Command and Control (64 page)

In many of the documents that I obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the redactions by government censors made little sense. Exactly the same information would be supplied in one document, yet blacked out in another. The government still won't reveal the yield of the Titan II's warhead—even though the weapon hasn't been in the American arsenal for almost a quarter of a century, the Soviet Union no longer exists, and Soviet espionage discovered everything remotely interesting about the missile.

The operational details of nuclear weapons might seem like the kind of information that should always be kept secret. And yet throughout the Cold War, news reports about Broken Arrows and other nuclear weapon problems forced the Pentagon to adopt new safety measures. Bad publicity influenced the decision to lock hydrogen bombs securely inside
bombers during takeoffs and landings, to end SAC's airborne alert, retire the Titan II missile, remove Short-Range Attack Missiles from aircraft on ground alert. Too much secrecy often threatened the national security far more than revelations about America's nuclear arsenal.

A detailed account of the nuclear weapon accidents in the Soviet Union has never been published. The absence of a free press no doubt contributed to the many large-scale industrial accidents and widespread environmental devastation that occurred in the Soviet bloc.
Chelyabinsk-65, the site of a nuclear weapon facility in central Russia, has been called “
arguably the most polluted spot on the planet.” A massive explosion there in 1957 contaminated hundreds of square miles with highly radioactive fallout. Countless accidents occurred at the plant, and tens of thousands of people were exposed to harmful levels of radiation. Soviet nuclear technology was, for the most part, inferior to that of the West. But the authoritarian rule of the Soviet Union was especially
well suited to the demands of nuclear command and control. Unlike the president of the United States—who predelegated the authority to use nuclear weapons not only to SAC generals and Air Force fighter pilots but also to NATO officers in Europe—the leadership of the Communist Party and the Soviet general staff strictly retained that sort of power. Locks of various kinds were placed on Soviet weapons, and the permission to unlock them came only from the top. According to Bruce Blair, a leading command-and-control expert, Soviet safeguards against unauthorized use were “
more stringent than those of any other nuclear power, including the United States.”

The rigidly centralized command structure, however, made the Soviet Union quite vulnerable to a decapitation attack. Despite all the underground bunkers and secret railways built in and around Moscow, Soviet leaders constantly worried about their ability to retaliate after an American first strike. Instead of loosening their control of nuclear weapons and shifting authority further down the chain of command, they automated the decision to use nuclear weapons. In 1974, little more than a decade after the release of
Dr. Strangelove
, the Soviet Union began work on
the “Perimeter” system—a network of sensors and computers that could launch
intercontinental ballistic missiles without any human oversight. Completed in 1985, it was known as the “dead hand.” The Soviet general staff planned to activate Perimeter if an American attack seemed imminent. The system would retaliate automatically, firing long-range missiles if it detected nuclear explosions on Russian soil. Perimeter greatly reduced the pressure to launch on warning at the first sign of an American attack. It gave Soviet leaders more time to investigate the possibility of a false alarm, confident that a real attack would trigger a computer-controlled, devastating response. But it rendered American plans for limited war meaningless; the Soviet computers weren't programmed to allow pauses for negotiation. And the deterrent value of Perimeter was wasted. Like the doomsday machine in
Dr. Strangelove
, the system was kept secret from the United States.

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1991, three months after the Drell panel submitted its report to Congress, Bob Peurifoy retired from Sandia. He had no more tolerance for the bureaucratic warfare and petty slights, the disrespect from Sandia's upper management. More important, his goals had been achieved. Congress, the weapons laboratories, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy all agreed that the safety of America's nuclear weapons had to be improved. Weak link/strong link devices were put into every nuclear weapon. And other safety technologies—insensitive high explosives, nuclear cores encased in a fire-resistant shell—were to be included in every new design. The changes in the stockpile that Peurifoy had sought for decades, once dismissed as costly and unnecessary, were now considered essential. Building a nuclear weapon without these safety features had become inconceivable.

Sidney Drell regards Bob Peurifoy as one of the leading, though largely unacknowledged, figures in the history of nuclear technology. He thinks that Peurifoy's achievements rank alongside those of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, who pioneered the safe use of nuclear propulsion for the U.S. Navy. And yet Peurifoy told me, on many occasions, that he regrets not having been braver, especially about the safety problems with the Mark 28 bomb. He'd chosen to work within the system, despite his strong
opposition to many of its practices. Although he was critical of the way in which official secrecy has been used to cover up mistakes, he'd honorably obeyed its code. As we sat in the sunroom of Peurifoy's modest home, with a lovely view of the Texas hill country, talking for hours about his work to improve nuclear weapon safety, his wife, Barbara, listened attentively. Despite a close, loving marriage that had lasted for sixty years, he'd kept these details to himself, never sharing the weight of that dark knowledge with Barbara or their children.

Within a year of Peurifoy's retirement,
the nuclear weapon community that had long ignored, dismissed, and opposed him became outspoken in defense of his cause. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was being discussed at the United Nations. The treaty prohibited the sort of underground nuclear detonations that the United States and other countries needed to develop new weapons. A ban on these tests was, in many respects, a ban on new weapons—since no military would place its faith in a warhead or bomb that had never been proven to work.
During a Senate debate on the treaty in August 1992, the opponents of a test ban came up with a novel rationale for continuing to detonate nuclear weapons.

“
Why is testing of nuclear weapons so important?” asked one senator, a close ally of the Pentagon and the weapons laboratories. “It is so important because nuclear weapons, even today's nuclear weapons, represent a great danger to the American public and to the world because of the lack of safety of their devices.” He then put a list of Broken Arrows into the Congressional Record. Another senator opposing the treaty claimed that “
we already know that science and technology cries out for safety modifications.” A third attacked the Department of Energy for its negligence on safety issues over the years, warning: “
A vote to halt nuclear testing today is a vote to condemn the American people to live with unsafe nuclear weapons in their midst for years and years—indeed, until nuclear weapons are eliminated.”

In 1996 the United States became the first country to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and since then more than 180 other nations have signed it, too. But the U.S. Senate voted against ratifying the treaty in 1999. Once again,
the treaty's opponents argued that nuclear tests
might be necessary to ensure that the American stockpile remains safe and reliable. During the administration of President George W. Bush, the Pentagon and the weapons laboratories supported the development of a new nuclear weapon, the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). It would be safer, more secure, and more reliable than current weapons, the administration promised. The RRW would also be
the first “green” nuclear weapon—designed to avoid the use of beryllium, a toxic environmental contaminant.

Bob Peurifoy has been bemused by the newfound passion for nuclear weapon safety and security among his former critics. He sees no need for more weapon tests, supports the test ban treaty, and thinks it would be highly irresponsible to add a new weapon like the RRW to the stockpile without having detonated it first. The plans to develop new warheads and bombs, Peurifoy says, are just “
a money grab” by the Pentagon and the weapons laboratories. The yield-to-weight ratio of America's nuclear weapons became asymptotic—approached their mathematical upper limit—around 1963. New designs won't make detonations any more efficient. And
a study by JASON scientists concluded that the cores of existing weapons will be good for at least another hundred years. Although the boosting gas and neutron generators within the weapons deteriorate with age, they can be replaced through programs currently managed by the Department of Energy. Harold Agnew, the former head of Los Alamos who championed one-point safety and permissive action links, agrees with Peurifoy. Agnew says that the idea of introducing a new weapon without testing it is “
nonsense.” And he opposes any additional tests.

The only weapons in today's stockpile that trouble Peurifoy are the W-76 and W-88 warheads carried by submarine-launched Trident II missiles.
The Drell panel expressed concern about these warheads more than twenty years ago. Both of them rely on conventional high explosives, instead of insensitive high explosives. The Navy had insisted upon use of the more dangerous explosive to reduce the weight of the warheads, increase their range, and slightly increase their yield. The decision was unfortunate from a safety perspective, because the multiple warheads of a Trident II
don't sit on top of the missile. They surround the rocket motor of its third stage, as a space-saving measure. And the Navy chose a high-energy propellant for the rocket motor that's much more likely to explode in an accident—simply by being dropped or struck by a bullet—than other solid fuels. A Trident submarine has as many as twenty-four of these missiles, each carrying between four to five warheads. An accident with one missile could detonate the third-stage propellant, set off the high explosives of the warheads, and spread a good deal of plutonium around the ports in Georgia and Washington State where Trident submarines are based.

For years the Navy has resisted changing the third-stage rocket propellant of the Trident II missile or using the W-87 warhead—which is almost identical to the W-88 but employs a safer insensitive high explosive. Using a less energetic propellant would
decrease the missile's range by perhaps 4 percent, and the W-87 warhead has a slightly lower yield. Parochial concerns may also be a factor in the Navy's attachment to the W-88. That warhead was designed for the Navy by Los Alamos; the W-87, by Lawrence Livermore for the Air Force.

The best way to load a Trident II missile onto a submarine is one of the few areas of disagreement between Sidney Drell and Bob Peurifoy. Drell endorses the Navy's current method: load the missile first, then attach the warheads. Peurifoy prefers another method: put fully assembled missiles into the launch tubes. The difference between the two opinions may seem esoteric, and yet the potential consequences of an accident are beyond dispute: a missile explosion inside a submarine with as many as 144 nuclear warheads.

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bears little resemblance to the Air Force of the 1970s. The arms buildup during the Reagan administration greatly increased spending on new aircraft, new weapons, spare parts, and better training. Morale improved and illegal drug use plummeted, thanks to widespread testing. A cultural shift occurred, as well. While serving as head of the Tactical Air Command from 1978 until 1984,
General Wilbur
L. Creech had the same sort of lasting influence on the Air Force that Curtis LeMay once exerted. But Creech promoted a fundamentally different type of leadership—the adaptive, decentralized, independent thinking of the fighter pilot. By the early 1980s the bomber generals had been driven from power, and the leading staff positions at the Air Force were filled with fighter generals. The new tactics, equipment, and esprit de corps transformed its performance in battle. During the Vietnam War,
1,737 Air Force planes were shot down. During the past quarter century of air campaigns over Iraq, Kuwait, Kosovo, Libya, and Afghanistan,
the Air Force has lost fewer than 30 planes to enemy fire.

The Air Force's focus on tactical warfare, however, led to severe neglect of its strategic mission. Nuclear weapons seemed largely irrelevant after the Cold War, and ambitious officers wanted nothing to do with them. The United States Strategic Command not only combined the nuclear arsenals of the Air Force and the Navy, it also assumed control of numerous conventional missions: missile defense, intelligence and reconnaissance, space operations, cyber warfare. After the Strategic Air Command was dismantled, the Air Force no longer had an organization solely devoted to maintaining nuclear weapons and planning for their use. The no-notice inspections and black hat exercises that LeMay thought indispensable were ended. Nuclear weapon
units were now given seventy-two hours of warning before an inspection. And instead of a four-star general commanding the Air Force's strategic assets,
a captain or a colonel became the highest-ranking officer in charge of daily nuclear operations. The lack of interest in the subject began to show.

In 2003
half of the Air Force units responsible for nuclear weapons failed their safety inspections—despite the three-day advance warning. In August 2006
the nose-cone fuze assemblies of four Minuteman III missiles were inadvertently shipped from Hill Air Force Base in Utah to Taiwan. Workers at the Defense Logistics Agency thought they were helicopter batteries. The top secret nuclear-weapon fuzes sat in unopened boxes for two years, until Taiwanese officials discovered the error.
On August 29, 2007, six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads were mistakenly loaded onto a B-52 bomber named Doom 99 at Minot Air Force Base in North
Dakota. The plane sat on the tarmac at Minot overnight without any armed guards, took off the next morning, flew almost fifteen hundred miles to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana—violating the safety rule that prohibits nuclear weapons from being transported by air over the United States—landed at Barksdale, and sat on the tarmac there for nine hours, unguarded, until a maintenance crew noticed the warheads. For a day and a half, nobody in the Air Force realized that half a dozen thermonuclear weapons were missing.