The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

by Daniel Ellsberg

There was no Stop or Return code in the envelope or otherwise in the possession of the plane crew. Once an authenticated Execute order had been received, there was—by design, it turned out—no way to authenticate an order to reverse course from the president or anyone else. And no such unauthenticated order was to be obeyed. There was no officially authorized way for the president or the JCS or anyone else to stop planes that had received an Execute order—whether they had just taken off or had passed beyond their positive control line—from proceeding to the target and dropping their bombs. From that point on, the planes, whether tactical or strategic, could no more be called back by the president or any subordinate from their attack project than a ballistic missile.