Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, in detail
Command and Control is Eric Schlosser's investigation into the hidden history of nuclear weapons accidents and the organizations that tried to prevent them from detonating by accident. The book runs two tracks simultaneously: a detailed account of the 1980 Damascus, Arkansas missile explosion — in which a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile caught fire and blew up in its silo, scattering a nine-megaton warhead across the Arkansas countryside — and a broader history of how the United States came to possess thousands of nuclear weapons it struggled to control safely.
Schlosser spent six years on the research and uncovered documents showing that near-catastrophes were far more common than the government ever acknowledged. A B-52 broke apart over North Carolina in 1961 and dropped two hydrogen bombs; investigators later found that a single low-voltage switch was all that stood between a detonation and survival. A Titan II in Kansas accidentally released a warhead that fell thirty feet before stopping just short of the ground. Schlosser catalogs dozens of similar events — collectively known as "broken arrows" — and traces the bureaucratic dynamics that allowed each one to be covered up or downplayed.
The organizational analysis is as important as the accident history. Schlosser draws on the work of sociologist Charles Perrow, whose "normal accidents" theory holds that complex, tightly coupled systems will inevitably fail in unexpected ways regardless of how careful the operators are. The Air Force's culture of maintaining operational readiness at all costs repeatedly overrode the safety concerns of engineers and weapon designers, with near-catastrophic results. The people who built the bombs often had a much clearer understanding of the dangers than the generals who commanded them.
Schlosser is not arguing that we should be surprised nuclear accidents happened; he is arguing that we should be amazed none of the accidents led to a detonation. The Damascus explosion left its warhead mostly intact not because of careful engineering but because of luck. For anyone interested in institutional failure, risk management, or the hidden costs of deterrence, Command and Control is essential reading.
The big ideas
- 1.
The United States experienced dozens of nuclear weapons accidents during the Cold War, most of which were never publicly disclosed. Several came extremely close to detonation.
- 2.
The 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash dropped two hydrogen bombs over North Carolina. One bomb armed and deployed its parachute. A single low-voltage switch prevented detonation.
- 3.
The 1980 Damascus explosion destroyed a Titan II silo and scattered a nine-megaton warhead across Arkansas. The warhead's conventional explosives detonated but the nuclear stage did not — due largely to luck.
