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Barbara Moran: The Day We Lost the H-Bomb

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Barbara Moran The Day We Lost the H-Bomb

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In 1966, a mid-air collision off the coast of Spain between a fueling tanker and a B-52 bomber resulted in a loss of life, strained international relations, and a PR nightmare for the US government. Not only had the crash put innocent civilians at risk from raining debris, but it also produced a much larger problem once the dust had cleared: four hydrogen bombs were now unaccounted for. explores an awakening to the realities of a nuclear age. Despite a handful of plutonium-grade foul-ups on our own soil, Americans were seemingly at ease with a burgeoning arsenal of nuclear weaponry. Cold War anxiety over the ever-reaching arm of Communism fueled massive increases in U.S. military spending, yet not enough attention was given to the dangers of an arms race until this fatal accident abroad.

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LeMay’s testimony on this “bomber gap” made front-page headlines, and Americans reacted with dismay. How did Russia get ahead of us? Both houses of Congress demanded that the president add an additional billion dollars to the Air Force budget. (The budget already included $16.9 billion for the Air Force, $10 billion for the Navy, and $7.7 billion for the Army.) Eisenhower, sensing trouble, cautioned against getting caught up in a “numbers racket” and trying to match the Russians plane for plane. He pointed out that the United States had a massive fleet of midrange bombers stationed all over the globe, not to mention the most powerful navy in the world. When the full story came out, he said, the American public would “feel a lot better.”

The president’s soothing words calmed the storm for a few weeks. The House of Representatives passed Eisenhower’s budget as it stood, without additional funds for the Air Force. Then LeMay returned for one more Senate hearing. It was his “guess,” he said on May 26, that the Soviets could destroy the United States in a surprise attack by 1959. From 1958 on, he said, the Russians would be “stronger in long-range airpower than we are, and it naturally follows that if [the enemy] is stronger, he may feel that he should attack.”

It’s impossible to tell if LeMay believed his own rhetoric. Some considered him a cynical opportunist, using spotty intelligence and scare tactics to build SAC into an empire at the expense of the other services. One anonymous administration spokesman told Time magazine that “Curt LeMay thinks only of SAC.” But many believed him a patriot defending his country against an ominous enemy. Most Americans assumed that the Communists were hell-bent on world domination and would like nothing better than to bomb America into a nuclear wasteland. If the United States gave them an inch or fell behind at all, they would try it.

At the conclusion of the airpower hearings, the Senate sided with LeMay. Over Eisenhower’s objections, Congress gave the Air Force an additional $928.5 million to bulk up against the Soviet threat. SAC could move its mission forward.

To counter the threat of a surprise attack, SAC started experimenting with a program called “ground alert” in November 1956. In this system, maintenance crews kept a handful of SAC bombers poised on the airstrip, filled with fuel and bombs. Flight crews lived and slept in nearby barracks. They could leave the barracks while on alert duty but never wander more than fifteen minutes away from their planes. Frequent drills kept the airmen in line. When the alarm — a blaring klaxon that could wake the dead — sounded, the crews ran to their planes at full speed, as if Curtis LeMay himself were chasing them. The first plane took off within fifteen minutes; the others followed at one-minute intervals. On October 1, 1957, ground alert became official SAC policy.

The new system came just in the nick of time. Three days later, on October 4, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit the earth. Sputnik by itself was no threat to the United States. Barely bigger than a basketball, it contained scientific instruments to measure the density of the atmosphere. But Sputnik hadn’t climbed into orbit by itself; the Soviets had shot it up there with a rocket. And if Soviet rockets could shoot satellites into space, they could certainly shoot nuclear missiles at the United States. “Soon they will be dropping bombs on us from space like kids dropping rocks onto cars from freeway overpasses,” said Senator Lyndon Johnson. SAC’s new ground alert seemed like a brilliant, prescient move. By the following year, SAC had reorganized its structure to keep one third of the bomber force on alert at all times.

That same year, SAC began testing another program, called “airborne alert.” Instead of holding bombers ready on the ground, this program kept loaded SAC bombers in the air at all times, flying in prearranged orbits that approached Soviet airspace. Proponents argued that airborne alert gave SAC added security. “Any Soviet surprise attack,” wrote one reporter, “would find the ‘birds’ gone from their nests.” Airborne bombers, closer than planes on the ground to Soviet targets, also posed a more powerful deterrent. With those bombers in the sky, the Soviets would think twice before trying any funny business.

Tommy Power told Congress about the new program in 1959, after he had finished initial testing.

Airborne alert was ready to go, but SAC needed more money. “I feel strongly that we must get on with this airborne alert,” Power told Congress in February. “We must impress Mr. Khrushchev that we have it, and that he cannot strike this country with impunity.” Power’s arguments did not convince Eisenhower. It would be “futile and disastrous,” said the president, to strive for constant readiness against any Soviet attack. It was madness to sit around thinking, every minute of the day, that bombs were about to fall on Washington. Airborne alert, he implied, promoted just that type of thinking.

Eventually the two sides reached a compromise. Eisenhower gave SAC permission to start an airborne alert training program, just in case America ever needed such a system in place. On January 18, 1961, Power publicly announced that airborne alert had begun. Reports said that SAC now kept at least twelve bombers in the air at all times; the exact number remained classified. SAC named the program “Chrome Dome,” probably because most of the bombers’ flight paths arched over the Arctic Circle, drawing a cap over the top of the world. Power refused to confirm or deny if the flights carried nuclear bombs (they did), but an Air Force spokesman said that “the training is conducted under the most realistic conditions possible.” The flights were still called “indoctrination” or “training” flights because they wouldn’t actually be dropping bombs on the USSR — unless, of course, an order came through from the president, and then, in an instant, a training flight would become a bombing mission.

By the time the first Chrome Dome mission went up, LeMay had moved on. In 1957, he had been promoted to Air Force vice chief of staff. Tommy Power was now in charge of the thriving Strategic Air Command. LeMay left Power a force of 1,655 bombers, 68 bases, and 224,014 men. In his nine years at SAC, LeMay had transformed the force from a national joke into a nuclear powerhouse.

Over the next seven years, Power carried the torch through changing times. As engineers made nuclear weapons smaller and lighter and missiles more reliable, other services — especially the Navy, with its nuclear submarines — began to get a larger share of the nuclear pie. By the 1960s, the United States had a nuclear “triad” of long-range land-based missiles, manned bombers, and submarine-launched missiles. SAC controlled everything but the subs and wanted to keep it that way. But as missiles grew more sophisticated and accurate, some asked whether bombers were becoming obsolete. Robert McNamara, who became secretary of defense in 1961, was seen as a missile man, hostile to the continued reliance on manned bombers. But Power, who had circled the burning Tokyo and seen the devastating power of bombers firsthand, argued that the manned bombers, which he called the “backbone of SAC’s deterrent strength,” would always have a role in nuclear strategy.

SAC, he insisted, must continue to demonstrate its power through programs like airborne alert. In order to deter nuclear war, said Power, the Soviets had to see America’s strength and know that America stood ready to use it.

2. The Accident

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