"At the height of the Cold War in the American heartland, a combination of human error, aging equipment, mismanagement, and bad luck threatened to set off a nuclear weapon far more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Offering an account of accidents, near-misses, heroism and technological breakthroughs, this book explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them?"--PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION.