The Day We Lost the H-Bomb

Towell was more blunt. “General Wilson was totally dismissive of these civilian wimps from the State Department,” he said. “He didn’t want to play with a bunch of pointy-headed sissies. This was a job for real men.”

Smith and Towell stayed for a couple of days, eventually convincing Wilson to hold a sanitized briefing for the local military governor, which Wilson did reluctantly. “If you take care of sovereign people and deal with them in a respectful way, it advances the United States national interest,” said Towell. “You’re not just being Mr. Nice Guy.” Wilson, however, was searching for a missing H-bomb and contending with possibly massive plutonium contamination; he had little energy to devote to diplomacy. Smith and Towell returned to Madrid and told Duke what they had seen. Their report did not please the ambassador. He decided to visit Palomares himself.

At Camp Wilson, Duke met General Wilson and Admiral Guest for a briefing on the search for the missing bomb and the ongoing cleanup work. Then the ambassador visited the crash site, the junk pile, and the nearby fishing village of Villaricos. He also spent time in Palomares speaking to villagers. Duke took notes on the visit. Of General Wilson, he wrote, “His mission — to leave Spain as we found it before the accident.” Below, he wrote, “delighted to learn that there is no danger whatsoever to public health. However, whole operation will continue for at least another month.” Under the name of Admiral Guest, he listed the array of high-tech gear being used. He also scribbled the words Alvin and Aluminaut—the names of two minisubmarines that would soon arrive on scene to search the deep water. Most of the notes, however, related to the situation in Palomares. Farmers were working, but only in certain fields; fishermen could fish, but not in the search area; and villagers were filing claims for losses. At the top of the final page, he wrote the words “Local Morale” and underlined them. Underneath he wrote:

The population was fretting at not receiving information, and subject to rumors while idle. Now they appear to be more satisfied that they know what is going on after meeting with Genls Wilson and Montel — some have already gone back to work. Some will be picked up by the 16th. Foreign radio news was a disquieting factor, but some of the absurdities, which they could verify, tended to reassure them. Anxious that no outside labor be brought in. They are anxious to help and work.

On the back of the final page, Duke scribbled one last thought: “The people of Palomares,” he wrote, “have been propelled into the Atomic Age.”

Duke returned to Madrid with several new priorities. First, he had to ensure that the people of Palomares received quick, fair compensation to restore trust and keep the situation calm. Second, he had to convince the Spanish and U.S. governments to be more open with the news media.

Duke had already complained to Washington about the secrecy surrounding the operation. On January 27, he had sent a cable to the secretary of state outlining the problem. The press, he noted, had been able to “piece together essentially correct stories and TV coverage despite tight security and lack official statements.” Reporters, smelling a big story and a cover-up, would not simply disappear. American officials should give them controlled information, rather than just wishing them away. “Although number pressmen on scene has declined, introduction of exotic equipment and buildup at sea has rekindled high interest; many planning return to scene shortly.” Without Washington’s approval, Duke took matters into his own hands. A few hours after his return from Palomares, he called a press conference at his residence in Madrid. Though he didn’t admit that the United States had lost a hydrogen bomb, he explained the goal of the operation — to leave Spain as it had been before — and said that work would continue until the job was done. He gave a detailed description of the sea search, discussing the new equipment arriving in Spain and promising to try to get some unclassified photos released. The newsmen appreciated the meeting, savoring the first solid news from Palomares. Washington was less enthusiastic. The next day, the Pentagon gave Duke a wrist slapping for ignoring its “no comment” policy. Duke, convinced his actions served America’s best interest, took it in stride.

The day after the press conference, approximately six hundred people gathered outside the U.S.

Embassy to protest nuclear overflights, U.S. bases in Spain, and the United States in general. The protest surprised no one; leaflets had been circulated in Madrid, announcing the place and time.

Security guards shut the embassy gates as hundreds of riot police gathered outside.

At the time, it was illegal to assemble in Spain without a permit. But when the protestors — mostly students — arrived, the police let them march up and down the street for a bit, burning newspapers and chanting “Yanquis, no! Bases, no!” and other anti-American slogans. Soon, however, the police charged in, beating the protestors with wooden clubs until the crowd dispersed.

Ambassador Duke watched the scene from the fifth floor of the embassy. The protest was a minor one, but it must have reinforced his feelings about the situation in Palomares. The accident offered a rich propaganda opportunity for those who wanted the U.S. military out of Spain. Defusing the tension was going to require some creative diplomacy. But there was only so much Duke could do.

The shouting wouldn’t end until someone found the missing bomb.

8. Alvin and the Deep, Dark Sea

Mac McCamis had a problem. Alvin, the miniature submarine he piloted, was acting up. Alvin and her crew had arrived at Rota Naval Air Station in Spain, about 350 miles down the coast from Palomares, after a grueling trip on a prop plane from the United States. Alvin was a curious-looking little sub, twenty-two feet long, with a white bulbous body and a fiberglass “sail” towering over the hatch. To fit her on the cargo plane, the crew had separated Alvin into several large pieces and strapped the parts onto wooden pallets. Now they had reassembled the sub and were attempting a test dive — or rather a test dunk — off a pier at Rota. A crane slowly lowered the rotund, three-man submersible into the water as the crew watched. Water soon covered three-quarters of Alvin; only the top still bobbed on the surface. Suddenly, a battery shorted out. The crew sighed. One of them signaled the crane to lift Alvin from the water and lower her back onto the pier.

Mac and another Alvin pilot named Valentine Wilson had flown with Alvin on the plane from the United States, and the ride had been bone-jarring. During the flight, Wilson swore he could have stood still and passed a rod under his feet, the vibrations jolted him so far up off the floor. Mac figured the same vibrations must have shaken something loose in Alvin. The crew removed the batteries and — sure enough-found that the connector plates had loosened, letting water leak in. They opened every battery case, then drained and cleaned each battery.

When it came to mechanical matters, Marvin J. McCamis, known universally as “Mac,” almost always guessed right. In 1966, Mac was in his forties but still wiry and strong as a teenager, his eyes bright and intense beneath his flat-top buzz cut. He never exercised but could crank out one-arm pull-ups without breaking a sweat. According to Alvin lore, he had once gotten into an argument with an Air Force officer in a bar and the two had agreed to fight it out. The officer had grabbed Mac in a martial arts hold, threatening to break his finger unless he gave in. Mac had simply stared the officer down until his finger finally snapped.

As a teenager, Mac had dropped out of high school, enlisted in the Navy, and trained as an electrician. He spent twenty years in Navy submarines and developed a deep, innate understanding of underwater mechanics. But despite his long service and experience he remained prickly and temperamental. He had little respect for, or patience with, people who lacked mechanical skill and who failed to see things his way. “He was totally uneducated and unpolished,” said Chuck Porembski, an electronics engineer who worked with McCamis. “That’s why he often got into trouble.”

The Office of Naval Research, which owned Alvin, had called Mac’s group on January 22, asking them to join the search in Spain. By that point, the Navy knew that the fourth bomb might have fallen into the Mediterranean. The water at Simo’s sighting was just over 2,000 feet deep, unreachable to divers. Minesweepers had scored plenty of sonar hits in the area but couldn’t identify them further. The Navy hoped that Alvin could dive deep and investigate the sonar contacts.

At the time of the call, the Alvin crew had been finishing its annual “teardown,” taking every last bit of the little sub apart, checking and cleaning every component, and screwing it all back together.