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

by Barbara Moran

  To prepare the dirt and vegetation for shipment, the Americans decided to excavate a temporary burial pit at the site where bomb number two had been found. This area was already contaminated, relatively barren, and some distance from the village. The Americans dug a trench measuring approximately one thousand cubic yards and started to haul in contaminated dirt and mulched vegetation.

  Once the U.S. government started stripping contaminated crops and topsoil from the land, the farmers had to be paid. By late February, the Air Force had a full-blown claims office, with lawyers interviewing about twenty people a day to assess damages to crops, homes, livestock, and livelihoods.

  The claims work was as complicated as the radiation cleanup, if not more so. Lawyers had to sort out which odd-shaped plot of land belonged to whom, how big it was exactly, what had been growing there, and how much that crop had been worth. This might have been easy in Oklahoma, but in Palomares, farmers often marked property lines with buried rocks or nothing at all. Formal records didn't help: when lawyers consulted the owners' registry at Cuevas de Almanzora, they found that the entries were as much as six years behind. Furthermore, boundaries had been shifted and parcels had changed hands without being recorded. It didn't help that many people in Palomares had similar—or identical—names. Four claimants, for instance, were named Francisco Sabiote Flores; twelve were named Navarro Flores.

  Joe Ramirez sympathized with the villagers. He did his best to be fair with their claims and give them their due, and he says the Air Force supported him. He was troubled, however, that it never made any allowance for fear, anguish, or general disruption of life. The Air Force had procedures for foreign claims and in some Eastern countries it allowed a “salve” payment for mental hardship. But there was no such plan in place for Spain. Ramirez felt that the United States had upset these people's lives and they should be compensated. It was not an easy situation, recalled Ramirez. “How do you value anxiety?”

  13.

  Spin Control

  Ambassador Duke stood on a rocky beach, dressed in nothing but swim trunks, loafers, a blue bathrobe, and a bathing cap. The morning air felt sharp and chilly; the blue waves, slithering on the shoreline, looked cold and forbidding. Behind the ambassador, up a slight incline, squatted a white modern building—a new parador, or government-run hotel—that seemed utterly out of place in the barren desert. The dapper ambassador, too, seemed out of place, half naked and shivering on this godforsaken strip of sand. But Duke was a man of duty, and he had a job to do. He slipped off his loafers and sank his toes into the cold, damp sand. He untied his bathrobe and tossed it aside on the beach. Then, as a swarm of news reporters watched, their cameras clicking, Duke shouted, “Okay, let's go!” With his children following gleefully behind, he ran down the beach and splashed into the 54 degree water.

  A few minutes later, Duke emerged looking winded. The water was “thrilling,” he told the gathered reporters. “Sensational!” As the ambassador dressed quickly, the questions peppered him: “Did you detect any radioactivity in the water?” asked one reporter. “If this is radioactivity,” said the ebullient Duke, “I love it!” Another reporter questioned the ambassador: “When you were out there, did you happen to see the bomb?” Duke replied gamely, “I wish I had!”

  On March 2, less than a week before the ambassador's swim, the U.S. government had finally admitted that it had lost an H-bomb in Spain. For weeks, the U.S. and Spanish governments, aware that the current press policy was neither controlling information nor calming fears, had been debating how to release more information. Duke had been pushing for a more liberal press policy since early February but could not get the two governments to agree on the particulars. The stalemate finally broke when Dr. Otero Navascuéz, president of Spain's Junta de Energía Nuclear, discussed the subject with the Spanish news agency CIFRA, which published lengthy articles on March 1. The Americans didn't know if Navascuéz had acted independently or in concert with the Spanish government, and the leak annoyed them. But it was also a relief. The Department of Defense used the opportunity to publish a formal press release. It read:

  Search is being pressed off the Spanish Coast for the recovery of material carried by the two planes involved in the recent air collision, and for fragments of wreckage which might furnish clues to the cause of the accident. Included aboard the B-52 which collided with the KC-135 tanker were several unarmed nuclear weapons, one of which has not yet been recovered.

  When this search and investigation have been concluded further announcement will be made of the results.

  The impact of the weapons on land resulted in a scattering of some plutonium (PU 239) and uranium (U 235) in the immediate vicinity of the point of impact. There was no nuclear explosion.

  Built-in safeguards perfected through years of extensive safety testing, have allowed the US to handle, store and transport nuclear weapons for more than two decades without a nuclear detonation. Thorough safety rules and practices also have been developed for dealing with any weapon accident which might result in the spilling of nuclear materials.

  Radiological surveys of the Palomares area and its human and animal populations have included detailed laboratory studies by leading Spanish and U.S. scientists throughout the 44 days since the accident. They have obtained no evidence of a health hazard. These experts say there is no hazard from eating vegetables marketed from this area, from eating the meat or fish or drinking the milk of animals.

  Steps have been taken to insure that the affected areas are thoroughly cleaned up, and some soil and vegetation are being removed.

  These measures are part of a comprehensive program to eliminate the chance of hazard, to set at rest unfounded fears, and thus to restore normal life and livelihood to the people of Palomares.

  Immediately, various government agencies began stumbling over one another, releasing press statements, talking points, and question-and-answer sheets in both Washington and Madrid. The Department of Defense, trying to control the situation, quickly ordered the embassy to coordinate all publicity but permitted General Wilson and Admiral Guest to handle routine public affairs matters on their own.

  The press reacted to the sudden surge of information with a mixture of bemusement and sarcasm. Despite the official stonewalling, reporters had known the main points for weeks. “The news is now official. One of our H-bombs is missing,” said an editorial in The Boston Globe, which then compared the searchers to basketball players looking for a lost contact lens. “One U.S. official insisted that the bomb was not actually lost,” added Newsweek. “‘We just haven't found it,’ he explained.” The Washington Post and The New York Times ran a cartoon of a befuddled military man tipping his hat to two Spanish peasants. “Perdoneme,” he asks, “ha visto un—uh—H-bomb?”

  Duke was pleased with the new policy. But now that the radioactive contamination was public knowledge, he worried that Soviet propaganda could hurt Spain's largest industry: tourism. Together, Ambassador Duke and Manuel Fraga Iribarne, the Spanish minister of information and tourism, cooked up a publicity stunt to defuse any fears. Fraga was planning a trip to Almería to dedicate the new parador; Duke and his family would join him at the hotel and then swim in the Mediterranean to prove it wasn't radioactive. “If I could take my children there swimming, and go in myself, why, obviously it could not be all that dangerous,” said Duke. The CBS reporter Bernard Kalb called the swim a Spanish-American effort at “aquatic diplomacy.” “There are lots of things, like money,” he said, “riding on this dip in the Med.”

  Something went awry on the morning of the swim, however, and Fraga never showed up. Duke made his chilly dip without the Spanish minister, chatted with newsmen, and posed for photos on the deck of the new parador. Then he changed clothes, threw his bathing suit into the trunk of a car, and headed a few miles down the road to Camp Wilson for a scheduled briefing.

  At some point, Fraga and his entourage also arrived at Camp Wilson. Tim Towell, Ambassador Duke's aide, wondered what the
Spanish officials were up to. Towell saw Fraga walking along the beach with a Spanish general and some members of the Spanish press. Curiously, the group seemed to be edging toward the water. Suddenly it dawned on him: Fraga was trying to pull a fast one. “He wants to swim alone,” said Towell. “He'll be dipped if he's going to share this with the American ambassador. This is his thing.”

  Towell and Duke both realized that Fraga was about to upstage the ambassador. The two men looked at each other and said, “Holy shit!” Towell tore down the beach and burst into a tent. There he found a handful of Navy divers on break, lying on their cots. Towell, huffing and puffing, asked for help. “The American ambassador needs a bathing suit,” he said. “We gotta go swimming instantly, it's an emergency!” The divers said they had just come in from the water and their suits were dripping wet. Doesn't matter, said Towell—we'll take what you have.

  Moments later, Duke stepped into the tent, peeled off his European clothes, and wriggled into a wet bathing suit that Towell described as a “little damp jock strap.” Emerging from the tent, Duke jogged across the sand and caught up with Fraga just after he had entered the water. “Fraga's been had, so what's he to do?” asked Towell. “And in they go together.”

  Fraga, Duke, and a few others in the entourage splashed merrily in the sea for a few minutes, then returned to shore and chatted with reporters. Then the two men toured Palomares, greeted by cheering townspeople carrying neatly lettered signs—most likely not the handiwork of peasant farmers—praising America and General Wilson. “The humble of Palomares welcome the illustrious visitors,” read one sign. “We have blind faith in the justice of your plans,” said another. Afterward, Duke gave a short radio interview with Jay 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 Almería.

  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 Almería coastline, particularly in the vicinity of Palomares and Mojácar. You and I both know, since we were there, that Palma, Formentor, Ibiza, Mahón, and many other points in the Balearics are far more conducive to tourism than is the barren and unappetizing coastline in Almería 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 Attaché.” 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 thi
nk 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 the barrels with standard radiation warnings.

  As the barrel loading continued, General Wilson and the Spanish military liaison, Brigadier General Arturo Montel Touzet, held a meeting for the townspeople of Palomares and Villaricos. Wilson apologized for causing any hardship and thanked the villagers for their patience and cooperation. “The payment of claims is now progressing satisfactorily and should proceed at a rapid pace,” he said. “It gives me great satisfaction to see a return to normalcy for this area.

  “Although my camp will disband in the near future and we will be returning to our bases, I want to assure you that our close ties will continue,” he added. “We will be leaving with a great admiration for the people of this part of Spain, and I also hope that we will be leaving as your lasting friends.”

  On March 24, men moved the last barrel off the beach and onto the USNS Lt. George W. G. Boyce for shipment to Charleston. The ship left that day, carrying 4,810 barrels of Spanish soil. One chapter of the Palomares saga, it appeared, had closed.