Command and Control

the number of tactical weapons had more than doubled: In 1960 the United States deployed about 3,000 tactical weapons in Western Europe; in 1968, about 7,000. See Robert S. Norris, William M. Arkin, and William Burr, “Where They Were,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 199, p. 29.

A centralized command-and-control system… had proven disastrous: The top-down management style that McNamara brought to the Vietnam War almost guaranteed an American defeat. “The men who designed the system and tried to run it were as bright a group of managers as has been produced by the defense establishment of any country at any time,” the military historian Martin van Creveld has noted, “yet their attempts to achieve cost-effectiveness led to one of the least cost-effective wars known to history.” McNamara’s office determined not only the targets that would be attacked but also set the rules for when a mission would be canceled for bad weather and specified the training level that pilots had to meet. For Van Creveld, “To study command as it operated in Vietnam is, indeed, almost enough to make one despair of human reason.” See Martin van Creveld, Command in War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 232–60. The quotes can be found on page 260.

“I don’t object to its being called McNamara’s war”: “‘McNamara’s War’ Tag OKd by Defense Chief,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1964.

support for equal rights, labor unions, birth control, and abortion: Although in 1968 LeMay was considered an archconservative, today he’d be called an old-fasioned liberal. See Jerry M. Flint, “LeMay Supports Legal Abortions,” New York Times, October 24, 1968; “Wallace Keeps Silent on LeMay Racial View,” Los Angeles Times, October 24, 1968; and Jerry M. Flint, “LeMay Says He Believes in Equal Opportunity,” New York Times, October 29, 1968.

“War is never cost-effective”: LeMay’s feelings about limited warfare are worth quoting at length. “Let me now propose some basic doctrines about war,” LeMay wrote. “First, war in any proportion, no matter how limited, is a very serious and dangerous business. War is never ‘cost-effective’ in terms of dollars and blood. People are killed. To them war is total. You cannot tell the bereaved wives, children, and parents that today’s war in Vietnam, for example, is a counterinsurgency exercise into which the United States is putting only a limited effort. Death is final, and drafted boys should not be asked to make this ultimate sacrifice unless the Government is behind them 100 percent. If we pull our punches how can we explain it to their loved ones? Our objectives must be clearly enough defined to warrant the casualties we are taking.” Curtis E. LeMay, America Is in Danger (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968), p. 305.

“but when you get in it”: “Excerpts from Comments by Wallace and LeMay on the War and Segregation,” New York Times, October 4, 1968.

“We seem to have a phobia”: Ibid.

jeered by protesters yelling, “Sieg heil”: Quoted in “LeMay, Supporter of Dissent, Seems Upset by Hecklers,” New York Times, October 25, 1968.

the antiwar movement was “Communist-inspired”: Quoted in Jerry M. Flint, “LeMay Fearful Communists Threaten American Values,” New York Times, October 31, 1968.

An Abnormal Environment

a B-52 took off from Mather Air Force Base: For the Yuba City crash, see Airmunitions Letter, No. 136-11-56H, Headquarters, Ogden Air Material Area, April 19, 1961 (SECRET/RESTRICTED DATA/declassified), pp. 2–18; “Joint Nuclear Accident Coordinating Center Record of Events,” (For Official Use Only/declassified), n.d.; and Maggelet and Oskins, Broken Arrow, pp. 173–93.

“continue mission as long as you can”: Quoted in Maggelet and Oskins, Broken Arrow, p. 176.

“a weak point in the aircraft’s structure”: The report also noted that the B-52 has “a skin-loaded structure that readily disintegrates upon impact.” See “Accident Environments,” T. D. Brumleve, J. T. Foley, W. F. Gordon, J. C. Miller, A. R. Nord, Sandia Corporation, Livermore Laboratory, SCL-DR-69-86, January 1970 (SECRET/RESTRICTED DATA/declassified), p. 58.

On Johnston Island in the central Pacific: For the missile explosions that occurred during the test series known as Operation Dominic, see Hansen, Swords of Armageddon, Volume IV, pp. 382–445; “Operation Dominic I, 1962,” U.S. Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Tests, Nuclear Test Personnel Review, Defense Nuclear Agency, February 1983; Reed and Stillman, Nuclear Express, pp. 136–137; and Maggelet and Oskins, Broken Arrow, Volume II, pp. 96–98.