HC Modern Marvels - Strategic Air Command (2002)

Their motto, “Peace is our Profession,” belied the fact that they were in charge of weapons with the power to destroy the world many times over. With a staff of a quarter million people, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) was the key cog in America's Cold War military machine, overseeing the nation's entire nuclear arsenal from 1946 to 1992. MODERN MARVELS draws on interviews with past employees and visits to SAC sites to tell the story of this extraordinary system. Walk the cavernous bomb bay of the workhorse B-52 bomber, examples of which were airborne continuously for decades, and get a close look at the Atlas missile, America's first ICBM. See how a three-pronged system of bombers, missiles and submarines was designed to keep America's nuclear capacity in place and ready to respond regardless of the nature of an attack, and how these principles have been adapted and reformed by the SAC's successor, the much smaller Strategic Command (STRATCOM). From personnel and operations to equipment, MODERN MARVELS explores the agency predicated on the idea that peace could only be guaranteed by absolute, impregnable strength.

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