Citation
Schlosser, Eric. Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. New York: The Penguin Press, 2013.
Commentary
A look at nuclear command and control history by a journalist. Two threads weave through the work: one is a minute-by-minute account of a Titan II accident in Damascus, Arkansas, the other is a broader history of nuclear weapons safety and surety in the United States from the Manhattan Project through the end of the Cold War. Argues that the problems of nuclear safety have been systematically understated by the US Air Force, and spotlights the work of the Sandia National Laboratories engineers in working to solve the “always/never” problem of nuclear safety and reliability. Extensively footnoted and relies on a large cache of declassified documents.