Command and Control (97 page)

a Mark 28 bomb emitting strange sounds
:
Ibid., Incident #9, p. 72.

the John Walker spy ring . . . provided about a million documents
:
See Pete Earley,
Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring
(New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 358.

so secret that the president . . . wasn't allowed to know it
:
Known as the “Venona decryptions,” they helped to discover the names or code names of about two hundred Americans spying for the Soviet Union. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Omar Bradley, made the decision not to tell President Truman. The motive was less sinister than bureaucratic. “Here we have government secrecy in its essence,” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan later wrote. “Departments and agencies hoard information, and the government becomes a kind of market.” Those who know the secrets have great influence over that market. For the decision to keep Truman in the dark, see Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
Secrecy: The American Experience
(New Haven, Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 59–73. The quote appears on page 73.

But the Soviet Union learned the secret
:
See ibid., p. 16; and James Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr,
Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 47–56.

“Secrecy is a form of government regulation”
:
See
Secrecy: Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1997). Quoted in Moynihan,
Secrecy,
p. 12.

Cold War documents that were declassified in the 1990s
:
See Scott Shane, “U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review,”
New York Times
, February 21, 2006.

Chelyabinsk-65, the site of a nuclear weapon facility
:
For the tragic legacy of Soviet weapon production, see Vladislav Larin, “Mayak's Walking Wounded,”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
(September/October 1999), pp. 20–27, and John M. Whitely, “The Compelling Realities of Mayak,” in Russell J. Dalton, Paula Garb, Nicholas P. Lovrich, John C. Pierce, and John M. Whiteley, eds.,
Critical Masses: Citizens, Nuclear Weapons Production, and Environmental Destruction in the United States and Russia
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 59–96.

“arguably the most polluted spot on the planet”
:
Quoted in Whitely, Dalton et al.,
Critical Masses,
p. 67.

well suited to the demands of nuclear command and control
:
Bruce G. Blair has written the best guide to the Soviet system. His work on the subject can be found in
The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1993), pp. 59–167, and
Global Zero Alert for Nuclear Forces
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995). Blair also wrote the introduction for one
of the few works in the field written by a Russian expert: Valery E. Yarynich,
C
³
: Nuclear Command, Control Cooperation
(Washington, D.C.: Center for Defense Information, 2003). Two other sources, although dated, contain much fascinating information. See Stephen M. Meyer, “Soviet Nuclear Operations,” in Ashton Carter, John D. Steinbruner, and Charles A. Zraket, eds.,
Managing Nuclear Operations
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1987); and Stephen J. Cimbala,
Soviet C
³
(Washington, D.C.: AFCEA International Press, 1987).

“more stringent than those of any other nuclear power”
:
Blair,
The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War
, p. 107.

the “Perimeter” system
: See Blair,
Global Zero Alert
, pp. 51, 56;
C
³
, pp. 137–45, 157–59, 245–48; and Hoffman,
Dead Hand
, pp. 152–54, 421–23.

Sidney Drell regards Bob Peurifoy as one of the leading
:
Interview with Sidney Drell.

the nuclear weapon community . . . became outspoken in defense of his cause
:
For a good analysis of the sudden interest in nuclear weapon safety, see Frank von Hippel, “Test Ban Debate, Round Three: Warhead Safety,”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
April 1991.

During a Senate debate on the treaty in August 1992
:
The senators were discussing an amendment to an energy and water development bill. See “Amendment No. 2833, Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act,” Senate, August 3, 1992, Congressional Record, 102nd Congress (1991–1992), pp. S11171-S11222.

“Why is testing of nuclear weapons so important?”
:
Ibid., p. S11172. The senator was J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., a Democrat from Louisiana.

“we already know that science and technology cries out”
:
Ibid., p. S11184. The senator was Pete Domineci, a Republican from New Mexico.

“A vote to halt nuclear testing today”
:
Ibid., pp. S11186-S11187. The senator was William Cohen, a Republican from Maine.

the treaty's opponents argued that nuclear tests
:
See Eric Schmitt, “Experts Say Test Ban Could Impair Nuclear-Arms Safety,”
New York Times
, October 8, 1999. The National Academy of Sciences recently issued a report contradicting that argument. See
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
—
Technical Issues for the United States
, Committee on Reviewing and Updating Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, National Research Council of the National Academies (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2012).

the first “green” nuclear weapon
:
A 2007 report claimed that the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) would be “much more than ‘just green.'” The new weapon would reduce “potential harm to the environment and . . . improve worker safety.” Despite those lofty aims, President Obama eliminated funding for the RRW in 2009. See “Nuclear Warheads: The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program and the Life Extension Program,” Jonathan Medalia, CRS Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, December 3, 2007, p. 20.

“a money grab”
:
Peurifoy interview.

a study by JASON scientists
:
See “Pit Lifetime,” JSR-06-335, MITRE Corporation, January 11, 2007.

“nonsense”
:
Agnew interview.

The Drell panel expressed concern about these warheads
:
“The safety issue,” it said, “is whether an accident during handling of an operational missile . . . might detonate the propellant which in turn could cause the [high explosives] in the warhead to detonate leading to dispersal of plutonium, or even the initiation of a nuclear yield beyond the four-pound criterion.” See “Report of the Panel on Nuclear Weapons Safety,” pp. 26–30. The quote can be found on page 29. For a more detailed look at the problem, see John R. Harvey and Stefan Michalowski, “Nuclear Weapons Safety: The Case of Trident,”
Science and Global Security
,
Volume 4
(1994), pp. 261–337.

decrease the missile's range by perhaps 4 percent
:
Peurifoy interview.

General Wilbur L. Creech had the same sort of lasting influence
:
See James C. Slife,
Creech Blue: General Bill Creech and the Reformation of the Tactical Air Forces, 1978–1984
(Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press and the College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education,
2004).

1,737 Air Force planes were shot down
:
See John T. Correll, “The Air Force in the Vietnam War,” Air Force Association, December 2004, p. 26.

the Air Force has lost
fewer than 30 planes
:
This is my own estimate. The Air Force declined to provide me with a list of combat losses since 2003. “USAF Manned Aircraft Losses 1990–2002,” compiled by the Air Force Historical Research Agency, mentions seventeen fixed-wing aircraft shot down during that period—three in missions over the former Yugoslavia and fourteen in Operation Desert Storm. An additional three planes were shot down between 2003 and the fall of 2008, according to “Cost in Airframes,” by Michael C. Sirak,
Air Force Magazine,
October 27, 2008. After looking through the United States Air Force Class A Aerospace Mishap Reports for the years 2009 through 2012, I could not find another case of a manned, fixed-wing aircraft brought down by enemy fire. Perhaps a number of the crashes listed were, in fact, combat related. Nevertheless, the Air Force's achievement is remarkable, given that its pilots had flown more than half a million sorties over Iraq and Afghanistan by the spring of 2008. That statistic comes from a chart in Tamar A. Mehuron and Heather Lewis, “The Mega Force,”
Air Force
Magazine,
June 2008.

units were now given seventy-two hours of warning
:
The meaning of the words “no-notice” had clearly evolved over the years. According to a 2008 investigation of how the Air Force was managing its nuclear arsenal, “so-called ‘no-notice' inspections do not begin until 72 hours after the unit is notified.” The investigation was headed by former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger. See “Report of the Secretary of Defense Task Force on DoD Nuclear Weapons Management, Phase I: The Air Force's Nuclear Mission,” September 2008, p. 37.

a captain or a colonel became the highest-ranking officer
:
Ibid., p. 27. According to a study of how the Air Force mistakenly shipped secret nuclear warhead fuzes to Taiwan instead of helicopter batteries, these officers were sometimes not only low ranked but unqualified for their jobs. “There are some leaders with little, dated, or no nuclear experience,” the study found, “who hold leadership positions in the Air Force nuclear enterprise.” That study is quoted in “The Unauthorized Movement of Nuclear Weapons and Mistaken Shipment of Classified Missile Components: An Assessment,” Michelle Spencer, Aadina Ludin, and Heather Nelson, USAF Counterproliferation Center, January 2012, p. 86.

half of the Air Force units responsible for nuclear weapons
failed
:
Cited in Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus, “Missteps in the Bunker,”
Washington Post
, September 23, 2007.

the nose-cone fuze assemblies of four Minuteman III missiles
:
See Spencer et al., “Unauthorized Movement and Mistaken Shipment,” pp. 13–14.

On August 29, 2007, six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads were mistakenly loaded
:
The warheads were loaded on August 29 and discovered the following day. For the official account of what happened, see “Report on the Unauthorized Movement of Nuclear Weapons,” the Defense Science Board Permanent Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Surety, Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., February 2008. For a broad look at the management failures that led to the warheads' being left unattended, see “The Unauthorized Shipment of Nuclear Weapons and Mistaken Shipment of Classified Missile Components: An Assessment,” Michelle Spencer, A. Ludin, and H. Nelson, The Counterproliferation Papers, Future Warfare Series No. 56, USAF Counterproliferation Center, January 2012. Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus wrote a fine piece about the incident: “Missteps in the Bunker,”
Washington Post,
September 23, 2007. And Rachel Maddow includes some disturbing details about it in her book
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
(New York: Crown Publishers, 2012), pp. 231–38.

“significant confusion about delegation of responsibility”
:
“Report on the Unauthorized Movement,” p. 5. The confusion was widespread. Neither the aircraft crew chief nor the pilot of the B-52 had been trained to handle nuclear weapons. And investigators found that the six nuclear weapons were “driven past a security checkpoint . . . but no one checked them as they passed.” The quote comes from Spencer et al., “Unauthorized Movement and Mistaken Shipment,” p. 12.

nobody was ever asked to sign a piece of paper
:
“In the past, there was a requirement for a formal change of custody, physically verified by serial numbers, recorded, and signed on a formal document when weapons moved from breakout crew to convoy crew to crew chief to air crew,” the Defense Science Board noted. But at some point those procedures were discontinued—and the movement of nuclear weapons out of the igloo no longer had to be recorded. “Report on the Unauthorized Movement,” p. 5.

A maintenance team arrived at a Minuteman III silo
:
For the details of this incident, see “United
States Air Force Missile Accident Investigation Board Report,” Minuteman III Launch Facility A06, 319th Missile Squadron, 90th Operations Group, 90th Missile Wing, F. E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming, May 23, 2008, Robert M. Walker, President, Accident Investigation Board, September 18, 2008.

The fire was most likely caused
:
Ibid., p. 4.

it may have occurred five days before the maintenance team noticed
:
Ibid.

“unique identifiers” for its nuclear weapons
:
The Department of Defense is attempting, with varying degrees of success, to keep track of its vast inventory of weapons, parts, and equipment with “Item Unique Identification” (IUID) technology—the sort of bar codes that supermarkets and electronics stores have used for years. “In the area of Nuclear Weapon Related Material (NWRM),” the head of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center testified in 2010, “we continue to gain and refine Positive Inventory Control.” The general promised to “lock down all NWRM through unique identifiers and supply chain discipline” but warned “there will be occasional discoveries of newly uncovered assets for years to come.” Presumably the weapons themselves are now being scanned, tracked, and stored in the right place. See “Defense Logistics: Improvements Needed to Enhance DOD's Management Approach and Implementation of Item Unique Identification Technology,” United States General Accountability Office, Report to the Subcommittee on Readiness, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, May 2012; and “Status of the Air Force Nuclear Security Roadmap,” Brigadier General Everett H. Thomas, Commander, Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, Presentation to the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, Armed Services Committee, House of Representatives, 111th Congress, January 21, 2010, pp. 5, 6.