Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

On the evening of September 18th, 1980 two U.S. Air Force airmen, members of a Propellant Transfer System (PTS) team, entered a Titan II missile silo near Damascus, Arkansas to perform a routine maintenance procedure. Earlier in the day they had been called to the site because a warning signal had indicated that pressure in the missile's second stage oxidiser tank was low. This was not unusual, especially for a missile which had recently been refuelled, as this one had, and the procedure of adding nitrogen gas to the tank to bring the pressure up to specification was considered straightforward. That is, if you consider any work involving a Titan II “routine” or “straightforward”. The missile, in an underground silo, protected by a door weighing more than 65 tonnes and able to withstand the 300 psi overpressure of a nearby nuclear detonation, stood more than 31 metres high and contained 143 tonnes of highly toxic fuel and oxidiser which, in addition to being poisonous to humans in small concentrations, were hypergolic: they burst into flames upon contact with one another, with no need of a source of ignition. Sitting atop this volatile fuel was a W-53 nuclear warhead with a yield of 9 megatons and high explosives in the fission primary which were not, as more modern nuclear weapons, insensitive to shock and fire. While it was unlikely in the extreme that detonation of these explosives due to an accident would result in a nuclear explosion, they could disperse the radioactive material in the bomb over the local area, requiring a massive clean-up effort.The PTS team worked on the missile wearing what amounted to space suits with their own bottled air supply. One member was an experienced technician while the other was a 19-year old rookie receiving on the job training. Early in the procedure, the team was to remove the pressure cap from the side of the missile. While the lead technician was turning the cap with a socket wrench, the socket fell off the wrench and down the silo alongside the missile. The socket struck the thrust mount supporting the missile, bounced back upward, and struck the side of the missile's first stage fuel tank. Fuel began to spout outward as if from a garden hose. The trainee remarked, “This is not good.”Back in the control centre, separated from the silo by massive blast doors, the two man launch team who had been following the servicing operation, saw their status panels light up like a Christmas tree decorated by somebody inordinately fond of the colour red. The warnings were contradictory and clearly not all correct. Had there indeed been both fuel and oxidiser leaks, as indicated, there would already have been an earth-shattering kaboom from the silo, and yet that had not happened. The technicians knew they had to evacuate the silo as soon as possible, but their evacuation route was blocked by dense fuel vapour.The Air Force handles everything related to missiles by the book, but the book was silent about procedures for a situation like this, with massive quantities of toxic fuel pouring into the silo. Further, communication between the technicians and the control centre were poor, so it wasn't clear at first just what had happened. Before long, the commander of the missile wing, headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) in Omaha, and the missile's manufacturer, Martin Marietta, were in conference trying to decide how to proceed. The greatest risks were an electrical spark or other source of ignition setting the fuel on fire or, even greater, of the missile collapsing in the silo. With tonnes of fuel pouring from the fuel tank and no vent at its top, pressure in the tank would continue to fall. Eventually, it would be below atmospheric pressure, and would be crushed, likely leading the missile to crumple under the weight of the intact and fully loaded first stage oxidiser and second stage tanks. These tanks would then likely be breached, leading to an explosion. No Titan II had ever exploded in a closed silo, so there was no experience as to what the consequences of this might be.As the night proceeded, all of the Carter era military malaise became evident. The Air Force lied to local law enforcement and media about what was happening, couldn't communicate with first responders, failed to send an evacuation helicopter for a gravely injured person because an irrelevant piece of equipment wasn't available, and could not come to a decision about how to respond as the situation deteriorated. Also on display was the heroism of individuals, in the Air Force and outside, who took matters into their own hands on the spot, rescued people, monitored the situation, evacuated nearby farms in the path of toxic clouds, and improvised as events required.Among all of this, nothing whatsoever had been done about the situation of the missile. Events inevitably took their course. In the early morning hours of September 19th, the missile collapsed, releasing all of its propellants, which exploded. The 65 tonne silo door was thrown 200 metres, shearing trees in its path. The nuclear warhead was thrown two hundred metres in another direction, coming to rest in a ditch. Its explosives did not detonate, and no radiation was released.While there were plenty of reasons to worry about nuclear weapons during the Cold War, most people's concerns were about a conflict escalating to the deliberate use of nuclear weapons or the possibility of an accidental war. Among the general public there was little concern about the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in depots, aboard aircraft, atop missiles, or on board submarines—certainly every precaution had been taken by the brilliant people at the weapons labs to make them safe and reliable, right?Well, that was often the view among “defence intellectuals” until they were briefed in on the highly secret details of weapons design and the command and control procedures in place to govern their use in wartime. As documented in this book, which uses the Damascus accident as a backdrop (a ballistic missile explodes in rural Arkansas, sending its warhead through the air, because somebody dropped a socket wrench), the reality was far from reassuring, and it took decades, often against obstructionism and foot-dragging from the Pentagon, to remedy serious risks in the nuclear stockpile.In the early days of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, it was assumed that nuclear weapons were the last resort in a wartime situation. Nuclear weapons were kept under the civilian custodianship of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and would only be released to the military services by a direct order from the President of the United States. Further, the nuclear cores (“pits”) of weapons were stored separately from the rest of the weapon assembly, and would only be inserted in the weapon, in the case of bombers, in the air, after the order to deliver the weapon was received. (This procedure had been used even for the two bombs dropped on Japan.) These safeguards meant that the probability of an accidental nuclear explosion was essentially nil in peacetime, although the risk did exist of radioactive contamination if a pit were dispersed due to fire or explosion.As the 1950s progressed, and fears of a Soviet sneak attack grew, pressure grew to shift the custodianship of nuclear weapons to the military. The development of nuclear tactical and air defence weapons, some of which were to be forward deployed outside the United States, added weight to this argument. If radar detected a wave of Soviet bombers heading for the United States, how practical would it be to contact the President, get him to sign off on transferring the anti-aircraft warheads to the Army and Air Force, have the AEC deliver them to the military bases, install them on the missiles, and prepare the missiles for launch? The missile age only compounded this situation. Now the risk existed for a “decapitation” attack which could take out the senior political and military leadership, leaving nobody with the authority to retaliate.The result of all this was a gradual devolution of control over nuclear weapons from civilian to military commands, with fully-assembled nuclear weapons loaded on aircraft, sitting at the ends of runways in the United States and Europe, ready to take off on a few minutes' notice. As tensions continued to increase, B-52s, armed with hydrogen bombs, were on continuous “airborne alert”, ready at any time to head toward their targets.The weapons carried by these aircraft, however, had not been designed for missions like this. They used high explosives which could be detonated by heat or shock, often contained few interlocks to prevent a stray electrical signal from triggering a detonation, were not “one point safe” (guaranteed that detonation of one segment of the high explosives could not cause a nuclear yield), and did not contain locks (“permissive action links”) to prevent unauthorised use of a weapon. Through much of the height of the Cold War, it was possible for a rogue B-52 or tactical fighter/bomber crew to drop a weapon which might start World War III; the only protection against this was rigid psychological screening and the enemy's air defence systems.The resistance to introducing such safety measures stemmed from budget and schedule pressures, but also from what was called the “always/never” conflict. A nuclear weapon should always detonate when sent on a wartime mission. But it should never detonate under any other circumstances, including an airplane crash, technical malfunction, maintenance error, or through the deliberate acts of an insane or disloyal individual or group. These imperatives inevitably conflict with one another. The more safeguards you design into a weapon to avoid an unauthorised detonation, the greater the probability one of them may fail, rendering the weapon inert. SAC commanders and air crews were not enthusiastic about the prospect of risking their lives running the gauntlet of enemy air defences only to arrive over their target and drop a dud.As documented here, it was only after the end of Cold War, as nuclear weapon stockpiles were drawn down, that the more dangerous weapons were retired and command and control procedures put into place which seem (to the extent outsiders can assess such highly classified matters) to provide a reasonable balance between protection against a catastrophic accident or unauthorised launch and a reliable deterrent.Nuclear command and control extends far beyond the design of weapons. The author also discusses in detail the development of war plans, how civilian and military authorities interact in implementing them, how emergency war orders are delivered, authenticated, and executed, and how this entire system must be designed not only to be robust against errors when intact and operating as intended, but in the aftermath of an attack.This is a serious scholarly work and, at 632 pages, a long one. There are 94 pages of end notes, many of which expand substantially upon items in the main text.

Command and Control addresses an interesting and still vitally important topic. Namely, it examines nuclear weapons control and safety. We all too often fail to remember that the prime job of the Secretary of Energy is not electric cars but management and oversight of the nuclear weapons development and distribution. This book presents a diorama of many of the events surrounding the deployment and control of such weapons.However, as many other reviewers had noted, the style of the book can be very frustrating at times. The author uses the Damascus incident as an ongoing connector to other historical tale recounting the development of nuclear weapons control and the mistakes that have occurred over the decades. After a while this approach becomes not only distracting but an annoyance. For example the author will take the Damascus Incident, an incident when the maintenance on a liquid fuel Titan II resulted in a damaged fuel tank by a Tech who was apparently not following protocol, and then ultimately exploding, as a metaphor for each of the Chapters which are interspersed. Thus one is supposed to be drawn to see mistakes in the small and mistakes in the large. Nice idea but it just does not seem to work. In addition we are led through the lives of each of the players in the Damascus incident and at time this is less than a lucid presentation and often more confusing. One often asks why this detail is necessary. On the one hand the approach does lend context, on the other hand it may just be too much context.Now, I will discuss the text in toto. If one can work around the style, the book tells a compelling tale. It begins at the beginning, Los Alamos, and then proceeds to detail the many developments in the evolution of nuclear weapons. There are excellent discussions of the political in-fighting and the pros and cons of military control over the weapons. LeMay plays a key role during this early period as well he should. LeMay was a pivotal player whose world view of war was massive total destruction. LeMay viewed war as a total destruction of the enemy, as he had done in Europe and in the Pacific. Lemay in a sense was the driving force for military use and deployment.The author does an excellent job in developing the issue of who control nuclear weapons, by going over the various ways in which the weapons flowed into military hands. The design and building of the weapons was done under AEC and then DoE aegis with the support of such places as Sandia Labs in Albuquerque. Sandia was managed by AT&T under a Government contract and was a massive facility adjacent to Kirkland AFB which itself was adjacent to the airport at Albuquerque. Sandia developed various weapons and weapon security systems. Tests of the weapons were often done by DoE or its predecessor the AEC. The author integrates these efforts into the text. It would have been interesting to have developed the significant interplay between DoE and DOD as weapons systems evolved.The author interweaves many other near miss events into the text in a chronological basis between the evolving tale of the Damascus event. Such near misses as the explosion of a B-52 over North Carolina and the loss of 2 H bombs over Span and but a few.The author does a reasonable job in describing the safety procedures employed but it would possibly have been more enlightening to have some first-hand descriptions. Many "fail-safe" procedures had been developed but as the author states each time an improvement to a fail-safe was done it potentially impeded the effectiveness of the weapon.There are several areas, in my opinion, which the author has missed or touched lightly upon and should have been included or expanded upon:1. Soviet Nuclear Weapons: On almost a one to one basis the Soviets matched the US for weapons of vast killing power. The Soviets often played games of chicken with US SAC forces and this would frequently be at the risk of deployment of weapons, especially tactical weapons. In addition the use of the nuclear submarine fleet and the games played there also presented dramatic threats. It would have been useful to have had this interplay discussed somewhat. The classic Triad of aircraft, submarines and missiles would also have been useful to draw together. Understanding Soviet capability and control would have made an excellent counterpoint.2. Tactical Weapons and Special Weapons Depots: Tactical weapons were always considered just a step above a large non-nuclear weapon, and early on not w real nuclear weapon. The author does discuss the Davy Crockett weapons but in reality there were hundreds of Special Weapons Depots, SWD, across the globe which contained these types of weapons. The SWDs were reasonably well guarded but their very number often gave one concern not just because of what they contained but often because one could not reasonably expect to get the best personnel at this many locations. They also were DOD controlled and thus were subject to the change of staff which raised the risk of failure to follow protocols. Thus the proliferation of Tactical weapons, 1KT ranges, were in reality a serious byproduct of the enthusiasm early on for nuclear solutions.3. Other National Weapons Controls: The British, French, Chinese, Israelis, Pakistanis, Indians, and South Africans as well as North Korea and Iran all have dabbled in nuclear weapons and many have collections in their arsenals.4. Nuclear Weapons Treaties: There were many discussions between the US, UK and Soviets from time to time. They typically dealt with testing and proliferation. I spent the latest 70s as an advisor to ACDA and the CTBT during the Carter Administration and dealt with the Soviets firsthand. I also had the opportunity to spend many trips to Sandia and other facilities. Neither side trusted the other, yet side conversations between the parties were about children and grandchildren. Thus, although both sides were prepared for ultimate destruction, both sides also had a view of the humanity of the others. The author discusses Professor Pipe's works at that time, and I knew Pipes well, and as a refugee from Poland Pipes knew firsthand the Soviets. Thus somehow there had to be a convergence of interests. MAD and Reagan's efforts, in my opinion, on pushing what "could happen" did eventually get the sides to stand down, somewhat. The author discusses this issue but it could have been more fully developed.5. Strategists: The influence of Herman Kahn and thinks like him also has an overpowering role to play. Kahn is recognized as the promoter of the MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction strategy. Namely if both sides are rational and both sides have so much excess nuclear capabilities then no side would rationally start a first strike. Kahn started out at Rand and ended at the Manhattan Institute but it would have been useful to integrate these efforts a bit more including the many such efforts at Rand.6. Technological Elements: The WWMCCS discussion was lightly approached and in a sense it could have been a section unto itself. The whole concept of command, control, communications and intelligence came out in this period. However these were massively complex systems with detailed methods and procedures and whose very structure could very well have overburdened any rational response capability. The author's example of the Burroughs computers is but one simple example of grand technological ideas and ideals supported by antiquated technical implementations.Overall the book contains some relevant materials that explain a world in the past. The current environment, however, with proliferation of such weapons, dramatically changes the landscape. For example, would the US try a MAD strategy on a rouge state nuclear capable nation the effect may be de minimis. Thus how would one address such factors? Here the past may only be partly prologue to the future. Thus the book is well worth the read even if at times it can be a bit off-putting in style.

The book provides a frightening glimpse of how close to the abyss we all have got during the Cold War.

Habe das Buch in zwei Tagen gelesen.Wer der Meinung ist, es gehe im 21. Jahrhundert keine Gefahr mehr von Atomwaffen aus, der lese dieses Buch.Es ist einigen glücklichen Zufällen geschuldet, dass wir noch da sind.

Lovely book with great research by the author and every character and story has come out totally credible. Makes you shudder on what treacherous and slippery ground we all walk.

This is one scary book. In 1980 at a missile site in Damascus, Arkansas, a maintenance worker dropped a wrench, which bounced off a Titan II missile, creating a hole from which propellant fuel began to leak. In the nose cone sat a thermonuclear warhead, three times more powerful than all the bombs dropped by the U. S. in World War II, including the Atom Bombs.What follows, and what is the main and most exciting part of the book, are the efforts made to contain the disaster, where everything that could go wrong, did.Interspersed with this story is an impressively researched history of the nuclear era.Once the Cold War started and Russia acquired the knowhow to build nuclear weapons, the U.S., under the impression they were falling behind in the arms race,(they weren`t) began a massive effort to produce weapons with little thought as to safety, security or control. By 1968 they had 30,000 of them and in that time there had been up to 1200 "significant" incidents and accidents.The book details some of them, including:- A fighter plane carrying a hydrogen bomb slid off an aircraft carrier into the ocean; it`s still down there.- A B-52 carrying four hydrogen bombs collided with a refueling tanker off the coast of Spain and exploded. The bombs were eventually recovered but plutonium had been released. No one knew whether or not this presented a hazard or how to measure it. Thirty thousand cubic feet of contaminated soil was scraped up and shipped to the U.S. where it was buried. The government of Spain then prohibited American planes carrying nuclear weapons from entering it`s air space.- In Kansas a missing filter caused oxidizer to leak from a Titan II missile, the cloud drifted towards a nearby town, which was evacuated, two technicians died trying to fix it.The book also tells of glitches to the Early Warning Systems which on more than one occasion seemed to indicate Soviet warheads were heading towards the States and vice versa. This was caused by computer malfunction and on one occasion, rays of sunlight bouncing off clouds. Fortunately these false alarms were discovered before the other side could retaliate.What comes across through all of this is the incompetence of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), which was in charge of the weapons, the Air Force, the Command and Control systems; their disregard for safety standards, secrecy and resistance to change.In the words of one General, "We escaped the Cold War without a nuclear holocaust by some combination of skill, luck and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion."While some things have improved, the threats still remain, especially with countries such as Pakistan and India, who have nuclear capabilities. As Schlosser notes, there are thousands of missile out there, hidden away, every one an accident waiting to happen.Good Luck!

Inizio con alcune note "di servizio" per un lettore italiano: il libro è scritto in un inglese semplice e scorrevole e si legge facilmente; l'unica difficoltà è tenere a mente i nomi di tutte le persone citate, ma per questo viene in aiuto lo specchietto riassuntivo all'inizio nelle pagine iniziali.Questo libro, usando come filo conduttore ed esempio principale un incidente avvenuto con un missile Titan II (che per poco non ha fatto detonare una testata termonucleare in mezzo agli Stati Uniti), descrive la storia dello sviluppo delle armi nucleari statunitensi, dai primi test fino agli ultimi trattati di riduzione degli armamenti; particolare attenzione viene rivolta ad alcuni significativi incidenti occorsi e alle resistenze dei militari alle misure di prevenzione di tali episodi. Il tutto è narrato come se si trattasse di un racconto, quasi un thriller. Il calce al testo è presente anche una ricca bibliografia suddivisa per tematiche per chi volesse approfondire ulteriormente alcuni aspetti delle vicende narrate.