Presents an account of how America was nearly decimated during the Cold War by atomic weapons, drawing on previously classified documents to reveal a sequence of foiled operations, near-misses, and nuclear weapon testing accidents.

Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Inextinguishable -- Prologue: War -- 1945: Necessities -- 1945: Seeds -- 1945: Understanding Hiroshima -- 1946: Disorganization -- 1947: Becoming a weapon -- 1948: Becoming a war command -- 1949: Transformations -- 1950: First lost bomb -- 1950: Truman's hedge -- 1951: Atomic cocktails -- 1951: Rogue waves -- 1952 Asphyxiated -- 1953: Sword and the shield -- 1954: Tower four -- 1954: Weather Island -- 1954: Blunt force -- 1954: Rock -- 1954: Runaway bomb -- 1954: Material condition able -- 1954: Burned out -- 1954: Rescue -- 1955: One bomb apart -- 1955: Tower four -- 1956: Two-man rule -- 1956: Grape babies -- 1957: Cocked bombers -- 1957: Engineering nightmare -- 1958: Hot cargo -- 1958: Bombs-on-base -- 1958: Irretrievably lost -- 1959: Like a ship -- 1959: Jumpy, alert-happy force -- 1960: Hurricane Donna -- 1960: Fire is gravy -- 1961: One-point detonation -- 1961: Clobber factor -- 1961: Collapse -- 1961: Tapping -- 1962: DEFCON -- 1962: Beer cans -- 1963: Dead hand -- 1964: Killing a society -- 1965: Forever lamed -- 1966: Complete weapons -- 1966: Press targets -- 1967: Vietnam -- 1968: 13-8 minutes -- Epilogue -- Language of the Cold War -- Sources -- Index.