The night we almost lost Arkansas — a 1980 nuclear Armageddon that almost was

[George the Retiree]

by Andrew O'Hehir

On a September night 36 years ago, we nearly lost Arkansas. Some people may regard that as a mixed blessing, even now — Bill Clinton and his wife, then the governor and first lady of that state, were less than 50 miles away in Little Rock, at the Arkansas Democratic Convention.

If the Titan 2 intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, that exploded inside its silo in Damascus, Arkansas, had detonated its nuclear warhead, both the Clintons and Vice President Walter Mondale (also attending the convention) would have been dead within minutes. So would have millions of other people in Arkansas and neighboring states, with a plume of deadly radioactive fallout extending from the mid-South to the East Coast, perhaps as far as Washington.

It’s not entirely fair to say that the near-catastrophe of 1980 was covered up. But Americans were not even remotely told the truth about how close we came to nuclear Armageddon in the heartland. In fact, when Mondale demanded to know whether the Damascus missile was armed with a nuclear warhead, the military initially refused to tell him. “In my book, I have a quote from someone who was in the room,” said author Eric Schlosser during a recent video interview in Salon’s New York office. “Mondale said, ‘Goddamn it, I’m the vice president of the United States! You should be able to tell me if there’s a nuclear warhead on this missile or not. Eventually they did.”

Schlosser’s book is called “Command and Control,” and is also the basis for a thriller-style documentary of the same title from “Food, Inc.” director Robert Kenner, who joined Schlosser for our conversation. As Schlosser explained, local and national news covered the Damascus accident for two or three days but without understanding quite how bad it was.

http://www.salon.com/2016/09/14/the-night-we-almost-lost-arkansas-a-1980-nuclear-armageddon-that-almost-was/

Now if that doesn't calm your worries about Trump as Commander-in-Chief, I don't know what will!

[Cracklin Charlie]

1. I was closer to Damascus than the Clintons that night.

I had just moved to Conway.

Thanks for the memories!

[George the Retiree]

3. Remember this Golden Oldie from '80?

[upaloopa]

2. I am not sure a nuclear war head would have detonated in an underground silo explosion.

I am no expert but I think they needed to be armed first.

The President would have to give the OK to arm them I think.

I think one nuclear bomb fell out of a B-52 into the ocean with no detonation.

This may be more dramatic than it really was.

I feel like I am in more danger living 30 miles from the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.

[kristopher]

4. ‘Yes,’ he told me. ‘It absolutely could have.’”

In the film, which opens in New York this week, Kenner interviews a former military contractor who designed the safety mechanisms on the Titan 2, the most powerful nuclear missile ever deployed by the United States. “I started to ask him whether the warhead really could have gone off because of this accident,” Kenner told me. “He interrupted me before I could finish the question. ‘Yes,’ he told me. ‘It absolutely could have.’”

http://www.salon.com/2016/09/14/the-night-we-almost-lost-arkansas-a-1980-nuclear-armageddon-that-almost-was/

I was working in C3 when this happened but I don't personally know the answer to your question. I do recall two things about it though; first was how puckered everyone's sphincter's became when the press got wind of the accident by listening in on the military's police, fire and command channels. Second was the move about a year later, over the objections of front line users, to spend a massive amount of money encrypting all local military radio networks. The debate at the C3 conference was framed as security against foreign eavesdropping, but since the Soviets could easily crack the level of encryption proposed for about $25,000, we all knew the move was aimed at making it too expensive for the press and local citizens to know what was going on behind the scenes in their backyards. BTW, command and control experts were virtually 100% in agreement that the system was harmful to our ability to effectively carry out our mission.

[gladium et scutum]

5. The war head could have exploded

the plutonium core is surrounded by explosives. The question that Kenner should have asked is would the accident caused a nuclear detonation of the warhead. An uncontrolled explosion of the warhead explosives would have more likely blasted plutonium fragments all over the place rather than a nuclear detonation.