The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons by Scott D. Sagan

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 433 plex, insight into administrative management. Schubert discusses in revealing detail how the Corps of Engineers aggressively planned to obtain and control the contract for the construction of these bases, how it made sure it had the power of the purse during construction, and how it set the goals and agenda to complete the work within the three-year time schedule. Problems such as diversion channels for flood control at Ovda, the need for quality control of materials, the work stoppages by imported labor, the allegations of fraud and mis­ management, the overprocurement by contractors, the presence of unexploded ordnance, and the concerns of archaeological deposits are all discussed. However, the focal dilemma Schubert describes was the power struggles between the leaders of the U.S. Air Force, the Israeli Air Force, and the Corps of Engineers. Air Force Brigadier General Paul T. Hartung was assigned to be program manager and liaison between the Corps and Israel. Rather than working out problems, Schubert believes Hartung was the protagonist for quality control. The other protagonist was Israeli Air Force Brigadier General Moshe Bar-Toy, who advocated cost containment. Both of these men served their constituencies during the whole phase of the construction event. In contrast, the Corps had a maze of leaders and Schubert should have provided a flowchart to visualize the frequent changes in manage­ ment. The Corps began by using the Division/District model. This meant that a colonel-level appointment was sent to Israel to work with two strong-willed generals. The stage was set for an interesting modification of Corps management policy. What is surprising is that Schubert was able to document this power struggle with very open and frank appraisals from the leaders involved. Herodotus and Thu­ cydides would have been proud, if not vindicated, by the methodol­ ogy and conclusions Schubert employed in describing a major event in the evolution of another democracy in the Middle East. Raymond H. Merritt Dr. Merritt is dean of the College of Social Sciences at St. Cloud State University. The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons. By Scott D. Sagan. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. Pp. xvi + 286; tables, notes, index. $29.95. In the opening paragraph of The Limits of Safety, Scott Sagan de­ scribes an event that he will come back to several times in the rest of his book: on the night of October 25, 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, a series of events beginning with a bear climbing the fence of Volk Field in Wisconsin almost resulted in the launching of bombers armed with nuclear weapons toward the Soviet Union. “Almost” is a key word here, for Sagan has set himself a curious 434 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE task. He is interested in using historical case studies to consider the possibility of human and/or technological failure resulting in the acci­ dental explosion of nuclear weapons or nuclear war. Because there has never been an actual incident of accidental thermonuclear war or, in fact, of the accidental explosion of a nuclear weapon, he must instead settle for uncovering near misses and postulating what-ifs. Sagan’s case studies focus on a series of incidents involving techno­ logical systems employed by the U.S. government during the Cold War, notably the Cuban missile crisis. Various chapters examine ex­ amples such as an incident involving a potentially dangerous pilot navigation error during Operation “Chrome Dome”; problems with safety procedures in the use of B-52 bombers carrying nuclear bombs; and misinterpretation of data from early warning systems. Through careful and persistent archival research and interviews with military personnel involved in these operations, Sagan’s research has revealed that, not surprisingly, these errors were systematically hid­ den, left out of official records, and kept secret from contemporaries. Sagan has a further agenda. He uses his series of near misses to test two competing models from organizational theory, what he calls “nor­ mal accidents theory” and “high reliability theory.” Normal accidents theory postulates that “accidents are inevitable in complex and tightly coupled systems” (p. 46) for reasons that have to do partly with interac­ tions...