A miracle that we escaped the Cold War alive....

Command and Control was excellent, if occasionally chilling, listening. The book takes the form of a thriller - flashing back between an accident at a missile silo in Arkansas in 1980, and the history of the control of American nuclear weapons. The thriller becomes a bit of a horror show as Schlosser shows how often disaster was narrowly averted, and the potential consequences of a catastrophic accident. There are many mind-boggling facts along the way: the Davy Crockett nuclear anti-tank rocket had a blast radius as large as its range, the military occasionally classified things so highly the president couldn't see them, and there were many occasions where a nuclear war nearly happened.

The evolution of the Damascus Accident is especially well-written, as is the story of the evolution of nuclear strategy and command. As one reviewer in the LA Times pointed out, Schlosser is decidedly liberal, but the heroes of the book (such as they are) are McNamara and Reagan, who actually tame the nuclear beast, at least for a while. Similarly, there are great explanations of the development of the atomic bomb, and the technical details involved.

There are only a few weaknesses. First, the emphasis on bomb safety and the final parts of the Damascus Accident drag a bit, making the last third of the book somewhat less pointed and novel than the terrific first part. Second, the book seems to lose steam after Reagan, barely giving any time to the post-Cold War situation, or to other countries. While this isn't necessarily bad, it means that we spend most of the book in increasingly high levels of concern, and are left without either a lot of discussion over how to reach a safer world, or a clear sense of what the nuclear system looks like today.

In any case, this is a great read for fans of nonfiction and history, as it covers a huge amount of ground. And the final sentence is absolutely chilling and revelatory.

18 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

SUPERB ON SO MANY LEVELS

This is a great read but it will scare the shyt out of you. Nuclear weapons + human error = utter catastrophe. I dont know about you but I always assumed things as dangerous as nuclear weapons were handled with enormous over cautious care. To learn that the people in charge of policy and those that actually handle them are no better than those in your life that you dread lending your car to is a crap your pants revelation.

This is a very well written book that you will prefer to remember as fiction but is of course non fiction. Scott Brick is an utterly perfect match as narrator making this medicine taste great. The revelatory nature of these facts should put this book front and center of our news media and zeitgeist, but thats not going to happen because were all kept amused with bread and circus and no news media will touch it. If your nerves are already at their limit with the state of things and your plate is overflowing, you may want to pass on the revelations contained here. If you can take it- its a drop jaw fascinating listen

16 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Stunning

What did you love best about Command and Control?

The story brings together the history, science and military facets of nuclear weapons, by building on an actual Titan ICBM accident.

What did you like best about this story?

Having served in the Strategic Air Command and kept B-52s aloft with live nukes, the stories were a revelation - so many accidents and near catastrophes - that one can only conclude we were saved from ourselves.

Any additional comments?

It is hard to appreciate the overwhelming threat that nuclear weapons posed in the 60s and 70s, and the relief at the end of the cold war.

But then, the weapons haven't gone away...

13 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

HOLY F*CK! HOW HAVE WE SURVIVED THIS LONG?

What made the experience of listening to Command and Control the most enjoyable?

It was jaw dropping and terrifying. Stephen King should quit and start writing for Sesame Street because this truth is so much more frightening than any fiction. I often listen to books when I go to bed, and dear god, the dreams I had when I fell asleep when this book was running! But it is also encouraging, in that somebody must have our backs, because it is a flipping miracle when haven't been blow to kingdom come a dozen times over.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Characters? This was nonfiction. I wish it was fiction.

Rescue workers who head back to save people even when doing so is likely to kill them. All those guys! How can you not be moved? In the big karmic book, it offsets those douchebag politicians who are too cheap/stupid to budget safety measures and the military narcissists who think atomic weapons are a good idea. But karma doesn't necessarily save our ridiculous ape species from extincting ourselves.

What about Scott Brick’s performance did you like?

He was clear, had good pacing, and almost matter of fact.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The rescue workers. See above "favorite characters.

Any additional comments?

Read this or listen to it. While we are all sweating it, what with the economic collapse and all the gun violence and the poisoned water and compromised food supply and fracking and what all, you owe it to yourself to learn about the ways we seem to be determined to hasten our own extermination.

11 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Holy Crap!!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Great story, great narration. The subject of atomic energy/weaponry does require some pretty indepth explanation so at times it can be boresome while leading up to the meat of the matter.

How we haven't managed to blow ourselves to Kingdom Come is a nuclear accident in itself. Drops, planecrashes, fires, it's not like we haven't tried or actually dared a multiple megaton warhead to detonate in our own backyard.

Scary stuff, I couldn't put it down.
Read this book if you're even remotely intrigued by atomic weaponry, their handling and management throughout the course of the cold war.

11 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Bombs Away!

This book is not a bomb! It is a book that I could not put down. I was a Nuclear weapons specialist in SAC at Ellsworth and believe everything written to be true. I was actually involved and knew of some "incidents" that went unreported as well. In fact, my 28MMS Commander was called to come out at 3am after we had an electrical fire on the tug pulling 4 nukes after an alert. We put the fire out and no harm done....fire department only blocks away were too afraid to come to the site and help....for 45 minutes. But the Colonel never said good job or thanks for saving the base.....he said "You two need a haircut....and keep this under your hat"! That kind of arrogance and non appreciation for what we had just done caused me to throw up my hands, turn myself in for drugs.....and get out of the USAF. Had drug testing been done, I'm sure 90% of my squadron would still be in jail.....the cops, too! In training another team dropped a bomb a few inches to its stand. We also had a tritium leak and an armed bomb on the flight line. The American people don't know the half. This book tells the best.

10 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Very interesting. Somewhat hard to follow.

Would you listen to Command and Control again? Why?

Command and Control tells two stories concurrently, alternating back and forth, from one to the other. The first story is the story of the Damascus incident, in which a Titan nuclear missile came close to exploding in Arkansas due to a series of oversights which, as the author documents, are not nearly as rare as the public might suppose. The second story is the history of nuclear weapons themselves - their use, development, design, and testing, as well as their technical limitations (or lack thereof) and the strategic calculations that drove their development and deployment during the Cold War.

The first narrative, which recounts the Damascus incident, is illuminating and entertaining, but at times it also feels overly drawn-out and confusing. This is largely due to the way its telling is broken up over the course of the book. This structure might work better in print, but I found it challenging in audio format. The second narrative - where the author traces the history of nuclear weapons broadly, from the Manhattan Project to the present, is where the book really excels. It is first-rate. I would listen this portion of the again, for sure, and recommend it to others interested in the subject without any reservation.

On the whole, a very good book.

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

The discussion of thermonuclear weapons, as opposed to pure fission bombs, and how the former fundamentally altered the strategic calculus about the use of nuclear weapon in war. In the modern era, we do not really distinguish between the awesome but comprehensible power of fission bombs, and the truly cataclysmic and unthinkable force of thermonuclear weapons, but the distinction was actually a major turning point in the way these weapons were viewed by political and military leaders. A second highlight was the author's excellent history of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, and its rivalry with the other military services and the (civilian) U.S. Atomic Energy Commission for primacy in the control U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities.

9 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Excellent book on Cold War history

Would you consider the audio edition of Command and Control to be better than the print version?

This book is an excellent telling of the story of the Damascus accident intermixed with a very accurate telling of almost all of the key moments in Cold War history. There are also shocking revelation about how lax nuclear security, safety and command and control were in the US in the early days of the Cold War.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

The telling of the Greensboro incident.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes. Extremely well written in a manner that really holds your attention.

9 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Wow. I had no idea.

This was the first thing I’ve read that goes into any detail on the situation of the nuclear situation in the US and the world. Wow. I wasn’t convinced I wanted to know so much about missiles and warheads and what it takes to keep them secret and secure, but after I started realizing the scope of what could have gone wrong during the heights of the Cold War the information quickly went from being academic to something much more real.

The number of accidents involving nuclear warheads is surprisingly high. The internal politics revolving around how these weapons should be used are maddening. The scope of the destruction that would have ensued had the Cold War master plan ever been carried out is literally insane. The fact that so many nations to this day have the power to cause that type of destruction makes the relatively stable state of the world seem tenuous to say the least.

Command and Conquer starts off slow, but quickly becomes an engrossing freakshow of the insanity of the Cold War and the truly awful power of the superpowers

7 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Rookie Mistakes on Nukes

I like to ask my friends on what they are reading to be current with the times. There are so many good and bad titles out there that it's always a hit or a miss. A few of my friends suggested that I should pickup "Command and Control." I haven't read anything from Eric Schlosser since Fast Food Nation and I haven't read any documentary or informational books in a while.

So, this book was easy to purchase because I enjoy this kind of genre. I always learn something new and don't feel that I'm wasting time on some made up story.

All I have to say is, if the 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.

Even to this day, there are ongoing studies on how safe we are from manufacturing bombs. There are too many rookie mistakes. There is no backup plan like in the movies to disarm a nuke once fire. Damascus was just one accident that we know of and there are many more that we have yet to reveal.

Maybe building life threatening bombs are just too complicated for all man kind.

7 les gens ont trouvé cela utile