[gambiting]

>>(the book doesn't cover the Soviet side of the story, but it's my understanding they were just as risk prone if not more so).

Right at the end of the book there is a few pages about Soviet systems, saying that there were always inherently safer, because no one trusted anyone,so they had launch codes and interlocking safety mechanisms pretty much from the very beginning of nuclear age.

Would also very highly recommend that book.

[arethuza]

I don't think the Soviets had that tight controls and they often just came down to trusting the officers in control of weapons - during the Cuban Missile Crisis the commanders of troops on Cuba, and of submarines, could have used tactical weapons to defend themselves:

"the Soviet Union had deployed 100 tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba, and the local Soviet commander there could have launched these weapons without additional codes or commands from Moscow"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_missile_crisis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov#Involvement_in_...