Topic Explorer

The Topic Explorer uses the same search and topic filters for all of the different resources on this site. It is meant to allow easy cross-examination of different issues.

Topics

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Primers

Nuclear launch process: The nuclear launch process of the United States is a topic of high interest and importance but is also subject to considerable misunderstanding.

Documents

Date ▲	Title	File
1961-01-25	DDRS, Memorandum for the record by Brigadier Gen. A.J. Goodpaster outlines his meeting with President-elect Kennedy to inform Kennedy of procedures to be used in the event of a national emergency.	PDF
1961-07-16	Atomic Stockpiles Memorandum	PDF
1962-06-2	NSA, Permissive Links for Nuclear Weapons in NATO Memorandum No. 160	PDF
1963-03-22	NSA, Assignment of Highest National Priority to Project PAL (Permissive Links for Nuclear Weapons in NATO)	PDF
1963-05-29	NSA, Secret Memorandum from Jerome Bert Wiesner, Science Adviser to President Kennedy	PDF
1963-08-10	NSA, Permissive Link for Minuteman	PDF
1963-08-31	DDRS, Comments on Department of Defense Draft Memorandum: Strategic Striking Forces	PDF
1963-11-13	NSA, National Security Action Memorandum No. 272	PDF
1964-07-22	DDRS, Letter to McGeorge Bundy from the Deputy Secretary of Defense regarding the modified installation of permissive action link (PAL) devices on various weapons systems.	PDF
1964-12-01	DDRS, Briefing to the Gilpatric Committee by William J. Howard	PDF
1968-06	DOD, Strategic Offensive Weapons Employment in the Presence of Defenses (WEPS)	PDF
1969-08	Presidential Succession and the Authority to Release Nuclear Weapons	PDF
1969-08-26	DOD, WSEG Report 148 - Strategic Offensive Weapons Employment in the Time Period About 1975	PDF
1975-06	IDA, "The Evolution of U.S. Strategic Command and Control and Warning, 1945-1972"	PDF
1978-02	OASOD, "History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons, July 1945 through September 1977"	PDF
1982-07	A Historical Study of Strategic Connectivity	PDF
1998-06-08	The History of Nuclear Weapon Safety Devices	PDF

Bibliographies

Ball, Desmond. Politics and Force Levels: The Strategic Missile Program of the Kennedy Administration. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Burr, William. "Consultation is Presidential Business": Secret Understandings on the Use of Nuclear Weapons, 1950-1974. Electronic Briefing Book No. 159. Washington, D.C.: National Security Archive, 2005. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB159/.

Burr, William. Presidential Control of Nuclear Weapons: The "Football." Briefing Book #632. Washington, D.C.: National Security Archive, 2018. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2018-07-09/presidential-control-nuclear-weapons-football.

Curry, Dan. Always/Never: The Quest for Safety, Control & Survivability. Documentary. Sandia National Laboratories, 2010.

Deaile, Melvin G. “The SAC Mentality.” Air & Space Power Journal 29, no. 2 (April 3, 2015): 48–73.

Deaile, Melvin G. Always at War: Organizational Culture in Strategic Air Command, 1946-62. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2018.

Ellsberg, Daniel. The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017.

Feaver, Peter D. Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the United States. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.

Freedman, Lawrence. The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Gavin, Francis J. "The Myth of Flexible Response: United States Strategy in Europe during the 1960s." The International History Review 23, no. 4 (December 2001): 847-875

Graff, Garret M. Raven Rock: The Story of the US Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017.

Gulley, Bill. Breaking Cover. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980.

Jackson, Michael Gordon. "Beyond Brinkmanship: Eisenhower, Nuclear War Fighting, and Korea, 1953-1968." Presidential Studies Quarterly 35, no. 1 (March 2005): 52-75.

Kaplan, Fred. The Wizards of Armageddon. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983.

Kimball, Jeffrey P. and William Burr. Nixon's Nuclear Specter: The Secret Alert of 1969, Madman Diplomacy, and the Vietnam War. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2015.

Knipp, Delores J., et al. "The May 1967 Great Storm and Radio Disruption Event: Extreme Space Weather and Extraordinary Responses." Space Weather 14 (2016): 614–633. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/2016SW001423.

Kohn, Richard H. and Joseph P. Harahan. "U.S. Strategic Air Power, 1948-1962: Excerpts from an Interview with Generals Curtis E. LeMay, Leon W. Johnson, David A. Burchinal, and Jack J. Catton." International Security 12, no. 4 (Spring, 1988): 78-95.

Krugler, David F. This Is Only a Test: How Washington D.C. Prepared for Nuclear War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Nolan, Janne E. Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy. New York: Basic Books, 1989.

Rubel, John H. Doomsday Delayed: USAF Strategic Weapons Doctrine and SIOP-62, 1959-1962. Lanham, Maryland: Hamilton Books, 2008.

Sagan, Scott D. "SIOP-62: The Nuclear War Plan Briefing to President Kennedy." International Security 12, no. 1 (Summer, 1987): 22-51.

Schlosser, Eric. Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. New York: The Penguin Press, 2013.

Tannenwald, Nina. "Nuclear Weapons and the Vietnam War." Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 4 (August 2006): 675-722,

Tannenwald, Nina. The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Wilson, Edward. "Thank you Vasili Arkhipov, the man who stopped nuclear war." The Guardian. October 27, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-stopped-nuclear-war.