Sean M. Maloney - Emergency War Plan

An extremely detailed, prodigiously researched, and highly readable account of the U.S. nuclear war plans of the 1950s.... Deterrence worked. This is a definitive work on a complicated and arcane subject.

Phillip S. Meilinger, former dean of the School of Advanced Airpower Studies at Air University

[This] is the Rosetta Stone compendium and most comprehensive body of work I have ever read on the development of the United States nuclear war plan.

Lt. Gen. Jack Weinstein, USAF (Ret.), former commander of the Twentieth Air Force and former deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration at the Pentagon

Emergency War Planpresents a fresh picture of bombs, bombers, and groups matched to prospective targets, in a much more sophisticated fashion than in our received history of massive retaliation. This book helps us understand Cold War history in a new way.

John Prados, author of The Soviet Estimate

Sean M. Maloney

Potomac Books

An imprint of the University of Nebraska Press

2021 by Sean M. Maloney

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover image 123rf / Elena Schweitzer.

All rights reserved. Potomac Books is an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Maloney, Sean M., 1967 author.

Title: Emergency war plan: the American doomsday machine, 19451960 / Sean M. Maloney.

Other titles: American doomsday machine, 19451960

Description: Lincoln, NE : Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020015658

ISBN 9781640122345 (hardback)

ISBN 9781640124172 (epub)

ISBN 9781640124189 (mobi)

ISBN 9781640124196 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : Nuclear weaponsUnited StatesHistory20th century. | Targeting (Nuclear strategy)History20th century. | Soviet UnionStrategic aspects. | Strategic forcesHistory20th century. | Deterrence (Strategy)History20th century. | Nuclear warfareGovernment policyUnited StatesHistory20th century. | Military planningUnited StatesHistory20th century. | Cold War.

Classification: LCC U 264.3 . M 36 2021 | DDC 355.02/17097309045dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015658

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This is for Larissa.

If the devil is powerless, send him a woman.Ukrainian proverb

Photographs

Maps

Emergency War Planwas originally going to be a chapter in DeconstructingDr. Strangelove : The Secret History of Nuclear War Films. The availability of substantial amounts of new material resulted in a rethinking of that idea and the conceptualization of this book and its planned sequel dealing with the Single Integrated Operational Plan ( SIOP ). Consequently many of the people acknowledged in DeconstructingDr. Strangelove get thanked again here as the research was to some extent overlapping.