The Day We Lost the H-Bomb

^{President Kennedy, General Curtis LeMay, and General Tommy Power. LeMay transformed SAC from a “creampuff outfit” to the most powerful military force in history.}

^{Official United States Air Force photograph, provided by the U.S. Strategic Command History Office}

^{A KC-135 tanker refueling a B-52 bomber. In 1966, the Strategic Air Command kept bombers in the air at all times, loaded with nuclear weapons, in anticipation of a Soviet surprise attack.}

^{Official United States Air Force photograph, provided by the U.S. Strategic Command History Office}

^{The village of Palomares in 1966. Courtesy of Lewis Melson}

^{Found on the day of the accident on the bank of a dry river, the first bomb was largely intact.}

^{Courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories}

^{Some of the high explosive in bomb number two detonated, exploding weapon fragments up to 100 yards in all directions. The surrounding area was highly contaminated.}

^{Courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories}

^{Pepe Lopez pulled the parachute aside to find bomb number three. “I immediately knew this was a bomb,” he said. As in bomb number two, high explosive had detonated, scattering radioactive debris.}

^{Courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories}

^{By February, hundreds of Americans were scouring the Spanish countryside for the missing bomb. When searchers found debris, they marked it with a colored flag or a bit of toilet paper.}

^{Courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories}

^{Admiral William S. Guest (white hat) briefs Ambassador Angier Biddle Duke (right) at Camp Wilson. Duke clashed with the military over the secretive press policy.}

^{Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Special Collections Library, Duke University}

^{Duke speaks with Palomares resident Antonio Sabiote Flores during a visit to the village, as Admiral Guest (left) and General Delmar Wilson (right) look on.}

^{Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Special Collections Library, Duke University}

^{The Air Force collected aircraft debris in a pile near Camp Wilson. Here it is loaded onto a barge to be dumped at sea.}

^{U.S. Naval Historical Center photograph}

^{Workers cleared a dense thicket of tomato stakes so fields could be decontaminated. The Air Force bought the tomatoes and fed them to airmen.}

^{Courtesy of Lewis Melson}

^{To dilute plutonium in the soil, the Americans agreed to plow or water more than five hundred acres of land.}

^{Courtesy of Lewis Melson}

^{The most contaminated dirt was packed into 4,810 barrels for shipment to the Savannah River nuclear processing center in South Carolina.}

^{Courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories}

^{Manolo Gonzalez (right) and Joe Ramirez (standing left) with a photo-mosaic map used for claims work.}

^{Courtesy of Joe Ramirez}

^{Alvin being lifted from the Fort Snelling’s well deck. The sub had completed only one mission prior to Palomares.}

^{U.S. Naval Historical Center photograph}

^{Alvin pilots Bill Rainnie, Mac McCamis, and Val Wilson.}

^{Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution}

^{Admiral Guest outlined four search areas, encompassing twenty-seven square miles of ocean. The area to search was larger than Manhattan.}

^{Courtesy of Lewis Melson}

^{Aluminaut under water. Larger and less maneuverable than Alvin, Aluminaut could stay submerged for up to seventy-two hours.}

^{Courtesy of Georgianna Markel}

^{Francisco Simo Orts, the Spanish fisherman who saw a “dead man” on a parachute fall into the sea. Guest centered a high-priority search area on Simo’s sighting.}

^{Courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories}

^{Lieutenant Commander DeWitt “Red” Moody, an EOD expert who joined Guest’s inner circle.}

^{Official U.S. Navy photograph, courtesy of D. H. “Red” Moody}

^{Brad Mooney, a thirty-five-year-old Navy lieutenant, was a veteran of the Thresher search and understood the submersibles’ capabilities.}

^{Courtesy of Brad Mooney}

^{Ambassador Duke (right) and Manuel Fraga Iribarne waving to photographers during their famous swim. The publicity stunt made papers around the world; Variety dubbed it the “Best Water Show since Aquacade.”}

^{Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Special Collections Library, Duke University}

^{On March 15, 1966, Alvin took this photo at about twenty-five hundred feet below the surface. “How do you know it’s not a parachute full of mud?” asked.}

^{Guest. U.S. Naval Historical Center photograph}