The sky over the western coastline of the United States is overcast. Above the clouds a C5 jet transport drones seaward. Slowly the doors in the rear of the aircraft open. Everything seems to move with deliberation: the plane against the clouds; the roll of clouds across the sea; the fall of a small bundle on a cord from the interior of the aircraft...

In the control room more than three miles below, Air Force Brigadier General John Hepfer, a small man who normally wears a grin big enough to hold a whole harmonica, watches a television monitor. Slowly, slowly, from the belly of the aircraft emerges a black, white, and orange tapered cylinder. General Hepfer taps with one finger on the table. The missile falls toward the earth...

Who are these men whose loyalty and dedication shape the future of mankind?

Writer Michael Parfit spent a tumultuous year visiting the Pentagon, Norton Air Force Base, and the unknown think tank called RDA, getting to know a cross section of the people who create the United States arsenal of nuclear weapons. Among them were Dr. Albert Latter, a restless nuclear physicist; Colonel Bill Crabtree, the unassuming brains of the day-to-day operation of a missile project; Major General Jasper Welch, whose sleepy eyes hid an enormous intelligence; Dr. Marvin Atkins, a Pentagon scientist with a memorable laugh and a background in nuclear effects; Major General John Hepfer, who wistfully remembered dropping missiles and sleds full of scrap metal out of airplanes; Major General "Big John" Toomay, who looked like the general's general but who didn't think war was a very useful thing to do; and Dr. Seymour Zeiberg, to whom the MX is, in a way, both a monument and a tomb.

These men, whose names never make the headlines, took Michael into their confidence, reminisced with him, shared experiences with him, showed him sights none of us has ever seen, and dreamed out loud to him. Incredible inventions. Huge pieces of equipment. Various figments of official imagination, like "zipperditches" and "seasitters." Missiles lost by accident. Careers aborted...

Captured here are the complex lives and ambitions and dilemmas of these unknown men who are the most powerful of modern warriors. It is the strange, sometimes absurd history of some of the most fearsome weapons on earth. The Boys Behind the Bombs steps into line with The Soul of a New Machine and The Right Stuff in capturing the texture of lives we have never known before. It is a world known only to insiders. You will never forget it.