\'Fast Food Nation\' Author Will Return With Book on Nuclear Weapons

By JAMES MCKINLEY

Eric Schlosser, the journalist and author of the best-selling “Fast Food Nation,” has taken on the vexing issue of the control of nuclear weapons in a new book to be published by Penguin Press next year. The book, “Command and Control,” examines the efforts of the military, since the atomic era began during World War II, to prevent nuclear weapons from being stolen, sabotaged or detonated by accident.

Mr. Schlosser, whose meticulous reporting on the fast-food industry was widely praised, said he obtained thousands of pages of declassified government documents and interviewed scores of military officers and nuclear technicians to assemble a sometimes scary narrative.

According to a press release, the book “tells the stories of ordinary servicemen who devoted their careers to preventing a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union” and “reveals how close the world came to the brink of Armageddon.” One narrative line in the book concerns “a terrifying nuclear weapon accident in the American heartland.”

In an interview, Mr. Schlosser declined to identify or talk about the specific incidents he has explored in the book. He said most of the accidents and close calls have been reported elsewhere, but never in such great detail. He also said he tried to tell the history of nuclear weapons in America from the point of view of military officers, pilots, scientists, engineers and other officials who managed the arsenal, rather than from the point of view of policy-makers.

“It's based on interviews with people on the ground,” he said. “It's sort of like if you did a World War II book from the point of view of a foot soldier; this is a Cold War book from the point of view of the ordinary service people.”