Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Jeff Kennedy was the first person whom I interviewed for this book. More than a decade ago, I visited him in Maine, listened with amazement to his stories about the Titan II, and learned the extraordinary details of what happened in Damascus, Arkansas. Over the years, Kennedy was helpful, encouraging — and never shy about telling me how or why I was completely wrong. I admired his honesty. And I admired the bravery he showed not only in trying to save the missile that night but also in sacrificing his Air Force career to speak out about the Titan II. Kennedy passed away in the fall of 2011, at the age of fifty-six. I regret not having finished this book in time for him to read it.

Bob Peurifoy spent countless hours speaking to me about nuclear weapons, explaining fine points of physics and engineering, hoping that I’d use the knowledge well. I am grateful to him and Barbara Peurifoy for all their hospitality and their friendship. Sidney Drell played a crucial role in opening my eyes to this hidden world. And Bill Stevens patiently answered the same technical questions of mine again and again. Peurifoy, Drell, and Stevens truly are public servants.

Al Childers and Greg Devlin similarly spent untold hours helping me to understand the events at Launch Complex 374-7. Rodney Holder, Jim Sandaker, and Don Green talked to me at length as well. I am grateful for all the time these men devoted to my research. Colonel John T. Moser was extremely gracious in answering questions about perhaps the worst experience of his long Air Force career. And I’m grateful to General Chris Adams — a prolific author as well as a former chief of staff at the Strategic Air Command — for his many insights about the role of the Air Force in the Cold War. Although our political views differ, I have great respect for the way General Adams has served his country.

David and Barbara Pryor, Phil and Annette Herrington, Sid King, Sam Hutto, and Skip Rutherford made my time in Arkansas a real pleasure. I’m grateful to Cindy English for telling me about her late father, Richard English; to David Rossborough, Jeffrey Zink, David Powell, and Jeffrey Plumb; to Colonel Ben Scallorn, Colonel Jimmie Gray, Major Vincent Maes, Colonel Ron Bishop; and to Mary Ann Dennis, whose memories of her late brother, David Livingston, served as a poignant reminder of how meaningless statistics can be — and how the loss of a single life is one too many.

Ann Godoff proved to be exactly what a great editor should be: blunt, fiercely intelligent, and seemingly afraid of nothing. Those are rare qualities in a literary world that’s increasingly timid and homogenized.

Stefan McGrath, Helen Conford, and Rosie Glaisher could not have been more supportive, from the first to the last. And I am profoundly grateful.

Tina Bennett made this book happen. She urged me to write it, discussed it with me for almost ten years, and through thick and thin never wavered in her enthusiasm for it. Her advice was reliably on the mark. Every writer should have such a brilliant, forceful advocate.

A number of other people at William Morris Endeavor must be thanked: Tracy Fisher, Raffaela De Angelis, Annemarie Blumenhagen, Alicia Gordon. And Svetlana Katz is simply the best.

Ellis Levine proved himself, as always, to be a fine critic as well as a formidable legal mind. I am very lucky to have him on my side, not the other one.

I’m grateful to Sarah Hutson and Ryan Davies for their efforts to bring attention to my work.

Benjamin Platt deserves some sort of prize for how he handled the production of this book. I hope he gets it. Meighan Cavanaugh gave the book a clear, beautiful design. Deborah Weiss Geline’s copyediting made me seem more eloquent; she’s a wonderful practitioner of an unfortunately vanishing art. Lindsay Whalen, Michael McConnell, Nina Hnatov, Christina Caruccio, Melanie Belkin, and Denise Boyd all helped turn my manuscript into a book. And I’m grateful to Eamon Dolan for bringing me to The Penguin Press in the first place.

Jennifer Jerde and Scott Hesselink at Elixir Design came up with a memorable, original jacket. Gideon Kendall worked hard to capture every little detail in his very cool illustration of a Titan II missile complex. And I’m honored that the first words in this book were written by Leonard Cohen.

I did not employ researchers while writing Command and Control. But I later received invaluable help from a small team of people who did their best to ensure the book’s accuracy. Bea Marr did a terrific job transcribing interview tapes, wading through all sorts of jargon — and immediately forgetting everything she heard. Jane Cavolina carefully scrutinized my quotations and assertions of fact. I am grateful for every single error that she found, from the trivial to the deeply embarrassing. Once again, Charles Wilson helped me get things right, reinterviewing many of the subjects in this book with sensitivity and skill. Ariel Towber helped to compile the bibliographic citations and made sure that my calculations actually had some basis in mathematics. Stephanie Simon, Jessica Bufford, and Aaron Labaree also worked on the citations — and I even recruited my poor children, Mica and Conor Schlosser, to help with the task. They no doubt hope my next book will be a novel. And I’m grateful to David Schmalz, Elizabeth Limbach, and Hilary McClellen for their fact-checking efforts. One of the central themes of Command and Control is the fallibility of all human endeavors. Sadly, that inescapable law applies to me as well. Any mistakes in this book are my fault. I hope that readers will kindly point them out to me.

A number of dear friends read the manuscript in full or in part, gave me good suggestions, and helped me to get through it: Michael Clurman, Dominic Dromgoole, Robby Kenner, Corby Kummer, Cullen Murphy, John Seabrook. The fact that I ignored some of those suggestions reflects poorly on me, not them. And Katrina vanden Heuvel has been a true friend throughout, a fellow student of the Cold War who helped me navigate the national security bureaucracy.

My greatest thanks go to my family: Mica, Conor, Dylan, Lena, Andrew, Austin, and Hillary; Lynn and Craig; James and Kyle; Matt and Amy; Bob and Bylle; Lola and George; my parents. I can’t imagine what they’ve put up with these past six years. While writing this book, I have not been the life of the party.

Most of all, I feel love and gratitude and great compassion for Red, who’s had to live beside this darkness. Without her, it would have been impossible.