Command and Control

The risks of plutonium exposure were becoming more apparent in the mid-1950s. Although the alpha particles emitted by plutonium are too weak to penetrate human skin, they can destroy lung tissue when plutonium dust is inhaled. Anyone within a few hundred feet of a weapon accident spreading plutonium can inhale a swiftly lethal dose. Cancers of the lung, liver, lymph nodes, and bone can be caused by the inhalation of minute amounts. And the fallout from such an accident may contaminate a large area for a long time. Plutonium has a half-life of about twenty-four thousand years. It remains hazardous throughout that period, and plutonium dust is hard to clean up. “The problem of decontaminating the site of [an] accident may be insurmountable,” a classified Los Alamos report noted a month after the Genie’s one-point safety test, “and it may have to be ‘written off’ permanently.”

The AEC debated whether to remove plutonium from the Genie’s core and use highly enriched uranium instead. In one respect, uranium-235 seemed to be safer. It has a half-life of about seven hundred million years — but emits radiation at a much lower rate than plutonium, greatly reducing the inhalation hazard. And yet a Genie with a uranium core had its own risks. Norris Bradbury, the director of Los Alamos, warned the AEC that such a core was “probably not safe against one-point detonation.” Given the choice between an accident that might cause a nuclear explosion and one that might send a cloud of plutonium over an American city, the Air Force preferred the latter. Handmade, emergency capability Genies were rushed into production, with cores that contained plutonium.

Once Soviet bombers were within range, air defense weapons like the Genie had to be fired immediately. Any delay in authorizing their use could allow some planes to reach their targets. Toward the end of 1955, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought permission to use atomic air defense weapons — without having to ask the president. They argued that if such authority was “predelegated,” the military could respond instantly to an attack. Secretary of Defense Wilson backed the Joint Chiefs, arguing that it was “critical” for the Air Force to have some sort of advance authorization.

Harry Truman had insisted, repeatedly, that the president of the United States should be the only person allowed to order the use of a nuclear weapon. But the nature of the Soviet threat had changed, and President Eisenhower had more faith in the discipline of the American military. In April 1956, Eisenhower signed a predelegation order that authorized the use of atomic weapons for air defense within the United States and along its borders. The order took effect the following December, after rules of engagement were approved by the secretary of defense. Those rules allowed American planes to fire Genies at any Soviet aircraft that appeared “hostile.” Air Force commanders were granted wide latitude to decide when these nuclear weapons could be used. But the Joint Chiefs demanded “strict command control [sic] of forces engaged in air defense.” The Genies had to be kept locked away in storage igloos, never to be flown over the United States, until the nation was under attack.

For years the Department of Defense had refused to discuss where America’s nuclear weapons were deployed. “We will neither confirm nor deny” was the standard response whenever a journalist asked if atomic or hydrogen bombs were kept at a specific location. The policy was justified by the need for military secrecy — and yet the desire to avoid controversy and maintain good public relations was just as important. When atomic bombs were first transferred to SAC bases in French Morocco, the French government wasn’t told about the weapons. But the deployment of Genies at air bases throughout the United States was announced in an Air Force press release. According to a secret Pentagon memo, publicity that stressed the safety and effectiveness of the new weapon “should have a positive effect on national morale.” And information about the Genie’s lethal radius might be discouraging for Soviet aircrews.