![]() ![]() Along the way he explores the ways that many conscientious people have tried to make atomic weapons safer, and the military machine that, as a rule, stymied most of their efforts. Schlosser details the USA's long history with atomic weapons and the many, many accidents which could have devastated vast areas of the US at best, and sparked nuclear armageddon with the USSR at worst. These are the kinds of incidents Schlosser describes, and they are truly terrifying. Planes taking off with their wiring mixed up, so that setting the onboard bombs to 'safe' actually armed them for detonation. Nuclear bombers crashing and spreading plutonium dust for miles around. Aircraft with full bomb loads of nukes catching fire and burning to ash on US airbases. ![]() Imagine potentially live thermonuclear weapons falling off trolleys and clattered across the concrete. That at all times they have been handled with the fear and care that city-vaporizing ordinance is due.Įric Schlosser's Command and Control details many, many incidents of the failure of safety systems and procedures resulting in the near detonation of nuclear weapons. That they have been obsessively tracked by the military, and subjected to the strictest controls imaginable. You no doubt assume, for your own peace of mind, that the potentially world-ending weapons in the United States' nuclear arsenal have always been carefully controlled, guarded and implanted with the best safeguards available. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States.ĭrawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with people who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. While the harms of global warming increasingly dominate the news, the equally dangerous yet more immediate threat of nuclear weapons has been largely forgotten. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved-and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. A myth-shattering exposé of America’s nuclear weaponsįamed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal. ![]()
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