In 1938, a young londoner used his vacation to go to czechoslovakia as the nazis were clamping down on the countrys jews. He ended up saving the lives of 669 children. How did he do it . Youll hear all about it tonight from the man himself, who is now 104 years old. I work on the motto that if somethings not impossible, there must be a way of doing it. Im steve kroft. Im lesley stahl. Im morley safer. Im bob simon. Im scott pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 minutes. E financial noise financial noise financial noise financial noise [ bell dings ] [ bell dings ] [ bell dings ] [ buzzer ] [ buzzer ] [ female announcer ] check it out. [ bell dings ] subway is the first restaurant with meals to earn the american heart associations heart check mark. Look for it on subway fresh fit meals like the classic subway club and the freshlymade double chicken chopped salad. Subway. Eat fresh. Feel like a knot. How can i ease this pain . man when i cant go, its like bricks piling up. I wish i could find some relief. announcer ask your doctor about linzess a oncedaily capsule for adults with ibs with constipation or chronic idiopathic constipation. Linzess is thought to help calm painsensing nerves and accelerate bowel movements. It helps you proactively manage your symptoms. Do not give linzess to children under 6, and it should not be given to children 6 to 17. It may harm them. Dont take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. Get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain especially with bloody or black stools the most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. If its severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. Other side effects include gas, stomacharea pain and swelling. Bottom line, ask your doctor about linzess today. Stahl the last time many of us thought about our nations big landbased Nuclear Missiles was probably during the cold war. But today, there are nearly 450 of these giant minuteman iiis, as theyre called, tucked away in underground silos, ready to launch on the president s command. Theyre part of a socalled Nuclear Triad that includes submarines and bombers. But its the landbased leg of the triad thats been getting all the attention lately, and its not the kind of attention the top brass wants. The entire air force chain of command of a missile base responsible for onethird of our landbased missiles was removed a few weeks ago because of a scandal involving drugs and cheating on tests. We wanted to know what was going on why so much turmoil in the missile corps . Whos minding the nukes . And where are these weapons of mass destruction . Flying over the plains of wyoming in an old huey helicopter, we came upon a small fencedin lot. It didnt look like much. Carl jones so thats it right there. Stahl air force colonel carl jones told us that, underneath the concrete near that white pole, theres a minuteman iii missile. Its one of the deadliest and most powerful weapons on the planet. So, is that particular missile armed right now with a Nuclear Warhead . Jones it is. Stahl the warhead on each of these landbased missiles is 20 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on hiroshima and could kill millions if dropped on a major city. The air force still keeps nearly all 450 of them on constant alert, ready to go. We thought the missiles would be hidden away on some vast tract of federal land. My goodness, is this a farm right here . Jones it is. Stahl we were surprised the missiles were close to rural communities. We saw bales of hay and herds of grazing cattle. Jones its a safe weapon. I mean, its not going to. Its not going to do anything here on the ground. Stahl if by accident or a deliberate act, one of those missiles was launched, is there a way to disarm it or bring it back . Jones no, we can only launch with direction from the president of the United States. Now, once that missile has gone, theres no way to recall it or disarm the warhead thats on the missile. Once theyre gone, theyre gone. Stahl the missiles are spread out over a wide area surrounding three air force bases in five different states. A web of underground hardened and pressurized cables connect the missiles to buildings like this, where the missiles are monitored remotely miles away in capsules 70 feet underground. The control rooms hang on shock absorbers within a protective shell of concrete and steel. The system was designed in another era, the 1960s, to survive a nuclear blast. We went down by elevator and were escorted to a door that weighs eight tons. Chaz demerath maam and sir, i would like to welcome you to. Stahl we were allowed to go inside, provided we use an Old Air Force camera and let Security Officials vet this footage. The socalled missileers who watch over and control the missiles work in teams of two on 24hour shifts known as alerts. They have everything down here they need to survive. We expected to find potbellied veterans at the controls. Instead, we found chaz demerath, whos 25, just three years out of the air force academy, and his deputy, dana meyers, 23. This was only her fifth time on duty. When they started this 24hour shift, they took custody of ten Nuclear Weapons. So i guess i have to ask you the inevitable question where is the button . Demerath where is the big button . Maam, there is no button. Stahl there is no button . Demerath there is no button. Stahl there are three switches and a key, which is kept in this strongbox with two locks on it. Demerath has one combination, meyers has the other. Its one of many layers of safeguards built into the system. Demerath even though we trust each other, we dont trust each other. Stahl aha. We thought the work would be tedious, just waiting for something thatll probably never happen to happen. But from nearly the moment we asked the question. Is this just boring beyond belief . Demerath it is never boring because we have so many actions we do every day. alarm beeping stahl alarms started beeping and the phones kept ringing. Demerath maam, i need to ask all of you to remove all yourselves from the capsule at this point. Stahl so, is there anything wrong . Demerath nothing wrong at this point. Stahl we were politely asked to leave at least eight times, so they could decode messages or deal with other classified information. Okay, im back. The officers may be young. Demerath if you can imagine that as being your computer. Stahl . But the equipment is ancient. This, for example, is one of the computers that would receive a launch order from the president. It uses floppy disks, the really old, big ones. Before you got down here, you probably had never seen one of these . Dana meyers i had never seen one of these until i got down in missiles. Stahl the reason the air force allowed us to visit the missile fields surrounding Warren Air Force base is because it wanted to counter all the bad press its been getting lately at the two other bases that also guard our landbased missiles. Last year, 17 missileers at Minot Air Force base in north dakota were removed from duty after performing poorly on an inspection. At Malmstrom Air force base in montana, three missileers are under investigation for drug possession, and 91 have been implicated in a scandal involving cheating on routine tests. Jack weinstein i am flying back. Stahl Major GeneralJack Weinstein took control of all three nuclear bases in december, with a mandate to find out what ails the missile corps and fix it. Let me ask you a question whether theres, i guess youd call it an identity crisis with the mission as a whole. You have these Nuclear Weapons that no one believes well ever use, so do you find that thats an issue the question of whats the mission . Weinstein no, because we use these weapons every single day protecting our nation. Deterrence has a value. It has a value for our nation; it has a value for our allies. Stahl general weinstein commands a force of 9,600, including Maintenance Technicians who keep the missiles in working order, Security Forces that guard the weapons and provide a heavily armed escort any time the warheads are being moved, and about 500 missileers who man 45 control centers around the clock. The vast majority, the general says, have not cheated on tests. Weinstein were talking about 1 of the 9,600 people that work for me that did violate our core values. Stahl but when you say 1 , its not 1 of the missileers, right . Youre talking about everybody . Weinstein right. Stahl its a much larger percent of the missileers . Weinstein right. Its about 20 of the missileers. Stahl well, thats huge. Weinstein it is huge, and thats why weve taken accountability for those people. General weinstein also removed the directors of operation. Stahl on general weinsteins recommendation, the air force brass announced that the montana base commander would resign and that nine other officers under him would be removed. Weinstein told us investigators found no evidence of cheating at the two other missile bases. But thats not what our reporting found. You know. Its interesting because we spoke to a lot of former missileers, and they just say cheating goes on everywhere and its been going on for quite a long time. Weinstein what we did was we look at the evidence. Whenever we saw a cell phone, whether it was a text message or an email, we investigated that. Stahl one of the people who told us about this cheating being endemic was an instructor at this base who left last year. Weinstein well, i will tell you that, as a commander, if i have any indication that people arent following our core values, i immediately attack the problem. And we have not seen this problem at the other two bases. Hands on keys and switches. Stahl the former missileers told us that the missile corps has long been treated like the stepchild of the air force pilots get all the glory. I agree. Stahl missileers have fewer chances for advancement. Were going to review the monthly lesson plan, and then were going to take a test. Stahl its said that the reason for the cheating is a culture of perfection where missileers have felt they had to get 100 on the tests they take three times a month or face no chance of promotion. We spoke to a group of current missileers at Warren Air Force base, including 26yearold Daniel Sharpe from tennessee. Why did people feel they had to score 100 . Daniel sharpe when i first came here, leadership that was in place told me that the minimum passing score for my test was a 90 , but if i was making 90s, i was a d student and i would be treated that way. Stahl but you actually were here under that 100 pressure yourself. Sharpe i was. Stahl and you felt the pressure and that caused stress, im sure of it. Sharpe absolutely. But it also caused a great deal of studying and a great deal of proficiency. laughter weinstein no one cheated because they had to, they didnt know the material. They cheated in order to get 100 . Stahl is that gone . Weinstein thats gone. Stahl so what replaces that . Weinstein well, right now, its pass fail. As long as they get, you know, above the 90 , which is the standard. Stahl wait, wait, wait pass. Its still pass . You fail at 90 . Weinstein yeah, its still at 90 right now. Stahl wow. How is that improving things . Weinstein when you take away the pressure of getting 100 on a test, you have people focused on what they need to know. I think it changes things. Stahl its one of a number of things the generals doing to boost morale, which, by most accounts, has been low for a long time, even at the top. Last year, weinsteins predecessor, Major General michael carey, was relieved of command for drunken and inappropriate behavior during an official trip to moscow. According to an inspector generals report, carey complained that his troops had the worst morale of any airmen in the air force. How many of you chose to be a missileer as your first choice for your military career . Two of you. Truth be told, the vast majority dont choose this job. This group was impressive they majored in physics, engineering, and english, and many are working on their advanced degrees. Weve obviously heard a lot about the morale problems. So i wonder what the morale problems come from. Clair reynolds well, it fluctuates. And there are times where it just becomes a grind, because youre doing so much in a short period of time a lot of times. And you just have to adapt and work with the schedule youre given. Stahl so it can be more than 24 hours . Jennifer leute of course, weather does impact how long we might be downstairs. If we have poor weather, especially during the winter we do get that a lot in these northern bases you might be down there for 48 hours at a time, or possibly 72. Stahl anybody been down for 72 . No . 48 . Yes. Yes. Yeah. Stahl 48 a lot of you. They told us they feel things are improving, and they also assured us there are many safeguards built into the systems of the Launch Control centers, or l. C. C. S, to prevent an unauthorized launch. Launch key inserted. Inserted. Stahl are any of you partners . Sharpe yes, maam. Lieutenant matuu and i. Stahl youre partners. Okay, just for the sake of this discussion, lets say both of you go bonkers. And you get the key out and you do. You switch it on. Will it go off . Sharpe no, maam. Melissa matuu no. Stahl it wont go off . Why not . Matuu because there are enable codes that we need in order to get the missile ready for launching. Only the president of the United States could authorize a launch of Nuclear Weapons. Sharpe and one capsule by themselves cant do it alone. Right. Stahl you would have to receive the codes to put them in . You. You dont have them when you go into the l. C. C . Sharpe no, maam. Stahl okay, well, thats reassuring. An important part of their job is monitoring the condition of the missiles. If they get a signal that somethings wrong, they ask for a Maintenance Crew to fix it. Oh, wow. The Maintenance Crews train on this missile that is virtually identical to the real thing, minus the rocket fuel and warhead. The systems are so complex, the technicians work off detailed checklists. Theyre constantly shouting twotwo. Twotwo, twotwo. Stahl . Because the rules require there always be two people keeping an eye on one another when they work on a nuclear missile. Twotwo, twotwo. Stahl the idea is to ensure safety and prevent sabotage. Twotwo, twotwo. Stahl sometimes, these minutemen iiis have to be removed from their silos for repairs, or for random test launches without the warhead, of course to make sure the missiles still work. These missiles were designed and built during the cold war, when there was always the fear of a Nuclear Attack from the soviet union. But the secondincommand of all u. S. Nuclear forces said recently that hes more concerned about an accident or human error than a russian attack. When we come back, well tell you about some mishaps in the past that nearly led to Accidental Nuclear detonations on u. S. Soil. Cbs money watch update sponsored by glor good evening. The french government today threatened to block ges planned purchase of energy giant allston. 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And youre faced with the knowledge that he may be dependent on you for the rest of his life. I had to first realize that theres nothing wrong with him the way he is. Its the world who view him differently. I love him. My son is fine just the way he is. [ female announcer ] mutual of omaha. Proud sponsor of lifes aha moments. [ female announcer ] mutual of omaha. Stahl for more than 50 years, landbased Nuclear Missiles and longrange bombers have played a key role in americas strategy to deter other nations from using their Nuclear Weapons against us. But the age of the equipment is a problem, and human error is always a concern. Small mistarlike a dropped socket, can mean the difference between routine maintenance and a major accident. We were not aware until we started researching this story how many close calls there have been involving Nuclear Weapons fires, plane crashes, fuel explosions, even a bomb that was accidentally dropped on u. S. Soil. The seriousness of many of these incidents was not disclosed at the time. But based on witness accounts and declassified government documents, we have a much better understanding today of how close we have come to a nuclear disaster. Eric schlosser we came close on numerous occasions during the cold war to having our own weapons detonate accidentally on american soil. Stahl Eric Schlosser spent six years investigating Nuclear Weapons mishaps during the cold war. His book, command and control, describes a number of hair raising incidents. Clear stahl . Like a rocket fuel explosion in 1980 in damascus, arkansas, that forced the evacuation of People Living near a titan ii missile complex. Schlosser someone dropped a socket in the silo, and the socket fell about 70 feet, pierced the missile, caused a fuel leak. And then there was a huge explosion. Stahl if that exploded, how come no. You say there was no detonation . Schlosser they put safety mechanisms in the warheads to make sure they only detonate over the target where theyre supposed to. And thats a testame