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How Nukes Were Almost Launched From Okinawa During Cuban Missile Crisis (thebulletin.org)
Lasrick writes: Aaron Tovish is calling on the U.S. government to release documents pertaining to one of the scarier incidents of the Cuban Missile Crisis. According to an Air Force airman, the system designed to prevent an accidental launch of nuclear weapons failed as the codes ordering a launch were given in each of the three transmissions required for a launch: "By Bordne's account, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Air Force crews on Okinawa were ordered to launch 32 missiles, each carrying a large nuclear warhead. Only caution and the common sense and decisive action of the line personnel receiving those orders prevented the launches -- and averted the nuclear war that most likely would have ensued."
Obligatory shout out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Well, while we're at it : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
Elok
The two nuclear attacks on Japan basically ended any chance of World War III, and guaranteed that the Great Powers would never again become directly embroiled in a major war against each other. Yes, it's meant lots of proxy wars, but those are far preferable than a nuclear age version of the great wars of the past.
Nuclear weapons are the most profoundly successful peacemaker in history.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If it happened. From the link.
"I recognize that Bordne's account is not definitively confirmed. But I find him to have been consistently truthful in the matters I could confirm. An incident of this import, I believe, should not have to rest on the testimony of one man."
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
it makes me glad (as General Baringer would say) that our boys were in those silos, instead of a computer.
If this story is true, it is an example of a tragedy that would have only happened because humans were in control instead of computers. There was no order to move to DEFCON 1, so the computer would never have launched the missiles. The human operators in this case did just what a computer would have done (not launch), except for one lieutenant. It is this single human officer who allegedly almost launched his nukes.
I'm not saying we should remove humans from launch command, but if this story is true it is an argument against having humans in the loop, not the other way around.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
One of my first introductions to card-based gaming was a game called Nuclear War. As you might guess, players lob nuclear warheads at each other trying to decimate each others' populations. One of the more inventive gaming rules was "Final Strike." A player whose last civilian died would be able to throw everything he still had in one last "I'm dying and will take everyone I can with me" maneuver at either a single player or at multiple players. If any of those players were then killed, they would launch their own Final Strike. It was quite common for games to end with everyone dead.
It was a fun game, but could also teach a valuable lesson about battling using nuclear weapons.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I wonder if multi-verses are not at play: only "forked" realities in which we got "lucky" have us in it to ponder our luck. 99% of the forks got fried.
That's an interesting application of the Anthropic Principle.
One of the near-misses I read about was the commissioning of the DEW Line over-the-horizon early-warning radar.
There was some concern that the Russians might stage a pre-emptive strike just before it went into service. So the US put it into service a few days ahead of the announced date, disguised as a late-stage test of the equipment. The military and administration were prepared to react to the expected possible strike.
Some hours after the system went live it started showing volleys of missiles rising. Oops! Was it the feared attack? Was it time to retaliate, before the soviet missiles could wipe out that capability, leaving Russia in charge of a half-charred planet?
There was only one fly in the ointment: The system did not identify expected impact locations for the missiles. Failure of the computation, or a sign that this might be an illusion? (Remember this was 1957. Cray's first mainframe computer for CDC, with substantially less than 1 megaflop, was still three years in the future.)
The commander in charge smelled a rat, and recommended that the US NOT stage a "before their missiles wipe out most of our stuff" retaliatory strike, at least until we had other confirmation. The Russians actually WEREN'T attacking, so war-by-mistake was averted.
It turns out that the radars had seen Moonrise. The moon was big enough to be visible by the sensitive over-the-horizon radars. But the round trip was long enough that several pulses had gone out meanwhile. The radar paired the returns with later pulses - and between that, the size of the moon, and other details came up with a fleet of targets. The imaginary targets were not on a ballistic trajectory (it looked like a "forced orbit" - orbiting with acceleration still occuring, rather than a ballistic trajectory - and even if you assume the "engine" would cut off right now and it went ballistic, the illusion wouldn't hit the planet). So the failure to identify expected impact locations was correct. Somehow, previous tests hadn't happened to occur at the right time of day for this effect to be noticed.
The system was modified to reject moonrise, went into service, and the Cold War stayed cold until it ended.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The summary should probably mention the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists since that's where the link goes and that's who is making the claim.
Truman already had knowledge of intercepted messages indicating that the Japanese were prepared to surrender. Dropping the bombs on two civilian populations was wholly unnecessary.
Japan was **not** prepared to surrender. The militarists thought that by inflicting severe casualties upon the US they could force negotiations, an armistice - a cease fire, not a surrender. They wanted to remain in power, have no limitations on their military size and capability, have no occupation and possibly hold on to some of their conquered territory.
When surrender rumors began military units mutinied and attacked the imperial palace in an attempt to remove the emperor from the corrupting influence of "cowards and traitors" that were misleading him. They nearly found and would have destroyed the emperor's surrender recording. The vast majority of the military was ready to face US landings and to oppose them and to have massive assistance from civilians to resists US forces as they moved inland. Even the atomic bombings did little to change this. The military was telling civilians how wearing white sheets helped protect them from the flash of the new atomic bombs. I believe some Japanese war plans called for the use of chemical weapons on US landing forces.
Surrender was an option to a fearful minority in government, diplomats and politicians who kept their opinions very close and lived in fear of assassination by the militarists. Only a fluke of history, the emperor's decision saw their path adopted. Given the actual evidence available to the US, invasion or blockade were the only two likely non-atomic paths, either risking millions of civilians. Note that the firebombing would have continued during a blockade and such firebombing inflicted far more casualties than the atomic bombings.