Presidents from Harry Truman to Donald Trump have dealt with the threat of nuclear war in vastly different ways. In The Bomb, Pulitzer Prize finalist Fred Kaplan (The Wizards of Armageddon; The Insurgents) uses recently declassified documents to show what these men privately thought of nuclear weapons versus their public saber-rattling, how the military actually planned to enact Armageddon, and how close the world came to ending on multiple occasions.
At the beginning of the Cold War, nuclear weapons were confined to bombers under Strategic Air Command (SAC), led by Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay. His solution to several crises, thankfully ignored, was to obliterate China and the Soviet Union. Though nukes were soon fitted on intercontinental and submarine-fired missiles, SAC controlled the actual bombing targets that would be presented to the president during a crisis. This Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) turned out to be extreme overkill, with even the most restrained options leading to tens of millions of civilian deaths. As Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara discovered that SAC's targets overlapped significantly and were regularly expanded to justify the purchase of more nuclear weapons rather than reflecting new strategic concerns.
According to Kaplan's behind-the-scenes information, nearly every president, even Ronald Reagan, has privately abhorred nukes despite their most bellicose public posturing. Donald Trump is an exception, having threatened nuclear war via Twitter and demanded an arsenal matching the height of the Cold War. The Bomb is a fascinating and sometimes harrowing look at how political and military leaders have grappled with Earth's most destructive force. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer