[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.