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Name: Command and Control
Rating: 4.8 (32 reviews)
Author: Eric Schlosser

Eric Schlosser

Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

4.8 (32 Bewertungen)

27 Min.

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Command and Control
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What’s in it for me? Dive into the deadly domain of nuclear warfare!

In 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the threat of nuclear annihilation that had hung over the world for 40 years seemed finally to have vanished. But the end of the Cold War did not abolish the possibility of nuclear destruction; thousands of nuclear warheads remained in their silos, ready to be launched at a moment’s notice.

Unfortunately, not much has changed since then. If anything, the situation has worsened. The nuclear programs of rogue states such as North Korea mean that the possibility of nuclear escalation is now at its highest since 1991.

But how did we get here? And what can we learn from the mistakes of history? The following blinks will take us on a journey through the history of nuclear warfare – from the early days of the Manhattan Project up to the present day.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

how an international team of scientists developed the first nuclear bomb during WWII;
what event in 1983 almost brought the world to nuclear annihilation; and
how a TV movie helped convince Ronald Reagan that nuclear war should never, ever happen.

A nuclear bomb contains a mix of high explosives which trigger a devastating chain reaction.

On July 12, 1945, in a small New Mexico farmhouse, a plutonium core was placed inside the first nuclear bomb.

This event was the culmination of approximately three years of work conducted by the team behind the Manhattan Project – a group of British, US and Canadian physicists who were put together as an allied response to the German physicists who were busy creating their own super bomb.

The bomb about to be tested in New Mexico housed a plutonium core surrounded by a series of high explosives, each of which pointed inward toward the core. When the explosives detonated, they would all fire at precisely the same instant, thus imploding the core and causing a chain-reaction explosion the likes of which had never before been seen.

After years of intense research, the scientists had eventually discovered that there were two materials that could cause this kind of explosion: uranium-235 and plutonium-239.

Nuclear bombs rely on fission – when atoms split and release energy. Both uranium-235 and plutonium-239 have a high proton count, making it easier to start a fission reaction. The idea was to split the atoms in the bomb’s core, releasing a massive amount of energy – and causing an unprecedented explosion.

When fission happens under strictly controlled circumstances, such as in a nuclear power plant, the produced energy can be used to fuel electrical generators.

However, on July 17, 1945, during the first bomb test, no one was exactly sure what was going to happen.

They knew the detonation had to trigger all the explosives at exactly the same time if the reaction was to be successful, so the scientist Donald Horning came up with the X-Unit. This was an electronic triggering device that would simultaneously set off all 32 explosives in the bomb. These explosives completely surrounded the core in the shape of 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons; it looked like a big soccer ball.

Horning’s triggering device worked perfectly, and the first test produced a mushroom cloud that bloomed eight miles into the sky. The sight, along with the accompanying roar, caused at least one technician to think that this must be what doomsday would look like.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the control of nuclear weapons fell to an uneasy mix of civilians and military.

In June of 1945, World War II was still costing lives in the Pacific. So the question became, how to use the bomb in order to get Japan to surrender? Some were hoping for a public display of nuclear power in an unpopulated area. But there was a risk that the next bomb might fail to detonate.

So instead, the US military, along with the president, decided to deliver an unannounced bombing on Hiroshima.

During the Cold War, an arms race began, and nuclear bombs grew increasingly powerful.

If there was any hope of a world government – something similar to the United Nations – safely controlling the production and handling of nuclear weapons, it was effectively squashed by the tensions of the Cold War.

There were two events in particular that put the United States and the Soviet Union at loggerheads. In 1948, the Soviets staged a violent takeover of Czechoslovakia’s democratic government; and in 1949, the Soviets successfully tested their first nuclear bomb, the RDS-1.

As the American stockpile grew, so did the risk of a deadly accident.

The Strategic Air Command (SAC) took preparedness very seriously. There were countless checklists and endless drills, each designed to ensure that bombs could be loaded onto planes and planes put in the air at a moment’s notice.

But this meant that nuclear weapons were constantly being loaded and unloaded from planes that were routinely flying over populated areas.

Accidents were quite common, and there was little protection against disturbed military personnel.

As it turned out, the people who were concerned about safety had every right to be, since reports show that accidents weren’t at all uncommon.

One of the most dangerous accidents is known as “the Moroccan incident.”

Accidents continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s; B-52 planes were especially dangerous.

You don’t need to have military expertise to have heard of the B-52 bomber, but you may not know how problematic these planes were.

Despite their frequent malfunctions, however, they were the main transport vehicle for nuclear bombs, resulting in some especially dangerous incidents.

Increased efforts to develop a reliable system of command and control didn’t necessarily make things safer.

The desire to efficiently command and control US nuclear weapons led to some impressive developments. In the 1950s, NORAD became the first computer network, its purpose being to link the radar systems of Air Force bases across the United States to detect a Soviet first strike.

But there was another computer being used to program the US nuclear response. The Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) dates back to the late 1950s when an early IBM computer processed a list of targets to come up with a plan for optimal destruction. Its precise goal was to ensure the complete annihilation of the enemy with a 75-percent probability.

On September 18, 1980, a small mistake led to an emergency at a missile silo in Damascus, Arkansas.

According to a report in 1968, there were an average of 130 significant accidents per year that involved nuclear weapons. That’s 1,200 incidents between 1950 and 1968, with 13 of those incidents getting labeled as “broken arrows” – when a weapon gets accidentally fired or detonated and releases radioactive materials.

Sure enough, these incidents continued into the 1980s, which is when one of the biggest accidents took place.

A number of poor decisions resulted in the explosion of the Titan II missile and the death of an Air Force officer.

Jeff Kennedy was one of many people who received an emergency phone call that night. He was a highly respected Air Force missile mechanic who knew the Titan II inside out, and once he arrived on the scene, he knew what needed to be done.

But no one was ready to approve his plan, and nothing was going to happen until all proposals were passed up the bureaucratic chain of command. This frustrated Kennedy, who knew that waiting would only make the situation worse.

After the Damascus incident, a more dangerous threat emerged under the Reagan administration.

Remarkably, David Livingston was the only person to die that night, although many others were also blown off their feet and suffered severe burns. The warhead, which was also blasted into the air, landed in a ditch right next to the access road.

The official report of the incident blamed the low-ranking officers involved and decided that the Titan II was still “basically safe.” It was clear that very little would change during the 1980s.

More safety precautions were taken in the 1990s, but a very real threat is still present.

On November 20, 1983, Ronald Reagan and millions of other Americans watched a made-for-TV film called The Day After. It was a realistic portrayal of how average people would cope with the outbreak of nuclear war, and Reagan was among those extremely shaken by what they had seen.

When the president appeared on TV shortly after seeing the film, his rhetoric had dramatically changed. He announced that a “nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought.”

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Command and Control (2013) uncovers the disturbing truth behind the troubled and accident-prone US nuclear weapons program. Find out what’s really been going on since World War II, when the first nuclear bomb was invented, and how lucky we are to still be here despite numerous accidents and close calls that could have kicked off Armageddon. If you think the stockpile of nuclear weapons in the United States has always been safely stored under lock and key – think again!

Bestes Zitat aus Command and Control

The need for a nuclear weapon to be safe and the need for it to be reliable were often in conflict.

—Eric Schlosser

Wer Command and Control lesen sollte

Readers interested in nuclear threats past and present
History buffs
Anti-nuke advocates

Über den Autor

Eric Schlosser, an investigative journalist, is the best-selling author of Fast Food Nation. His work has also appeared in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and the Atlantic, among other publications.

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