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

by Fred Kaplan

Vandenberg described his plan as “killing a nation,” but he parsed the campaign into three categories of targets, which he labeled “Delta-Bravo-Romeo.” Delta stood for “the disruption of the vital elements of the Soviet war-making capacity.” Bravo called for “the blunting of Soviet capabilities to deliver an atomic offensive against the United States and its allies.” Romeo stood for “the retarding of Soviet advances into Europe.” In this scheme, destroying all three sets of targets would destroy the Soviet Union as a war-making power. LeMay thought this was abstract nonsense. The quickest way to destroy the Soviet war machine was to destroy the Soviet Union—especially its large cities, where the political leaders and military commanders and factory workers lived.