Command and Control (88 page)

the equivalent of 400 megatons
:
See Enthoven,
How Much Is Enough,
pp. 207–10.

McNamara said, “Thank God”
:
“Transcript, Interview with Robert McNamara, March 1986, Part 2 of 5,” WGBH Media Library and Archives.

The move would improve “crisis stability”
:
Ibid.

The new SIOP divided the “optimum mix”
:
For the details of SIOP-4, adopted by the Johnson administration in 1966 and still in effect when McNamara left office, see William Burr, “The Nixon Administration, the ‘Horror Strategy,' and the Search for Limited Nuclear Options, 1969–1972,”
Journal of Cold War Studies,
vol. 7, no. 3 (2005), pp. 42–47.

The number of nuclear weapons in the American arsenal
:
At the end of the Eisenhower administration, the United States had about 19,000 nuclear weapons. By 1967, the size of the arsenal had reached its peak: 31,255 weapons. When McNamara left office, the number had fallen slightly to 29,561. See “Declassification of Certain Characteristics of the United States Nuclear Weapon Stockpile,” U.S. Department of Energy, December 1993, and “Fact Sheet, Increasing Transparency in the U.S. Nuclear Stockpile,” U.S. Department of Defense, May 3, 2010.

the number of tactical weapons had more than doubled
:
In 1960 the United States deployed about 3,000 tactical weapons in Western Europe; in 1968, about 7,000. See Robert S. Norris, William M. Arkin, and William Burr, “Where They Were,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 199, p. 29.

A centralized command-and-control system . . . had proven disastrous
:
The top-down management style that McNamara brought to the Vietnam War almost guaranteed an American defeat. “The men who designed the system and tried to run it were as bright a group of managers as has been produced by the defense establishment of any country at any time,” the military historian Martin van Creveld has noted, “yet their attempts to achieve cost-effectiveness led to one of the least cost-effective wars known to history.” McNamara's office determined not only the targets that would be attacked but also set the rules for when a mission would be canceled for bad weather and specified the training level that pilots had to meet. For Van Creveld, “To study command as it operated in Vietnam is, indeed, almost enough to make one despair of human reason.” See Martin van Creveld,
Command in War
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 232–60. The quotes can be found on page 260.

“I don't object to its being called McNamara's war”
:
“‘McNamara's War' Tag OKd by Defense Chief,”
Los Angeles Times,
April 25, 1964.

support for equal rights, labor unions, birth control, and abortion
:
Although in 1968 LeMay was considered an archconservative, today he'd be called an old-fasioned liberal. See Jerry M. Flint, “LeMay Supports Legal Abortions,”
New York Times,
October 24, 1968; “Wallace Keeps Silent on LeMay Racial View,”
Los Angeles Times
, October 24, 1968; and Jerry M. Flint, “LeMay Says He Believes in Equal Opportunity,”
New York Times,
October 29, 1968.

“War is
never
cost-effective”
:
LeMay's feelings about limited warfare are worth quoting at length. “Let me now propose some basic doctrines about war,” LeMay wrote. “First, war in any proportion, no matter how limited, is a very serious and dangerous business. War is
never
‘cost-effective' in terms of dollars and blood. People are killed. To them war is total. You cannot tell the bereaved wives, children, and parents that today's war in Vietnam, for example, is a counterinsurgency exercise into which the United States is putting only a limited effort. Death is final, and drafted boys should not be asked to make this ultimate sacrifice unless the Government is behind them 100 percent. If we pull our punches how can we explain it to their loved ones? Our objectives must be clearly enough defined to warrant the casualties we are taking.” Curtis E. LeMay,
America Is in Danger
(New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968), p. 305.

“but when you get in it”
:
“Excerpts from Comments by Wallace and LeMay on the War and Segregation,”
New York Times
, October 4, 1968.

“We seem to have a phobia”
:
Ibid.

jeered by protesters yelling,
“Sieg heil”
: Quoted in “LeMay, Supporter of Dissent, Seems Upset by Hecklers,”
New York Times,
October 25, 1968.

the antiwar movement was “Communist-inspired”
:
Quoted in Jerry M. Flint, “LeMay Fearful Communists Threaten American Values,”
New York Times
, October 31, 1968.

An Abnormal Environment

a B-52 took off from Mather Air Force Base
:
For the Yuba City crash, see
Airmunitions Letter
, No. 136-11-56H, Headquarters, Ogden Air Material Area, April 19, 1961 (S
ECRET
/R
ESTRICTED
D
ATA
/declassified), pp. 2–18; “Joint Nuclear Accident Coordinating Center Record of Events,” (For Official Use Only/declassified), n.d.; and Maggelet and Oskins,
Broken Arrow
, pp. 173–93.

“continue mission as long as you can”
:
Quoted in Maggelet and Oskins,
Broken Arrow,
p. 176.

“a weak point in the aircraft's structure”
:
The report also noted that the B-52 has “a skin-loaded structure that readily disintegrates upon impact.” See “Accident Environments,” T. D. Brumleve, J. T. Foley, W. F. Gordon, J. C. Miller, A. R. Nord, Sandia Corporation, Livermore Laboratory, SCL-DR-69-86, January 1970 (
SECRET
/
RESTRICTED DATA
/declassified), p. 58.

On Johnston Island in the central Pacific
:
For the missile explosions that occurred during the test series known as Operation Dominic, see Hansen,
Swords of Armageddon, Volume IV,
pp. 382–445; “Operation Dominic I, 1962,” U.S. Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Tests, Nuclear Test Personnel Review, Defense Nuclear Agency, February 1983; Reed and Stillman,
Nuclear Express,
pp. 136–137;
and Maggelet and Oskins,
Broken Arrow
,
Volume II,
pp. 96–98.

Two thirds of the Thor missiles used in the tests
:
Four of the six missile tests ended prematurely. Project 8C in the Fish Bowl series of Dominic had been carefully planned to determine the effects of a nuclear detonation on a reentry vehicle's heat shield and other components. “The experiment was not completed,” a report later said with disappointment, “because after approximately 1 minute of flight the missile blew up.” One of the two successful tests had unexpected results. During the Starfish Prime shot, a 1.4-megaton warhead was detonated at an altitude of about 250 miles. The electromagnetic pulse was much stronger than anticipated, damaging three satellites, disrupting radio communications across the Pacific, and causing streetlights to go out on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, about eight hundred miles away. See “Operation Dominic: Fish Bowl Series,” M. J. Rubenstein, Project Officers Report—Project 8C, Reentry Vehicle Tests, Air Force Special Weapons Center, July 3, 1963 (
SECRET
/
RESTRICTED DATA
/declassified), p. 6; “United States High-Altitude Test Experiences: A Review Emphasizing the Impact on the Environment,” Herman Hoerlin, a LASL monograph, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Ocotber 1976; and “Did High-Altitude EMP
Cause the Hawaiian Streetlight Incident?,” Charles Vittitoe, Electromagnetic Applications Division, Sandia National Laboratories, System Design and Assessment Notes, Note 31, June 1989.

three workers at an Atomic Energy Commission base
:
For details of the Medina explosion, see “Run! Three Do; Injuries Are Minor,”
San Antonio Express,
November 14, 1963; “‘Just Running': Panic in Streets for Few Moments,”
San Antonio Light
, November 14, 1963; “Tons of TNT Explode in Weapons Plant,”
Tipton
[Indiana]
Daily Tribune,
November 14, 1963; Hansen,
Swords of Armageddon, Volume VII
, p. 272; Maggelet and Oskins,
Broken Arrow, Volume II,
pp. 98–100.

a B-52 encountered severe air turbulence
:
For details of the Cumberland Broken Arrow, see
Airmunitions Letter
, No. 136-11-56N, Headquarters, Ogden Air Material Area, March 10, 1964 (
SECRET
/
RESTRICTED DATA
/declassified), pp. 2–17; Dan Whetzel, “A Night to Remember,”
Mountain Discoveries
(Fall/Winter, 2007); Maggelet and Oskins,
Broken Arrow,
p. 198.

Another accident with a Mark 53 bomb
:
For details of the Bunker Hill Broken Arrow, see “B-58 with Nuclear Device Aboard Burns; One Killed,”
Anderson
[Indiana]
Herald,
December 9, 1964; “Memorial Services Held at Air Base,”
Logansport
[Indiana]
Press
, December 10, 1964; “Saw Flash, Then Fire, Ordered Plane Abandoned, Pilot Recalls,”
Kokomo
[Indiana]
Morning Times,
December 11, 1964; “A Review of the US Nuclear Weapon Safety Program—1945 to 1986,” R. N. Brodie, Sandia National Laboratories, SAND86-2955, February 1987 (
SECRET
/
RESTRICTED DATA
/declassified), p. 13; “Remedial Action and Final Radiological Status, 1964 B-58 Accident Site, Grissom Air Reserve Base, Bunker Hill, Indiana,” Steven E. Rademacher, Air Force Institute for Environment, Safety, and Occupational Health Risk Analysis, December 2000; and Maggelet and Oskins,
Broken Arrow
, pp. 204–10. After an accident that exposed five hydrogen bombs to burning jet fuel, the Air Force told the
Kokomo Morning Times
that there had been “no danger” of a radiation hazard.

a Minuteman missile site at Ellsworth Air Force Base
:
See “Accidents and Incidents,” Incident #2, p. 182; and “Review of the US Nuclear Weapon Safety Program,” p. 14. The most detailed account can be found in Maggelet and Oskins,
Broken Arrow
,
Volume II,
pp. 101–9.

a group of sailors were pushing an A-4E Skyhawk
:
The story of this long-hidden accident has been told in detail by Jim Little, a retired chief warrant officer with a long career managing nuclear weapons for the U.S. Navy. Little watched the plane roll off the deck of the
Ticonderoga
. His account of the accident can be found in Maggelet and Oskins,
Broken Arrow, Volume II,
pp. 113–16, and in his book,
Brotherhood of Doom: Memoirs of a Navy Nuclear Weaponsman
(Bradenton, FL: Booklocker, 2008), pp. 113–14.

“Brakes, brakes”
:
Quoted in Little,
Brotherhood of Doom,
p. 114.

recently graduated from Ohio State University
:
Webster had flown seventeen combat missions in Vietnam and gotten married the previous year. One of his close friends from high school, Roger Ailes, later the president of Fox News, created a scholarship fund in Webster's name. See William K. Alcorn, “Webster Scholarship to Help City Youths,”
Youngstown
[Ohio]
Vindicator,
July 3, 2006.

“responsibility for identifying and resolving”
:
President Kennedy also asked to be kept informed about “the progress being made in equipping all Mark 7 nuclear weapons assigned to ground alert aircraft with velocity sensing safety devices.” He returned to the broader issue just nine days before his assassination, issuing a directive that safety rules be adopted for each weapon in the stockpile. Those rules would have to be approved by the secretary of defense—and shared, in writing, with the president of the United States. See “National Security Action Memorandum No. 51, Safety of Nuclear Weapons and Weapons Systems,” May 8, 1962 (
SECRET
/
RESTRICTED DATA
/declassified), NSA; and “National Security Memorandum No. 272, Safety Rules for Nuclear Weapon Systems,” November 13, 1963 (
SECRET
/
RESTRICTED DATA
/declassified).

the Titanic Effect
:
Donald MacKenzie mentions the “Titanic effect” in the context of software design. “The safer a system is believed to be,” he suggests, “the more catastrophic the accidents to which it is subject.” And as a corollary to that sort of thinking, MacKenzie argues that systems only become safer when their danger is always kept in mind. See MacKenzie's essay “Computer-Related Accidental Death,” in
Knowing Machines
, pp. 185–213. The Titanic effect is discussed from pages 211 to 213.

an engineer listened carefully to the sounds of a PAL
:
The Sandia engineer's name was John Kane,
and in this case his lock-picking skills exceeded those of technicians at the National Security Agency. See Stevens, “Origins and Evolution of S
²
C,” p. 71.

The W-47 warhead had a far
more serious problem
:
I learned about the unreliability of the W-47 warhead during my interviews with Bob Peurifoy and Bill Stevens. Some of the details can be found in Hansen,
Swords of Armageddon, Volume VI,
pp. 433–41. Hansen called the W-47, without its safing tape, “an explosion in search of an accident.” Sybil Francis touched on the subject briefly in “Warhead Politics: Livermore and the Competitive System of Nuclear Weapons Design,” thesis (Ph.D.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Politic Science, 1995, pp. 152–53.