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

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.