The people in this novel are our contemporaries and they deal with a problem that is already upon us. It is being discussed daily in Washington, Moscow, London, and elsewhere by heads of state, diplomatic and military experts. Men of good will and ill have been agonizing over the problem for years. They have found no solution.
Although science and technology have been harnessed to the American defense system in a miraculous way, most people are unaware of even those portions of the miracle which have been declassified and discussed openly in technical books and journals. Thus, paradoxically, a fictional portrayal employing declassified information may seem like science fiction to the layman and ancient history to the expert.
The authors have not had access to classified information but have taken some liberties with what has been declassified. Usually this amounted to attributing improved or more powerful performances to control and weapons systems. Modified or fictional names have been given to the improved equipment. The events in this story are thought of as taking place in 1967.
This book is not an exposé. It does not purport to reveal any specific technical flaw in our defense system. Perhaps our charge may be considered even more grave. For there is substantial agreement among experts that an accidental war is possible and that its probability increases with the increasing complexity of the man-machine components which make up our defense system. Hardly a week passes without some new warning of this danger by knowledgeable persons who take seriously their duty to warn and inform the people. In addition, all too often past crises have been revealed to us in which the world tottered on the brink of thermonuclear war while S.A.C. commanders pondered the true nature of unidentified flying objects on their radar screens.
Thus the element in our story which seems most fictional—the story’s central problem and its solution—is in fact the most real part. Men, machines, and mathematics being what they are, this is, unfortunately, a “true” story. The accident may not occur in the way we describe but the laws of probability assure us that ultimately it will occur. The logic of politics tells us that when it does, the only way out will be a choice of disasters.
Eugene Burdick
Harvey Wheeler