The Day We Lost the H-Bomb

Madrid. After lunch, the two reporters returned to the riverbed camp to track down the Sixteenth Air Force’s information director, Colonel Barnett Young, who told them that the airmen in the fields were simply looking for wreckage. When the reporters asked if the planes had carried nuclear weapons, Young “exploded with anger,” according to del Amo, shouting, “This is not a place for scandal stories or outrageous hypotheses!” Young warned the reporters to stop nosing around.

As the two reporters headed back toward the village, a young Air Police trooper flagged down their car. Readying themselves for another confrontation, the reporters were struck instead by a bolt of luck. Looking desperate, the airman asked if either of the men spoke Spanish. Del Amo replied that he did. “Great,” the air policeman said. “There’s a fellow in that bean field, and I’ve got to get him out of there.” Del Amo said he would be happy to translate.

The two reporters trudged into the bean field, and Del Amo translated the airman’s message, telling the farmer that he had to leave the field because of dangerous radioactivity. On the way back to the car, del Amo asked the airman if the Air Force was worried about the bombs. Their conversation, recorded in The Bombs of Palomares, would break the Palomares story wide open:

“How do you know about the bombs?” the airman asked, suddenly suspicious.

“Hell,” del Amo told him, “I’ve just come back from the camp.” The air policeman was reassured. “Well, they found three of them very shortly after the crash, but they’re worried because they haven’t found the other one,” he said. They reached the car, and he pointed to the sites where the three bombs had been found. “One was in the river bed where the camp now is,” he explained. “The second bomb was near that white house over there, you see? And the third one way over in those hills in front of you. Now they’re all worried about the fourth bomb.” Del Amo sped back to Vera. He called the Madrid bureau and told it about the four bombs, radioactivity, and a missing nuclear weapon — everything the governments wanted to keep covered up.

That evening, in Madrid, Duke got wind of del Amo’s dispatch. At 9:46 p.m., he sent a terse cable to Washington: “Have just learned local UPI correspondent filed story today on B-52/KC-135 accident to effect three atom bombs recovered from wreckage but one still missing and that hundreds of US troops combing countryside with Geiger counters.” He added, “Foregoing may lead to escalation of media treatment and rapid change in present circumstances.” The following morning, January 20, 1966, The New York Times ran the UPI story on page one. The headline read, “U.S. Said to Hunt Lost Atom Device.” The article began: United States Air Force men today were reported searching the Spanish countryside for an atomic device that was understood to be missing after the collision of a B-52 nuclear bomber and a jet tanker Monday during a refueling mission.

United States officials in Madrid and here in Southeastern Spain refused to confirm or deny that a nuclear bomb was carried by the B-52, which crashed into the KC-135 jet tanker near here.

But they gave every sign they were looking for one. Hundreds of American servicemen were searching the crash scene, some of them armed with Geiger counters. Palomares is a village a little more than a mile inland on Spain’s southeastern coast, about 95 miles east of Granada.

When asked what the Geiger counters were being used for, Col. Barnett Young, chief information officer for the 16th Air Force at Torrejon Air Force base, near Madrid, asked in return, “what do you normally use Geiger counters for?”

The article, which went on to describe the massive search under way near Palomares, made no splash in Spain on January 20. Exercising its iron grip on the press, the Spanish government allowed no major foreign newspapers into the country that day. When Foreign Minister Fernando Castiella summoned Duke to a meeting that evening, they spent most of the time discussing the long-contested territory of Gibraltar and barely mentioned Palomares.

But the storm had only been delayed. The following day, the UPI article landed on Franco’s desk, sent by the Spanish Embassy in Washington. The generalissimo was not pleased.

Shortly after noon on January 21, the Spanish foreign minister called Duke to report that Franco had read the UPI article and was extremely concerned. Angel Sagaz, the director of North American affairs, was on his way to the U.S. Embassy to discuss the situation.

Sagaz arrived at the embassy agitated and upset. Franco fired people at will, and Sagaz undoubtedly felt the gun sights turning in his direction. This was a crisis. He gave Duke an earful: Who were these “United States officials” mentioned in the article? And what were these other reports, citing “Spanish inhabitants of the accident area” who had complained about nuclear overflights? If this turned into a radiation scare, it could wreck the tourism industry. He thought that the United States and Spain had been working together to contain the press, but since that obviously wasn’t the case, the Spanish government might take matters into its own hands. Maybe it would convene its own press conference, to at least spin the story in Spain’s favor.

Duke, the man who could calm kings, responded. He understood why Sagaz was upset. This was a delicate situation of great concern to both governments. Both needed to remain calm and work together. He had no idea who the “United States officials” were — certainly, neither he nor anyone under his control had spoken to the UPI reporter, but he would get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, U.S. Air Force General Stanley Donovan, Duke’s chief military contact, was visiting Palomares and expected to return at any moment. When Donovan got back, they would get an up-to-date situation report and then decide what to do next. Everything would be fine if they stuck together. Sagaz calmed down and agreed to wait for further reports from the scene.

After the meeting, Duke got to work. Donovan gave him the rundown on Palomares: the fourth bomb was still missing, but the Air Force was following every lead; experts had identified several small radioactive areas, which were now closed off and awaiting remediation; the Air Force was buying affected plants and livestock; medical teams were examining people in the area who might have been exposed. The residents of the area seemed a bit fearful, but there was no mass panic.

Spanish medical teams, nuclear experts, and civil authorities were on the scene and cooperating. The situation seemed under control. However, a growing crowd of international press was swarming the area, including UPI, Paris Match, CBS-TV, and some British media.

Duke next called the UPI bureau chief, Harry Stathos, to give him a piece of his mind. He refuted the “United States officials” quoted in the article and asked where he had found that information.

The shaken Stathos started to backpedal. He said he had gotten the information thirdhand and apologized for filing the story without double-checking with the embassy.

It was about 7:30 in the evening on January 21, the Friday after the accident. Duke called Sagaz with a summary and offered to send an embassy officer with a full report, which Sagaz quickly accepted. The officer who briefed Sagaz reported that he listened intently, especially to the story of the UPI bureau chief. It seemed that Sagaz wanted that part of the story particularly clear to report to his superiors. The embassy assured Sagaz that it was open to any Spanish suggestions on how to handle the situation but believed they should continue working together closely. Sagaz agreed. The crisis of the day was over.

But the larger crisis was not. The Spanish government would not be soothed as easily as Sagaz. The next morning, General Donovan met with Spanish Vice President Munoz Grandes to give him the latest news from Palomares. Munoz Grandes did not appear upset, but he responded with a demand: nuclear flights over Spanish territory must be stopped until further notice.

The demand did not appear to originate from Munoz Grandes. A military man, he had always been cooperative and friendly toward the Americans, “the only friend we really had,” according to George Landau. Most likely the ban had come from the civilian side of the Spanish government, or maybe Franco himself. And it probably had little to do with Spain’s concern for its people; the government might simply have been arming itself with a bargaining chip for the 1968 base renegotiations.

Munoz Grandes’s decree meant little for the Chrome Dome route over Spain. Though some reports claimed that SAC dropped the route, U.S. Embassy staffers say the flights continued but started refueling over water. But the decree also had another implication: no more nuclear logistics flights either. The United States couldn’t fly nuclear bombs over Spain just to get them somewhere else, such as to storage depots in Germany, for instance. Most viewed these curbs as simply an inconvenience: planes could be rerouted over oceans or other countries. But others saw clouds gathering on the horizon. What if other European countries — Britain, France, Germany — fearing a Palomares accident of their own, started asking questions? What if they demanded that the United States remove nuclear bombs from their bases, nuclear subs from their waters, nuclear-armed planes from their skies? If Spain’s decision caused a domino effect, the United States’ nuclear strategy could be curtailed. Everything in Spain had to be patched up as quickly as possible. Over the next few months, Ambassador