Eric Schlosser - Command and Control

“bomber generals” who’d risen through the ranks at SAC: For the cultural battle within the Air Force, see Mike Worden, Rise of the Fighter Generals: The Problem of Air Force Leadership, 1945–1982 (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1998).

the inflexible, “parent-child relationship”: Tom Clancy and Chuck Horner, Every Man a Tiger (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1999), p. 96.

“I didn’t hate them because they were dumb”: Ibid., p. 86.

“never again be a part of something so insane and foolish”: Ibid., p. 96.

illegal drug use soared: Decades later, it seems hard to believe how widely the drug culture had spread throughout the American military. Between 1976 and 1981, the Department of Defense rarely performed mandatory drug tests. As a result, a great many servicemen were often high while in uniform. And their access to military equipment provided some unusual opportunities. Operating out of Travis, Langley, and Seymour Johnson air bases, active and retired military personnel imported perhaps $100 million worth of pure heroin into the United States during the mid-1970s. When their drug operation was broken up in 1976, a DEA agent called it “one of the largest heroin smuggling operations in the world.” See “U.S. Breaks $100 Million Heroin Ring; Charges GI Group Used Air Bases, Crew,” Los Angeles Times , March 26, 1976.

about 27 percent of all military personnel were using illegal drugs: Cited in Marvin R. Burt, “Prevalence and Consequences of Drug Abuse Among U.S. Military Personnel: 1980,” American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse , vol. 8, no. 4 (1981–2), p. 425.

the Marines had the highest rate of drug use: Almost half of the young enlisted personnel in the Marines had smoked pot in the previous month. See ibid., p. 428.

About 32 percent of Navy personnel used marijuana: Cited in ibid., p. 425.

the proportion of Army personnel was about 28 percent: Cited in ibid.

The Air Force had the lowest rate: Cited in ibid.

Random urine tests of more than two thousand sailors: The survey was conducted in December 1980. Cited in “Navy Is Toughening Enforcement Efforts Against Drug Abuse,” New York Times , July 10, 1981.

Meyer told the Milwaukee Journal: See “Ex-GI Says He Used Hash at German Base,” European Stars and Stripes , December 18, 1974.

one out of every twelve… was smoking hashish every day: Cited in “Nuclear Base Men ‘Used Hash on Duty,’” Miami News , December 17, 1974.

“You get to know what you can handle”: Quoted in “Ex-GI Says He Used Hash.”

thirty-five members of an Army unit… using and selling marijuana and LSD: See Flora Lewis, “Men Who Handle Nuclear Weapons Also Using Drugs,” Boston Globe , September 6, 1971.

Nineteen members of an Army detachment were arrested on pot charges: See “GI’s at Nuclear Base Face Pot Charges,” Los Angeles Times , October 4, 1972.

Three enlisted men at a Nike Hercules base in San Rafael: See “3 Atom Guards Called Unstable; Major Suspended,” New York Times , August 18, 1969; and “Unstable Atom Guards Probed,” Boston Globe , August 18, 1969.

“people from the Haight-Ashbury”: Quoted in “Unstable Atom Guards.”

More than one fourth of the crew on the USS Nathan Hale : Cited in “Men Who Handle Nuclear Weapons.”

A former crew member of the Nathan Hale told a reporter: See ibid. The crew member of another ballistic missile submarine thought that smoking marijuana while at sea was too risky, because of the strong aroma. The tight quarters of the sub inspired an alternative. “I do uppers most of the time, but as a special treat, like when I’m on watch, I’ll do a little mescaline,” the crew member said. Quoted in Duncan Campbell, The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier: American Military Power in Britain (London: Michael Joseph, 1984), p. 224.

The Polaris base at Holy Loch, Scotland: See G. G. Giarchi, Between McAlpine and Polaris (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 197.

Nine crew members of the USS Casimir Pulaski : See “Pot Smoking Sailors Go Home,” Ocala [Florida] Star Banner , January 24, 1977.

a local nickname: the USS Cannabis : See Andrew McCallum, “Cowal Caught Between Polaris Sailors and McAlpine’s Fusiliers,” Glasgow Herald , April 26, 1984.

“a hippie type pad with a picture of Ho Chi Minh”: Quoted in Lewis, “Men Who Handle Nuclear Weapons.”

151 of the 225 security police officers were busted: See Clancy and Horner, Every Man a Tiger , p. 135.

Marijuana was discovered in one of the underground control centers of a Minuteman missile squadron: See Bill Prochnau, “With the Bomb, There Is No Answer,” Washington Post , May 1, 1982. According to Prochnau, the arrest occurred in the late 1970s.

It was also found in the control center of a Titan II launch complex: See “Marijuana Discovery Leads to Missile Base Suspensions,” New York Times , July 14, 1977; and “15 Suspended After Marijuana Is Found in Titan Silo,” Los Angeles Times , July 15, 1977.

roughly 114,000 people… cleared to work with nuclear weapons: Cited in Herbert L. Abrams, “Sources of Instability in the Handling of Nuclear Weapons,” in Frederic Solomon and Robert Q. Marston, eds., The Medical Implications of Nuclear War (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1986), p. 513.

1.5 percent lost that clearance because of drug abuse: Of the 114,000 people certified that year under the Personnel Reliability Program, 1,728 lost their certification because of drug abuse — roughly 1.5 percent. See ibid., p. 514.

Colonel John Moser had supervised a major drug bust: Moser interview.

More than 230 airmen were arrested for using and selling: See “Drug Probe at Whiteman Air Base,” St. Joseph Missouri News Press, September 9, 1979; and “Enlisted Airmen Suspended,” Hutchinson [Kansas] News , November 21, 1980.

Marijuana had been found in the control center at a Titan II complex: Moser interview.

“inaccurate and unreliable”: “Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon,” August 18, 1970, in United States State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XXXIV: National Security Policy, 1969–1972 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2011), p. 555.

a weapon system… “which the Pentagon had been wanting to scrap”: Henry A. Kissinger, White House Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979), p. 1221.

Kissinger had offered a deal to the Soviet Union: See Pincus “Aging Titan II Was Time Bomb.”

“You Americans will never be able to do this to us again”: Quoted in Trachtenberg, History & Strategy , p. 257.

increased the number of its long-range, land-based missiles from about 56 to more than 1,500: See Zaloga, Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword , p. 241.

Its arsenal of submarine-based missiles rose from about 72 to almost 500: See ibid., p. 244.

a network of underground bunkers: For a description of the bunker system, see Soviet Military Power: An Assessment of the Threat (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1988), pp. 59–62.

Kissinger was astonished by his first formal briefing on the SIOP: See Burr ‘“Horror Strategy,’” pp. 38–52. For the strategic thinking of Nixon and Kissinger, I relied largely on Burr’s fine article and on Terry Terriff’s The Nixon Administration and the Making of U.S. Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995).