記者葉睿涵／編譯
近年來，全球區域安全危機不斷升高，不少人擔憂這些地區衝突恐將發展成第三次世界大戰，甚至會點燃核戰。一位專家發出警告，若核戰真的爆發，數以億計的人可能會在最初幾個小時內就喪命，但「無論如何開始，最終都將導致所有人死亡」。
雅各布森在接受podcast主持人弗裏德曼（Lex Friedman）的採訪時透露，美國國防部有一個預警係統，隻要係統判斷美國可能受到敵方核攻擊，就會立刻啟動「預警發射」機製（LOW），在總統的授意下發動報復性打擊。
雅各布森強調，在LOW機製下，人們可能還來不及查明警報為何會被發出，反擊就已經開始了，「在這種情況下，一次誤解、一次誤判都有可能帶來核世界末日，無論核戰如何開始，最終都將導致所有人死亡」。
美國部署了1770枚核武器，俄羅斯也有1674枚核武器，但2國過去已不止一次錯誤判斷己方受到核攻擊。雅各布森表示，「我們不一定每次都這麼幸運。事實上，雷根前總統也曾質疑，讓總統根據雷達螢幕上的一個光點，在6分鐘內做出足以主宰所有人命運的決定是否合理。」
雅各布森指出，核戰的影響經常被人們低估，「核爆所引發的蕈狀雲可能會把幾英裏外的人拉進來，拋向天空，再將他們燒死。這種恐怖現象將在世界各個城市裡不斷重演。」雅各布森也和許多政治和軍事人物討論過核威懾的概念，但大家都一致認為「核戰是瘋狂的」。
YouTube: 6 minutes to Nuclear Armageddon: Countdown to full-on nuclear war | Annie Jacobsen and Lex Fridman
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/03/interview-annie-jacobsen-nuclear-war-scenario/
Author Annie Jacobsen on the horror—and unwinnability—of nuclear war.
MICHAEL MECHANIC Senior Editor
Annie Jacobsen is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author. Her books include: AREA 51; OPERATION PAPERCLIP; THE PENTAGON’S BRAIN; PHENOMENA; SURPRISE, KILL VANISH; and FIRST PLATOON.
Her newest book, NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO, publishes March 26, 2024.
Jacobsen.s books have been named Best of the Year and Most Anticipated by outlets including The Washington Post, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Vanity Fair, Apple, and Amazon. She has appeared on countless TV programs and media platforms—from PBS Newshour to Joe Rogan—discussing war, weapons, government secrecy, and national security.
She also writes and produces TV, including Tom Clancy’s JACK RYAN.
Jacobsen graduated from Princeton University where she was Captain of the Women’s Ice Hockey Team. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Kevin and their two sons.
Nuclear war is a topic few care to think about. We sometimes call it unthinkable. But we need to think carefully, and to talk—particularly with high-ranking foreign officials whose motives we may have reason to distrust, just as they distrust ours—about how we can collectively avoid launching a weapon that would end our civilization.
Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s timely new book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, is a lightning-fast read intended to put the nuclear threat squarely back on everyone’s radar. Her narrative thread, as the title suggests, is a fact-based (though thankfully fictional) scenario that shows how a nuclear launch can escalate into World War III at dizzying speed.
Jacobsen tees up her cinematic approach with chapters describing how we got here, including a discussion of America’s Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) for General Nuclear War—which was devised in the 1960s and, as Jacobsen details in this book excerpt published today by Mother Jones, was more or less a recipe for the end of the world.
Because that’s nuclear war: One bad assumption, one shot, one retaliation, and it’s unstoppable.
Your book is frightful. What made you want to write in such detail how a nuclear war could unfold?
As a national security reporter, I have written six previous books on military and intelligence programs—CIA, Pentagon, DARPA—all designed to prevent nuclear World War III. During the Trump administration, amid the “fire and fury” rhetoric, I was watching STRATCOM commanders and deputy commanders speak freely on C-SPAN about the dangers therein. I began to wonder, My god, what would happen if deterrence failed? I began to interview people during Covid, when people had more time on their hands for someone like me—and that began the terrifying process of learning that nuclear war is, in essence, a sequence of events, and that once it starts it almost certainly will not stop.
The US public hasn’t thought a whole lot about nuclear weapons since the Cold War. We have more nuclear nations today, but far fewer weapons in the global arsenal. Are we safer now?
Well, as I show in the book, it doesn’t take but one weapon to set off a chain reaction to unleash the current arsenal, which is forward deployed in launch-on-warning positions and could be fired in as little as a minute—15 minutes for the submarines. There are enough weapons in those positions right now to bring on a nuclear winter that would kill an estimated 5 billion people.
Are there too many? Absolutely. Have we made progress? The all-time high in 1986 was 70,481 nuclear weapons. Now, there are approximately 12,500. But to your point, there are nine nuclear-armed nations, not just two or three superpowers. And that presents a lot of unknowns that create serious unease and room for catastrophe.
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America's Nuclear War Plan in the 1960s Was Madness. It Still Is.
So we may be less safe because we don’t really know how certain nations might behave—notably North Korea.
Absolutely. Reporting and writing this book was one surprise after another. For example, I did not know until I had it confirmed with US nuclear experts that North Korea does not announce any of its missile tests, whereas the other countries do. North Korea has launched 100 missiles since January 2022. After you read my book, you realize what happens to the US nuclear command and control apparatus in the seconds and minutes after a launch is seen by the advanced super satellite system we have. You can now imagine what goes on in those command centers.
A total frenzy.
One thing that really struck me is the unbelievable speed at which nuclear war is waged.
Gen. Robert Kehler, the former commander of STRATCOM, said to me that the world could end in the next couple of hours. It took me a minute to ask my next question, because coming from someone in that position of authority—the most significant role in the entire nuclear apparatus—that really blew my mind.
Ditto goes for an interview I did with President Barack Obama’s FEMA chief, Craig Fugate. Of course, FEMA is the agency in charge of what’s called population protection planning for American citizens in the event of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes. Fugate told me that after a nuclear war, there wouldn’t be any population protection planning because everyone would be dead.
Help is not coming.
I said, “Well, what should people do?” He more or less said, “Self-survive, and don’t forget your morals, and I hope you stocked Pedialyte”—because radiation poisoning makes you vomit and have diarrhea and away go all of your electrolytes, which leads to secondary problems.
I learned from your book that FEMA plays a unique role in the event of a nuclear attack, and it’s not what one might expect.
That’s right. In the ’50s and ’60s, the US position was that a nuclear war could be fought and won. That is no longer the official position. But plans were put in place for the continuity of government programs—the idea that the government must continue functioning no matter what. That is also a fantasy.
To hear from former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry about the madness and mayhem and anarchy that would follow, in his mind, in the event of a nuclear war, you really get the sense that civilization will fail. I believe one of the reasons so many of these sources went on the record for me is because they know that this is the truth. And they know it is up to the people to change the trajectory of where we’re headed. I mean, my god, look at the saber-rattling going on as we do this interview.
Potential nuclear nightmares range from an accidental detonation to a massive “decapitation” strike to someone using a small nuke on the battlefield. You picked the madman scenario: North Korea inexplicably launches a long-range missile at Washington, DC. Why that one?
I did a series of interviews with [physicist] Richard Garwin, who is now 95. He is arguably the most knowledgeable person about nuclear weapons on the planet, and he probably knows more about policy over the long lens of history because he was 23 or 24 years old when he designed the first thermonuclear bomb.
In the “Ivy Mike” test, it exploded with 10.4 megatons of power—about 1,000 Hiroshimas. Garwin said to me that his biggest fear was now, and always had been, the madman theory you referred to. He used the French phrase Après moi, le déluge—after me, the flood—referring to this idea that a maniacal, egotistical, narcissistic madman leader could launch a nuclear weapon for reasons no one would ever know.
And to counterattack North Korea, as in your scenario, the US would need to send missiles over Russia, which has a very unreliable early warning system.
That’s right. Learning about the technological limitations of some of the Russian systems was just as terrifying as any part of reporting this book.
It’s almost like you’d want to reach out to the Russians and say, look, just take our technology so you won’t launch on a false alarm—but the US would never do that.
There have been many opportunities to have a dialogue with the Russians—Putin inquired about joining NATO back during the Clinton administration. One really has to lean upon one’s leaders to think about communicating rather than saber-rattling, because I hope that my book demonstrates in appalling detail how horrific nuclear war would be. And we know from the Proud Prophet war games that no matter how it begins, it ends in nuclear apocalypse.
For context, Proud Prophet was a classified series of war games President Ronald Reagan ordered in 1983. Civilian and military planners convened for two weeks to run through scenarios that could spark a nuclear war and see how they played out.
That Proud Prophet was declassified is interesting. Nuclear war games are among the government’s most jealously guarded secrets. I printed a copy of what a couple pages of the declassified war game look like—95 percent is redacted. It’s literally a couple of headers and a few numbers.
But when something like that gets declassified, it becomes very valuable to the people. An individual like Paul Bracken—a civilian professor at Yale who participated in Proud Prophet—can now speak about it in general terms. He wrote in his own book that everyone left very depressed, because no matter how the nuclear scenario begins—if NATO is involved or not involved, China is involved or not—it always ends the same way, the most terrible way, because America has a “launch on warning” policy.
We do not wait to absorb a nuclear blow. Once a missile is on the way and there is secondary confirmation from ground radar, the president is asked to launch a counterstrike. In the book—I have the president asking this because it came up in my discussions with sources—he says, “How do we know it’s a nuclear weapon?”
And we don't.
That is a fact. The answer is, Well, it could be a biological weapon. Another answer I was told is that no one launches a ballistic missile at the United States unless they’re expecting a counterattack. So now you are looping into the Orwellian world of: This is deterrence. Deterrence will hold. Don’t you dare launch at us or else! Which becomes part and parcel for why the counterattack is required, per the deterrence doctrine. There is no room for saying, well, maybe we’ll wait and see.
Once you break deterrence, everything else goes out the window.
Correct. One of the most haunting quotes in the book is from the deputy commander of STRATCOM, Lt. Gen. Tom Bussiere. I located an unclassified discussion he had with insiders, and the quote is along the lines of, When deterrence fails, it all unravels. In seconds and minutes and hours—not days and weeks and months.
Twelve thousand years of civilization extinguished in a few hours.
General Kehler was not speaking hyperbolically when he said that.
Say more about “launch on warning.” You cite Paul Nitze, a former defense secretary and later presidential adviser, calling the policy “inexcusably dangerous.” Presidents Bush, Obama, and Biden wanted it scrapped. So why is it still in place?
I’d like to shout out William Burr, who runs the Nuclear Documentation Project at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, because many of those quotes and documents come from that organization, which made them accessible to journalists like me. Nitze was one of the biggest hawks across the Cold War. To have a guy like that go on the record and say this is inexcusably dangerous says a lot.
Multiple presidents have campaigned on the promise that they will change this dangerous policy, but then they become president and you never hear of it again. That speaks to the kind of secret-keeping that is dangerous and can be changed. I wrote Nuclear War: A Scenario for the layperson to be able to rip through it in a night, no matter how terrifying. I do not bog the reader down with polemics or jargon, because this is an issue everybody should know about. Because only in knowing about it is change possible. We can look to The Day After battle, what’s known in inner circles as the Reagan Reversal policy of 1983.
Wait, what's that?
So in 1983—I’m dating myself here—I was a high school student. And I watched the ABC movie The Day After.
I was the same age, and watching it too.
It’s a fictional account of a nuclear war between America and Soviet Russia, and half the country watched it. Interestingly, behind the scenes, ABC got a lot of pressure not to air it. Well, one very important American watched it: Reagan had a private screening at Camp David. His chief of staff tried to suggest that he shouldn’t watch it, but he did. And he wrote in his diary that he became “greatly depressed,” and he picked up the phone and called [then–Soviet President Mikhail] Gorbachev, and the two leaders communicated—which is really the only solution for any of this.
Because of those communications and because of their conference and because of the treaty, the insane nuclear arsenal has been reduced to the approximately 12,500 we have now, which is a considerable reduction. The president’s position prior to seeing The Day After was a much harder, more saber-rattling approach. He changed his position and became much more dovish.
“Launch on warning” puts extraordinary pressure on a president. The one in your scenario is pretty clueless. He hasn’t ever rehearsed. Nobody told him he’d have just six minutes to choose from a Denny’s breakfast menu of existential options in response to what may or may not be an incoming nuke. It’s hard to believe the Pentagon doesn’t put every new president through a series of war games.
I was just as surprised as you are. But that’s coming from multiple secretaries of defense and national security advisers—people in a position to advise the president on a nuclear counterattack. The best summation came from Leon Panetta, who explained that as White House chief of staff he was witness to the fact that the president is primarily concerned with domestic issues—like his popularity. I asked Panetta how clued in he was when he was the CIA director, and he said almost not at all, because the CIA is about intelligence, not nuclear operations.
Only when he became secretary of defense did it really hit home, the weight of all of this. He spoke about visiting missile silos, submarine bases, and nuclear command bunkers—once you go to places like that, your entire perspective changes. And that is why I believe he was willing to go on the record. You really get the sense that things are precarious once they begin, and decisions follow that are out of everyone’s control.
Right. And our continued existence depends not only on our internal communications and processes, but those of our adversaries, about which we know little.
Absolutely.
Your book busts some common myths, for instance the belief that the US could shoot down an incoming nuclear missile. We really can’t defend against nuclear weapons, can we?
We can’t. That is pure fantasy. During the final fact-checking incantations, I had the book read by a lieutenant general who ran these scenarios for NORAD. I was almost hoping someone would say, Annie, you should take this part out of the book, because we have a secret Iron Dome that you can’t report on. No. The truth is that the United States relies upon 44 interceptor missiles to stop any incoming missiles. Russia alone has 1,674 nuclear warheads in “ready to launch” position. Adding to that, according to congressional reports, the interceptors are only approximately 50 percent effective.
Under the best of circumstances.
Absolutely, like when you’re doing a test and you know precisely where the missile is going to be. It’s a curated test. So people have this idea that we have an Iron Dome–type shield. And we don’t.
The Reagan Reversal bit reminds me of a moment from your scenario. Your secretary of defense is sworn in as president because the president and others in the line of succession are dead or AWOL, and he has this moment of humanity. Russia has launched all its ICBMs at us, so we know we’re goners. And the new guy asks: Why respond now if all it will do is kill millions more people? The STRATCOM commander is like, Nope, we’re doing this. Humanity is already doomed, yet Russia and the United States keep launching their weapons until practically none are left. It’s nonsensical. But is it realistic?
It is if you talk to the sources I spoke to. A lot of the decision-tree situations involving the defense secretary came from my multiple discussions with former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, who has thought a lot about this—and what an individual’s thought process would be. The point of including that question was to demonstrate how the madness of MAD—mutual assured destruction—takes over.
I asked [retired weapons engineer] Glen McDuff—the curator of the classified museum at the Los Alamos National Laboratory—the question you’re kind of asking me: What did he think, as an insider, about the notion that people would not follow orders? He basically said: Annie, I would suggest betting on Powerball, because you’d have a better chance of winning than betting on a high-ranking individual in the nuclear command and control system not following orders.
Right. It seems like folks in the nuclear command and control structure have rehearsed these scenarios over and over. They’re on autopilot to a degree. Which gets at the notion of “apes on a treadmill” that you write about late in the book: We’ve made this plan, and we’re going to follow it—even if it’s completely bonkers.
Apes on the treadmill was just such a brilliant concept. It goes back to the Cold War when it was used as a metaphor for people slavishly following away in this nuclear arms race.
But even more interesting was the present-day anecdote I found. It was a scientific experiment having nothing to do with the original metaphor but was literally apes on a treadmill. The researchers were studying bipedalism: They put humans on the treadmill and they put apes on the treadmill. Anecdotally, one of the scientists said, and I’m paraphrasing, that some of the apes got fed up with walking to nowhere and got off the treadmill.
I thought, my god, the apes are smarter than the humans when it comes to mutual assured destruction.
51區:封存60年的美國絕密軍事基地檔案
Uncensored history of America's top secret military base
(美)安妮·雅各布森(Annie Jacobsen)著 ;王祖寧譯
重慶 :重慶出版社 ,2012
http://opac.stlib.cn/bookInfo_01h0309315.html
親曆見證51區秘史的先驅之作，大量從未破解的機密信息 。51區，是美國政府從未承認其存在的軍事禁地。很多人以為51區的命名出於隨機，實際上它與1947年羅斯威爾墜毀飛碟的殘骸有關。機艙內印著一行從未對外公開的文字，殘骸旁還有幾具畸形屍體，它們是外星人還是飛行員？安妮對此深入調查，竟然牽扯出第三種觸目驚心的答案……
目錄
無論是科學家、工程師還是保安人員、清潔工，能在51區工作都是一種榮耀與特權，都必須進行嚴格的保密宣誓；沒有最高安全級別或軍方最高邀請，誰也別想得到關於51區的丁點真相；
51區究竟是什麽，它究竟有著什麽樣重要的作用，無人知曉。然而，鮑勃·拉紮爾的出現卻讓51區長達40多年的秘密神話戛然而止。
豆瓣內容簡介：
親曆見證51區秘史的先驅之作
大量從未破解的機密信息
51區，是美國政府從未承認其存在的軍事禁地。
很多人以為51區的命名出於隨機，實際上它與1947年羅斯威爾墜毀飛碟的殘骸有關。機艙內印著一行從未對外公開的文字，殘骸旁還有幾具畸形屍體，它們是外星人還是飛行員？安妮對此深入調查，竟然牽扯出第三種觸目驚心的答案……
雅可布森走訪74位擁有“按需知密”權的官員、軍事情報人員、科學家、飛行員以及工程師等，首度披露51區秘史。
? 二戰後，美蘇大肆掠奪前納粹科學家，為何德國工程師霍頓兄弟是關鍵獵物？
? 51區竟與古巴導彈危機有著極深的淵源？將二者聯係起來的竟是領先時代40年、驚世駭俗的新型飛機？
? 1969年以前，每九架美軍飛機就有一架被蘇聯米格戰鬥機擊落，讓美軍聞風喪膽的米格-23緣何出現在51區的跑道上？
? 當51區附近的居民投訴，當地供水係統中出現核裂變的致命放射性物質，原子能委員會竟將其歸咎於中國人？
? 21世紀的高空偵察成了無人機的天下，但技術的高速發展緣何又給五角大樓和中情局帶來新的“有害問題”？
無疑，51區已經變成一個舉世矚目的符號。經由此書，嚴守60年的國家機密就此炸開……
豆瓣作者簡介：
安妮•雅各布森
? 《洛杉磯時報雜誌》特約編輯
? 全球知名的調查記者
? 全美最暢銷圖書作家
畢業於普林斯頓大學。在大學期間，曾與美國作家喬伊斯•歐茨以及保羅•奧斯特合著出書。
在美國多本國際雜誌上發表關於商業、金融和恐怖主義的文章。曾在《國民評論》和《達拉斯晨報》工作。在洛杉磯時報網站上有“幕後故事”專欄。《紐約時報》、《外交政策雜誌》、《每日電訊報》、《上海日報》上都有刊登關於她的報道。她曾受邀參與超過600個廣播、電視節目，包括ABC、CNN等。
其作品《通往51區之路》被《洛杉磯時報雜誌》評為全美最暢銷圖書之一。
目錄：
目錄
權威推薦 1
序 言 2
第1 章 勇闖51 區 1
無論是科學家、工程師還是保安人員、清潔工，能在51 區工作都是一種榮耀與特權，都必須進行嚴格的保密宣誓；沒有最高安全級別或軍方最高邀請，誰也別想得到關於51 區的任何真相；51 區究竟是什麽，它究竟有著怎樣重要的作用，無人知曉……然而，鮑勃•拉紮爾的出現卻讓51 區長達40 多年的秘密神話戛然而止。
1. 直擊內幕
2. 羅斯威爾事件始末
3. 飛碟還是飛機？
第2 章 “ 世界爭霸戰”真實上演 27
“火星人入侵地球，星際大戰一觸即發”“見血封喉的死光、殺戮成性的外星人會給人類帶來滅頂之災”……你還認為這是廣播劇，或者科幻小說描述的場景嗎？從20 世紀40 年代開始，當美蘇以各種手段爭奪德國科學家、爭相進行核試驗、研發原子彈時，一場真正的世界爭霸戰正在以科學的名義拉開序幕……
4 不是科學幻想，而是科學真相
5 “十字路”行動
6 誰掌握了空中懸停技術？
7 爭奪前納粹科學家
第3 章 瞞天過海 53
一個飛機庫、幾座防水帳篷和肮髒的臨時餐廳，這便是51 區的真實寫照。但是在這個糟透了的地方，卻在進行著人類有史以來最具野心的征服高空項目……而在UFO 問題上，中情局煞費苦心地想要在國會和公眾眼皮底下瞞天過海，媒體卻大事渲染，以獲得報紙、雜誌的銷量大增。公眾對UFO 的恐慌程度已超出了政府的控製範圍，甚至威脅到國家安全。就這樣，一場陰謀正在悄悄醞釀……
8. 高空偵察的黑色預算
9. 遁詞與虛假信息
10. 陰陽中情局
第4 章 破解謎中謎 81
51 區是一個難以索解的謎中之謎。就像虛構小說中的情節，飛行員不知道誰雇了自己，不要說“51 區”，連“格魯姆湖”的名字都沒聽說過。每個人都有自己的假名，與世隔絕，生死未卜。他們永遠也不會知道，有一股敵對勢力，正在地圖上另一個不存在的“51 區”，通過榨幹“第三帝國”科學家，企圖把他們的坐騎化成會飛的棺材……
11. 翻版“51 區”
12. 死屍測驗
13.“髒鳥”能飛多高？
14.“旅行者”升空
第5 章 鬼城複活 105
1957 年，美國開始進行迄今為止最野心勃勃的一係列核試驗。工作人員封鎖了一片毗鄰51 區的場地，開始為之作準備。此時退役兵明格斯被雇用為第一個保安人員，他守衛的正是美國的第一枚髒彈。然而，一場意外即將發生，這個盛極一時的秘密基地很可能霎時間化成一座陰森恐怖的鬼城……
15. 鉛錘行動
16. 引爆毀滅性核彈
17. 開拓反雷達技術
第6 章 終結貓鼠遊戲 139
鮑維斯是中情局最出色的U-2 飛行員，他一共執行過27 次飛行任務。在這次飛往蘇聯領空前，他接過上校手中帶有自殺毒針的銀幣，心中有種不祥的預感。在蘇聯五一大閱兵之際，鮑維斯駕駛的U-2 卻在蘇聯高空暢行無阻。赫魯曉夫備感羞辱，暴跳如雷，他將親自指揮作戰以終結這場貓鼠遊戲……
18. U-2 偵察機與SA-2 導彈的較量
19. 馬赫3 誕生
20.“月球陰暗麵”的神秘任務
21. 炸開臭氧層
第7 章 核戰一觸即發 173
古巴導彈危機首先是發生在美國和蘇聯之間的一場衝突，在對峙過程中，兩個超級大國走向了熱核戰爭的邊緣。自由世界危在旦夕之際，美國國內的兩股敵對勢力——中情局和美國空軍，能否同仇敵愾、共同化解危機？始終隱藏在公眾視野之下的51 區，竟與古巴導彈危機有著極深的淵源，而將二者聯係起來的則是領先時代40 年、驚世駭俗的新型飛機……
22.“牛車”偵察機試飛
23. 觸發古巴導彈危機
24. 命運就像一個獵手
25. 隱形飛機 VS 超音速偵察機
26. 51 區總指揮遇刺
第8 章 侵犯中國假想敵 199
51 區的高原沙漠生存訓練還包含了中國假想敵及其實施的心理戰術。20 世紀60 年代，中情局秘密開展“黑貓行動”，他們認為獲得有關中國核設施的確鑿信息是關係國家安危的當務之急。然而“黑貓”中隊飛行員接二連三被中國擊落，對中情局和美國空軍在51 區的下一步計劃產生了深遠的影響……
27. 中國擊落“黑貓”飛行員
28. D-21 無人機墜毀西伯利亞
29. 飛進蘑菇雲
第9 章 血染高空 215
美國總統的“紅色夢魘”一直陰魂不散。1964 年夏，當美國總統大選拉開帷幕時，生性好戰的赫魯曉夫宣布，如果有U-2 偵察機膽敢飛入古巴境內，蘇聯會不惜一切手段將其擊落。在中情局看來，蘇聯獨裁者發出的威脅無疑乃天賜良機，“牛車”偵察機終於可以大顯身手了！唯一的問題是，51 區作好準備了嗎？
30. 解密“牛車計劃”
31. 籌建電子反製部門
32. 權力與榮譽
33. 沃爾特慘劇
第10 章 黑盾行動和普韋布洛號事件 249
“牛車”偵察機在51 區曆盡了九年的艱辛，即將被永久封存。突然時局扭轉，3 架“牛車”偵察機被運往了東海……這隻世界上飛得最高、體型最大的飛鳥，終於可以離開樊籠，展翅翱翔了。眾所周知，美國在越南戰場上一敗塗地，損失慘重；此時對於“牛車”偵察機和51 區而言，前麵有什麽樣的命運等待著它們？
34.“牛車”出籠
35. 偵察照片阻止了另一場朝鮮戰爭？
36. 解散第1129 特別行動隊
第11 章 逆向分解米格戰鬥機 265
有人宣稱，51 區的工程師曾秘密地逆向分解外星飛船。毫無疑問，間諜與反間諜，雷達與隱形，工程與逆向工程……一切匪夷所思的行為都與51 區緊密聯係。更匪夷所思的是，在戰場上讓美國人聞風喪膽的蘇聯米格戰鬥機，竟然停在了51 區的跑道上！這一個天降的“甜甜圈”是否將成為高空技術的又一個突破口？
37. 逆向工程
38. X-15 火箭動力飛機
39.“吃甜甜圈”間諜反擊戰
第12 章 瘋狂機製 281
20 世紀50 年代為了避免因衝突而導致地球毀滅，製訂了“相互保證毀滅機製”。實際卻做出更為瘋狂的毀滅行動。在瘋狂製造核汙染的同時，美國人是否學會了收拾殘局？中國真如五角大樓所宣稱的那樣，要為美國供水係統出現的核裂變物質負責嗎？由瘋狂機製產生的安全隱患，影響的不隻是一個國家，而且是整個地球……
40. 熱核彈失蹤
41.“蠢驢穀”載人飛船事故
42. 美國政府掩蓋了多少核事故？
第13 章 登月陰謀 303
登上月球的宇航員為何幾次三番在錄音中提到內華達試驗場的核彈坑？登月陰謀論究竟與51 區有什麽樣的聯係？數以百萬計的人確信51 區關押了被俘的外星人和UFO，另一些人則提出51 區的地下隧道和地堡通向美國的其他軍事設施與核試驗室的證據。然而，誰也不曾想到，51 區的三大陰謀論分別指向美國的三大政府機構，並構成了揭開51 區真相的重大線索。
43. 登月陰謀論
44. 51 區真相浮出水麵
第14 章 秘密開拓52 區 319
在隱形技術問世前，戰爭策劃者需要預計發動多少次突擊才能拿下一個目標；當F-117 隱形轟炸機出現以後，他們的決策變成了“發動一次突擊能夠拿下多少個目標”。空軍部門為了掩人耳目，為隱形轟炸機項目規劃了另一片秘密基地52 區。突然有一天一架直升機向防衛站的衛兵掃射。敵人對安全防線的突破，極有可能將耗資數十億美元的隱形項目以及官方否認的51 區和52 區對全世界曝光……
45. 核彈組裝區“遇襲”
46. F-117 隱形轟炸機
47. 開發新型無人機
第15 章 51 區大揭秘 335
從反恐戰爭打響之日起，51 區和52 區的新型無人機計劃就開始全速推進。2001 年，一架“掠食者”無人機被派往坎大哈，尋找並消滅世界上最危險的懸賞要犯。21 世紀的高空偵察成了無人機的天下，但這種技術的高速發展又給五角大樓和中情局帶來新的“有害問題”……
48.“掠食者”無人機定點刺殺行動
49. 間諜衛星戰
50. 新型核武器
51. 51 區的魔鬼交易
後 記 358
致 謝 366
訪談人物 371
