I thought I'd weigh in on the recent cheating scandal involving the nuclear missile force.
This is just to give you some background and understanding of what the tests involved.
Note - I haven't read Eric Schlosser's book Command and Control but it's on my list.
Back in the days of Strategic Air Command, we took this sort of thing very seriously. Nuclear deterrence was our primary mission. We used to say "To err is human, to forgive is not SAC policy". When nuclear weapons were involved there was only one way to do things - 100% correct.
Once a month, we were tested on Command Control Procedures. We'd go into a secure room and each crew would be given a full set of all the code books and checklists we'd have for a real mission.
We'd listen to a series of recorded messages, decode them, and use the checklists to determine what our actions would be.
Obviously much of this is probably still classified so I can't get into specifics.
An emergency action message was just a string of letters and numbers. Decoding it would tell you which checklist to follow plus some other information like what times certain events are supposed to take place. They're really pretty simple because aircrew have to be able to understand them!
"For Alert Force, for Alert Force message follows: Alpha, Echo, Six, Bravo, Eight, Delta....."
You'd take that string of letters and numbers that begins with AE6B8D and start decoding.
When you get to the checklist it's very simplistic. "If characters 6-9 are ABC then go to page 100. If they're XYZ then go to page 25."
Since we worked these as a crew, we backed each other up. That's perfectly realistic because that's how we'd do it for real in the airplane. "Hey Nav, I think this message decodes as ____ what did you get?" Cooperate and graduate!
In this case we'll say the message instructed us to: Start Engines and Taxi to the Hold Line.
After having plenty of time to decode the message you would be asked a series of questions about it. For example:
Q. What would you do as a result of this message?
A. Start Engines and Taxi to the Hold Line.
Q. Would you launch as a result of this message?
A. No!
Answering "Yes" to #2 would be an obvious bust. You just took off without authorization and caused a major international incident (bad).
Pretty simple stuff. Remember we're dealing with aircrew here. The bomber tests were more complicated than tankers because there's only so many things you can do in a tanker:
1. Start engines
2. Taxi
3. Takeoff
4. Refuel somebody
5. Come home
In a bomber you could:
1. Start engines
2. Taxi
3. Takeoff but don't go to your target.
4. Go to your target(s).
5. We need to change your target. Here's the new one.
6. We called the war off. Turn around and come home.
I was never in missiles, but I would imagine your options with a missile are pretty limited:
1. Don't Launch
2. Launch
3. There is no #3 because you're now babysitting an empty silo.
I don't recall these tests as being all that difficult and I can't imagine why anyone would feel the need to cheat on them. I can say with all honesty that I never cheated on one of these tests and I don't recall anyone else cheating.
I'm not trying to give the impression that we were all a bunch of steely eyed cold warriors. We screwed around as much as anyone else did. But when it came to nukes, we took that part of our mission very seriously and we dealt with it as professionals.