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

by Fred Kaplan

Conversations with Miller had primed Cheney to notice peculiarities in the war plan, and he was particularly struck by one slide showing that the SIOP’s main attack plan hit the Soviet transportation network with 725 nuclear weapons. Cheney asked Chain why. Chain looked at the colonel who had been running the briefing’s slideshow and reading the script. The colonel shrugged. Chain told Cheney he’d get back to him on that. Afterward, Cheney brought Miller into his office and asked him what was going on. Miller said he didn’t know: Weinberger and Carlucci had given him a mandate to investigate whether the SIOP reflected the president’s policies, but the Joint Staff had barred him from examining targets—either the individual targets themselves or the way JSTPS calculated how many weapons to hit them with. Cheney told Miller that the bar was hereby lifted and had him write a memo, which Cheney then signed, ordering the SAC commander to give Miller and his staff access to all documents that they requested.