Eric Schlosser - Command and Control

the Honeywell 6060 computers were already obsolete: See “NORAD’s Warning System: What Went Wrong?” p. 8.

despite protests from the head of NORAD that they lacked sufficient processing power: See “NORAD’s Information Processing Improvement Program,” pp. 13–14.

“due to the lack of readily available spare parts”: Ibid., p. 7.

Many of the parts hadn’t been manufactured by Honeywell for years: Ibid.

twenty-three security officers… stripped of their security clearances: See “AF Guards Disciplined in Drug Probe,” Washington Post , January 17, 1980.

“FALSE ALARM ON ATTACK SENDS FIGHTERS INTO SKY”: See “False Alarm on Attack Sends Fighters into Sky,” New York Times , November 10, 1979.

Zbigniew Brzezinski… was awakened by a phone call: For the details of Brzezinski’s early-morning call, see Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), pp. 114–15. Gates tells the story well but conflates the cause of the June false alarm with that of the previous one in November. I tried to confirm the story with Brzezinski, who declined to be interviewed for this book. But he did discuss the incident with Admiral Stansfield Turner, the director of the CIA at the time. See Stansfield Turner, Caging the Nuclear Genie: An American Challenge for Global Security (New York: Westview Press, 1997), p. 17.

2,200 missiles were heading toward the United States: See Gates, From the Shadows , p. 114; Turner, Caging the Nuclear Genie , p. 17; Sagan, Limits of Safety , pp. 231–32.

a defective computer chip in a communications device: See “Report on Recent False Alerts,” p. 7.

The faulty computer chip had randomly put the number 2: Ibid.

at a cost of forty-six cents: Cited in “Missile Alerts Traced to 46¢ Item,” New York Times , June 18, 1980.

Bob Peurifoy became concerned: Peurifoy interview.

“It’s our stockpile. We think it’s safe.”: Peurifoy interview. Stevens confirmed that response.

“the magnitude of the safety problems”: This quote comes from a document that Peurifoy used during briefings on nuclear weapon safety at Sandia. On a single page, he assembled quotations from the Department of Defense, the Air Force, and others asserting that the American nuclear stockpile was safe. The original sources, from which the quotes have been drawn, are on file at Sandia. I feel confident that these quotes are accurate. On page 116 of “Origins and Evolution of S2C,” Stevens writes that the Pentagon’s response to the Fowler Letter “can be characterized as mostly delaying actions in the guise of requiring safety studies of each of the weapons involved.”

“The safety advantages gained by retrofitting”: Quoted in “Sandia briefing document.”

Modification of any current operational aircraft: Quoted in ibid.

a six-digit code with a million possible combinations: See “Command and Control Systems for Nuclear Weapons,” p. 40.

the Air Force put a coded switch in the cockpit: Ibid., p. 12.

The combination… was the same at every Minuteman site: Bruce G. Blair first disclosed this fact in 2004, and the easy-to-remember combination was confirmed for me by a Sandia engineer.

cost… was about $100,000 per weapon: Peurifoy interview.

cost about $360 million: Ibid.

“My dissenting opinion will be brief”: The cartoonist was Sidney Harris and the cartoon originally appeared in Playboy , March 1972, p. 208.

During the late 1960s, Stevens had begun to worry: Stevens interview.

Nozzles on the walls: The system was called the “sticky foam personnel barrier.” In addition to sticky foam, other “active barriers” were considered as a means of protecting nuclear weapons, including cold smoke, aqueous foam, and rigid foam. For a comparison of these active barriers and their merits, see “An Activated Barrier for Protection of Special Nuclear Materials in Vital Areas,” Ronald E. Timm, James E. Miranda, Donald L. Reigle, and Anthony D. Valente, Argonne National Laboratory, 1984.

Stan Spray found that one of the bomb’s internal cables: Peurifoy and Stevens interviews.

“base escape”: How long a B-52’s engines took to start was one of the most important determinants of whether the plane would get into the air before Soviet missiles arrived — or get destroyed on the ground. For some of the other factors, see “Nuclear Hardness and Base Escape,” Rayford P. Patrick, Engineering Report No. S-112, Headquarters Strategic Air Command, Directorate of Aircraft Maintenance, March 31, 1981.

“our B-52s are planned for one-way missions”: See “Minutes, National Security Council Meeting, Subject, SALT (and Angola), December 22, 1975” (TOP SECRET SENSITIVE declassified), NSA, p. 5.

A study of all the nuclear weapons in the American arsenal: A portion of the study has been declassified, and I’ve filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the rest of it: “An Examination of the U.S. Nuclear Weapon Inventory,” R. N. Brodie, November 30, 1977 (SECRET/RESTRICTED DATA).

The Mark 28 bomb was at the top of the list: Ibid.

a “retrofit for Enhanced Electrical Safety”: Ibid.

it planned to spend at least $10 billion to equip B-52s: Cited in “Pentagon Says Even Vast Effort by Soviet Can’t Stop New Missile,” New York Times , November 15, 1978.

Jeffrey A. Zink was pulling an alert: My account of the Grand Forks accident is based on an interview with Jeffrey A. Zink and on “USAF Mishap Report, Parking Spot A-10, Grand Forks Air Force Base,” Headquarters, Fifteenth Air Force, September 29, 1980.

“What have I gotten myself into?”: Zink interview.

“I’ll throw up later”: Ibid.

“we’re going to die”: Ibid.

“Oh my God, it’s the real thing”: Ibid.

“I can’t do this”: Quoted in ibid.

“Alpha, Charlie, Delta…”: Quoted in ibid.

“Terminate, terminate, terminate”: Quoted in ibid.

“Get in”: Quoted in ibid.

gusts of up to thirty-five miles an hour: The mishap report cited gusts of up to thirty knots, and a knot is about 1.15 miles per hour. “USAF Mishap Report,” p. 1.

Tim Griffis was at home with his family: Interview with Tim Griffis.

“What do you think?”: Quoted in Griffis interview.

“Yeah, let me try it”: Ibid.

“Gene, you want to go with me?”: Ibid.

“Yeah”: Ibid.

“Chief, that engine is getting pretty hot”: Quoted in “USAF Mishap Report,” p. N-6.

“Yeah, go”: Quoted in ibid., p. N-6.

“Here, somebody wants to talk to you”: Quoted in Griffis interview.

“Mr. Griffis, I want to thank you”: Quoted in ibid.

During a closed Senate hearing, Dr. Roger Batzel: See Reed Karaim, “Nearly a Nuclear Disaster — Wind Shifted Fire on B-52 Away from Bomb, Experts Say,” Seattle Times , August 13, 1991. A map showed the potential contamination area.

the cause of the fire in engine number five: In addition to nearly contaminating Grand Forks with plutonium and/or causing a nuclear detonation nearby, the missing nut caused $442,696 worth of damage to the plane. See “B52H S/N 60-0059 Mishap Engine Investigation” and “Certificate of Damage,” in “USAF Mishap Report.”