Eric Schlosser - Command and Control

He wanted SAC to develop nuclear-powered bombers: Not only did General LeMay believe that such aircraft were essential, his successor, General Power, thought that SAC also needed a Deep Space Force — a fleet of twenty spaceships that could carry nuclear weapons and remain in orbit near the moon for years. The spaceships would be propelled by the detonation of small atomic bombs. The secret effort to build them, “Project Orion,” was funded by the Pentagon from 1958 until 1965. The program to develop nuclear-powered bombers lasted from 1946 until 1961. Having a nuclear reactor on an airplane posed a number of design problems: the shielding necessary to protect the crew would be extremely heavy; without the shielding the crew might be exposed to hazardous levels of radiation; and if the plane crashed, the area surrounding the crash site could be badly contaminated. Nevertheless, LeMay thought these challenges could be overcome. For the story of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP), see Herbert F. York, Race to Oblivion: A Participant’s View of the Arms Race , (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970), pp. 60–74. For the attempt to harness “Nuclear Pulse Propulsion” for a Deep Space Force, see George Dyson, Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), pp. 193–207.

“the ultimate weapon”: See “SAC [Strategic Air Command] Position on Missiles,” letter from General Curtis E. LeMay, commander in chief of Strategic Air Command, to General Nathan F. Twining, chief of staff, U.S. Air Force, November 26, 1955 (SECRET/declassified), NSA.

The interservice rivalry over missiles: For the fierce bureaucratic warfare over these new weapons, see Michael H. Armacost’s Politics of Weapon Innovation and Samuel P. Huntington, “Interservice Competition and the Political Roles of the Armed Services,” American Political Science Review , vol. 55, no. 1 (March 1961), pp. 40–52.

a Soviet “peace campaign”: Through organizations such as the World Peace Council and the World Federation of Scientific Workers, the Soviet Union tried to turn public opinion in Europe against the nuclear policies of the United States. See Laurence S. Wittner, Resisting the Bomb, 1954–1970: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), pp. 86–92.

The Eisenhower administration tried to strike a balance: For a fine account of the conflicting demands that the president faced, see “Eisenhower and Nuclear Sharing,” a chapter in Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 146–200.

The Mark 36 was a second-generation hydrogen bomb: See Hansen, Swords of Armageddon , Vol. V, pp. 395-7.

at a SAC base in Sidi Slimane, Morocco: My account of the accident is based primarily on “Accidents and Incidents Involving Nuclear Weapons,” pp. 4–5, Accident #24; “Summary of Nuclear Weapons Incidents (AF Form 1058) and Related Problems, Calendar Year 1958,” Airmunitions Letter, Headquarters, Ogden Air Material Area, June 23, 1960 (SECRET/RESTRICTED DATA/declassified), p. 13; and interviews with weapon designers familiar with the event.

long past the time factor of the Mark 36: The weapon’s time factor was only three minutes. See “Vulnerability Program Summary,” p. 58.

fearing a nuclear disaster: An accident report said the evacuation was motivated by “the possibility of a nuclear yield.” See “Summary of Nuclear Weapons Incidents, 1958,” p. 13.

“a slab of slag material”: Ibid.

The “particularly ‘hot’ pieces”: Ibid.

plutonium dust on their shoes: An accident report mentioned “alpha particles” and “dust” without noting their source: plutonium. See “Accidents and Incidents Involving Nuclear Weapons,” p. 5.

“explosion of the weapon, radiation”: The quote is a State Department paraphrase of what the Air Force wanted to say. See “Sidi Slimane Air Incident Involving Plane Loaded with Nuclear Weapon,” January 31, 1958 (SECRET/declassified), NSA, p. 1.

The State Department thought that was a bad idea: See ibid.

“The less said about the Moroccan incident”: The quote is a summary of a State Department official’s views, as presented in “Sidi Slimane Air Incident,” p. 2.

a “practice evacuation”: “Letter, from B.E.L. Timmons, director, Office of European Regional Affairs, U.S. State Department, to George L. West, political adviser, USEUCOM, February 28, 1958 (SECRET/declassified), NSA.

“In reply to inquiries about hazards”: “Joint Statement by Department of Defense and Atomic Energy Commission,” Department of Defense Office of Public Information, February 14, 1958, NSA, p. 1.

Less than a month later, Walter Gregg and his son: My account of the accident in Mars Bluff is based on “Summary of Nuclear Weapons Incidents, 1958,” pp. 8–12; “Mars Bluff,” Time, March 24, 1958; “Unarmed Atom Bomb Hits Carolina Home, Hurting 6,“ New York Times , March 12, 1958; and Clark Ruinrill, “Aircraft 53-1876A Has Lost a Device: How the U.S. Air Force Came to Drop an A-Bomb on South Carolina,” American Heritage , September 2000. Rumrill’s account is by far the best and most detailed.

about fifty feet wide and thirty-five feet deep: The size of the crater varies in different sources, and I’ve chosen to use the dimensions cited in a contemporary accident report. See “Summary of Nuclear Weapons Incidents, 1958,” p. 8.

the plane had just lost a “device”: Quoted in Ruinrill, “Aircraft 53-1876A Has Lost a Device.”

“Are We Safe from Our Own Atomic Bombs?”: Hanson W. Baldwin, “Are We Safe from Our Own Atomic Bombs?” New York Times , March 16, 1958.

“Is Carolina on Your Mind?”: Quoted in “The Big Binge,” Time , March 24, 1958.

a nuclear detonation had been prevented by “sheer luck”: Quoted in “On the Risk of an Accidental or Unauthorized Nuclear Detonation,” Fred Charles Iklé, with Gerald J. Aronson and Albert Madansky, U.S. Air Force Project RAND, Research Memorandum, RM-2251, October 15, 1958 (CONFIDENTIAL/RESTRICTED DATA/declassified), p. 65.

“the first accident of its kind in history”: “‘Dead’ A-Bomb Hits U.S. Town,” Universal Newsreel , Universal-International News, March 13, 1958.

a hydrogen bomb had been mistakenly released over Albuquerque: I learned the details of this accident from weapon designers. General Christopher S. Adams — former chief of staff at the Strategic Air Command and associate director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory — tells the story in his memoir, Inside the Cold War: A Cold Warrior’s Reflections (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, September 1999), pp. 112–13.

“Well, we did not build these bombers”: Power, Design for Survival , p. 132.

Macmillan was in a difficult position: The United States informed the British when nuclear weapons were being flown into the United Kingdom — but did not reveal when “any particular plane is equipped with special weapons.” See “U.S. Bombers in Britain,” cable, from Walworth Barbour, U.S. State Department Deputy Chief of Mission, London, to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, January 7, 1958 (TOP SECRET/declassified), NSA.

argued that nuclear weapons were “morally wrong”: Some members of the C.N.D. wanted Great Britain to disarm unilaterally; others sought an end to hydrogen bomb tests and the use of British bases by American planes. The quote comes from a letter that the organization sent to Queen Elizabeth. See “Marchers’ Letter to the Queen,” The Times (London), June 23, 1958.