
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, September 21, 1993                   TAG: 9309210019
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

BOOK: U.S. CLOSE TO EDGE IN CUBA CRISIS

The U.S. military came closer to accidental nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis than it has publicly acknowledged, according to a new book on safety problems with U.S. nuclear weapons.

The book recounts several previously undisclosed instances in which key military sensors transmitted false signals or military officers took imprudent actions that could have caused U.S. or Soviet officials to conclude that a nuclear attack was under way, requiring nuclear retaliation.

Details of the events were gleaned from classified military records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Scott Sagan, an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University who worked as a special assistant to the director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff in the mid-1980s.

In "The Limits of Safety," Sagan wrote that his survey uncovered "numerous instances of safety violations, unanticipated operational problems, bizarre and dangerous interactions, and unordered risk-taking" in the handling of U.S. nuclear weapons.

Although none of the incidents brought the country to the brink of a nuclear disaster, Sagan wrote, there "were more close calls" than previously known to the public or even to some senior military officers.

The Cuban missile crisis clearly posed the toughest test ever for U.S. officers responsible for handling nuclear weapons. The month-long alert at so-called DEFCON (level) 2, a state of military readiness just short of nuclear war, was the most grave in U.S. history.

During the crisis, top civilian and military officials, including President John F. Kennedy, ordered that no actions be taken to needlessly provoke Moscow into believing that a U.S. nuclear attack was imminent or under way. Yet on Oct. 26, just two days after the DEFCON 2 alert began, Air Force officers test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile from California into the Pacific Ocean.

Later that day, another U.S. ICBM was test-fired from Florida over Cuba toward the South Atlantic, nearly causing panic at the Omaha headquarters of the Strategic Air Command, which had not been warned of the test in advance.

by CNB