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

1940s (29) 1950s (32) 1960s (43) 1970s (21) 1980s (17) 1990s (8) 2000s (5) 2010s (24) Bush, George W. (1) Carter, James (6) Chain of command (15) Civilian-military divide (22) Clinton, William J. (2) Congress (21) Congressional Research Service (4) Constitutionality (6) Custody (22) Cybersecurity (3) Directives (6) Doctrine (20) Early warning systems (17) Eisenhower, Dwight D. (20) Ford, Gerald R. (2) France (12) India (11) Israel (7) Johnson, Lyndon B. (11) Kennedy, John F. (24) Law of war (9) Missiles (6) NATO (21) News Media (18) Nixon, Richard M. (11) Non-Use (8) North Korea (10) Nuclear accidents (17) Nuclear football (17) Nuclear launch procedure (32) Nuclear safety (34) Nuclear war plans (31) Obama, Barack (8) Oral history (1) Overseas deployment (19) Pakistan (17) People's Republic of China (15) Permissive Action Links (23) Predelegation (17) Presidential nuclear control (57) RAND Corporation (4) Reagan, Ronald (8) Remedies (5) Russian Federation (16) South Africa (1) Soviet Union (23) Succession (3) Truman, Harry S. (21) Trump, Donald J. (18) Two-man rule (9) United Kingdom (19) United States of America (126) US Air Force (21) US Atomic Energy Commission (15) US Department of Defense (28) US Department of Energy (5) US Joint Chiefs of Staff (17) US National Security Council (7) US Secretary of Defense (11) US Strategic Air Command (15) US Strategic Command (15) World War II (8)

Primers

Presidential unilateral nuclear use authority under Truman: In the United States, the authority to use nuclear weapons is vested in the President of the United States.

Documents

Date ▼	Title	File
1978-02	OASOD, "History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons, July 1945 through September 1977"	PDF
1975-06	IDA, "The Evolution of U.S. Strategic Command and Control and Warning, 1945-1972"	PDF
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
1957-02-06	"Authorization for the Expenditure of Nuclear Weapons" (Draft)	PDF
1956-03-15	NSC 5602/1, "Basic National Security Policy"	PDF

Bibliographies

Wellerstein, Alex. "No one can stop President Trump from using nuclear weapons. That's by design." Washington Post, December 1, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/no-one-can-stop-president-trump-from-using-nuclear-weapons-thats-by-design/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.05b5b6a7fe06.

Trachtenberg, Marc. A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1953. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

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

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

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

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

Hewlett Richard G., and Francis Duncan. Atomic Shield: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Volume II, 1947-1952. Washington, DC: United States Atomic Energy Commission, 1969.

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

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

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

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

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.

Burr, William. U.S. Presidents and the Nuclear Taboo. Briefing Book #611. Washington, D.C.: National Security Archive, 2017. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2017-11-30/us-presidents-nuclear-taboo.

Burr, William. "Newly Declassified Documents on Advance Presidential Authorization of Nuclear Weapons Use." National Security Archive, August 30, 1998. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//news/predelegation2/predel2.htm.