Eric Schlosser - Command and Control

about fifty thousand gallons of radioactive water leaked: Cited in “Arkansas Office of Emergency Services, Major Accomplishments During 1979–1980,” Attachment 1, Highlights of Response to Emergencies in 1980.

Bill Clinton was an unlikely person: For a good sense of America’s youngest governor in 1980, see David Maraniss, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), pp. 352–86; Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), pp. 254–89; and Phyllis Finton Johnston, Bill Clinton’s Public Policy for Arkansas: 1979–1980 , (Little Rock, AR: August House, 1982).

“tall, handsome, a populist-liberal”: Quoted in Wayne King, “Rapidly Growing Arkansas Turns to Liberal Politicians,” New York Times , May 14, 1978.

“He was a punk kid with long hair”: Quoted in Roger Morris, Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America (New York: Henry Holt, 1999), p. 218.

“the Three Beards”: See Maraniss, First in His Class , pp. 364–65.

“Captain Mazzaro, we have to get that propane tank”: Kennedy interview.

“Stay here”: Quoted in Powell interview.

“Hell no”: Ibid.

“I’ll give you three minutes”: Ibid.

“There’s not enough room for two people”: Quoted in ibid.

“Oh, God”: Quoted in Kennedy interview.

“Sir, this is what the tank readings are”: Kennedy interview and “Report, Major Missile Accident, Titan II Complex 374-7,” Kennedy statement, Tab U-46, p. 4.

“Where in hell did you get those?”: “Report, Major Missile Accident, Titan II Complex 374-7,” Statement of James L. Morris, Colonel, Tab U-60, p. 1.

Fred Charles Iklé began his research: Interview with Fred Charles Iklé. For his early work on the subject, see Fred C. Iklé, “The Effect of War Destruction upon the Ecology of Cities,” Social Forces , vol. 29, no. 4 (May 1951), pp. 383–91: and Fred C. Iklé, “The Social Versus the Physical Effects from Nuclear Bombing,” Scientific Monthly , vol. 78, no. 3 (March 1954), pp. 182–87.

killed about 3.3 percent of Hamburg’s population: Cited in Fred Charles Iklé, The Social Impact of Bomb Destruction (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), p. 16.

destroyed about half of its homes: Cited in ibid.

“A city re-adjusts to destruction”: Ibid., p. 8.

British planners had assumed that for every metric ton: For the lethal efficiencies of Second World War bombing, see ibid., pp. 17–18.

Iklé devised a simple formula: For the calculations on the relationship between bomb destruction and population loss, see ibid., pp. 53–56.

“the fully compensating increase in housing density”: Ibid., p. 55.

when about 70 percent of a city’s homes were destroyed: Ibid., p. 72.

Project RAND became one of America’s first think tanks: For an unsurpassed account of RAND and its influence on postwar strategic policy, see Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon: The Untold Story of the Small Group of Men Who Have Devised the Plans and Shaped the Policies on How to Use the Bomb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983). For a more recent look at the history, see Alex Abella, Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire (New York: Harcourt, 2008.)

“It is not a pleasant task”: Iklé, Social Impact of Bomb Destruction , p. viii.

The casualties were disproportionately women: Cited in ibid., p. 205.

Even in Hiroshima, the desire to fight back survived: Ibid., p. 180.

“the sheer terror of the enormous destruction”: Ibid., p. 120.

“It is my conviction that a peaceful settlement”: Quoted in Hansen, Swords of Armageddon , vol. 2, pp. 85–86.

“the policy of exterminating civilian populations”: Quoted in May et al., “History of Strategic Arms Competition,” Pt 1, p. 65.

“a weapon of genocide”: Quoted in Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, p. 384.

“a danger to humanity… an evil thing”: For the full text of the statement by Fermi and Rabi, see “Minority Report on the H-Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , December 1976, p. 58.

a “quantum leap” past the Soviets: Quoted in McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988), p. 204.

“proceed with all possible expedition”: Quoted in “View from Above,” p. 203.

“total power in the hands of total evil”: Quoted in Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield , p. 402.

most likely “psychological”: Quoted in Herken, Winning Weapon , p. 316.

“In that case, we have no choice”: Quoted in Robert H. Ferrell, Harry S. Truman: A Life (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), p. 350.

Albert Einstein read a prepared statement: See “Einstein Fears Hydrogen Bomb Might Annihilate ‘Any Life,’” Washington Post , February 13, 1950.

the “hysterical character” of the nuclear arms race: For the full text of Einstein’s statement, see “Dr. Einstein’s Address on Peace in the Atomic Era,” New York Times , February 13, 1950.

the “disastrous illusion”: Ibid.

“In the end, there beckons more and more clearly”: Ibid.

“psychological considerations”: “Effect of Civilian Morale on Military Capabilities in a Nuclear War Environment: Enclosure ‘E,’ The Relationship to Public Morale of Information About the Effects of Nuclear Warfare,” WSEG Report No. 42, Weapons Systems Evaluation Group, Joint Chiefs of Staff, October 20, 1959 (CONFIDENTIAL/declassified), p. 53.

“Weapons systems in themselves”: Ibid.

“information program”: Ibid., p. 54.

“What deters is not the capabilities”: Ibid.

“Any U.S. move toward abandoning or suspending work”: Quoted in Hans Bethe, “Sakharov’s H-Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , October 1990, p. 9.

the transfer of eighty-nine atomic bombs: See Wainstein et al.,“Evolution of U.S. Command and Control,” p. 31: and Feaver, Guarding the Guardians , pp. 134–36.

the transfer of fifteen atomic bombs without cores: Wainstein et al., “Evolution of U.S. Command and Control,” p. 31.

personal responsibility for the nine weapons: Ibid., p. 32.

the United States had about three hundred atomic bombs: Ibid., p. 34.

more than one third of them were stored: Eighty-nine were in Great Britain, fifteen on the Coral Sea, and nine on the island of Guam.

the AEC had eleven employees: See “History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons: July 1945 Through September 1977,” Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy), February 1978 (TOP SECRET/RESTRICTED DATA/declassified), p. 13.

“Our troops guarded [the atomic bombs]”: Quoted in Kohn and Harahan, Strategic Air Warfare , p. 92.

“If I were on my own and half the country”: Quoted in ibid., p. 93.

applied for a patent: Innovations in nuclear weapon design had been secretly patented since the days of the Manhattan Project. For a fascinating account of how a legal procedure originally created to ensure public knowledge became one used to deny it, see Alex Wellerstein, “Patenting the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Intellectual Property, and Technological Control,” Isis, vol. 99, no. 1 (March 2008), pp. 57–87.