Command and Control

Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

By: Eric Schlosser

Narrated by: Scott Brick

A myth-shattering exposé of America's nuclear weapons.

Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America's nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved - and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. While the harms of global warming increasingly dominate the news, the equally dangerous yet more immediate threat of nuclear weapons has been largely forgotten.

Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than 50 years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can't be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States.

Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with people who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America's nuclear age.

©2013 Eric Schlosser (P)2013 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

A New York Times Notable Book of 2013

"A devastatingly lucid and detailed new history of nuclear weapons in the US...fascinating." (Time magazine)

"Schlosser's book reads like a thriller, but it's masterfully even-handed, well researched, and well organised. Either he's a natural genius at integrating massive amounts of complex information, or he worked like a dog to write this book. You wouldn't think the prospect of nuclear apocalypse would make for a reading treat, but in Schlosser's hands it does." Lev Grossman, Jonathan Franzen, The Guardian)

The Best Book on Nukes!

If you find the subject of nuclear weapons science, strategy, policy, and/or history even the least bit compelling, then this is the book for you to get!

I've long been very interested in these areas and I've listened to just about every book that Audible has on the topic. Among those titles have been many good reads and quite a few truly great ones. But among that crowd, Eric Schlosser's book "Command and Control" stands head and shoulders above the rest. This is simply the most comprehensive, wide-scoped, and ambitiously detailed book of its type that I've yet come across.

The book's central theme is the examination of the nuclear command and control system and the various aspects of risk management and safety that surround the development, deployment, and management of nuclear weapons. The book, however, goes well beyond that focus, to give a real tour de force treatment of nuclear weapons. From the very beginnings of the first nuclear weapons research, to the esoteric theoretical and scientific principles that make these devices possible, to the technical and engineering details of individual weapon system designs and the history of their development, deployment, and intended uses, all the way to the constantly evolving space of nuclear strategy and doctrine throughout every U. S. administration from FDR to George W. Bush... this book seemingly leaves no stone unturned.

The book is told as a narrative history, or more accurately histories (plural), of many nuclear accidents and mishaps. The well known Damascus Incident of 1980 serves as the unifying narrative, broken up into chunks that are told to the reader in bits and pieces, broken up by the recounting of numerous other incidents and countless historical, scientific, and political tangents that truly flesh out an impressive compendium for those interested in this kind of stuff. That Schlosser is able to tie all of this together in one book, while keeping it cohesive and maintaining a logical flow between its various parts is the mark of a true labor of love.

Equally impressive is the balance Schlosser is able to strike between a rich intellectual analysis and idiosyncratically personal human moments. The book treat its more complex technical and scientific information with integrity, while gracefully managing to stay deeply in tune with the humanity of the people and personalities in the story. Far from being cold and dry, this book is thoughtful, deeply inquisitive, and continually refocuses itself on quintessentially human problems and factors, all while never flinching or shying away from looking at the facts with a sober and steady view.

Highly recommended to anyone who's interested in the subject matter or who loves a good narrative full of techno drama and political machinations. also highly recommended for anyone interested in systems analysis and risk management, as the problems and issues that come to light as some of the key conclusions of this book are applicable to so many everyday people in today's world of complex integrated systems.

Multiple narratives woven into fascinating story

What was one of the most memorable moments of Command and Control?

The accident at Damascus as seen and experienced from many different locations, both in the immediate vicinity as well as hundreds of miles away. From the outset of the book, this is an explosion waiting to happen. The anticipation is built effectively as futile efforts to deal with a potential disaster are attempted and fail.

Any additional comments?

The reader will come away with a comprehensive understanding of the history of nuclear/atomic weapons, from the Manhattan Project through WWII and into the 80's. If we the public had known just how haphazardly nuclear weapons were handled and stored, the resulting panic and anger would have had a remarkable affect on politics and society. Command and Control is a fascinating history lesson.

THE IDIOCY OF THE ARMY LAID BARE

Any additional comments?

If this is how United States couldn't handle their nuclear weapons, I wonder how other countries are failing to handle their's and how many accidents that they are having. It just seems like the United States just decided to build bombs and without any safety procedures. It is truly shocking. Leaves me wondering what the hell is going on in Putins lawless Russia & their nuclear weapons. This book will shock & surprise, but mostly scare the Bee-Jesus out of you.

plenty to go wrong here

Terrific story about the the arms race and all the close calls with nuclear weapons. One message I walked away with was that our government has a lot of people working on this issue, but that no one is perfect, and the risk of unintended nuclear disaster remains.

Excellent and full of amazing facts.

Can't say enough about this book. It should be required reading for students and government officials. Great story and well narrated.

You can’t make this stuff up...

Great deep insight into the American side of the nuclear Cold War. Learned a lot! The interplay of the Damascus, Arkansas incident and the history of the US nuclear weapons deployment was a bit awkward at first, but it breaks up the personnel stories with the facts. Worth the credit and time!

Excellent read.

Great insight on how the nuclear era took place, and how lucky we are not to have blown ourselves up by now. Great narration. Story is somewhat long and sometimes wander, but overall hard to put down. The book is full of interesting facts and cases from start to finish!

Pop!!

Need to know about the truth and nuclear proliferation from Los Alamos to Nagasaki to Hiroshima to Bay of Pigs to subs, silos and B-52s. ALL the Presidents.

Great history, scary history, how did we survive?

My only complaint, the timeline hops around and in an audio book vs in print where you can easily flip back and see where you were/are, this kind of threw me till I got used to it.

Otherwise, a pretty darn good tale of the miracle of us all being alive after that crazed nuke happy era. He makes reference to two of the classic movies of that time, FailSafe and Dr. Strangelove, and after this book now I don't think of those as such fictional stories any longer!

A lot of lessons were learned, before we all died in a nuclear holocaust, fortunately, and this is the story of that maturation process here and abroad. A lot of typical military shortsightedness, bad judgment, jingoism and worse is revealed, to no one's surprise I'm sure.

Great tense dramatic story, great history. Read and look at where we are now, what did we learn?

Great story, well researched and insightful

loved it. addictive like few non fiction books. even as a cold war buff there was a great deal of information I didn't know. the author never grinds his politics in and does a great job capturing the feel of the different eras.