The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War

by Fred Kaplan

If the Soviets invaded Western Europe, a better use of nuclear weapons, Odom argued, would be to deal with the direct threat—to destroy the Red Army on the battlefield—and this new digital technology presented a chance to do that. Odom took part in the Nuclear Targeting Policy Review with an intense verve. One of his ideas was to scuttle the SIOP, with its rigid preplanned attack options, and to turn SAC into an improvising organization, adapting to scenarios as they developed in a real battle, in real time, and using nuclear weapons in the same way that the Army used artillery or the Air Force amassed tactical fighters for air support of troops on the ground. Odom’s ideas attracted interest but no following. Other military officers, especially those with SAC experience, explained that nuclear planning was a complex business: bomber runs had to be carefully timed, an attack’s expected damage and collateral damage couldn’t be calculated so easily, missiles couldn’t be retargeted on a moment’s notice—the process took days (a few years earlier, it had taken weeks).