Yeah and many hackers types that have worked around WMDs knew how they could do such and such, but that's why there's the PRP (Personnel Reliability Program) program, psychological interviews, polygraphs (yeah yeah, not scientific), and security clearances and background checks.
Speaking of potential psychological issues, what about General Powers, head of SAC at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, who was fond of statements like:
Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!
He's seems to be one of the few people who was actually enthusiastic about the prospects of starting a (very one sided) nuclear war.
Being crazy gets you leverage on the negotiation table. Seeming measured and rational and restrained oftentimes gets you into trouble. See Jimmy Carter and the Iran hostage crisis, for instance. There's no way that'd happen under a more aggressive President, like FDR or Nixon or GW.
As the Romans said - "Si vis pacem, para bellum." - "If you wish peace, prepare for war." Pacifistic, restrained military and civilian leadership paradoxically can invite violence against you.
Even Curtis Le May was worried about the psychological state of General Powers describing him as "not stable" and a "sadist".
There is credible deterrence and there is dangerous lunacy - Powers appears to have been uncomfortably close to the latter. Especially when he was wanting to initiate a strike which would probably have killed rather more than a billion people.
Being crazy gets you leverage on the negotiation table. Seeming measured and rational and restrained oftentimes gets you into trouble. See Jimmy Carter and the Iran hostage crisis, for instance. There's no way that'd happen under a more aggressive President, like FDR or Nixon or GW.
[citation needed]
... the entire "madman theory" of coercion was flawed in its essence, depending as it did on twisted logic that assumed an adversary would respond to a calculated show of irrationality with something other than irrationality of its own. [1]
In that article you can see what kind of danger unchecked assumptions and arrogance can lead people into, specially when these traits are carried by people with access to WMD.
Not to be dismissive, it's a hole certainly.