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

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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
1963-11-13	NSA, National Security Action Memorandum No. 272	PDF
1963-05-29	NSA, Secret Memorandum from Jerome Bert Wiesner, Science Adviser to President Kennedy	PDF
1963-03-22	NSA, Assignment of Highest National Priority to Project PAL (Permissive Links for Nuclear Weapons in NATO)	PDF
1962-06-2	NSA, Permissive Links for Nuclear Weapons in NATO Memorandum No. 160	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

Bibliographies

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.

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.

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

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

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

McDuffee, Allen. "Jimmy Carter once sent launch codes to the cleaner, and other scary tales of the ‘nuclear football.’" Timeline. November 21, 2017. https://timeline.com/jimmy-carter-once-sent-launch-codes-to-the-cleaner-and-other-scary-tales-of-the-nuclear-football-add77568346e.

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

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.

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. "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. "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.

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