He said, "Gentlemen, thirty minutes ago, without any orders or authorisation, one of my base commanders sent out attack orders to a wing under his command. The wing concerned was on a simulated mission which took them to the point where, in time of war, they could have begun the first part of their attack procedure. In Strategic Air Command we call this point the X point.
"You will see plotted on the map above me the thirty-two X points of the 843rd Wing. From those points the black lines indicate the route of each individual bomber to its target. You will see that every red, that is priority one target, is included in those assigned to the wing. As of this moment, ten thirty-one Greenwich Mean Time, every bomber is between ninety and one hundred minutes flying time from its target.
"There is a particular reason why all the priority one targets have been assigned to the 843rd. It is the one SAC wing which is equipped with the new B-52K types. That means it is the one wing we feel very confident is able to fight its way through and take out all the assigned targets without exception. Until the supersonic B-58 comes into operational use later this year, the 52.Ks are the best we’ve got. They are crammed with electronic devices capable of throwing off track all known Soviet guided missiles, and they carry their own air to air missiles for defense against fighters. Some of you here will already know that tests against live targets over the Gulf lead us to expect a ninety-eight per cent kill rate against attacking fighters.
"As regards offensive strength, each bomber is carrying two weapons of fifteen megaton yield. This power ensures all targets will be taken out if the bombing error does not exceed three miles, and the majority if it does not exceed five. We do not believe it will in fact exceed one mile.
"To sum up, I consider the 843rd will reach and hit its targets. All of them. That means in something under two hours from now Soviet offensive capability will be effectively destroyed. I’ll answer any questions I can."
There was a low buzz of conversation in the room, mostly from the small groups of aides and staff officers. Franklin stood impassive on the platform. His face was quite expressionless. No-one could possibly have known the thoughts that were chasing through his mind. He felt deep down that, maybe Quinten was right, that this could be the only possible solution for the free world. But he gave no outward indication of his feeling.
Navy got in the first question. Admiral Maclellan was not the typical sea dog one visualised as Chief of Naval Operations. He was slight, almost delicate in build, with a sharp featured, intelligent face. "I take it there’s some technical reason you can’t just recall the wing?" be asked.
Franklin said bluntly, "There is. The base commander concerned picked one of the emergency plans which envisaged a commander having to act on his own because the higher echelons had been knocked out by sudden attack. He selected a plan which requires recall orders, or any orders at all, to be preceded by a three-letter group, once the initial attack instructions have been given. Without that group, the planes cannot receive the message. To guard against possible sabotage, the letters are given to the crews by the commander personally at the briefing. He and his deputy keep the letters involved a secret between them. In this case the deputy is along with the wing. And the commander refuses to recall the planes. Does that answer you, Admiral?"
"Certainly," Maclellan said. "Who is the base commander, by the way?"
Franklin hesitated. He looked towards the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Steele. Steele nodded. Franklin said slowly, "It was the base commander of Sonora, Brigadier General Quinten."
There was a low murmur round the room. Several of the Air Force officers present knew Quinten, and one or two of them knew him well. Their remarks were cut short as the Army Chief of Staff, General Keppler, growled, "You mean your system’s loose enough to let a thing like this happen? No safeguards against it?" His tone implied this was just the kind of thing he expected from Air Force. He was a big, burly man, a brilliant commander of armour who had come up the hard way by serving an apprenticeship as one of Patton’s column commanders, and then made a name when the Korean fighting was at its most bitter. He admired the Air Force for its close support of infantry and armour in the field, and detested the whole conception of SAC. Now he flowered steadily at Franklin.
The SAC general fought down the quick surge of anger he felt rising inside him. He considered Keppler a bigot and an archaic relic, who had failed utterly to grasp the new global strategy. But this was not the time for futile bickering and argument. He said quietly, "General, no system yet devised proof against any and all human failings. SAC plans were as accident proof as they could reasonably be made."
"Reasonably accident proof," Keppler said loudly. "That isn’t what you put out in the press releases back in the spring of ‘58. When that storm blew up over your planes hauling the actual weapons over the Pole and heading towards Russia. There was supposed to be a marvellous system to prevent this sort of thing. Failsafe or something like that. What’s happened to it? Did it ever exist? Or was it just something Air Force dreamed up for the benefit of the newspapers and Congress?"
"It exists." Franklin’s voice was still quiet. He was not going to let Keppler goad him into losing his temper. "What we released to the press was entirely true. But it wasn’t the entire truth. It couldn’t be."
"Why not?"
"Funnily enough, because we are dedicated to the principle of retaliation rather than original aggression. We accept that we will receive the first blow. Naturally, we hope our defences will be tight enough so that blow doesn’t knock us right out of the ring. But to be completely realistic our plans had to take into account the possibility that first blow might be really devastating. You’ll concede there is that possibility, General?"
"I will," Keppler said shortly.
"All right then, let’s look at the position might arise. Washington and Omaha gone. Communications hopelessly snarled up. No central direction left. Yet the probability is that somewhere in the U.S.A. one or possibly more of our offensive bases would survive. A base commander might well find himself the only surviving officer with an effective force. There might be no command left to which he could look for orders. His communications might be completely disrupted, and his base entirely cut off from the rest of the world.
"Obviously, in a position like that, he would have to be empowered to act on his own initiative. Plan R provided for just that situation. Now the commander at Sonora has used it. We don’t know why, we only know the human element has failed us. The risk was always there but it had to be accepted, because only by its acceptance could we guarantee an aggressor would never escape retaliation so long as one of our bases, or even one of our wings, survived. We accepted a risk, and we lost out. That’s all."
Keppler grunted. In spite of his feelings about SAC he was a fair man. He appreciated a situation might arise where it would be necessary to plan for a base commander being able to act independently. That way, an error away from the enemy could be prevented. But in every case like that there was an inevitable risk of an error towards the enemy. It was slight, it was infinitesimal even, but it was there. Obviously in this ease a combination of circumstances had given the commander a chance to make that error. Later, he would make sure the reason that particular commander had been left in command was fully examined. The Air Force weren’t going to bury that one. But for the present, it didn’t matter. The error had been made, the action taken, a SAC wing committed to battle. In his opinion here was little to be decided. The action they should take now was quite clear cut.