either at the White House level or State Department level, before I would be given an opportunity to be heard and subsequently empowered to handle the matter at this end. The manner in which the Palomares incident is terminated will be of great importance not only in Spain but to every nation in the world where there are nuclear overflights or bases.
With every best wish,
Sincerely,
Angie
On the following day, Tuesday, March 15, Tony Richardson, the baby-faced mathematician analyzing the search for Admiral Guest, sat on a small boat skipping across the waves toward Camp Wilson. Along with a WHOI oceanographer named John Bruce, Richardson planned to pick up Simo Orts and revisit, once again, the area of his parachute sighting. The Navy searchers worried that they had misread Simo's point and were searching the wrong area. Perhaps another outing with Simo, now widely known as “Paco de la Bomba,” could set their minds at ease.
Richardson arrived at Camp Wilson around 10 a.m. to meet Simo and the Navy men who had driven the fisherman from Aguilas. The group climbed back onto the boat and headed out to the minesweeper USS Salute. Over coffee, the men discussed the search. Simo told the group that he had taken a fathometer tracing on the day of the accident — perhaps it contained some clues. He also let the men in on a plan. By attaching some small lines and hooks to his trawling nets, he said, he could probably grab the bomb's parachute. If the Navy didn't find it soon — or abandoned the search — he just might go out there and snag it himself.
While Simo and his group chatted, Admiral Guest sat on the USS Boston. His response to the Cyrus Vance committee was due in Washington that day, and Guest and his team had been working on it for four days. The long memo answered all the committee's questions in comprehensive detail. In it, Guest explained Richardson's search effectiveness probability, estimating that he needed thirty more working days to bring Alfa 1 to 95 percent. For Alfa 2, he would need only twelve more days. There was, however, an undersea canyon stretching between the two search areas, its slopes and floor slimy with ooze. The weapon could be lying there, completely buried in the mud, invisible.
On that same morning, the Alvin crew prepared for their last dive in the area where they had seen the track. They were supposed to get a new transponder installed that morning to allow the Mizar to track them within about 130 feet. After that, they would be transferred to Bravo, a secondary search area. However, when the new gear arrived, it required two days of bench testing before installation in Alvin. Knowing that Alvin would be sitting idle, Brad Mooney nagged Admiral Guest for another day in C-4. Guest brushed him off. The area had already been searched to 98 percent. It was time to move on. But Mooney persisted. “All right, goddamn it,” Guest told Mooney. “One more day, and that's all.”
That day Mac McCamis and Val Wilson piloted the sub, with a WHOI technician, Art Bartlett, tagging along as the observer. As the sub descended, Mac spoke to Bill Rainnie, who was the surface controller that day. Mac told Rainnie to put them right on the elusive track, because today was his son's birthday.
Alvin drifted down, and almost as soon as the sub reached the bottom, Wilson saw the track. He snapped pictures and shouted directions to McCamis, as the pilot struggled to hover near the track without stirring up clouds of silt. Soon Mac could see the track out the front window — it seemed to head down a steep slope, about 70 degrees. Mac decided to follow the track by backing down the slope, so he could see it out the front window. Slowly, Mac edged down as Bartlett and Wilson called out directions. The sub reached about 2,500 feet. Then, the two men started shouting, “That's it!” “That's it!”
Outside, on the gray bottom, lay a massive parachute. Underneath, the men saw the shape of a bomb.
The task force had established code words for the search. If the Alvin pilots spotted the bomb, they were supposed to say the words “instrument panel.” Wilson, in his excitement, forgot the code and shouted over the phone, “We found a parachute and we believe we have a fin of the bomb in sight!
It's underneath the parachute!”
“Had a hell of a time shutting him up,” said Mac.
That morning, the USS Albany had arrived to relieve the Boston as Task Force 65's flagship.
Admiral Guest invited the Albany's captain to lunch before the ceremonial transfer of the flag.
During lunch, an aide burst into the room to hand Guest a slip of paper. The note read, “ALVIN reports INSTRUMENT PANEL.” Guest read it, rose from the table, and hurried off without explanation. Someone else would have to handle the ceremony.
On board the minesweeper USS Salute, lunch was also under way. Tony Richardson, Simo Orts, and the others had just started eating when the commanding officer entered the wardroom to tell the group that Alvin had sighted the weapon. The Navy men rushed off, leaving Richardson and Bruce to escort Simo back to the beach. When the group arrived at Camp Wilson, an Air Force helicopter flew them to Aguilas. John Bruce, the oceanographer, arranged to visit Simo the next evening to look at the fathometer trace. After all, there was still a chance that the Alvin crew was wrong.
Deep below the surface, Val Wilson snapped pictures of Alvin's prize. Then Mac eased Alvin away from the parachute to avoid tangling the submersible in the straps or shrouds. He wedged the sub into a crevice just below the chute, so they could keep an eye on it and not accidentally drift away in the current. Then he shut off the lights to conserve power and waited for instructions from the surface. One of the men reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. Smoking was, of course, prohibited in the sub. But the three men, all heavy smokers, knew they might be down there for a while and decided to give it a go. Bartlett, the technician, knew the air system inside and out and figured he could pull this off without incinerating or suffocating the crew. He turned up the oxygen, gave the crew a good blast, then shut it off. They lit the cigarette and passed it around, inhaling deeply. Then Bartlett cranked up the CO2 scrubber, hoping for the best. McCamis and Wilson, having both served on submarines, could sense when the CO2 approached the danger zone. At least that's what they told Bartlett, who watched the gauges and hoped they were right.
While they waited, the men discussed what to do if they accidentally hooked the bomb or the chute.
They all agreed that they could just drop a battery and surface, dragging the bomb with them.
Alvin's total battery weight, however, was only about 750 pounds. The bomb weighed more than two tons. There was no way they could pull it up. The military had never told the Alvin crew how much the secret weapon weighed. It was the mushroom theory, said Bartlett: “Feed them shit and keep them in the dark.”
On the surface, Admiral Guest and Brad Mooney discussed options. Alvin could remain submerged for twenty-four hours — tops — if the pilots conserved power, meaning it had about twenty hours left.
Mooney suggested sending Aluminaut down to rendezvous with Alvin. If the larger sub carried a transponder, the surface ship Mizar could fix her position when she got near the bomb. The rendezvous was a risky proposition, and Mooney knew it. At that depth, the silt and snow scattered light, allowing even powerful beams to pierce only about sixty feet. And depending on a sub's momentum, sixty feet might be too short to stop if the pilot suddenly saw trouble ahead. Generally, pilots avoided running two submersibles anywhere near each other under the sea. Mooney wanted to break this rule. What he proposed was much like sending two cars to meet in a midnight blizzard, on an icy road unfamiliar to both drivers. It would be dangerous, but it was their best option.
Guest readily agreed to the plan, liking the idea of keeping human eyes on the target. But he had difficulty comprehending the risk involved. “I can fly my F4s wingtip to wingtip at Mach speed and they don't hit each other,” he told one staffer. “You guys can't even go in the same area and stay out of each other's way?”
Mooney summoned Aluminaut. The sub picked up a transponder, got a quick
