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

But on March 17, two days after Alvin found the parachute, Duke's phone rang, and his vision of a smooth ride to the finish was shattered. The man on the phone was Harry Stathos, the Madrid bureau chief for UPI, who had just returned from a trip to Germany. On the plane, he had struck up a conversation with a Pan Am pilot, who had been out drinking with an Air Force colonel the night before. The colonel had told the pilot, who told the reporter, that the bomb had been found. Now Stathos asked Duke: Had it? Duke said simply, “No comment.” But the word was out.

Trying to nip this gossip in the bud, Duke decided to hold a press conference to announce the news officially. The ambassador was hosting a gala reception at the embassy that evening. He would talk to the press when the party ended. Staffers sent word to the press corps to assemble at the American Embassy at 1 a.m.

Meanwhile, Duke sent a telegram to the secretary of state. In light of the UPI news break, he said, he planned to make the following public statement:

The undersea vessel, Alvin, made contact on March 16th with an object lying in 2,500 feet of water approximately five miles off shore near Palomares. Military experts have evaluated underwater photographs taken of the object and believe it to be the missing nuclear weapon. Actions are being taken to recover the device. The photographs show a parachute attached to an object with [sic]

is similar in size and shape to the missing nuclear weapon. The parachute, however, is covering part of the object preventing positive identification. Experts who have examined the photographs indicate that the casing appears to be intact, thereby precluding any radioactive contamination in the water.

At 12:45 a.m., as reporters gathered in the embassy, Duke received a reply from the State Department, ordering him to cancel the press conference and say nothing. Instead, the embassy information officer, William Bell, read a telegram from Secretary of State Dean Rusk to the assembled reporters: “There have been hopeful developments but I cannot give you further information at this time. If we have a positive identification and recovery, we will so inform you.” The reporters were furious. And the slight did not stop them from filing stories for the following day.

The articles were remarkably accurate. They reported that Alvin had found the bomb and parachute at 2,500 feet and that experts had seen photos and identified the weapon. A front-page article in

The Washington Post also explained that the object rested precariously on an undersea slope a few miles off the coast of Palomares. “Recovery promises to be a delicate operation,” the article added. “Not only is the parachute-shrouded object already in deep water, but apparently it is balanced on the slope in such a way that a wrong nudge could send it rolling into even deeper water.” A page-one story in The New York Times predicted a fast recovery. According to officials, claimed the article, it would take only up to three days to recover the weapon. “No pictures of the bomb or the recovery operations would be permitted,” it added, “because of the highly secret nature of the material.”

Duke may have been unhappy about the news break, but he shared the reporters' confidence. He was certain that Alvin

had found the bomb but also felt, contrary to the Times' report, that to ensure credibility the Navy must display the recovered bomb to Spanish officials and the press.

The military thought that was a terrible idea. First, there was the problem of logistics: nobody had ever recovered a weapon from this depth. Guest didn't know how long the recovery might take or if it would go smoothly. He also had no idea if the weapon — if it was the weapon — was intact or broken and perhaps leaking radiation. As for the Air Force, it had no interest in showing a top secret H-bomb to the press. It had never displayed a nuclear weapon in public before. Why start now?

Confident that he could iron out these disagreements, Duke formed a committee to devise a plan for the public recovery and viewing. Looking ahead, he also drafted a press release, which he sent to the secretary of state on March 18 for review:

The fourth and final weapon from the January 17 crash near Palomares Spain has been recovered today and is enroute to the United States at this time. The casing was intact and no release of radioactivity into the coastal waters has occurred. The weapon was located on March 16 in 2500 feet of water, approximately five miles off shore by the submersible Alvin. Photographs taken at that time tentatively identified the object as the missing weapon. The recovery of this weapon brings to a close the search phase of the operation. All wreckage fragments and associated aircraft material of interest to the US have now been located and recovered.