The Day We Lost the H-Bomb

Rutherfurd of Mutual News Madrid:

Duke: It was with confidence and pleasure that my family and I enjoyed our swim here this morning. And soon thousands of visitors will follow our example and enjoy the beauties and the pleasures of this coast in Almeria.

Rutherfurd: Mr. Ambassador, have our relations with Spain been affected?

Duke: Well, Mr. Rutherfurd, they were obviously put in jeopardy initially, to the extent that confusion and fears can always disturb relations. The Spanish government, quite understandably, was concerned as well by the possibly adverse effect on tourism, Spain’s most lucrative source of income, as you know. But as the facts began to emerge and fears to fade away, a new spirit entered into our relationship. In effect, we were drawn together in our adversity.

The swim was a public relations masterpiece, making news in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. An Associated Press photo of Duke and Fraga waving to the cameras made page one of The New York Times and was reprinted around the globe. American papers praised the ambassador, calling the swim daring and imaginative, a stunt that had taken guts and courage. “We think of our diplomats as men who do not mind being in hot water,” said The Dallas Morning News. “But Ambassador Duke may have been the first diplomat who had to prove the water wasn’t hot.” Variety summed up the enthusiasm with this headline: “Duke’s ‘Swim-in’ for Spanish Tourism Best Water Show since Aquacade.”

Letters poured in to the embassy from various luminaries:

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

March 9, 1966

Dear Angie:

I’m glad your bathing suit finally got wet. Seeing it splashed all over today’s press reminded me that I can always count on you for the dramatic ideas. (Though it did look like you were more in danger of catching pneumonia than radioactive poisoning.)…

Jack Valenti

Special Assistant to the President

March 12, 1966

Dearest Angie—

How happy I was to see you coming out of the ocean — looking marvelous. That was such a wonderful thing of you to do — I was so proud of you. I hope you saw all the nice things that were written about you here….

Mrs. John F. Kennedy

THE INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

March 15, 1966

Dear Angie:

… I trust that excessive swimming has not made you radioactive. My love to Robin.

Yours ever,

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Some letters arrived from lesser-known parties. Nathan Arrow, a forty-eight-year-old Spanish translator in Flushing, New York, had this to say:

March 10, 1966

Dear Mr. Ambassador:

…I can understand our Government’s desire to placate and assure the local residents of the area. I think, however, that it is completely ludicrous for you and Sr. Fraga Iribarne to go bathing in the freezing Mediterranean merely to prove that the waters are not radioactive. It is hardly likely that there will [be], or would have been, a great rush of Europeans and Americans to the bare and forbidding Almeria coastline, particularly in the vicinity of Palomares and Mojacar. You and I both know, since we were there, that Palma, Formentor, Ibiza, Mahon, and many other points in the Balearics are far more conducive to tourism than is the barren and unappetizing coastline in Almeria province. None of our protestations will assuage the worries of those poor tomato farmers in the Palomares area, so why should we make ourselves look ludicrous in trying to promote tourism, by the highest representative of the U.S. in Spain, no less, in that forsaken corner of the Iberian Peninsula….

Some journalists also turned a more cynical eye to the event. “Feel safer already?” asked Newsweek.

“Supposing a bomb is reported missing in Norway? In the winter?” asked a writer in The Times of London. “Perhaps in such cases the job could be suitably left to the Naval Attache.” The Moscow publication Izvestia also weighed in, saying that Ambassador Duke should receive the “Order of the Bath” for his feat.

At least one paper questioned the airborne alert program that had led to the accident in the first place. “For many years,” read an editorial in The Boston Globe, it has been part of this nation’s defense setup to have bombers carrying nuclear weapons flying many hours, ready for nuclear war in case of attack. This may have been necessary in times of crisis, though it was already scary in 1961 to know that the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons contained the equivalent of 30 tons of T.N.T. for every person on the planet.

But today, when intercontinental missiles have better capability of delivery than airplanes, is it not time to call a halt to routine flights with nuclear weapons?

A few days later, Curtis LeMay added his two cents to the debate, taping an interview for CBS.

LeMay had retired by this point and, dressed in a gray suit and a striped tie, looked more like a midwestern businessman than a fire-breathing general. But the old man could still shoot plenty of sparks.

First of all, said LeMay, this whole Palomares business had been “exaggerated all out of proportion.” The newspapers were scaring people for no reason. The Air Force had had accidents before where a weapon had broken open and scattered a little radiation around. They had just gone in and cleaned it up, no big deal. “The chance of scattering radioactive material over a wide area,” he said, “does not exist.” And there was no danger of radioactive contamination at sea, even if they never found the fourth bomb.

The interviewer pressed LeMay. Is it really necessary, he asked, to have SAC bombers in the sky at all times, loaded with nuclear bombs and refueling in midair? Yes, replied LeMay, ticking off the reasons why. SAC’s primary mission is to prevent war. We need to be strong, and our enemies must know this. In order to be ready for war, we have to train for war with usable weapons. Furthermore, SAC has been refueling in the air for years. “The fact that we had an accident means nothing,” said LeMay.

The general ended with a warning and a plug for the airborne alert program. America’s deterrent force is not as strong as it was a few years ago, he said. Our enemies are moving faster; the gap is narrowing. Cutting down the manned bomber force, depending too much on missiles, would be a mistake. With manned bombers, he argued, SAC could offer more choices to America’s leaders. “A man can think and react and do things he never thought he’d have to.” If war began, he wanted “a thinking man, a loyal man,” at the controls. Not some mindless missile.

While the big shots handled public relations, Wilson’s men started loading barrels with contaminated soil and vegetation.

The Navy requested that a radiological survey team accompany the barrels back to the United States. However, they offered to dispense with this formality if each barrel was numbered and painted with the words “Poison Radioactive Material” on the top, bottom, and sides. The Air Force balked at the request. Such alarming labels were not, they said, “in line with the spirit of the operation.” After some discussion, the Navy agreed to carry