Silently, at a score of air bases throughout the United States, sentries patrol before giant aircraft, their
wings bent low by heavy fuel loads; inside their mammoth fuselages rest several thermo-nuclear weapons. Nearby
the bomber crews relax or sleep, only 15 minutes or less from takeoff. Simultaneously, at scores of underground
missile control centers, other Air Force officers live day to day in the presence of controls for launching more
than a thousand intercontinental missiles. At the same time, high above the United States, a large aircraft
circles continuously, always relieved "on station," to keep a SAC general airborne with a command staff, with
communications available to control all SAC bombers and missiles should the primary SAC command center near Omaha,
Nebraska, be destroyed. These are the principal elements of the land-based strategic striking forces of the United
States, the Strategic Air Command. With the U.S. Navy's submarine-launched ballistic missiles, SAC provides the
nation's strategic deterrence against nuclear war. These three strategic striking forces.which form the so-called
TRIAD.are a primary factor in U.S. defense strategy.

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