The Day We Lost the H-Bomb: Cold War, Hot Nukes, and the Worst Nuclear Weapons Disaster in History

Aluminaut crew) But finally Aluminaut managed to drop the toggle bar into Alvin's hatch, trip the release, and back away.

The bar was connected to a twenty-five-foot length of line with a snap hook at its end. The Aluminaut grasped the snap hook in one of its claws, carried it to a ring at the end of the lift line, and snapped it in. Mizar raised Alvin and towed the crippled sub to a fishing ground off Martha's Vineyard, where a crane lifted Alvin onto a barge. Alvin, it turned out, was in remarkably good condition. Scientists and engineers flushed and cleaned every system, replaced the broken parts, and, by 1971, had her back on the job.

But just as Alvin got back to work, government funding for deep-sea exploration dried to a trickle.

Aluminaut, despite its great success recovering Alvin, grew desperate for work, accepting projects that embarrassed the crew. The most famous, and perhaps the one for which Aluminaut is best remembered, was a television commercial for Simoniz Wax. Producers coated one side of a Ford Falcon with Simoniz, the other with Brand X, then tied the car to Aluminaut and submerged it under water. (“I don't even like to think about it,” said one crew member.) But such exploits failed to cover Aluminaut's operating costs, and in 1971 Reynolds canceled the Aluminaut program and put the sub into storage. It planned to put it back into the water when it would prove profitable. That day never came.

Alvin, on the other hand, managed to survive the lean years despite its saltwater dunking and went on to a long and prosperous career of scientific discovery. The sub is probably best known for exploring the wreck of the Titanic in 1986 and aiding the discovery of “black smokers,” hydrothermal vents off the Galapagos Islands teeming with bizarre marine life. Over the years, WHOI has replaced individual parts of the sub in piecemeal fashion. All that remains of the original Alvin is three metal plates circling the entry hatch. The sub will retire by 2015, after nearly fifty years of service.

Palomares was not the last major nuclear weapons accident.

On January 21, 1968, almost exactly two years after the accident over Palomares, a SAC B-52 on airborne alert was circling 33,000 feet above Thule Air Base, Greenland. At around 3:30 p.m., the copilot, feeling chilly, cranked the cabin heater up to maximum. Shortly afterward, when other crew members complained about the heat, the copilot started to turn it down. A few minutes later, one crew member smelled burning rubber. As the fumes grew stronger, the aircraft commander told the crew to put on oxygen masks. The crew searched the plane and discovered a small fire in the lower cabin. The navigator fought the fire with two extinguishers, but the flames grew out of control, filling the plane with dense smoke. The pilot reported the fire to the ground, requested an emergency landing at Thule Air Base, and began his descent. Soon afterward, the electrical power on the plane blinked out. The pilot gave the order to eject. Six of the crew members bailed out into the darkness and landed safely in the snow. The seventh was killed.

The pilotless B-52, carrying four Mark 28 hydrogen bombs, continued its descent. The plane glided over the air base, banked left, then crashed into the ice seven miles away. When it hit, the plane was flying more than five hundred miles per hour. The jet fuel on board exploded into a massive fireball, detonating the high explosive in all four hydrogen bombs and spreading radioactive debris over miles of ice. U.S. personnel took four months to clean up the contamination, eventually removing 237,000 cubic feet of ice, snow, and aircraft parts.

By the time of the Thule accident, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had concluded that airborne alert was not necessary for national security. In 1966, using the Palomares accident for leverage, McNamara had proposed canceling the program. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and SAC objected to McNamara's plan. Eventually, the two sides compromised. In June 1966, President Johnson approved a curtailed program, allowing only four nuclear- armed bombers on airborne alert each day. It was one of these bombers that crashed in Greenland.

After the Thule accident, McNamara had had enough. He ordered SAC to stop carrying nuclear weapons on airborne alert. Within a day, the weapons had been removed. SAC continued to fly the missions with unarmed bombers, buying time as it continued to lobby for airborne alert. Its arguments, however, failed to persuade civilian authorities, who were tired of cleaning up diplomatic messes left by SAC's accidents. The program was canceled by the end of 1968.

The Strategic Air Command, the most powerful military force ever built, gradually diminished in power as the Navy and Army gained more nuclear weapons and the need for conventional weaponry increased. In 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. government closed down SAC, divvying up its resources among other commands. Even then, with the USSR disintegrated into fifteen separate countries, SAC veterans were shocked by the decision. In their view, SAC remained the key deterrent of nuclear war; it was impossible to imagine the world without it. One pilot said he couldn't sleep for days, sure that the Russians were simply lying in wait to attack America the moment she let her guard down.

In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the Russian air force would begin regular long- range bomber patrols over the world's oceans. The Russian bombers are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, but Putin did not say whether the flights would be armed. In August of that year, Russian bombers flew so near the American military base on Guam that the United States scrambled fighter jets to shadow them. The American fighters flew so close to the Russians that the pilots could see one another's faces. According to Russian authorities, there was no altercation. The pilots smiled at one another and then went their separate ways.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing this book has been like building Mount Everest with pebbles. Since 2002, I have gathered tidbits of information here and there as the story slowly took shape and the main characters emerged from the fog. Along the way, I interviewed close to a hundred people, read countless documents, and spent innumerable hours in libraries and archives. I received valuable support and advice from many people, both military and civilian, and would like to acknowledge some key players here.

Several characters in the book were also invaluable in my research. Joe Ramirez and his wife, Sylvia, sat for hours of interviews, shared personal notes and photographs, and told me where to stay in Madrid. Mike Rooney, Charlie Wendorf, and Larry Messinger, the three pilots who survived the crash, shared their stories during several interviews. Brad Mooney gave me time, stories, and good humor. Red Moody sat for hours of interviews, shared his life story, answered endless questions and e-mails, and wouldn't let me pay for lunch. Bill Barton answered countless questions over four years. Lewis Melson, one of the first people I interviewed, loaned me photos and personal letters.

Art Markel kindly took the time for a long interview and a tour of the Aluminaut, despite his advanced illness.

Within the Navy, Lieutenant Lesley Lykins and Lieutenant Commander Leslie Hull-Ryde helped arrange research trips. Lieutenant Mike Morley at Rota floored me with his organizational abilities.

Bobbi Petrillo at NAVSEA worked on my FOIA requests for years and sometimes sent informal notes with advice and encouragement. Ed Finney, Jr., was an enthusiastic and helpful photo archivist at the Naval Historical Center. Matt Staden, Gary Weir, and John Sherwood helped me find documents at the Naval Historical Center. Tom Lapuzza at SPAWAR illuminated the story of CURV.

Lieutenant Commander Brad Andros, Master Diver Ron Ervin, Commander Miguel Gutierrez, and the divers of EOD 6 allowed me to observe their training and learn what makes divers tick.

In the Air Force, Sid Girardin at Pease Air Force Base arranged for me to fly on a KC-135, observe a midair refueling, and speak with SAC veterans. The staff at Minot Air Force Base allowed me to tour a B-52 and interview pilots. Joe Caver at AFHRA and Ann Webb at the Air University Library helped me find documents to flesh out the history of SAC.

On the civilian side, Shelley Dawicki, Rosemary Davis, and Lisa Raymond helped me find documents at WHOI. Liz Caporelli, Bob Brown, and Bruce Strickrott, also at WHOI, arranged my visit to Alvin and took time to give me an extensive tour. Zach Elder at Duke University was a great help with the Angier Biddle Duke papers, and Myra O'Canna was a great help with photos. Becky Kenny, David Hoover, and Sam Bono at the National Atomic Museum helped with archives and interview space, and were very gracious during my two visits.