Bruce Blair A leading expert on nuclear command and control, he focused especially on the risks of accidental nuclear war implicit in the “hair-trigger” postures of US and Soviet ballistic missiles. During his final 15 years, he led a campaign for the phased and verifiable elimination of all nuclear weapons. He died on July 19 at the age of 72 as a result of a severe stroke.
With Blair’s death, the nuclear-disarmament movement has lost one of its most learned, creative and persistent leaders. The challenges of nuclear disarmament and, in the interim, reducing the danger of nuclear war, remain. Sadly, we must now carry on without Blair’s extraordinary focus, leadership, and innovative institution building. Those of us who have had the privilege of working with him will continue to be inspired by his quiet but dogged and comprehensive commitment to the mission.
Minuteman launch control officer. After graduating from the University of Illinois with a degree in communications, Blair served in the US Air Force from 1970 to 1974. He spent one year at Strategic Command’s headquarters in Nebraska as a support officer for the “Looking Glass” airborne command post. During the Cold War, one of these aircraft was in the air at all times and could launch the 1,000 US Minuteman missiles scattered over the northern Great Plains in case some of their launch-control facilities failed or were destroyed.
From 1972 to 1974, he served at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana as a launch control officer for a group of 50 Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missiles. His underground launch-control center also served as an alternate command post for the full wing of 200 missiles. Each Minuteman II, housed in a reinforced-concrete underground “silo,” carried a single nuclear warhead with roughly 80 times the power of the Hiroshima warhead.
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