The Day We Lost the H-Bomb

by Barbara Moran

  The EOD team began to render the bomb safe, dismantling key components to make sure it couldn’t explode or release radiation. Carefully, they removed covers and disconnected cables in a specific sequence. The job went smoothly until about 10 a.m., when they tried to remove the thermal battery.

  The pressure of the deep water had squeezed the battery into place, and it stuck stubbornly inside the bomb. The EOD diver in charge of the render-safe, Walter Funston, consulted the manual, which included instructions for this contingency. The manual said to drill a hole in the battery, insert a wood screw, and use the screw to yank the battery out. Funston turned to the Sandia expert standing nearby and asked if the battery configuration had changed. He was about to drill a hole into a hydrogen bomb and wanted to hit the mark. Getting the go-ahead, the team drilled a small hole in the center of the battery and inserted a three-inch wood screw. Several men tried to pull the battery clear, but it refused to budge. Funston had an idea. He hooked a short nylon strap to the wood screw and attached it to a shackle on the ship’s bulwark. As he twisted the strap, the battery slowly eased out. At 10:15 a.m. the bomb was declared safe.

  On the fantail, there were no shouts of joy, no claps on the back. Everyone was too tired. In the wardroom, the staff applauded, more with relief than excitement. Guest, nearly sick with exhaustion, said simply, “Thank God we finally did it.”

  Someone cut up the parachute, handing out small strips as souvenirs. For the next two hours, the members of the task force congratulated one another and autographed the little pieces of parachute.

  Then all those who could headed to their bunks.

  As Brad Mooney walked toward his quarters, Herman Kunz leaned out of a doorway and beckoned to him. Mooney followed Kunz to his room and watched, goggle-eyed, as Kunz opened a folding desk and displayed his fine collection of alcohol. Kunz offered Mooney a drink, but the young lieutenant demurred. He told the diver that he had never drunk alcohol aboard a Navy ship before, and he wasn’t about to start now. That’s fine, said Kunz. You’re tired. Go to bed.

  A short time later, after Mooney was in bed, the ship’s doctor paid him a visit. “Guest tells me you’ve been up for three days,” said the doctor. “You really need to have some medication.” He handed Mooney some clear liquid. “Here,” he said. “This is yours. Take your time drinking it.” Mooney took a couple of sips. It was pure gin. Somehow, Herman Kunz had convinced the doctor to give him a prescription for booze. Mooney, just following orders, found Kunz, joined him in a celebratory dose of medicine, then returned to his quarters and fell asleep.

  The next day, April 8, was Good Friday. That morning, approximately a hundred newsmen and photographers, following the plan that the embassy, Navy, and Air Force had finally agreed upon, gathered at a dock in Garrucha and were ferried to the USS Albany. From the deck of the flagship, under a warm spring sun, they watched Alvin, Aluminaut, and Cubmarine sail by in a multicolor minisub review. They also watched the Petrel sail back and forth along the starboard side of the Albany, about thirty-five yards away. Ambassador Duke posed for photos with his wife and various Spanish and American officials. For about twenty minutes, the press had a clear view of bomb number four, still resting on its wooden chocks on the Petrel’s fantail.

  It was the first time the United States had ever displayed a nuclear weapon in public, and pictures of the bomb appeared in television stories and on front pages around the globe. Bernard Kalb, reporting for CBS, noted how innocent the bomb seemed. It lay, he said, “under the Mediterranean sun as if it were a bathing beauty posing for photographers.” “For a multimegaton monster,” he added, “it looks extremely dull.”

  The embassy had drafted a press release to be given to reporters at this event. Part of the release stated that the weapon had been found “in 2,500 feet of water, approximately five miles off shore by the submersible Alvin.” The Navy said this made it look as if Alvin had done all the work alone. It asked the embassy to change the sentence, and it complied. The statement released to the press read:

  “The weapon was located on March 15 in 2,500 feet of water, approximately five miles off shore by units of Task Force 65.”

  After the bomb display, Guest, flanked by Wilson, Duke, and Spanish dignitaries, held a press conference aboard the Albany. He gave a detailed explanation of the search and recovery operations, then opened the floor for questions. One reporter asked him how much the operation had cost. Guest refused to estimate. But regardless of the cost, he said, the Navy had learned more about deepwater operations from Task Force 65 than from any previous mission.

  Guest had hardly slept in days, and, as the press conference wore on, he sounded steadily more testy and exhausted. He praised the Alvin crew but couldn’t remember their names. At one point, he apologized for asking a reporter to repeat a question, saying “I’m just about out on my feet.” Finally, before the admiral collapsed, Duke stepped in and commandeered the mike. “Admiral,” he said,

  “you have the gratitude of grateful countrymen, a grateful host country, and in fact the gratitude of the world. Thank you very much.” With that Guest thanked the crowd and signed off.

  Palomares invites superlatives. It involved the greatest striking force in military history, the worst nuclear weapons accident, the largest sea search. The magnitude of the accident forced Americans to confront their country’s nuclear policies as never before.

  Throughout the Cold War, there had always been people who worried and complained about nuclear weapons. But most Americans managed to make peace with them, or at least accept them as a necessary evil. This uncomfortable peace existed only because Americans believed that their government had control over the weapons. The United States would launch the nuclear bombs only to respond to a Soviet attack or to offer a controlled display of American strength.

  That is why Palomares proved so disconcerting. The United States not only lost control of four hydrogen bombs, it actually lost one of them. The accident upset the fragile peace that Americans had made with nuclear weapons, the deal they had made with their government. Palomares was “a nightmare of the nuclear age,” as one writer said, not because of what happened, but because it opened people’s minds to what could have happened. Despite America’s best efforts, it seemed that nuclear weapons could not be easily controlled. Perhaps, in accepting this necessary evil, America had made a deal with the Devil.

  Suddenly, the 32,193 warheads stashed around the country seemed less like a security blanket and more like a loaded gun with the potential to misfire. As the security expert Joel Larus wrote in 1968, Palomares “made millions of people aware of how threatened their lives had become — even in peacetime.” In the years after the accident, the public increasingly questioned the need for such a massive, potentially dangerous nuclear arsenal. After 1966, amid growing concerns of nuclear accidents and neglect of conventional forces, America began to shrink its nuclear stockpile. The deal with the Devil, people decided, no longer seemed quite so worthwhile.

  EPILOGUE

  After the press and VIPs left the scene on April 8, the EOD team finished dismantling the weapon.

  That afternoon, they placed its parts into an aircraft engine container, packed sand around them, and sealed the lid. General Wilson had proposed that the bomb be taken ashore, trucked to San Javier, flown to Torrejón, and then shipped back to the United States. Spanish Vice President Agustín Muñoz Grandes nixed this idea, saying he didn’t want the bomb to touch Spanish soil. So, after dismantling the bomb, the Navy loaded it onto the USS Cascade, which carried the weapon back to the United States and handed it over to the Air Force.

  The Air Force sent bomb number four to join its three siblings at the Pantex Ordnance Plant in Amarillo, Texas. Weapons experts disassembled the bombs, buried the most contaminated parts, and salvaged the valuable nuclear material. Then they sent the fuses, firing sets, and weapon bodies from bombs one and four to Sandia for analysis. The plutonium pits went to Los Alamos.

  The e
ngineers learned some lessons from Palomares that prompted them to change the design of weapons. The accident proved that high explosive could detonate in an accident, as it had in bombs two and three, scattering dangerous plutonium. After Palomares, Los Alamos developed an insensitive nuclear explosive that would not detonate on impact. It eventually incorporated it into most nuclear weapons.

  The USNS Boyce arrived in Charleston on April 5, carrying 4,810 barrels of contaminated Spanish soil. Under the watchful eyes of two AEC couriers and the JEN scientist Emilio Iranzo, workers lifted all the barrels, except two, off the Boyce and loaded them into twenty-six railroad cars. The two AEC couriers stayed with the barrels on their train ride to the Savannah River Site, traveling in the caboose, and Iranzo met them there. At Savannah River, Iranzo watched as 4,808 barrels were placed into a massive, muddy trench. Satisfied, he returned to Spain.

  The other two barrels were shipped to Wright Langham, “Mr. Plutonium,” at Los Alamos for tests.

  He said he planned to grow tomatoes with the soil.

  For all its searching, bomb recovery, and soil transport, the Navy billed the Air Force $6.5 million.

  However, the Navy calculated that its total cost was actually much higher: $10,230,744, or $126,305 per day. It was the most expensive salvage operation in history.

  On April 7, 1967, exactly one year after the recovery, George Martin, who had been in Alvin when they refound the bomb, held a Task Force 65 reunion at his home in Maryland. Tony Richardson composed a poem for the occasion:

  Robert, an H-bomb in Spain,

  Gave the Navy a great deal of pain.

  He shouldn’t have otter

  Gone into the water.

  The Air Force should get all the blame.

  Alvin, a submarine nifty,

  Found the bomb in a search that was risky.

  To recover she tried

  But the bomb tried to hide.

  Finally CURV saved the day, and quite quickly.

  After the Boyce sailed off, the remaining airmen at Camp Wilson tidied up Palomares the best they could: replacing topsoil, repairing ditches, and building new concrete fences to replace the cactus fencing they had destroyed. The legal staff drew up official “certificates of decontamination” to give to the villagers.

  By the end of March, Camp Wilson had dwindled to 144 people. On March 20, a delegation consisting of the mayors of Palomares, Villaricos, and Cuevas de Almanzora, along with eighty townspeople, visited the camp for a ceremony to mark the near closing of operations. General Wilson gave a speech and handed $1,000 to the local priest for repairs to the church in Palomares and $200 for the people of Villaricos. Officers and airmen had donated the money in appreciation for the hospitality of the local citizens.

  By early April, Camp Wilson was gone, but a skeleton crew of lawyers — including Joe Ramirez — lingered. By September 26, Ramirez and the legal team had interviewed more than five hundred claimants and paid $555,456.45 in damages. A few sticky claims remained, including that of Francisco Simó Orts.

  For his help in rescuing the downed fliers and pinpointing the spot where bomb number four had hit the water, the U.S. military had given Simó $4,565.56—reimbursement for his time and expertise and the use of his boat. In April, in a ceremony in Madrid, Ambassador Duke presented Simó with a medallion and a scroll. The medallion carried a picture of Lyndon Johnson. The scroll read: As testimony and admiration of the exceptional talents and profound knowledge of the sea of DON FRANCISCO SIMO ORTS which led to the finding of the nuclear bomb which fell into the sea on the coast of Palomares, and as a symbol of gratitude on behalf of my country, I make this document in Madrid, Today, April 15, 1966.

  Simó, however, wanted more than plaudits. He wanted cash. In June, he presented his own claim to the U.S. Air Force, asking for $5 million. To most Americans (and some Spaniards), Simó’s claim seemed outrageous. But, as he told CBS News, Simó guessed he had saved the military at least five days of searching, which he valued at about $1 million a day. He didn’t want the money for himself, he added. He would use it to educate the children of fishermen and aid the local fishing industry.

  The claim, too big for the Air Force lawyers in Torrejón, went to Washington, where the U.S. government rejected it. Simó hired a New York law firm to represent him, and the case was finally settled in Admiralty Court in 1971. He was awarded $10,000.

  In the spring and summer of 1966, the Spanish government, through various meetings and public statements, made it clear that the upcoming base negotiations would not be easy. It refused to reinstate America’s nuclear overflights and started to flex its newfound muscle in other ways. It wanted the United States to help it gain control of Gibraltar and push for Spain’s membership in the EEC, and it planned to use the base negotiations as leverage. In May, The New York Times reported that Franco would not renew the thirteen-year-old defense agreement, at least not in its present form.

  “Now, with its economy and its political ties in Europe both steadily expanding, the Spanish Government is said to be tiring of its ‘equal but separate role,’” reported the Times. Even more worrisome, there were reports that Franco might open the military bases — built largely by the United States — to multinational use.

  The base negotiations got under way in late 1967, and Duke placed himself in the thick of them.

  Finally, he had a chance to shape U.S. foreign policy. He had been lobbying hard for a water desalinization plant for Palomares, a goodwill gift from America to soothe the psychological pain of the accident. If he could announce the gift as soon as possible, preferably before the two-year anniversary of the accident, it would improve the atmosphere for the base negotiations. The American diplomats had to remember, said Duke, that “The accident brought home to the Spanish, in a most dramatic way, that the American military presence in Spain was not without serious risks.” On January 6, 1968, Duke was dining at the embassy in Madrid when President Johnson called.

  Johnson handed Duke some surprising news: he wanted Angie to leave his post as ambassador and return to Washington. Johnson faced a tough reelection battle, and he wanted Angie at his side as his director of protocol. Dismayed, Duke saw his policy-making ambitions vanishing in a puff of presidential whimsy. He protested: he couldn’t leave now. He was in the middle of touchy base negotiations with the Spanish, which wouldn’t wrap up until September. But Johnson insisted; he needed Angie back in Washington before then.

  Duke was bitterly disappointed. But if the president needed him, he had to obey. For the next few months, he sped around Spain, tying up loose ends and making farewell calls. On March 31, 1968, Duke and his family climbed onto a military airplane in Madrid and flew to the United States. They arrived in Washington exhausted. They checked into the Watergate Hotel, ordered room service, and turned on the television. President Johnson would be speaking at 8 p.m., and Duke, with his wife and children, gathered to watch the broadcast. President Johnson appeared on the screen and told the nation that he would not seek reelection.

  Duke sat stunned in front of the television. He had been yanked away from Spain for nothing. Soon after, Duke was sworn in as director of protocol, a job that now seemed more frivolous than ever.

  The president did not attend the ceremony, sending Lady Bird instead. “He must have known,” said Duke, “how disappointed I was.”

  During his famous swim, Duke predicted a bright future for the gritty beaches of Costa Bomba.

  Time eventually proved him right. Today, the once barren coast is crammed with beachfront condominiums and beet-faced British tourists. The Garrucha waterfront, once a working wharf packed with fishing boats, now sports a tony marina and a stylish promenade lined with palm trees.

  Two miles inland from Palomares sits a luxury golf resort called Desert Springs, its emerald links flanked by dramatic sculptures of rearing horses. The resort looks as if it had been carved out of Tucson, airlifted across the Atlantic, and plunked down in the Spanish desert. Closer to Palomare
s, Playa de Quitapellejos, the former site of Camp Wilson, remains much the same. The sand is rough and rocky, scattered with black slag. But there have been some changes. Two miles south, on what used to be a barren beach, is a thriving nudist colony.

  In Palomares itself, there are few remnants of the dusty farming village that grabbed the world’s attention in 1966. Palomares is now a modern, prosperous town, thanks to industrial agriculture and tourism. Modern greenhouses blanket the fields, and produce-processing centers the size of airplane hangars squat on the outskirts of town. The village square boasts a community center resembling a suburban library. The modern building faces a wide tiled plaza and new three-story condos, built for vacationing Europeans. The skyline of Palomares — the town now has a skyline — bristles with cranes lifting steel beams. The only memorial to the accident is a small street near the central plaza marked with a sign reading “Calle de 17 de enero de 1966”—January 17, 1966, Street.

  Manolo and Dolores González still live in Palomares, in a small but comfortable apartment in the center of town. (They also own a gracious hacienda on the outskirts.) Like the rest of the town, Manolo and Dolores have prospered. Instead of a Citroën pickup truck, Manolo now drives a luxury-model silver Mercedes. As upbeat and enthusiastic as ever, Manolo says the town is no worse off from the accident. There is an endless supply of British tourists, with their bottomless, deep-seated craving for the Spanish sun. Plutonium or no plutonium, the building boom was inevitable.

  As the town sprawls outward, however, the echoes of the past are making themselves heard. In 1966, during the initial cleanup, the Spanish and American governments created a program to monitor the air and soil of Palomares, as well as the health of its people. They named the program