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

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.