When we dropped the Bomb by mistake

In January 1976 New York’s late-lamented National Lampoon produced a bicentennial calendar as a contribution to the general rejoicing. For every day of that year a selection of disastrous news events was commemorated. Presidents of the United States were cut down, marine life was wiped out by oil spills, native Indian women and children were butchered by the US cavalry, young girls leapt to their deaths from blazing sweat shops, thousands of sheep were felled by army nerve gas shells, 11 military incursions into Canada were ignominiously repulsed — and so on. The calendar portrayed 200 years of American history as one long disaster. Repeated nuclear accidents formed a significant part of the farcical story: 13 were logged in. Between 1958 and 1974 nuclear warheads had been scattered like confetti the length and breadth of the United States.

In his extensively researched history of nuclear safety, Command and Control, Eric Schlosser shows that the grim picture painted by the satirical monthly barely scratched the surface of the problem.