Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

by Eric Schlosser

In retrospect, it’s easy to say that a particular year marked a turning point in history. And yet sometimes the significance of contemporary events is grasped even in the moment. The United States of the 1960s and the 1970s, with its liberalism and countercultural turmoil, was about to become something different. The year 1980, the start of a new decade, was when that change became palpable, in ways both trivial and telling.

Civilian control of the atomic bomb was now an American principle firmly established by law—but that did not prevent the military, almost immediately, from seeking to undermine it.

According to U.S. intelligence reports, the Soviet army had about one hundred divisions, with about 1.2 million troops, capable of invading Western Europe—and could mobilize more than 150 additional divisions within a month.

I've read accounts disputing this. Certainly the Soviets outnumbered us but there seems to be some question not only puff the numbers but also readiness. And the "intelligence sources" we're probably the Gehlen Org, whose members were mostly former Nazis and Abwehr who would have liked nothing more than to see the US and the USSR at war with each other.

“The bomb is pre-eminently a weapon for use against human life and activities in large urban and industrial areas.” It was a weapon useful, most of all, for killing and terrorizing civilians. The report suggested that a nuclear attack would stir up “man’s primordial fears” and “break the will of nations.” The military significance of the atomic bomb was clear: it wouldn’t be aimed at the military. Nuclear weapons would be used to destroy an enemy’s morale, and some of best targets were “cities of especial sentimental significance.”

Back to breaking the will of the civilian population, same argument used to justify strategic aerial bombardment before WW2.

A country with fewer atomic bombs than its adversary had an especially strong incentive to launch an attack out of the blue. And for that reason, among others, a number of high-ranking American officers argued that the United States should bomb the Soviet Union before it obtained any nuclear weapons. General Groves thought that approach would make sense, if “we were ruthlessly realistic.” General Orvil Anderson, commander of the Air University, publicly endorsed an attack on the Soviets. “I don’t advocate preventive war,” Anderson told a reporter. “I advocate the shedding of illusions.” He thought that Jesus Christ would approve of dropping atomic bombs on the Soviet Union: “I think I could explain to Him that I had saved civilization.” Anderson was suspended for the remarks.

Imagine being Stalin and hearing this.

“For the majority of Soviet people,” the committee noted, “atomic bombing would validate Soviet propaganda against foreign powers, stimulate resentment against the United States, unify these people and increase their will to fight.”

A wide gulf existed, however, between the rhetoric and reality. Demobilization had left SAC a hollow force, with a shortage of skilled pilots and mechanics. During one major exercise in 1948, almost half of SAC’s B-29s failed to get off the ground and reach their targets. The public controversy surrounding the atomic blitz obscured a crucial point: the United States couldn’t launch one.

The nation’s emergency war plans called for a counterattack against the Soviet Union with more than one hundred atomic bombs—but SAC had just twenty-six flight crews available to deliver them.

Although SAC’s retaliation might still be devastating, it wouldn’t be quick. An estimated thirty-five to forty-five days of preparation would be necessary before an all-out nuclear attack could be launched.

During the spring of 1948, as tensions with the Soviets increased, Charles A. Lindbergh was asked to provide a secret evaluation of SAC’s readiness for war. Lindbergh found that morale was low, landings were rough, training was poor, equipment was badly maintained, and accidents were frequent. A month after Lindbergh’s findings were submitted, General Kenney was relieved of command.

This doesn't quite seem "Kenney the operator." True, Kenney's specialty was attack/tactical aviation. But he understood bombardment, and more, he knew how to run an air force. This doesn't sound like Kenney during the war. Wonder what happened?

LeMay’s greatest strength as a commander wasn’t a subtle grasp of the historical, political, or psychological aspects of an enemy. It was his focus on the interplay between men and machines—a vision of war designed by an engineer. He also cared deeply about the safety and morale of his men. Strategic bombing required a particular form of courage. Unlike fighter pilots, who flew alone, free to roam the skies in pursuit of targets, bomber crews had to work closely with one another, follow a designated route, and stay in formation. The seven minutes from the initial aiming point to the target could induce feelings of helplessness and sheer terror, as flak exploded around the plane and enemy fighters tried to shoot it down. The death rate among American bomber crews was extraordinarily high: more than half would be killed in action before completing their tour of duty.

LeMay was involved in almost every detail of the plan, from selecting the mix of bombs—magnesium for high temperatures, napalm for splatter—to choosing a bomb pattern that could start a firestorm. He hoped that the firebombing would break the will of the Japanese people, avoid an American invasion, end the war quickly, and save American lives.

LeMay recognized the destructive power of nuclear weapons but didn’t feel the least bit intimidated by them. “We scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo,” he later recalled, “than went up in vapor at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.” And he didn’t lose any sleep over the morality of Truman’s decision. Killing was killing, whether you did it with a rock, a rifle, or an atom bomb. LeMay’s appointment to run SAC sent a clear message to the Soviets: if necessary, the United States would not hesitate to fight a nuclear war.

After arriving at SAC headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, during the fall of 1948, LeMay was angered by what he found. Bomber crews had no idea what their targets would be, if war came. Navigators lacked up-to-date maps, and pilots rarely consulted checklists before takeoff.

What happened to Kenney?? These are the very things he found to criticize about the FEAF when he took it over in August 1942.

LeMay wanted everyone at SAC to feel a strong sense of urgency, to be ready for war not next week or tomorrow but at any moment—to feel “we are at war now.”

Command and control had always been a crucial element in warfare. But in a nuclear war, where decisions might have to be made within minutes and weapons could destroy cities in an instant, the reliability of these administrative systems could be the difference between victory and annihilation. A breakdown in command and control could make it impossible to launch a nuclear attack—or could order one by mistake.

In April 1947, David Lilienthal visited Los Alamos for the first time after becoming head of the Atomic Energy Commission. He was shocked by what he saw: rudimentary equipment; dilapidated buildings; poor housing; muddy, unpaved roads—and plutonium cores stored in cages at an old icehouse. Lilienthal was a liberal, one of the last New Dealers in the Truman administration, and he’d seen a lot of rural poverty while running the Tennessee Valley Authority during the Great Depression. But that first day at Los Alamos, he later noted, was “one of the saddest days of my life.” Nuclear weapons were now thought indispensable for the defense of the United States; Lilienthal had expected to find them neatly and safely stored for immediate use. “The substantial stockpile of atom bombs we and the top military assumed was there, in readiness, did not exist,” Lilienthal subsequently wrote. “Furthermore, the production facilities that might enable us to produce quantities of atomic weapons . . . likewise did not exist.”

What had begun as a handcrafted laboratory experiment was now the focus of a growing industrial system. And the idea of placing atomic bombs under international control, the idea of outlawing them, the whole notion of world government and world peace, now seemed like an absurd fantasy.

Relying largely on statistics, excluding any moral or humanitarian considerations, and writing with cool, Swiss precision, Iklé suggested that the Second World War strategy of targeting civilians had failed to achieve its aims. The casualties were disproportionately women, children, and the elderly—not workers essential to the war effort. Cities adapted to the bombing, and their morale wasn’t easily broken. Even in Hiroshima, the desire to fight back survived the blast: when rumors spread that San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles had been destroyed by Japanese atomic bombs, people became lighthearted and cheerful, hoping the war could still be won.

“It is my conviction that a peaceful settlement with Russia is possible only if we possess overwhelming superiority,” Teller argued.

That isn't a peaceful settlement but de facto surrender terms and the Soviets would have seen it that way.

Two weeks after the president’s decision was publicly announced, Albert Einstein read a prepared statement about the hydrogen bomb on national television. He criticized the militarization of American society, the intimidation of anyone who opposed it, the demands for loyalty and secrecy, the “hysterical character” of the nuclear arms race, and the “disastrous illusion” that this new weapon would somehow make America safer. “Every step appears as the unavoidable consequence of the preceding one,” Einstein said. “In the end, there beckons more and more clearly general annihilation.”

A classified Pentagon report later stressed the central role that “psychological considerations” played in nuclear deterrence. “Weapons systems in themselves tell only part of the necessary story,” the report argued. The success of America’s defense plans relied on an effective “information program” aimed at the public:

What deters is not the capabilities and intentions we have, but the capabilities and intentions the enemy thinks we have. The central objective of a deterrent weapons system is, thus, psychological. The mission is persuasion.

And no one noted how that worked both ways.

Telling the truth about nuclear weapons, the British government feared, would weaken popular support for a defense policy that required them.

Neither the Army nor the Navy submitted a list; they’d failed to keep track of their nuclear accidents.

BS. Isn't there always sign investigation, if only to account for loss or damage to government property?

The odds of a hydrogen bomb detonating by accident, every decade, would be one in five.

Since no such detonation has occurred we/they must be doing something right.

But Power was bluffing.

So we're the Soviets.

If such an accident occurred in a remote area, so that leakage to the press could be prevented, no information ought to be made public. . . . If the accident has been compromised and public statements become necessary, they should depict the accident as an occurrence which has no bearing on the safety of other weapons. In some circumstances it might be treated as if it had been an experiment. . . . Internally, of course, information about the accident should not be suppressed.

This pattern of deliberate lies is unconscionable. "Father knows best thinking" at its worst. If the government thought the people would revolt if they knew the truth, then, in a democracy, perhaps the leadership at the time should have behaved accordingly. Was the fear of communism that great? If so why?

The harsh criticism of his policies—not just by Democrats but also by defense contractors—led Eisenhower to believe in the existence of a “military-industrial complex,” a set of powerful interest groups that threatened American democracy and sought new weapons regardless of the actual need.

Unlike massive retaliation, a strategy of “graduated deterrence” would allow the leadership on both sides to “pause for calculation,” pull back from the abyss, and reach a negotiated settlement.

Is this the basis of the gradual response idea used in the bombing campaign during the Vietnam war?

The decision prompted the Army, Navy, and Air Force to battle even more fiercely over who would control that system.

The Mark 39 had passed the test—this time. It wasn’t something that McNamara wanted to see repeated. The lapses in weapon safety seemed to be part of a much larger problem: a sense of disarray and mismanagement at the Pentagon, extending from the budget process to the planning for nuclear war.

This is the sort of chaos you'd think would be most likely to produce an unintentional detonation. The statistics seem to point to it as well. What are the odds against accidental detonation under these circumstances?

McNamara was determined to bring order, rational management, and common sense to the workings of the Pentagon, as quickly as possible.

Gives some credence to McNamara contending in his memoir that the Vietnam war was hardly on anyone's mind at this point, given problems like this.

By launching a surprise attack on five targets—the White House, the Pentagon, Camp David, Site R, and High Point—the Soviet Union had a good chance of wiping out the civilian leadership of the United States. None of the bunkers at those locations would survive the blast from a multimegaton weapon. And two of the emergency command posts, Site R and High Point, weren’t regularly staffed with high-ranking officers. By hitting nine additional targets, the Soviet Union could eliminate America’s military leadership. The destruction of America’s command-and-control system could be achieved, with a 90 percent chance of success, through the use of only thirty-five Soviet missiles.

And that warning would most likely never be received, because the NATO communications system was completely unprotected. Its destruction would prevent NATO from transmitting messages not only within Europe but also between Europe and the United States. Once the fighting began, the president could not expect to reach any of NATO’s high-ranking officers or to give them any orders.

On January 1, 1960, General Lauris Norstad, the supreme allied commander in Europe, placed all of NATO’s nuclear-capable units on a fifteen-minute alert, without consulting Congress. Every NATO air squadron was ordered to keep at least two fighter planes loaded with fuel and a nuclear weapon, parked near a runway. And thermonuclear warheads were mated to the intermediate-range Jupiter missiles in Italy and the Thor missiles in Great Britain. The new alert policy had the full support of President Eisenhower, who thought that NATO should be able to respond promptly to a Soviet attack. Eisenhower had faith in the discipline of NATO forces. And he had, most likely, a private understanding with Norstad similar to the one made with LeMay—granting the permission to use nuclear weapons, if Washington, D.C., had been destroyed or couldn’t be reached during a wartime emergency. The supreme commander of NATO reported directly to the president, not to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Norstad was fiercely protective of his authority. He disliked General Thomas Power, the head of the Strategic Air Command, and wanted to preserve NATO’s ability to destroy the Soviet Union without any help from SAC. The thermonuclear warheads atop NATO’s Jupiter missiles were aimed at Soviet cities. With those missiles, and the hundreds of other nuclear weapons under NATO command, Norstad could conceivably fight his own war against the Soviets, on his own terms.

A nuclear weapon might be stolen by a deranged or psychotic NATO soldier; by a group of officers seeking political power; or by the government of a host nation, for use against an enemy other than the Soviet Union. These scenarios were, unfortunately, plausible. A pair of NATO countries, Greece and Turkey, despised each other and would soon go to war over the island of Cyprus. Right-wing officers had staged two coups d’état in Turkey during the previous year, and Jupiter missiles were scheduled for deployment there in the fall of 1961. Covertly funded by the Soviet Union, the Italian Communist Party had strong support in the region where Jupiter missiles were based. Members of the party might seek to sabotage or steal a nuclear weapon. Concerns about theft weren’t absurd or far-fetched. A few months after the joint committee’s visit to NATO bases, a group of dissident French officers sought to gain control of a nuclear device in Algeria, as part of a coup. At the time, Algeria was the site of French nuclear tests—and a French colony fighting for independence. A nuclear test code-named “Gerboise verte” was promptly conducted in the Sahara desert so that the officers attempting to overthrow President Charles de Gaulle couldn’t get hold of a nuclear device. “Refrain from detonating your little bomb,” General Maurice Challe, one of the coup leaders, had urged the head of the special weapons command. “Keep it for us, it will always be useful.”

And a Mark 7 sometimes contained things it shouldn’t. A screwdriver was found inside one of the bombs; an Allen wrench was somehow left inside another. In both bombs, the loose tools could have caused a short circuit. The risk of a nuclear accident at a European base was increased by the fact that the training and operating manuals for the Mark 7—indeed, for all the weapons in the NATO atomic stockpile—were written in English. But many of the NATO personnel who handled the weapons could not read or speak English. And few of them knew what to do if something went wrong. “In many areas we visited,” the joint committee found, “little or no Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) capability was available in the event of accidental radioactive contamination resulting from fire, carelessness, or accident, or in the event of threat to custody and security of the weapon requiring emergency disposal.” Western Europe was more densely populated than the United States, and a cloud of plutonium, released by a nuclear weapon, could threaten a large number of people. The possibility of such an accident was “far from remote,” according to the joint committee.

The plan is designed for execution as a whole, and the exclusion of attack of any category or categories of target would, in varying degree, decrease the effectiveness of the plan. General Curtis LeMay wholeheartedly agreed with Lemnitzer. Indeed, if war came, LeMay thought the Soviet Union should be hit by more nuclear weapons, not fewer, to guarantee that every strategic target was eliminated. Despite strong political and philosophical differences, President Kennedy had recently promoted LeMay to Air Force chief of staff, out of respect for his operational skills. “If you have to go, you want LeMay in the lead bomber,” Kennedy later explained. “But you never want LeMay deciding whether or not you have to go.”

The underlying logic of both nuclear war plans was inescapable: kill or be killed.

A war plan that seemed too horrible to contemplate when Kennedy and McNamara first learned of its existence had become institutionalized.

General Curtis LeMay had created an institutional culture at the Strategic Air Command that showed absolutely no tolerance for mistakes. People were held accountable not only for their behavior but for their bad luck. “To err is human,” everyone at the command had been told, “to forgive is not SAC policy.”

The surveys by the Department of Defense most likely understated the actual amount of drug use.

Eager to defend the civilian control of nuclear weapons from military encroachment, John F. Kennedy and Robert McNamara had fought hard to ensure that only the president could make the ultimate decision. But they hadn’t considered the possibility that the president might be clinically depressed, emotionally unstable, and drinking heavily—like Richard Nixon, during his final weeks in office. Amid the deepening Watergate scandal, Secretary of Defense Schlesinger told the head of the Joint Chiefs to seek his approval before acting on “any emergency order coming from the president.” Although Schlesinger’s order raised questions about who was actually in command, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

It was just a huge mechanical war plan aimed at creating maximum damage without regard to the political context.

The SIOP now called for the Soviet Union to be hit with about ten thousand nuclear weapons. But what disturbed Odom the most about the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff in Omaha was that they didn’t seem to have any postattack plans: “Things would just cease in their world about 6 to 10 hours after they received the order to execute the SIOP.”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff regarded Carter with suspicion. The new president not only supported minimum deterrence, he also sought a ban on all nuclear testing. He proposed large cuts in military spending. He sincerely wanted new arms control agreements, world peace, friendship with the Soviet Union. And he appointed Harold Brown—one of McNamara’s former whiz kids—to serve as secretary of defense. Brown thought that the United States hadn’t fallen behind the Soviets and that new strategic weapons, like the B-1 bomber, weren’t urgently needed. Within weeks of taking office, Carter found his plans opposed by most Republicans, many Democrats, the armed services—and even the Soviets.

The faulty computer chip had randomly put the number 2 in that space, suggesting that 2 missiles, 220 missiles, or 2,200 missiles had been launched. The defective chip was replaced, at a cost of forty-six cents.

The Air Force was refusing to disclose any information about the explosion. It would not explain what had just happened. It would not discuss the potential danger from toxic fumes. It would neither confirm nor deny that the Titan II was carrying a nuclear warhead. Journalists who called Little Rock Air Force Base were told to phone the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command in Omaha—and nobody at SAC headquarters would answer their questions.

Why? How does this make sense? These are the people, after all, you're supposed to protect.

The chaos of the early-morning hours extended to the management of roadblocks. The Air Force had no legal authority to decide who could or couldn’t drive on Arkansas roads. But SAC’s failure to confer with state and local officials left a crucial question unanswered—who was in charge? At a roadblock south of 4-7, Air Force security officers refused to let journalists pass. Correspondents from the major television networks had arrived to cover the story, along with radio and newspaper reporters. Sheriff Anglin overruled the Air Force and allowed the media to park on the shoulder of Highway 65, across from the access road to the missile site. It was public property. Not long afterward a reporter for the Arkansas Democrat was stopped at the same roadblock by Air Force security officers and told that he couldn’t drive any farther. The reporter pointed out that his newspaper’s competitors had just been allowed up the road—and then drove around the roadblock without permission and headed toward 4-7, ignoring the soldiers with M-16s.