief of intelligence said. Slemon immediately felt relieved. The Soviet Union was unlikely to launch an attack that would kill the first secretary of its Communist Party.