[sdenton4]

Command and Control lays out the internal fight over Pals; the military wanted easy access and reliable bombs, and the Pals added complexity, reduce ease of access in an emergency, and so on. So the parts of the military less concerned with safety were arguing for more promising designs. I believe the early Pals could be over ridden with a screwdriver. But yeah, I don't know about these particular ones.

[mikeash]

Yes, I've read that book (highly recommended, by the way, for anyone else reading this who's interested in the history of nuclear weapon control and accidents), and if these were the older PALs I wouldn't have any problem with that statement. But "control" seems to have won that fight eventually (for the most part... Navy nukes still don't have PALs) and I'd imagine that modern PALs are far more robust than those early ones.