Three Soldiers Running Around With a Nuke
Lethal radiation to one’s own side was bad enough. However, the Davy Crockett’s greatest danger was the fact that it was deployed at all – and very low down the chain of command at that. The weapon was placed under the control of three soldiers in a Jeep. In practice, in the heat and confusion of battle, they would have been able to fire a nuclear weapon it at their own discretion. Shockingly, it took ten years before the Pentagon reasoned that it might be unwise to give a lieutenant, a sergeant, and a corporal, the ability to initiate what might escalate into a global nuclear holocaust.
The West Germans in particular were enthusiastic about deploying the Davy Crockett with their ground forces. However, they were turned down by the US: the manner in which they proposed to incorporate the weapon into their defensive strategy would have made its use nearly automatic as soon as war began. That was undesirable, because it would have eliminated NATO’s option to fight without nuclear weapons, and the risk of an escalation from tactical nukes in the battlefield to a worldwide nuclear Armageddon.
