on October 22, 2005, a British Airways A319 flight from London Heathrow Airport to Budapest, Hungary, suffered a similar problem: See UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch, “Report on the Serious Incident to Airbus 319-11, Registration G-EXAC, Near Nantes, France, on September 15, 2006,” Aircraft Accident Report 4/2009, July 2009.
a United Airlines flight from Newark to Denver suffered a nearly identical failure: National Transportation Safety Board (NTSA), “Safety Recommendations A-08-53 through 55,” July 22, 2008.
At least four such incidents had occurred in the United Statesafterthe FAA directive was issued in 2010: David Porter, “Airbuses Suffer Cockpit Power Failure, Await Fixes,” Associated Press, August 11, 2012.
a Reagan-era program of psychological operations initiated to strengthen deterrence against Moscow: The Reagan-era PSYOP program and its contribution to the “War Scare” of 1983 are described by Benjamin B. Fischer in “A Cold War Conundrum: The 1983 Soviet War Scare,” intelligence monograph, Central Intelligence Agency, September 1997.
“They had no idea what it all meant”: William Schneider, a former US State Department official who reviewed classified after-action reports, as quoted in Peter Schweizer, Victory: The Reagan Administration’s Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994).
This conclusion reflected a broader consensus within the US intelligence community that Kim Jong Un was rational and could be deterred: This belief is discussed at length in a classified assessment—a 2017 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)—described in Nancy A. Youssef, “Why the US Considers North Korea’s Kim a ‘Rational Actor,’” Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2017.
“The phrase has never, ever been uttered by anyone in the White House”: An anonymous senior official, as quoted in David Nakamura and Greg Jaffe, “The White House’s ‘Bloody Nose’ Strategy on North Korea Sounds Trumpian. So Why Do His Aides Hate It?” Washington Post, February 26, 2018.
The US Air Force had established a “continuous bomber presence” mission at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam: The “continuous bomber presence” mission is described in Amy McCullough, “Bombers on Guam,” Air Force Magazine 98: 8, August 2015, 20–25.
This work fell to the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center (JIOWC) at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio: JIOWC’s activities are highly classified, but one area of responsibility is developing approaches to messaging about US capabilities to strengthen deterrence. See [author redacted], “Cybersecurity: Capabilities and Related Policy Issues,” RL31787, Congressional Research Service, March 17, 2009.
Pentagon officials highlighteda series of three flights involving B-1 and B-52 bombers in March 2013: Thom Shanker and Choe Sang-hun, “US Runs Practice Sortie in South Korea,” New York Times, March 28, 2013.
Again, in 2016, the Obama administration publicized three more flights: Yoo Han-bin, “US Bombers Fly over South Korea for Second Time since North’s Nuclear Test,” Reuters, September 20, 2016.
with twelve publicly announced flights taking place in 2017: The estimate of twelve publicly announced bomber flights in 2017 is based on Department of Defense press releases.
Starting in 2017, operations were in some cases conducted at night and much farther north: “Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers from Guam, along with Air Force F-15C Eagle fighter escorts from Okinawa, Japan, flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea today, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana W. White said in a statement announcing the mission. This is the farthest north of the Demilitarized Zone any US fighter or bomber aircraft have flown off North Korea’s coast in the 21st century, White said. The mission underscores the seriousness with which the United States takes North Korea’s ‘reckless behavior,’ she added.” US Department of Defense, “US Bombers, Fighter Escorts Fly over Waters East of North Korea,” press release, September 23, 2017.
a brand-new system, which the North Koreans called the Pongae-5 surface-to-air missile: Joost Oliemans and Stijn Mitzer, “North Korea’s Pongae-5 Anti-Air Missile: What Do We Know?” NK News, June 2, 2017.
North Korean state media openly referenced the “defects” that had slowed its development: “Kim Jong Un Watches Test of New-Type Anti-Aircraft Guided Weapon System,” KCNA, May 28, 2017.
“We received an order that an American bomber was violating our airspace”: Roh’s remarks are based loosely on comments by Gennadi Osipovich, the Soviet pilot who in 1983 shot down KAL 007, a civilian airliner that strayed into Soviet airspace—an event widely attributed to the tension that arose from the Reagan-era PSYOPS program. “I saw two rows of windows and knew that this was a Boeing,” Osipovich told the New York Times’s Michael Gordon. “I knew this was a civilian plane. But for me this meant nothing. It is easy to turn a civilian type of plane into one for military use.” He also told Gordon that even “those who did not take part in this operation received double their monthly pay. At that time, monthly pay was 230 rubles. So I expected to be paid at least 400 rubles.” Michael R. Gordon, “Ex-Soviet Pilot Still Insists KAL 007 Was Spying,” New York Times, December 9, 1996.
“It is retrogression of sorts that the President’s office exists as a smallCheong Wa DaewithinCheong Wa Dae”: Choi Sung-jin, “Blue House’s Building Layout Ineffective in Emergency,” Korea Times, November 7, 2015.
the Cheong Wa Dae complex retained two very important government functions: “No Blue House for South Korea’s New President,” Associated Press, May 10, 2017.
Many of her political opponents . . . had demanded to know what became of the “seven missing hours”: Kim Bo-eun, “President’s ‘7 Missing Hours’ Still Shrouded in Mystery,” Korea Times, November 26, 2016.
while another reported that she was having plastic surgery: James Pearson and Yun Hwan Chae, “South Korea Lawmakers to Quiz Doctors, Nurses about Park’s ‘Missing’ Seven Hours,” Reuters, December 13, 2016.
They turned the documents over to investigators and filed a complaint: “Former President Park’s Four Aides Indicted for Doctoring Time Log of Sewol Sinking Report,” Yonhap, March 28, 2018.
“Neither South-North relations nor US-North relations will go far if the other fails”: Kang In-sun, “Interview with Suh Hoon” (in Korean), Chosun Ilbo, March 10, 2018, translated by Grace Liu.
“Dialogue is impossible in a situation like this”: “Moon Says Dialogue with N. Korea ‘Impossible,’” Yonhap News Agency, September 15, 2017.
North Korea’s relentless “strategic and tactical provocations”: “JCS Chief Nominee Vows to Build Military ‘Feared by Enemies, Trusted by Citizens,’” Yonhap, August 18, 2017.
“President Moon seems to have meant that we ought to be doing everything we can to prevent a crisis situation”: Park Byong-su, “New Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Claims South Korea Can Achieve Air Superiority within Three Days of Conflict,” Hankyoreh, August 19, 2017.
Lee wanted a big and bold response, but military officials pushed him to consult with the United States: “Ex-President Lee Ordered All-Out Retaliation after North’s Yeonpyeong Bombardment in 2010,” Yonhap, December 13, 2015.
“South Korea’s original plans for retaliation were, we thought, disproportionately aggressive”: Robert Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), 497.
satellite images later showed that its retaliation had done little or no damage: Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., The Yonp’yong-do Incident, November 23, 2010, Special Report 11-1, January 11, 2011.
“Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation” . . . had been publicly described in some detail after 2016: “South Korea Announces ‘Massive Punishment and Retaliation’ in Response to Fifth Nuke Test,” Hankyoreh, September 13, 2016.
“wiping a certain section of Pyongyang completely off the map”: “S. Korea Unveils Plan to Raze Pyongyang in Case of Signs of Nuclear Attack,” Yonhap, September 11, 2016.
Pyongyang . . . would“be reduced to ashes”: “S. Korea Unveils Plan to Raze Pyongyang.”
striking ninety-seven targets over four days, including three presidential palaces and the headquarters of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party: Anthony H. Cordesman, The Lessons of Desert Fox: A Preliminary Analysis (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, February 16, 1999).
US and South Korean officials did, of course, visit the headquarters: The US Department of Defense released a pair of images from Admiral Cecil Haney’s visit to the ROK Army Missile Command headquarters on June 23, 2015.
“The issues on the rules of engagement . . . should be discussed”: Yi Whan-woo, “Rules of Engagement at JSA in Dispute,” Korea Times, November 16, 2017.
Sometimes surprised wedding-goers even had an unscheduled appearance by the president: Jaime A. Cardenas, “Trump Crashes Nashville Socialite’s Wedding at Mar-a-Lago,” USA Today, February 13, 2017.
Over the years, these shelters had been repurposed to serve as storage and, for a time, as an office for Trump’s butler: Alex Leary, “Greeting from Mar-a-Lago: Donald Trump’s Presidential Paradise,” Tampa Bay Times, November 25, 2016.
“Pompeo kept feeding Trump assessments”: This quotation is based on the assessment of “several officials familiar with [White House] discussions” as described by Matt Spetalnick, Arshad Mohammed, and Hyonhee Shin, “’He’s Such a Dreamer’: Skepticism Dogs US Envoy’s North Korean Peace Efforts,” Reuters, November 3, 2017.
“spends that time in his [executive] residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting”: Anonymous “officials,” as described by Jonathan Swan, “Trump’s Secret, Shrinking Schedule,” Axios, January 7, 2018.
“Once he goes upstairs [to the residence], there’s no managing him”: An anonymous “adviser,” as quoted in Ashley Parker and Robert Costa, “‘Everyone Tunes In’: Inside Trump’s Obsession with Cable TV,” Washington Post, April 23, 2017.
“But if he wants to watch [television], it’s not like we can say, ‘Oh, the TV doesn’t work’”: Anonymous official, as quoted in Matthew Nussbaum, Josh Dawsey, Darren Samuelsohn, and Tara Palmeri, “West Wing Aides Fearful of Directly Attacking Comey,” Politico, June 7, 2017.
In one case, a golf club member invited a New York Times reporter: Michael S. Schmidt, “Our Reporter Mike Schmidt on His Golf Club Interview with President Trump,” New York Times, December 29, 2017.
Of particular interest was a list of late-night phone calls: Dan Amira, “Blogger Who Allegedly Slept with Female Candidate Releases the Texts,” New York, May 26, 2010.
Once in office, even uglier rumors about Haley began to spread: Wolff only hints at the possibility of an affair in Fire and Fury (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2018, 305–306), although he drew attention to suggestive passages in a 2018 television interview with Bill Maher.
Trump had famously posed as his own publicist to spread rumors to gossip columnists: Marc Fisher and Will Hobson, “Donald Trump Masqueraded as Publicist to Brag about Himself,” Washington Post, May 13, 2016.
Haley called him “Lemon”: This detail and others are drawn from a profile of Lerner by Kambiz Foroohar, “Haley’s UN Brinkmanship Comes with Advice by Long-Time Pollster,” Bloomberg, September 11, 2017.
“there are no dissidents in China”: Shi Jiangtao, “Why Ma Zhaoxu, China’s New Man at the United Nations, Signals Greater Ambition on Global Stage,” South China Morning Post, January 21, 2018.
For instance, Hillary Clinton has often told a story: Laura Blumenfeld, “For State Department Officers Directing Calls, Adrenaline Always on the Line,” Washington Post, July 14, 2010.
Madeleine Albright needed to reach a diplomat who was out of contact at a football game: Daniel Stone, “Hillary Clinton’s State Department Nerve Center: Inside the Other Situation Room,” Daily Beast, May 19, 2011.
the State Department had used the New York channel before: Josh Rogin, “Inside the ‘New York Channel’ between the United States and North Korea,” Washington Post, August 11, 2017.
“pressure, compete with, and outmaneuver” US adversaries: Nahal Toosi, “Leaked Memo Schooled Tillerson on Human Rights,” Politico, December 19, 2017.
Hook had stayed on: “For now, however, another top Tillerson aide, Brian Hook, appears to be staying in place. Hook has also spurred resentment in Foggy Bottom for using the division under his control, the Policy Planning Staff, to effectively take over many decisions and tasks traditionally left to the department’s regional and functional bureaus.” Nahal Toosi, “Top Tillerson Aides Resign amid State Department Shuffle,” Politico, March 14, 2018.
“Believe it or not, I do not follow the tweets”: Noah Bierman, “Trump’s Chief of Staff: ‘I Do Not Follow the Tweets,’” Los Angeles Times, November 12, 2017.
“pushing the tweets in the right direction”: Josh Dawsey, “John Kelly’s Big Challenge: Controlling the Tweeter in Chief,” Politico, August 4, 2017.
In fact, she had merely extinguished a trash fire: Max Fisher, “North Korean ‘Traffic Girl’ May Have Won Military Award for Saving Kim Jong Un Poster,” Washington Post, May 9, 2013.
the US Department of Defense took more than an hour to activate its alternate command center at Site R: Rick Newman and Patrick Creed, Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11 (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 2008), 174.
According to Ahmed El-Noamany: Chad O’Carroll, “Inside North Korea’s Cell Network: Ex-Koryolink Technical Director Reveals All,” NK News, August 20, 2015.
US and United Nations forces captured thousands of hours of secret recordings of meetings, phone calls, and conferences: This section is modeled on the discussion found in David D. Palkki, Kevin M. Woods, and Mark Stout, The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of a Tyrant’s Regime, 1978–2001 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
“plotting bastards”: I have chosen a Korean equivalent of “conspiring bastards”—the term that Saddam used to describe the United States. See Hal Brands and David Palkki, “‘Conspiring Bastards’: Saddam Hussein’s Strategic View of the United States,” Diplomatic History 36, no. 3 (June 2012): 625–659.
Images of Jang being led away: “Traitor Jang Song Thaek Executed,” Korean Central News Agency, December 13, 2013.
The North Koreans simply said that Jang had been shot: Alistair Bunkall, “North Korea: Kim Jong-Un Official Speaks,” Sky News, January 30, 2014.
when North Korean agents rubbed a nerve agent in his face at the Kuala Lumpur airport: Kyle Swenson, “A Gruesome North Korean Murder Plot: Trial Sheds New Light on Assassination of Kim Jong Un’s Brother,” Washington Post, October 17, 2017.
North Korean agents continued to make attempts on the lives of his children: Lee Young-Jong and Lee Sung-Eun, “China Arrests Would-be Assassins of Kim Han-sol,” JoongAng Ilbo, November 1, 2017.
“There’s a clarity of purpose in what Kim Jong Un has done”: Zachary Cohen, “CIA: North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un Isn’t Crazy,” CNN, October 6, 2017.
In October 2017, for example, North Korea alleged that it had discovered a plot to assassinate Kim Jong Un: “In May this year, a group of heinous terrorists who infiltrated into our country on the orders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US and the South Korean puppet Intelligence Service with the purpose of carrying out a state-sponsored terrorism against our supreme headquarters using biological and chemical substance were caught and exposed.” “DPRK Representative on Principled Stand of DPRK on Terrorism,” Korean Central News Agency, October 6, 2017.
“get China to make that guy disappear in one form or another very quickly”: “Trump on Assassinating Kim Jong Un: ‘I’ve Heard of Worse Things,’” CBS News, February 10, 2016.
In December 2014, North Korea suffered a massive distributed denial-of-service attack: Ashley Feinberg, “So Who Shut Down North Korea’s Internet?” Gizmodo, December 23, 2014.
And in late 2017, the United States accused North Korea of conducting another large-scale cyber-attack called Wanna Cry: “US Blames North Korea for ‘WannaCry’ Cyber Attack,” Reuters, December 18, 2017.
The day before the invasion was set to begin: The attack on Dora Farm is described in detail by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor in Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Random House, 2007), 188–204.
“Right now we present ideal targets for atomic weapons in Pusan and Inchon”: “Substance of Discussions of State–Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting Held in Room 2C-923, the Pentagon Building, on Friday, March 27, 1953, at 11:30 AM, Top Secret, Minutes, c. March 27, 1953.”
“As early as 1965, Kim Il-sung had said that North Korea should develop rockets and missiles to hit US forces inside Japan”: Ko Young-hwan, in “North Korean Missile Proliferation,” hearing before the Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, S. Hrg. 105–241, October 21, 1997, 18.
“Kim Jong Il believes that if North Korea creates more than 20,000 American casualties in the region”: Ko Young-hwan, “North Korean Missile Proliferation,” 5.
North Korea was “well aware of [the] foolishness of Saddam Hussein”: “US Slightest Misjudgment of DPRK Will Lead It to Final Doom: KCNA Commentary,” KCNA, March 13, 2017.
Iran had, for many years, trained its proxies to attack American-made Patriot defenses: Conflict Armament Research, “Iranian Technology Transfers to Yemen: ‘Kamikaze’ Drones Used by Houthi Forces to Attack Coalition Missile Defence Systems,” March 2017.
After an Israeli battery shot down a $200 quadcopter with a $3 million Patriot missile: “Israel Uses Patriot Missile to Shoot Down Drone,” Associated Press, November 13, 2017.
North Korea released images of drones being used in combat and paraded them through Pyongyang: Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., “North Korea Drones On, Redux,” 38North, January 19, 2016.
Soldiers on runs would log their route: Liz Sly, “US Soldiers Are Revealing Sensitive and Dangerous Information by Jogging,” Washington Post, January 29, 2018.
a North Korean drone had crashed while taking pictures of the site: Thomas Gibbons-Neff, “Suspected North Korean Drone Photographed Advanced US Missile Defense Site, Report Says,” Washington Post, June 13, 2017.
They trained to reduce that launch time to about twenty minutes: The estimate of twenty minutes is provided in an account of Iraqi Scud operations and the challenges associated with hunting them. See Peter de la Billière, Storm Command: A Personal Account of the Gulf War (New York: HarperCollins, 2008).
within fifteen minutes, the unit needed to move 15 kilometers away: The Iraqis trained to be within nine miles of the launch point within fifteen minutes. See Jeffrey D. Isaacson and David R. Vaughan, Estimation and Prediction of Ballistic Missile Trajectories, RAND/MR-737-AF (Washington, DC: RAND, 1996).
Because it was Saturday morning, his son-in-law and daughter were out of contact: The Kushners discussed turning off their cell phones in a profile for Vogue. Jonathan van Meter, “Ivanka Trump Knows What It Means to Be a Modern Millennial,” Vanity Fair, February 24, 2015.
The secure video conference hardware in the Mar-a-Lago Situation Room was made by CISCO: “It’s possible the black box to the left of the photo is a Cisco Telepresence Touch, according to Brian Roemmele.” Sarah Emerson, “What the Heck Are These Electronic Devices in Trump’s Situation Room?” Motherboard, April 7, 2017.
Chuck Robbins, had been critical of a number of Trump initiatives: Berkeley Lovelace Jr., “Cisco’s Chuck Robbins: CEOs on Trump Panels Followed Their Conscience and Now It’s Time to Move On,” CNBC, August 17, 2017.
But when the president did not forget, he grew increasingly angry with Tillerson for slow-rolling him: David E. Sanger, “Trump Seeks Way to Declare Iran in Violation of Nuclear Deal,” New York Times, July 27, 2017.
When Trump suggested something crazy, Mattis would compliment the president on his strong instincts: This strategy is attributed to Mattis in Peter Nicholas and Rebecca Ballhaus, “Talking to Trump: A How-To Guide,” Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2018.
The White House would often simply refuse to confirm whether the president was playing golf: “Officials often don’t release details about whether Trump is golfing, and with whom, and reporters have a tough time confirming what he’s doing.” Amanda Terkel, “White House Says Secret Rounds of Golf Make Donald Trump a Better President,” Huffington Post, January 2, 2018.
In one case, a white panel truck just happened to appear: Elizabeth Preza, “‘We Can See You, Mister!’: CNN’s Keilar Mocks Truck Driver Who Obscured His Face While Blocking Trump Golfing,” Raw Story, December 27, 2017. The Secret Service and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office both denied placing the truck. See Brett Samuels, “Secret Service Denies Hiding Trump’s Golfing from Media,” The Hill, December 27, 2017.
was parked in a spot reserved for the Palm Beach County sheriff: “CNN Learns Whose Truck Blocked View of Trump,” Anderson Cooper 360, December 30, 2017.
This is what the historian Roberta Wohlstetter called the “background of expectation”: Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962).
Both the Roberts Commission . . . and the 9/11 Commission observed: See Report of the Commission Appointed by the President of the United States to Investigate and Report the Facts Relating to the Attack Made by Japanese Armed Forces upon Pearl Harbor in the Territory of Hawaii on December 7, 1941, Senate Document 77-2, 1942; Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (9/11 Commission Report) (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2004).
Former president Trump was emphatic that the commission note his score: This quote is adapted from a remark Trump reportedly made in 2007 to reporter David Owen, who wrote: “He was upset that I hadn’t written that he’d shot 71—a very good golf score, one stroke under par. He wanted the number, and the fact that I hadn’t published the number proved that I was just like all the other biased reporters, who, because we’re all part of the anti-Trump media conspiracy, never give him as much credit as he deserves.” Owen, “Lessons from Playing Golf with Trump,” New Yorker, January 14, 2007.
Kenichi Murakami was the chief of the Tokyo Fire Department: Kenichi Murakami is, in fact, the name of the chief of the Tokyo Fire Department, although the character depicted here is completely fictional.
The traditional ladder-wielding fireman depicted in Kabuki theater or in a woodblock print: The description of Edo firefighters is drawn from William W. Kelly, “Incendiary Actions: Fires and Firefighting in the Shogun’s Capital and the People’s City,” in Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era, eds. James L. McClain, John M. Merriman, and Kaoru Ugawa (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994).
The Olympic Security Command Center (OSCC) was now largely functional and outside of central Tokyo: Tokyo’s Olympic Security Command Center is described in Eva Kassens-Noor and Tatsuya Fukushige, “Tokyo 2020 and Beyond: The Urban Technology Metropolis,” Journal of Urban Technology, published online July 1, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1080/10630732.2016.1157949.
Oh Soo-hyun shared a name with a doctor in a Korean soap opera: There really is a South Korean television drama with a doctor named Oh Soo Hyun. The Dr. Oh depicted here, however, is a fictional homage to the real Dr. Terafumi Sasaki, who was profiled in John Hersey’s Hiroshima (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946).
With more than 72,000 hospital beds: The statistics in this section are drawn from Oh Youngho, “Optimal Supply and the Efficient Use of Hospital Bed Resources in Korea,” Working Paper 2015-21, Korea Institute of Health and Social Affairs, 2015.
After reassessing the status of North Korea’s nuclear development: The 2017 reassessment of the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is detailed in two news reports from August of that year. “The analysis, completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency, comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country’s atomic arsenal. The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.” Joby Warrick, Ellen Nakashima, and Anna Fifield, “North Korea Now Making Missile-Ready Nuclear Weapons, US Analysts Say,” Washington Post, August 8, 2017.
The low end remained at thirty: “Some US assessments conclude North Korea has produced or can make around 30 to 60 nuclear weapons, said two US officials who weren’t authorized to discuss sensitive intelligence matters and demanded anonymity.” “Estimates of North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Are Difficult to Nail Down,” Associated Press, August 18, 2017.
North Korea could be adding as many as twelve nuclear weapons a year to its arsenal: “Sources have told The Diplomat that the DIA assesses North Korea, given its current uranium enrichment activities, is likely capable of generating an additional 12 weapons worth of fissile material a year. The DIA assessment of 60 weapons assumes the use of composite pit core designs for nuclear bombs by North Korea; composite pits combine plutonium-239 and uranium highly enriched in uranium-235, the two fissile material isotopes suitable for nuclear bombs, to more efficiently design bombs.” Ankit Panda, “US Intelligence: North Korea May Already Be Annually Accruing Enough Fissile Material for 12 Nuclear Weapons,” Diplomat, August 9, 2017.
The estimate that increased the number of North Korean nuclear weapons . . . had even been leaked to the Washington Post in the summer of 2017: Warrick, Nakashima, and Fifield, “North Korea Now Making Missile-Ready Nuclear Weapons.”
“It was built of four and a half feet of steel and concrete”: Donald Trump, as quoted in Tom Junod, “Trump,” Esquire, January 29, 2007.
“Kim’s missiles keep crashing”: Jeremy Scahill, Alex Emmons, and Ryan Grim, “Read the Full Transcript of Trump’s Call with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte,” Intercept, May 23, 2017.
Mike Pompeo . . . had figured out . . . how to carefully move the goalposts by referring to North Korea’s ability to build a reliable ICBM: See, for example, Pompeo’s remarks at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies 2017 National Security Summit, held on October 19, 2017.
“We have missiles that can knock out a missile in the air 97 percent of the time”: Glenn Kessler, “Trump’s Claim That a US Interceptor Can Knock out ICBMs ‘97 Percent of the Time,’” Washington Post, October 13, 2017.
The current plan, OPLAN 5015, was a preemptive attack: Park Byong-su, “S. Korean and US Militaries Draw up a New Operation Plan,” Hankyoreh, August 28, 2015.
“The nuclear weapon’s only good against cities”: Interview with General Charles Horner, commander of the US Ninth Air Force, conducted by Frontline/BBC, c. 1995.
“No one advanced the notion of using nuclear weapons”: George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed: The Collapse of the Soviet Empire, the Unification of Germany, Tiananmen Square, the Gulf War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 463.
When Mattis was out of government, he worked closely at Stanford with George Shultz: Paul Sonne, “How Mattis Changed His Mind on Nuclear Weapons,” Washington Post, February 5, 2018.
“I don’t think there’s any such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon”: Aaron Mehta, “Mattis: No Such Thing as a ‘Tactical’ Nuclear Weapon, but New Cruise Missile Needed,” Defense News, February 6, 2018.
Kim Jong Un . . . knocked it down: Curtis Melvin, “Kim Il Sung’s Hyangsan Palace Demolished: Building Kim Il Sung Reported to Have Died in Razed, Replaced with Young Trees,” NK News, April 24, 2014.
In 2019, Kim ordered the construction of a magnificent new palace: The construction of the palace is a fiction, but the construction of the airstrip is real. James Pearson, “The Flying Marshal: North Korea Builds Private Runways for Plane-Loving Kim,” Reuters, August 19, 2015.
Admiral Philip Davidson was the commander of US Pacific Command: The depiction of Davidson is based on Gordon Lubold and Nancy A. Youssef, “Likely US Pacific Commander Has Spent Little Time in Asia,” Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2018.
popular with the press and fawning politicians for his blunt remarks: Jane Perlez, “A US Admiral’s Bluntness Rattles China, and Washington,” New York Times, May 6, 2016.
The Chinese government in particular reportedly had sought Harris’s removal: “China Urged US to Fire Pacific Command Chief Harris in Return for Pressure on North Korea,” Kyodo, May 6, 2017.
Although some found Harris undiplomatic, Trump did not: Gerry Mullany and Jacqueline Williams, “Trump’s Pick for US Ambassador to Australia Heads to Seoul Instead,” New York Times, April 24, 2018.
In one case, the phrase caused a minor panic: Dan Lamothe, “‘Fight Tonight’? Explaining Trump’s Retweet That Says US Bombers Are Ready to Strike North Korea,” Washington Post, August 11, 2017.
It turned out that Iraqi units, facing heavy bombardment, had simply deserted their equipment: Perry D. Jamieson, Lucrative Targets: The US Air Force in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations (Washington, DC: US Air Force, Air Force History and Museums Program, 2001), 90–91.
“reduce the US mainland into ashes and darkness”: “KAPPC Spokesman on DPRK Stand toward UNSC ‘Sanctions Resolution,’” KCNA, September 13, 2017.
The phrase came up again and again in interrogations: The quotation and a story about its meaning told by a North Korean defector named Kim Hyun Sik appear in “The Secret History of Kim Jong Il,” Foreign Policy, October 6, 2009.
the United States could not confirm that even a single one of Sad-dam’s Scuds had been destroyed: According to an official postwar assessment, “there is no indisputable proof that Scud mobile launchers—as opposed to high-fidelity decoys, trucks, or other objects with Scud-like signatures—were destroyed by fixed-wing aircraft.” Thomas A. Kearney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey: Summary Report (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1993), 89–90.
“In the end . . . the best one can say is that some mobile launchers may have been destroyed”: This sentence is from an official post–1991 Gulf War assessment cited earlier also asks: “How effective were such efforts? It is hard to say in a tactical sense; the evidence of how many mobile Scuds and their launchers Coalition air attacks destroyed or damaged remains spotty. It does appear that a number of tanker trucks on the way to Jordan or Basra paid a severe price for having infrared signatures resembling mobile launchers; some Bedouins also may have paid a similar price for having elongated, heated tents in the desert blackness that looked like canvas-draped Scuds. In the end, the best one can say is that some mobile launchers may have been destroyed. Although Iraqi launch rates of modified Scuds—particularly of coordinated salvos—dropped over the course of the campaign, and while mobile Scud operations were subjected to increasing pressures and disruption, most (and possibly all) of the roughly 100 mobile launchers reported destroyed by Coalition aircraft and special operation forces now appear to have been either decoys, other vehicles[, or] objects unfortunate enough to provide Scud-like signatures” (emphasis added). Thomas A. Kearney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey: Operations Effects and Effectiveness, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1993), 189.
“Those guys were like cockroaches”: Tom McIntyre, as quoted in William L. Smallwood, Strike Eagle: Flying the F-15E in the Gulf War (Sterling, VA: Brassey’s, 1997), 138.
“It’s a huge flame and your first reaction is that it’s a SAM”: McIntyre, as quoted in Smallwood, Strike Eagle, 138.
For the invasion of Iraq, the Navy moved more than 56 million square feet of cargo: The statistics and comparison are to be found in D. L. Brewer III, “Operation Iraqi Freedom—Clearing the Hurdles,” SEALIFT, June 2004.
North Korea was targeting Texas because of its excellent business climate: Katie Glueck, “Perry on Why N. Korea Targets Texas,” Politico, April 3, 2013.
We did tests, the foundation is anchored into the coral reef: Donald Trump, as quoted in Tom Junod, “Trump,” Esquire, January 29, 2007.
“There’s no big red button to put that [interceptor] in play”: Colonel Kevin Kick, as quoted in “Inside the Gates: Alaska’s 49th Missile Battalion,” KTVA, January 18, 2018.
The panel proposed replacing the system in Alaska entirely, calling the defense it offered “fragile”: “The ground-based interceptors (GBIs), as part of the GMD system deployed at Fort Greely, Alaska (FGA), and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California (VAFB), evolved to their current configuration through a series of decisions and constraints. They provide an early, but fragile, US homeland defense capability in response primarily to a potential North Korean threat.” Committee on an Assessment of Concepts and Systems for US Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives, Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment of Concepts and Systems for US Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2012), 130–131.
mocking the “hobby shop” approach of the people who built it: “MDA’s [Missile Defense Agency] efforts have spawned an almost ‘hobby shop’ approach, with many false starts on poorly analyzed concepts. For example, analysis of successful programs with missiles of comparable complexity—that is, with the comparison costs at a similar point of development maturity and at 2010 dollars—suggests that the current GMD interceptors are approximately 30 to 50 percent more expensive than they should be at this point in the program.” Committee on an Assessment of Concepts and Systems, Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense, 11.
In nearly twenty years of testing, the system had worked only nine out of eighteen times: Sydney Freedberg, “GMD Missile Defense Hits ICBM Target, Finally,” Breaking Defense, May 30, 2017.
“It’s stupid”: David Willman, “Trump Administration Moves to Boost Homeland Missile Defense System Despite Multiple Flaws,” Los Angeles Times, December 24, 2017.
But tests were expensive, costing nearly $300 million each: George Lewis, “How Much Do GMD Tests Cost?” Mostly Missile Defense, December 28, 2012.
One document plainly admitted that the “deterrence value” of the system was “decreased by unsuccessful flights”: US Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency, Final Report of the Missile Defense Agency’s Independent Review Team (IRT), 2005.
“It assumes that the failure modes of the interceptors are independent of one another”: James Acton, as quoted in Kessler, “Trump’s Claim That a US Interceptor Can Knock out ICBMs ‘97 Percent of the Time.’”
“If there’s a foreign object in one unit, it’s sort of whistling past the graveyard”: David Willman, “There’s a Flaw in the Homeland Missile Defense System. The Pentagon Sees No Need to Fix It,” Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2017.
“give us a limited capability to deal with a relatively small number of incoming ballistic missiles”: The quote is from actual secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld during a December 17, 2002, briefing at the Department of Defense.
“The method used by the Army to assess warhead kills”: This quote is a passage from actual testimony by Steven Hildreth, a researcher at the Congressional Research Service, who independently reviewed the data provided by the Army on the performance of the Patriot missile defense system in the 1991 Gulf War. Congressional Research Service, “Evaluation of US Army Assessment of Patriot Antitactical Missile Effectiveness in the War against Iraq,” testimony prepared for the House Government Operations Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security, April 7, 1992.
“normally a protocol no-no”: Andrew Card, speaking about September 11, 2001, as quoted in Garrett M. Graff, “‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky,’” Politico, September 9, 2016. Many of the following quotations about Air Force One, as cited, are in fact real recollections of real people from September 11, 2001. Notable as source material in this regard is Graff’s excellent oral history of the day, as published by Politico, as well as an account by Mark Tillman, the pilot of Air Force One that day, that appeared in Dennis Wagner, “On 9/11, Air Force One Pilot’s Only Concern Was President Bush’s Safety,” Arizona Republic, September 11, 2011.
“My boss . . . called and told me to depart as soon as the president got on board”: Tillman, as told to Wagner, “On 9/11, Air Force One Pilot’s Only Concern Was President Bush’s Safety.”
“They were drooling all [over] the luggage”: Sonya Ross, speaking about September 11, 2001, as quoted in Graff, “‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky.’”
“It was a full-thrust departure . . . up like a rocket”: Tillman, as quoted in Wagner, “On 9/11, Air Force One Pilot’s Only Concern Was President Bush’s Safety.”
“We were climbing so high and so fast”: Ellen Eckert, speaking about September 11, 2001, as quoted in Graff, “‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky.’”
Their voices can convey what our words cannot: The survivor stories are, in fact, accounts from the Hibukasha-Japanese people who survived the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The translations have been lightly edited in this text. The testimonies presented in this chapter are largely drawn from interviews presented in the television program Hiroshima Witness, produced by the Hiroshima Peace Cultural Center and NHK, Japan’s national public broadcaster. These interviews were translated into English by the college students Yumi Kodama, Junko Kato, Junko Kawamoto, Masako Kubota, Chiharu Kimura, and Kumi Komatsu, who were advised by Laurence Wiig, and they are now posted at the Atomic Archive. Condensed versions are also available on the website of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum: http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/.
“There was the flash and darkness”: Testimony of Tomiko Sasaki, one of the Hatchobori Streetcar Survivors, Hiroshima Witness.
“It was like a white magnesium flash”: Testimony of Akiko Takakura, Hiroshima Witness.
“When the blast came, my friend and I were blown into another room”: Testimony of Akira Onogi, Hiroshima Witness.
“I was at the window when the flash went off”: Testimony of Kinue Tomoyasu, Hiroshima Witness.
“I cried out, and as soon as I did I felt weightless, as if I were an astronaut”: Testimony of Hiroshi Sawachika, Hiroshima Witness.
“I’d never heard the word ‘decapitation attack’ before”: Ari Fleischer, speaking about September 11, 2001, as quoted in Graff, “‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky.’”
“That was our Pearl Harbor”: Paul Germain, speaking about September 11, 2001, as quoted in Graff, “‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky.’”
“They broke for commercial. I couldn’t believe it”: Fleischer, as quoted in Graff, “‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky.’”
“I saw a young boy coming my way”: Testimony of Kinue Tomoyasu, Hiroshima Witness.
“I looked next door and I saw the father of a neighboring family standing almost naked”: Testimony of Akira Onogi, Hiroshima Witness.
“I really thought I was dying because I drank so much water”: Testimony of Hiroko Fukada, Hiroshima Witness.
“Communications systems were overwhelmed with traffic”: Tillman, as quoted in Wagner, “On 9/11, Air Force One Pilot’s Only Concern Was President Bush’s Safety.”
“We felt terribly hot and could not breathe well at all”: Testimony of Hiroko Fukada, Hiroshima Witness.
“I still felt very thirsty, and there was nothing I could do about it”: Testimony of Akiko Takakura, Hiroshima Witness.
“The houses on both sides of the railroad were burning”: Testimony of Akira Onogi, Hiroshima Witness.
“I could see people running in the dark”: Testimony of Takehiko Sakai, Hiroshima Witness.
“The fire and the smoke made us so thirsty”: Testimony of Akiko Takakura, Hiroshima Witness.
“It was all quiet and the city was wrapped, enveloped in red flames”: Testimony of Takeo Teramae, Hiroshima Witness.
“I was pushed into the river with many other people”: Testimony of Hiroko Fukada, Hiroshima Witness.
“An awful thing happened when I reached the other side, and was relieved”: Testimony of Hiroko Fukada, Hiroshima Witness.
“The water was swirling around me, and later I learned that was a tornado”: Testimony of Hiroko Fukada, Hiroshima Witness.
“Later on in the evening, when we were sitting around without having much to do”: Testimony of Takehiko Sakai, Hiroshima Witness.
“When controllers asked if we were aware of an unidentified plane bearing down on us”: Tillman, as quoted in Wagner, “On 9/11, Air Force One Pilot’s Only Concern Was President Bush’s Safety.”
“Air Force One has defenses to protect against attack”: Tillman, as quoted in Wagner, “On 9/11, Air Force One Pilot’s Only Concern Was President Bush’s Safety.”
“It was very, very hot”: Testimony of Keiko Matsuda, Hiroshima Witness.
“There was a sticky yellowish pus, a white watery liquid coming out of my daughter’s wounds”: Testimony of Kinue Tomoyasu, Hiroshima Witness.
“There were too many people”: Testimony of Akira Onogi, Hiroshima Witness.
“I felt someone touch my leg. It was a pregnant woman”: Testimony of Hiroshi Sawachika, Hiroshima Witness.
“It was on television. I saw it”: Donald Trump, defending the false claim that “thousands” of Muslims cheered on September 11, 2001, as quoted in Glenn Kessler, “Trump’s Outrageous Claim That ‘Thousands’ of New Jersey Muslims Celebrated the 9/11 attacks,” Washington Post, November 22, 2015.
“As military trucks came into the city, they started loading bodies into truck beds”: This quote is adapted from a poem, “The Remains of Uncle Yataro,” by Kikuko Otake, who was five years old at the time of the Hiroshima explosion in 1945 and who later wrote a book of poetry that retells the recollections of her mother Masako (Masako’s Story: Surviving the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima [Tokyo: Ahadada Books, 2007]):
As military trucks came into the city,
[they] started loading bodies into a truck bed.
First, three soldiers tried to lift a burned body,
but they dropped it to the ground, losing their grip,
when the skin sloughed off.
“When I came to, it was about seven in the evening”: Testimony of Yoshitaka Kawamoto, Hiroshima Witness.
“ordinary people saved each other”: The quotation is, in fact, by a survivor of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Robert Snyder, as quoted in Michael Keller, “New York Stories: An Oral Historian Takes on 9/11,” Atlantic, September 7, 2011.
The construction of a new command center at Offut alone had cost $1.2 billion: Steve Liewer, “Work on New $1.2 Billion StratCom HQ Will Soon Enter Phase ‘Fraught with Risk,’” Omaha World-Herald, February 14, 2017.
“One of the awkward questions we faced . . . was whether to reconstitute Congress after a nuclear attack”: This quote describing the decision-making is from an actual “continuity of government” exercise during the Reagan administration. James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Penguin, 2004), 141–142.
Staff had sometimes joked that Hicks was the “real daughter”: Michael Wolff, “‘You Can’t Make This S—— Up’: My Year inside Trump’s Insane White House,” Hollywood Reporter, January 4, 2018.
“When a bad story would come up, she would volunteer”: Former Trump campaign senior communications adviser Jason Miller, as quoted in Eleanor Clift, “How Hope Hicks Became the Ultimate Trump Insider,” Town & Country, February 2, 2018.
“She’s like a security blanket for the boss”: An anonymous “person who speaks to the president,” as quoted in Emily Jane Fox, “‘She Is Like a Security Blanket’: Hope Hicks, the Linus of the West Wing, Delivers a Devastating Blow to Trump,” Vanity Fair, February 28, 2018.
“There was nothing in the world like her”: “Donald Trump singled out a ‘young socialite’ at his club at Mar-a-Lago by telling a reporter [Michael Corcoran with the now-defunct magazine Maximum Golf], ‘there is nothing in the world like first-rate pussy.’ . . . Corcoran used the quote as the kicker in his piece, but says it was changed by the editor in chief, who replaced the obscenity with the word ‘talent.’ Joe Bargmann, Corcoran’s editor at Maximum Golf, confirmed Corcoran’s account. ‘I was asked to change the last word of the story from ‘pussy.’ When I refused, my top editor changed the quote,’ Bargmann told The Daily Beast.” Brandy Zadrozny, “Trump Bragged: ‘Nothing in the World Like First-Rate P**sy,’” Daily Beast, November 29, 2017.
All told, nearly three million people died in the span of about forty-eight hours: All casualty estimates were created using Alex Wellerstein’s “Nukemap” website: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/.
The public health implications of entire populations with compromised immunity are wide-ranging and severe: Jennifer Leaning, “Public Health Aspects of Nuclear War,” Annual Review of Public Health 7 (1986): 411–439.
more than 80,000 federal jobs were located in northern Virginia and the area was home to more than 100,000 federal workers: The statistics are from the FRED data provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
which in turn is believed to be responsible for the famines that have struck Africa, South Asia, and China over the past few years: All statistics are derived from Ira Helfand, Nuclear Famine: 2 Billion People at Risk? (Washington, DC: Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2013).
with the costs associated with rebuilding Manhattan alone estimated at between $15 trillion and $20 trillion: Estimates are derived (and adjusted for inflation) from Barbara Reichmuth, Steve Short, Tom Wood, Fred Rutz, and Debbie Schwartz, “Economic Consequences of a Radiological/Nuclear Attack: Cleanup Standards Significantly Affect Cost,” Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 2005.