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If you’re interested in this topic, I highly recommend the book “Command and Control” by Eric Schlosser which describes the details of America’s nuclear arms th

by jf 5y ago

If you’re interested in this topic, I highly recommend the book “Command and Control” by Eric Schlosser which describes the details of America’s nuclear arms through the lens of an accident at a Titan II missile silo that could have gone very badly.

jeff_vader 5y ago
I'd also recommend "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- arethuza 5y ago
  I'd also strongly recommend that book - with the note that I found it rather profoundly upsetting. For some reason the expected fate of Finland particularly struck me.
JoeDaDude 5y ago
One more recommendation: The Swords of Armgeddon" by Chuck Hansen. Published as a CD ROM, it is full of historical references and photos: http://www.uscoldwar.com/ http://www.uscoldwar.com/
- philipkglass 5y ago
  It is no longer sold, as far as I can tell. Hansen's widow was selling it after his death. You are supposed to send an email to order it (now as PDF downloads rather than optical disc). I emailed to order back in March of this year and never got a response. I more recently discovered that it has been uploaded to Library Genesis so I got it there. Swords of Armageddon is a history that quotes from primary sources very extensively. That's the bulk of the publication, by word count. It lends itself to more skimming than detailed reading in many sections due to this approach. These documents are more about policy, politics, and planning than about technical details. That may be due to Hansen's relative weakness on the technical side as well as due to source availability; I'm sure that documents about the diplomatic considerations following Operation Castle were more readily declassified than documents about the device data. Hansen's early introductory material contains some odd blunders about e.g. the physical properties of deuterium. Don't let that discourage you. Most of the book is so primary-source-driven that his powers of interpretation take a back seat. There are surely other histories of the post-war Atomic Energy Commission. This is the first book I have read that makes it clear what a leviathan it was. In 1956, the AEC alone accounted for 3.2% of the federal government's budget (not counting nuclear weapons costs allocated to other departments like Defense). This is comparable to NASA's share in the Apollo era of the following decade, but the AEC operated with much more secrecy. It spent billions of dollars on weapons improvements that were obsoleted in just a few more years by even greater improvements. It was the era of Moore's Law for mass destruction. One small interesting thing I learned: AEC had a multitude of reasons for experimenting with uranium 233 bred from thorium. Almost all of these reasons were related to nuclear weapons. U-233 was used in many nuclear weapons test series, though the details of usage (except for the one Operation Teapot test) have yet to be declassified.
echoradio 5y ago
Second. Worth noting: PBS’ “American Experience” did a documentary (part docudrama?) on the accident which was okay, but not as nearly as outstanding as the book. I read the book is the result of seven years of research. The text itself is 500 pages with ~110 of notes and references. Schlosser’s book (at times) reads like fiction. I enjoyed how he weaved the story of the Damascus accident and history of America’s nuclear program seamlessly to a climax. It is one of my favorite books of on both subject matter and writing style.

by jf 5y ago

jeff_vader 5y ago

I'd also recommend "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
arethuza 5y ago
I'd also strongly recommend that book - with the note that I found it rather profoundly upsetting. For some reason the expected fate of Finland particularly struck me.

JoeDaDude 5y ago

One more recommendation: The Swords of Armgeddon" by Chuck Hansen. Published as a CD ROM, it is full of historical references and photos: http://www.uscoldwar.com/ http://www.uscoldwar.com/

philipkglass 5y ago
It is no longer sold, as far as I can tell. Hansen's widow was selling it after his death. You are supposed to send an email to order it (now as PDF downloads rather than optical disc). I emailed to order back in March of this year and never got a response. I more recently discovered that it has been uploaded to Library Genesis so I got it there. Swords of Armageddon is a history that quotes from primary sources very extensively. That's the bulk of the publication, by word count. It lends itself to more skimming than detailed reading in many sections due to this approach. These documents are more about policy, politics, and planning than about technical details. That may be due to Hansen's relative weakness on the technical side as well as due to source availability; I'm sure that documents about the diplomatic considerations following Operation Castle were more readily declassified than documents about the device data. Hansen's early introductory material contains some odd blunders about e.g. the physical properties of deuterium. Don't let that discourage you. Most of the book is so primary-source-driven that his powers of interpretation take a back seat. There are surely other histories of the post-war Atomic Energy Commission. This is the first book I have read that makes it clear what a leviathan it was. In 1956, the AEC alone accounted for 3.2% of the federal government's budget (not counting nuclear weapons costs allocated to other departments like Defense). This is comparable to NASA's share in the Apollo era of the following decade, but the AEC operated with much more secrecy. It spent billions of dollars on weapons improvements that were obsoleted in just a few more years by even greater improvements. It was the era of Moore's Law for mass destruction. One small interesting thing I learned: AEC had a multitude of reasons for experimenting with uranium 233 bred from thorium. Almost all of these reasons were related to nuclear weapons. U-233 was used in many nuclear weapons test series, though the details of usage (except for the one Operation Teapot test) have yet to be declassified.

echoradio 5y ago

Second. Worth noting: PBS’ “American Experience” did a documentary (part docudrama?) on the accident which was okay, but not as nearly as outstanding as the book. I read the book is the result of seven years of research. The text itself is 500 pages with ~110 of notes and references. Schlosser’s book (at times) reads like fiction. I enjoyed how he weaved the story of the Damascus accident and history of America’s nuclear program seamlessly to a climax. It is one of my favorite books of on both subject matter and writing style.