24
WBM
The East Coast Nuclear Disaster that Almos t Happened
CLOSECALL
SIXTY YEARS AGO,
TWO THERMONUCLEAR
HYDROGEN BOMBS
SPILLED OUT OF A
CRASHING B-52 AS IT
TUMBLED TO EARTH
92 MILES FROM
WILMINGTON
By R ob e r t R ehde r
february 2022
During the evening of Jan. 23, 1961,
newly inaugurated president John
F. Kennedy held a strategy meeting
with Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara and National Security
Advisor McGeorge Bundy to discuss
the growing threat of Russian nuclear
escalation.
As they discussed the nation’s nuclear
arms program, 272 miles away a United
States Air Force B-52G carrying two
massive Mark 39 hydrogen bombs
was in the process of disintegrating
10,000 feet above Goldsboro, North
Carolina.
COLD WAR THREAT
President Kennedy had
been in office for only four
days. It was the height
of the Cold War and a
period of tension between
the United States and
the Soviet Union. There was
an ongoing struggle between
the two superpowers for
global influence brought
about by a national percep-tion
that Russia might
launch a preemptive strike
with its nuclear arsenal.
The threat was real. It
would take only about
30 minutes for a nuclear
missile launched from Russia
to reach the United States, or
about 10 minutes if launched
from a submarine.
One defense was a
buildup of the American
Strategic Air Command
(SAC), which was respon-sible
for the U.S. military’s
nuclear strike force. That
included land-based stra-tegic
aircraft armed with
nuclear bombs. One of
those American aircraft
was the Boeing B–52G
Stratofortress bomber. With
eight jet engines that hung
in pairs from four pylons
and armed with a nuclear
payload, the B-52G was
a lethal, intercontinental,
nuclear bomber. Some of
them were stationed
at Goldsboro’s Seymour
Johnson Air Force Base.
A historical marker in Eureka, North Carolina
is the only visible indication that a nuclear
disaster was averted nearby.