Thanks to recently declassified government documents from the early Cold War era, Craig is able to investigate what America's strategists really thought about the viability of nuclear warfare. He demonstrates that even as they were publicly attempting to make nuclear war technically feasible, many Pentagon officials were privately pessimistic regarding any nuclear strategy. Craig probes the heated arguments Eisenhower had with his national security advisors, and shows how the president conspired to make the option of war with the Soviet Union impossible.