1 00:00:00,868 --> 00:00:02,034 Tonight... 2 00:00:02,103 --> 00:00:03,969 MAN: The warhead on top of the Titan II 3 00:00:04,038 --> 00:00:05,971 was three times as powerful 4 00:00:06,040 --> 00:00:08,774 as all the bombs used in the Second World War. 5 00:00:08,843 --> 00:00:11,076 MAN: Working on a weapon of mass destruction, 6 00:00:11,145 --> 00:00:13,746 you're counting on everything to work perfect all the time, 7 00:00:13,814 --> 00:00:15,881 and things just don't work perfect all the time. 8 00:00:17,518 --> 00:00:20,652 "Command and Control," on American Experience. 9 00:00:23,491 --> 00:00:25,824 ♪ ♪ 10 00:00:33,267 --> 00:00:34,867 NASA ANNOUNCER: Lift-off, the clock is running. 11 00:00:48,015 --> 00:00:50,049 RINGSIDE ANNOUNCER: Schmeling is down! 12 00:01:18,646 --> 00:01:21,914 (indistinct voices on radio) 13 00:01:37,565 --> 00:01:39,565 MAN (on radio): Contact DCA, you read? 14 00:01:39,633 --> 00:01:41,800 MAN 2: Roger, loud and clear. 15 00:01:47,208 --> 00:01:49,208 MAN 2: Roger, station 7, prepare for pressurization 16 00:01:49,276 --> 00:01:50,676 of stage 2 oxidizer. 17 00:01:50,744 --> 00:01:52,644 MAN 3: Roger. 18 00:02:00,221 --> 00:02:03,222 (hissing as suits pressurized) 19 00:02:08,629 --> 00:02:12,030 MAN: I was fairly new to working out on the missile sites. 20 00:02:16,337 --> 00:02:17,703 At the age of 19, you know, 21 00:02:17,771 --> 00:02:19,905 you've got that "no fear" mentality. 22 00:02:19,974 --> 00:02:23,075 MAN (on radio): WCB, we got a transient read on 54... 23 00:02:28,516 --> 00:02:31,116 (hatch opening and hissing) 24 00:02:33,954 --> 00:02:35,287 MAN: Right above us 25 00:02:35,356 --> 00:02:38,023 was a nine-megaton thermonuclear warhead. 26 00:02:41,162 --> 00:02:43,128 To see the magnitude of that weapon 27 00:02:43,197 --> 00:02:46,732 within ten feet from you, 28 00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:50,135 it was a monster waiting to go off. 29 00:02:53,174 --> 00:02:57,976 When you think about working on a weapon of mass destruction, 30 00:02:58,045 --> 00:03:00,812 you're counting on everything to work perfect all the time, 31 00:03:00,881 --> 00:03:04,917 and things just don't work perfect all the time. 32 00:03:11,025 --> 00:03:12,057 (piece hits floor) 33 00:03:12,126 --> 00:03:14,893 (alarms beeping) 34 00:03:14,962 --> 00:03:18,397 (urgent voices on radio) 35 00:03:18,465 --> 00:03:20,799 MAN 2: The first thing that my commander heard 36 00:03:20,868 --> 00:03:22,301 are the words, "Uh-oh." 37 00:03:22,369 --> 00:03:25,270 MAN 3: The fuel vapors in the silo 38 00:03:25,339 --> 00:03:27,172 are just climbing and climbing and climbing. 39 00:03:27,241 --> 00:03:30,676 MAN 1: We need to get the hell out of this complex 40 00:03:30,744 --> 00:03:34,179 because this thing's going to blow up. 41 00:03:34,248 --> 00:03:38,150 MAN 4: Do we let the world know? 42 00:03:38,219 --> 00:03:44,189 Do I run out and say, "We got a potential nuclear explosion"? 43 00:03:44,258 --> 00:03:47,526 What do you do? 44 00:04:00,441 --> 00:04:03,508 (men chatting) 45 00:04:10,618 --> 00:04:13,552 Complex 3-1 has phase 14 missile age inspection. 46 00:04:13,621 --> 00:04:17,556 Complex 3-2, instructor crew scheduled for... 47 00:04:17,625 --> 00:04:19,124 That day, September 18, 48 00:04:19,193 --> 00:04:22,160 it was basically five days before my 24th birthday. 49 00:04:22,229 --> 00:04:26,298 So I was 23. 50 00:04:26,367 --> 00:04:28,900 Lieutenant Childers was 24, was the deputy. 51 00:04:33,540 --> 00:04:35,374 When we went on alert in a Titan system, 52 00:04:35,442 --> 00:04:37,576 we were on alert for 24 hours. 53 00:04:37,645 --> 00:04:39,478 That's what a tour was, 24 hours. 54 00:04:42,650 --> 00:04:45,384 We had 18 silos spread all the way out 55 00:04:45,452 --> 00:04:48,053 to the eastern corner of Arkansas. 56 00:04:49,890 --> 00:04:52,090 We went to a complex where there was supposed to be 57 00:04:52,159 --> 00:04:56,695 very little maintenance, and that was 4-7. 58 00:04:58,632 --> 00:05:00,966 We went up the main highway to a certain point, 59 00:05:01,035 --> 00:05:02,768 and then you had to pull off of the highway 60 00:05:02,836 --> 00:05:04,469 onto much smaller roads. 61 00:05:06,006 --> 00:05:08,607 Until you came over a particular rise, 62 00:05:08,676 --> 00:05:12,244 you wouldn't even know that the missile complex was there. 63 00:05:17,217 --> 00:05:19,551 HOLDER: As we drove up to missile complex 4-7, 64 00:05:19,620 --> 00:05:22,087 it's very unassuming. 65 00:05:24,692 --> 00:05:26,658 There's not a lot there. 66 00:05:26,727 --> 00:05:31,596 There's this huge door and there are some antennas. 67 00:05:31,665 --> 00:05:36,902 However, underneath that door was the most powerful warhead 68 00:05:36,970 --> 00:05:39,838 that the U.S. has ever operated. 69 00:05:46,146 --> 00:05:48,613 CHILDERS: Before you left the base, they gave you some codes 70 00:05:48,682 --> 00:05:52,517 that gave you access to the complex. 71 00:05:52,586 --> 00:05:54,353 MAN (on intercom): MCC, what is your ident code? 72 00:05:54,421 --> 00:05:57,456 MAN: Ident code is alpha-niner-victor... 73 00:05:57,524 --> 00:05:59,758 CHILDERS: You would read the code to the commander 74 00:05:59,827 --> 00:06:01,426 and then you would take a lighter, 75 00:06:01,495 --> 00:06:04,663 set the codes on fire, and drop them down into a box 76 00:06:04,732 --> 00:06:06,965 so they would burn up and no one else could use those codes. 77 00:06:09,937 --> 00:06:11,103 (door buzzes) 78 00:06:15,709 --> 00:06:19,878 All four of the crewmembers went down three flights of stairs. 79 00:06:23,250 --> 00:06:25,817 At the bottom of that, you got to a blast door. 80 00:06:27,755 --> 00:06:29,221 (hissing and unlatching) 81 00:06:30,758 --> 00:06:34,126 There were a series of blast doors: 6, 7, 8, and 9. 82 00:06:38,031 --> 00:06:39,965 So you'd walk through this, 83 00:06:40,033 --> 00:06:42,401 and you'd step into the middle level 84 00:06:42,469 --> 00:06:45,036 of the launch control center, 85 00:06:45,105 --> 00:06:46,738 with all of the equipment that you needed 86 00:06:46,807 --> 00:06:49,474 to maintain the missile. 87 00:06:54,715 --> 00:06:57,082 When we took charge of a complex, 88 00:06:57,151 --> 00:07:00,419 that meant that we owned that missile 89 00:07:00,487 --> 00:07:02,854 until the next crew came out. 90 00:07:02,923 --> 00:07:05,490 So if we went to war, we were prepared 91 00:07:05,559 --> 00:07:08,226 to launch those weapons on command. 92 00:07:08,295 --> 00:07:10,762 MAN: Apps power, silo soft, guidance go. 93 00:07:10,831 --> 00:07:12,597 We're standing by for fire engine. 94 00:07:14,935 --> 00:07:16,835 We never knew what our specific targets were, 95 00:07:16,904 --> 00:07:18,403 because you didn't really want to know 96 00:07:18,472 --> 00:07:20,172 who you were going to destroy. 97 00:07:20,240 --> 00:07:22,174 MAN: Turning on my command, everybody, turn keys. 98 00:07:22,242 --> 00:07:23,241 On the word "keys," we will turn. 99 00:07:23,310 --> 00:07:24,242 Is the crew ready? 100 00:07:24,311 --> 00:07:25,343 Your B-Man? 101 00:07:25,412 --> 00:07:26,344 MAN 2: B-Man's Ready. 102 00:07:26,413 --> 00:07:27,345 MAN 1: MFT? 103 00:07:27,414 --> 00:07:28,346 MAN 3: MFT ready. 104 00:07:28,415 --> 00:07:29,347 MAN 1: Deputy? 105 00:07:29,416 --> 00:07:30,515 MAN 4: Deputy ready. 106 00:07:30,584 --> 00:07:32,584 MAN 1: Crew is ready-- ready? 107 00:07:32,653 --> 00:07:35,086 CHILDERS: You had to be prepared to destroy an entire civilization, 108 00:07:35,155 --> 00:07:36,655 and we were trained on that. 109 00:07:36,723 --> 00:07:38,256 I still today refer to myself 110 00:07:38,325 --> 00:07:40,926 and other missileers as crew dogs. 111 00:07:40,994 --> 00:07:45,464 You had to almost be rote in your actions 112 00:07:45,532 --> 00:07:46,698 and not question the fact 113 00:07:46,767 --> 00:07:49,401 that you were going to destroy an entire civilization 114 00:07:49,470 --> 00:07:51,069 if you had to launch those ICBMS. 115 00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:55,774 As heartless as it sounds, I never had a problem with it. 116 00:07:55,843 --> 00:07:57,776 I was doing it for my country, 117 00:07:57,845 --> 00:07:59,644 I was doing it to protect my country. 118 00:07:59,713 --> 00:08:01,513 The whole reason I sat out there 119 00:08:01,582 --> 00:08:04,015 was to prevent that kind of thing from happening. 120 00:08:04,084 --> 00:08:05,750 That's what deterrence was about. 121 00:08:05,819 --> 00:08:07,752 But deterrence is worthless 122 00:08:07,821 --> 00:08:10,555 if you don't demonstrate that you're willing to do it, too, 123 00:08:10,624 --> 00:08:12,324 and we always had to demonstrate 124 00:08:12,392 --> 00:08:15,827 that I would walk out there and turn those keys in a second 125 00:08:15,896 --> 00:08:18,964 and I would kill ten million people and never hesitate. 126 00:08:37,351 --> 00:08:39,050 Every time I went onto a complex, 127 00:08:39,119 --> 00:08:43,121 every time I saw a Titan II missile, 128 00:08:43,190 --> 00:08:45,757 I had the same sense of excitement. 129 00:08:57,104 --> 00:08:58,703 You couldn't see the warhead from the bottom 130 00:08:58,772 --> 00:09:00,405 because you were eight stories down, 131 00:09:00,474 --> 00:09:04,209 and the cone of the warhead disappeared off in the distance. 132 00:09:11,952 --> 00:09:13,585 The warhead on top of the Titan II 133 00:09:13,654 --> 00:09:16,288 was three times as powerful as all the bombs 134 00:09:16,356 --> 00:09:19,424 used by all of the armies in the Second World War, 135 00:09:19,493 --> 00:09:21,927 including both the atomic bombs. 136 00:09:26,233 --> 00:09:29,234 When the crewmembers successfully turned the keys, 137 00:09:29,303 --> 00:09:33,838 the 330,000-pound missile would lift up out of the silo. 138 00:09:37,244 --> 00:09:41,479 HOLDER: And it would head out for about five minutes of powered flight 139 00:09:41,548 --> 00:09:44,649 to the edge of space, 140 00:09:44,718 --> 00:09:47,986 fly for another 20 minutes, 141 00:09:48,055 --> 00:09:50,422 and hit its target halfway around the world. 142 00:10:01,068 --> 00:10:02,701 CHILDERS: Before September 18, 143 00:10:02,769 --> 00:10:03,969 the only warheads that we thought 144 00:10:04,037 --> 00:10:06,304 would go off in the United States 145 00:10:06,373 --> 00:10:09,608 would be Soviet warheads. 146 00:10:09,676 --> 00:10:12,611 We never considered that our own warheads 147 00:10:12,679 --> 00:10:15,547 could detonate on our own continent. 148 00:10:38,805 --> 00:10:41,940 MAN: From the very beginning of the atomic age, 149 00:10:42,009 --> 00:10:45,744 there has been a sense of this immense power 150 00:10:45,812 --> 00:10:49,614 just being on the verge of slipping out of our control. 151 00:10:52,786 --> 00:10:57,188 The world's first nuclear device was fully assembled 152 00:10:57,257 --> 00:11:00,225 in a small tent in the middle of the desert. 153 00:11:04,431 --> 00:11:07,565 Nobody was sure what would happen 154 00:11:07,634 --> 00:11:10,602 when this thing would detonate. 155 00:11:12,639 --> 00:11:14,072 They were even concernrned 156 00:11:14,141 --> 00:11:17,242 that when the first nuclear device detonated, 157 00:11:17,310 --> 00:11:21,413 the Earth's atmosphere would catch on fire 158 00:11:21,481 --> 00:11:26,918 and every single living thing on Earth would die. 159 00:11:26,987 --> 00:11:30,221 And yet they did the test anyway. 160 00:11:30,290 --> 00:11:33,625 (explosion roars and echoes) 161 00:11:45,472 --> 00:11:47,072 After the war ended, 162 00:11:47,140 --> 00:11:50,775 an engineering section of the nuclear weapons program 163 00:11:50,844 --> 00:11:54,446 became known as the Sandia Laboratory, 164 00:11:54,514 --> 00:11:59,451 and Sandia became America's first atomic bomb factory. 165 00:12:03,223 --> 00:12:07,859 MAN: I realized if I joined Sandia, I would be working 166 00:12:07,928 --> 00:12:12,597 on atomic bombs, and that was okay with me. 167 00:12:12,666 --> 00:12:19,370 We were driven by the fear of the Soviet Union. 168 00:12:19,439 --> 00:12:24,008 You couldn't talk about what you did outside of the tech area, 169 00:12:24,077 --> 00:12:26,711 but you could feel a sense of, 170 00:12:26,780 --> 00:12:30,582 "This is the number one national priority." 171 00:12:33,153 --> 00:12:37,021 SCHLOSSER: The early atomic bombs were essentially handmade, 172 00:12:37,090 --> 00:12:40,992 and if you wanted to use one, it would take days 173 00:12:41,061 --> 00:12:45,663 for a team of 20 or 30 people to put it together. 174 00:12:47,834 --> 00:12:49,768 My computer was a slide rule. 175 00:12:49,836 --> 00:12:51,436 You ever seen a slide rule? 176 00:12:51,505 --> 00:12:52,470 Anybody? 177 00:12:55,075 --> 00:12:59,010 We pressed and pressed to improve the early product 178 00:12:59,079 --> 00:13:03,815 to make it smaller and more deadly. 179 00:13:03,884 --> 00:13:07,986 Anything we conceived of the military wanted, 180 00:13:08,054 --> 00:13:10,455 and money was free. 181 00:13:12,025 --> 00:13:14,092 SCHLOSSER: As the technology improved, 182 00:13:14,161 --> 00:13:18,196 as the number of nuclear weapons in our arsenal increased, 183 00:13:18,265 --> 00:13:24,102 there were soon assembly lines for making nuclear weapons. 184 00:13:24,171 --> 00:13:28,139 We had bombers in the air at all times 185 00:13:28,208 --> 00:13:31,476 loaded with nuclear weapons. 186 00:13:31,545 --> 00:13:33,178 We had submarines that had missiles 187 00:13:33,246 --> 00:13:36,614 carrying nuclear warheads. 188 00:13:36,683 --> 00:13:39,651 It was feared that the Soviets 189 00:13:39,719 --> 00:13:41,820 would have far more missiles than the United States, 190 00:13:41,888 --> 00:13:45,623 so we went on a huge missile-building binge. 191 00:13:52,732 --> 00:13:55,466 At one point, we only thought we needed 192 00:13:55,535 --> 00:13:57,101 50 to 200 nuclear weapons 193 00:13:57,170 --> 00:14:01,005 to completely annihilate the Soviet Union, 194 00:14:01,074 --> 00:14:06,544 and by the mid-1960s, we had 32,000 nuclear weapons. 195 00:14:10,617 --> 00:14:12,884 But every one of those weapons you build 196 00:14:12,953 --> 00:14:16,721 not only threatens your enemy, but poses a threat to yourself. 197 00:14:35,475 --> 00:14:36,474 MAN: One more time, ready? 198 00:14:36,543 --> 00:14:38,009 Launch verification... 199 00:14:38,078 --> 00:14:41,679 (men running launch drill) 200 00:14:48,722 --> 00:14:50,288 CHILDERS: September 18 201 00:14:50,357 --> 00:14:52,790 was one of those days where nothing was going 202 00:14:52,859 --> 00:14:54,359 the way it was supposed to go. 203 00:14:54,427 --> 00:14:56,494 MAN: Step one, power on/off switch: 204 00:14:56,563 --> 00:14:58,363 on. 205 00:14:58,431 --> 00:15:00,198 CHILDERS: What we did every day is 206 00:15:00,267 --> 00:15:03,501 we went through a daily shift verification checklist. 207 00:15:03,570 --> 00:15:05,670 We had a whole book full of checklists, 208 00:15:05,739 --> 00:15:07,505 and we lived by checklists. 209 00:15:07,574 --> 00:15:11,175 MAN: On/off rotary switch: on. 210 00:15:11,244 --> 00:15:15,713 HOLDER: That day, September 18, we find out 211 00:15:15,782 --> 00:15:19,617 that we're going to actually have some major maintenance 212 00:15:19,686 --> 00:15:23,621 because they have a problem with the oxidizer tank, 213 00:15:23,690 --> 00:15:26,357 that the pressure is a little bit low. 214 00:15:30,063 --> 00:15:33,998 CHILDERS: Each stage of the missile had two separate tanks. 215 00:15:34,067 --> 00:15:36,067 One was filled with fuel 216 00:15:36,136 --> 00:15:39,170 and the other was filled with oxidizer. 217 00:15:39,239 --> 00:15:41,472 HOLDER: All you got to do is mix those two fuels 218 00:15:41,541 --> 00:15:44,342 and you're going to have an explosion. 219 00:15:44,411 --> 00:15:48,880 We called back to base. 220 00:15:48,949 --> 00:15:51,916 They said, "We have a maintenance team coming out." 221 00:15:51,985 --> 00:15:57,822 A specialized unit, they called them the PTS team. 222 00:16:06,266 --> 00:16:08,232 MAN: The difference between PTS people 223 00:16:08,301 --> 00:16:11,369 and any other person on a missile site is, 224 00:16:11,438 --> 00:16:18,443 we get to play with fuel and oxidizer, and they don't. 225 00:16:19,980 --> 00:16:21,913 I loved PTS. 226 00:16:21,982 --> 00:16:24,382 I loved my job. 227 00:16:24,451 --> 00:16:27,719 My major goal at that time was to be a PTS team chief, 228 00:16:27,787 --> 00:16:31,255 and be the best PTS team chief ever. 229 00:16:33,693 --> 00:16:37,428 MAN: When I arrived at Little Rock Air Force Base, 230 00:16:37,497 --> 00:16:39,130 I would have been 19, yeah. 231 00:16:39,199 --> 00:16:40,298 Ah, no, 18. 232 00:16:40,367 --> 00:16:41,933 My birthday is in March, 233 00:16:42,002 --> 00:16:45,036 so I would have been one month away from being 19. 234 00:16:48,508 --> 00:16:51,542 I think I was ready to take on the world at that point. 235 00:16:51,611 --> 00:16:52,944 I wanted to go out to the field 236 00:16:53,013 --> 00:16:54,579 and work on that Titan II missile. 237 00:16:54,647 --> 00:16:55,980 You know, we called it a bird, 238 00:16:56,049 --> 00:16:59,150 and I wanted to work on the birds, you know? 239 00:16:59,219 --> 00:17:03,254 (gas hissing) 240 00:17:05,325 --> 00:17:07,425 JAMES SANDAKER: Rocket fuel is extremely poisonous. 241 00:17:07,494 --> 00:17:11,062 We were always told if we could smell it, 242 00:17:11,131 --> 00:17:14,432 it was already too much. 243 00:17:16,503 --> 00:17:21,539 POWELL: Oxidizer, when you breathe it, it turns to nitric acid. 244 00:17:21,608 --> 00:17:24,942 And you basically drown in your lungs 245 00:17:25,011 --> 00:17:26,611 if you breathe enough of it. 246 00:17:26,679 --> 00:17:32,650 MAN: We would work 12-, 14-hour, up to 16-hour shifts, 247 00:17:32,719 --> 00:17:34,452 and then go to sleep, 248 00:17:34,521 --> 00:17:38,222 and then five hours later or so, you get up and head back in 249 00:17:38,291 --> 00:17:42,927 for another 12-, 13-, or 14-hour day. 250 00:17:46,499 --> 00:17:50,501 POWELL: On September 18, we'd had a long week, 251 00:17:50,570 --> 00:17:52,303 we had the next day off, 252 00:17:52,372 --> 00:17:54,906 so when we finished the maintenance task 253 00:17:54,974 --> 00:17:57,108 at the site that we were at, 254 00:17:57,177 --> 00:17:59,077 you know, we thought we were done. 255 00:17:59,145 --> 00:18:02,947 (men talking) 256 00:18:03,016 --> 00:18:05,917 MAN: Roger that, we'll send them back your way. 257 00:18:05,985 --> 00:18:08,352 POWELL: Our team chief called back to the base 258 00:18:08,421 --> 00:18:10,354 to tell them we were on our way back 259 00:18:10,423 --> 00:18:13,791 and they said, "Well, before you come back, 260 00:18:13,860 --> 00:18:17,795 we want you to stop over at 4-7 at Damascus." 261 00:18:26,739 --> 00:18:29,207 When we got there, they didn't have the right part. 262 00:18:29,275 --> 00:18:34,011 They had to bring the part out on a helicopter. 263 00:18:34,080 --> 00:18:41,185 I would say we waited from 3:30 to about 6:00 in the evening 264 00:18:41,254 --> 00:18:43,855 before we could actually enter the silo. 265 00:18:46,192 --> 00:18:49,127 We'd been on duty about 11 1/2 hours. 266 00:19:13,453 --> 00:19:18,723 POWELL: Myself and airman Plumb suited up into a RFHCO. 267 00:19:18,791 --> 00:19:22,627 PLUMB: You're wearing this backpack for air, 268 00:19:22,695 --> 00:19:25,396 then you're going to slip into a stiff, 269 00:19:25,465 --> 00:19:27,498 neoprene rubber glove 270 00:19:27,567 --> 00:19:30,101 that your hand just floats around inside of. 271 00:19:30,170 --> 00:19:32,203 It's not tight. 272 00:19:32,272 --> 00:19:34,338 (men talking over radio) 273 00:19:34,407 --> 00:19:37,942 SANDAKER: The only communication we had was these radios, 274 00:19:38,011 --> 00:19:40,678 and they didn't always work correctly. 275 00:19:40,747 --> 00:19:43,247 You could very easily misunderstand. 276 00:19:43,316 --> 00:19:48,786 (men talking over radio) 277 00:19:54,394 --> 00:20:00,898 POWELL: So we started down the cableway to the silo, 278 00:20:00,967 --> 00:20:05,436 when all of a sudden, I realized that I had forgotten 279 00:20:05,505 --> 00:20:07,371 the torque wrench up in the truck. 280 00:20:10,276 --> 00:20:12,610 There was a change in the checklist 281 00:20:12,679 --> 00:20:14,712 that we were supposed to use a torque wrench 282 00:20:14,781 --> 00:20:16,180 from here on out, 283 00:20:16,249 --> 00:20:19,083 but that was a recent change. 284 00:20:19,152 --> 00:20:21,519 I had spent three years 285 00:20:21,588 --> 00:20:24,956 basically taking the pressure cap off 286 00:20:25,024 --> 00:20:26,023 with a ratchet. 287 00:20:27,794 --> 00:20:30,761 And so instead of sending somebody back 288 00:20:30,830 --> 00:20:32,763 to get the torque wrench, 289 00:20:32,832 --> 00:20:36,100 I grabbed the ratchet to do that. 290 00:20:40,974 --> 00:20:43,608 The ratchet's about three feet long 291 00:20:43,676 --> 00:20:46,277 and the socket's about eight pounds. 292 00:20:51,718 --> 00:20:53,718 And I radioed to the team chief 293 00:20:53,786 --> 00:20:56,887 that we're ready to begin the checklist 294 00:20:56,956 --> 00:21:00,992 for pressurization of stage 2 oxidizer tank. 295 00:21:03,563 --> 00:21:06,731 (hatch opens, air hisses) 296 00:21:17,410 --> 00:21:19,677 PLUMB: We had a problem with that ratchet. 297 00:21:19,746 --> 00:21:23,180 It wouldn't allow Dave to actually get the socket 298 00:21:23,249 --> 00:21:26,684 to clip or snap into place to be secure. 299 00:21:26,753 --> 00:21:30,121 He held the socket up against the dust cap 300 00:21:30,189 --> 00:21:33,924 and he put the ratchet up against it. 301 00:21:33,993 --> 00:21:37,461 POWELL: Basically you hold it with one hand on that ratchet handle, 302 00:21:37,530 --> 00:21:41,499 and one hand cradles the head of the ratchet 303 00:21:41,567 --> 00:21:43,634 with the socket on it. 304 00:21:43,703 --> 00:21:45,469 PLUMB: And so I got on the end of it 305 00:21:45,538 --> 00:21:48,139 and kind of gave it a little force, 306 00:21:48,207 --> 00:21:50,808 and I remember saying to him, "You got this?" 307 00:21:50,877 --> 00:21:54,612 "Yeah, I got it, I got it, let go of it." 308 00:21:54,681 --> 00:21:56,280 POWELL: And I go to pick it up, 309 00:21:56,349 --> 00:22:00,217 and the socket falls off the end of the ratchet. 310 00:22:00,286 --> 00:22:03,054 PLUMB: Just boompf, right through the hole 311 00:22:03,122 --> 00:22:04,955 and just straight down. 312 00:22:06,959 --> 00:22:08,492 As it was falling, I was thinking, 313 00:22:08,561 --> 00:22:12,063 "Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no." 314 00:22:12,131 --> 00:22:13,898 I wanted to jump after that thing. 315 00:22:16,069 --> 00:22:17,968 POWELL: Anytime I want, 316 00:22:18,037 --> 00:22:20,905 I can close my eyes and see that socket. 317 00:22:23,609 --> 00:22:27,812 I see the socket bouncing off the platform. 318 00:22:29,449 --> 00:22:34,051 I see my RFHCO glove reaching for it. 319 00:22:38,324 --> 00:22:40,891 And I see it falling in slow motion. 320 00:22:44,964 --> 00:22:48,766 70 feet. 321 00:22:48,835 --> 00:22:51,268 Hitting the thrust mount like it had eyeballs. 322 00:22:54,574 --> 00:22:56,607 (hissing) 323 00:22:56,676 --> 00:23:00,945 And then a stream of fuel coming out of the missile. 324 00:23:01,013 --> 00:23:02,947 PLUMB: I was just in total shock. 325 00:23:03,015 --> 00:23:05,683 I think we both just looked at each other for a second, 326 00:23:05,752 --> 00:23:08,652 and we're like, "Oh, my God, what are we going to do?" 327 00:23:11,791 --> 00:23:14,759 That missile was just blowing fuel. 328 00:23:14,827 --> 00:23:18,529 Then the magnitude set in as far as what could happen. 329 00:23:18,598 --> 00:23:20,698 The destructive force if that thing exploded, 330 00:23:20,767 --> 00:23:23,100 and we can't stop it. 331 00:23:50,596 --> 00:23:53,364 SCHLOSSER: 19 years before the Damascus accident, 332 00:23:53,433 --> 00:23:58,536 a B-52 bomber carrying two powerful hydrogen bombs 333 00:23:58,604 --> 00:24:01,739 took off on a routine mission over North Carolina. 334 00:24:04,811 --> 00:24:09,513 During the mission, the plane experienced a fuel leak, 335 00:24:09,582 --> 00:24:14,485 and suddenly, the B-52 began to break apart mid-air. 336 00:24:16,489 --> 00:24:19,023 As the fuselage was spinning 337 00:24:19,091 --> 00:24:21,525 and heading back towards Earth, 338 00:24:21,594 --> 00:24:26,163 the centrifugal forces pulled on a lanyard in the cockpit, 339 00:24:26,232 --> 00:24:29,934 and that lanyard was pulled exactly the way it would be 340 00:24:30,002 --> 00:24:33,604 if a crewmember wanted to release its hydrogen bombs 341 00:24:33,673 --> 00:24:35,673 over enemy territory. 342 00:24:37,743 --> 00:24:41,412 Bombs are relatively dumb. 343 00:24:41,481 --> 00:24:43,080 They sort of think that 344 00:24:43,149 --> 00:24:46,717 if you drop the bomb out of the bomb bay, 345 00:24:46,786 --> 00:24:49,620 you must have intended to do that. 346 00:24:49,689 --> 00:24:51,589 SCHLOSSER: One of the weapons in particular 347 00:24:51,657 --> 00:24:57,995 went through all of its arming steps to detonate, 348 00:24:58,064 --> 00:25:01,031 and when that weapon hit the ground, 349 00:25:01,100 --> 00:25:03,167 a firing signal was sent. 350 00:25:06,239 --> 00:25:07,738 And the only thing that prevented 351 00:25:07,807 --> 00:25:11,008 a full-scale detonation of a powerful hydrogen bomb 352 00:25:11,077 --> 00:25:17,481 in North Carolina was a single safety switch. 353 00:25:17,550 --> 00:25:21,652 All it is is a two-position on-off switch. 354 00:25:21,721 --> 00:25:25,823 That prevented a four-megaton disaster. 355 00:25:25,892 --> 00:25:28,659 If the right two wires had touched, 356 00:25:28,728 --> 00:25:31,061 the bomb would have detonated. 357 00:25:31,130 --> 00:25:32,696 Period. 358 00:25:34,834 --> 00:25:38,135 SCHLOSSER: The Goldsboro accident occurred at a time 359 00:25:38,204 --> 00:25:41,405 when the number of nuclear weapons accidents 360 00:25:41,474 --> 00:25:42,740 was increasing. 361 00:25:53,653 --> 00:25:59,089 PEURIFOY: I read through all of the known accident reports. 362 00:26:02,895 --> 00:26:05,062 And it scared the hell out of me. 363 00:26:19,679 --> 00:26:21,378 NEWS ANNOUNCER: The three bombs that fell on land 364 00:26:21,447 --> 00:26:23,647 weren't all recovered until five days after the crash. 365 00:26:27,186 --> 00:26:29,086 MAN: We were shocked when we realized 366 00:26:29,155 --> 00:26:32,056 all these years, we've been thinking 367 00:26:32,124 --> 00:26:35,326 along this nice, neat line. 368 00:26:35,394 --> 00:26:37,361 That's not reality. 369 00:26:37,430 --> 00:26:40,998 These orderly sequences of events 370 00:26:41,067 --> 00:26:43,467 were not going to happen in an accident 371 00:26:43,536 --> 00:26:46,737 because an accident by definition 372 00:26:46,806 --> 00:26:50,007 is something not definable. 373 00:26:50,076 --> 00:26:53,811 SCHLOSSER: There had been all these statistical assurances 374 00:26:53,879 --> 00:26:58,182 that weapons wouldn't detonate in an accident. 375 00:27:00,319 --> 00:27:02,886 And then there was a realization that the weapons 376 00:27:02,955 --> 00:27:06,223 were nowhere near as safe as everyone had assumed. 377 00:27:12,965 --> 00:27:16,233 STEVENS: We knew that fire, for example, could set off 378 00:27:16,302 --> 00:27:18,669 these electro-explosive devices 379 00:27:18,738 --> 00:27:23,140 inside the warhead in a random way. 380 00:27:26,712 --> 00:27:31,015 SCHLOSSER: During a fire, the solder might melt on a circuit board. 381 00:27:31,083 --> 00:27:35,152 It created all kinds of new electrical pathways 382 00:27:35,221 --> 00:27:39,189 that could completely circumvent a safety device. 383 00:27:39,258 --> 00:27:46,196 PEURIFOY: Of the 20,000 or 25,000 weapons that we had in stockpile, 384 00:27:46,265 --> 00:27:48,432 I could not in good conscience 385 00:27:48,501 --> 00:27:52,202 swear that they were adequately safe. 386 00:27:52,271 --> 00:27:54,872 SCHLOSSER: You had Bob Peurifoy, 387 00:27:54,940 --> 00:27:57,174 one of the vice presidents of the lab, 388 00:27:57,243 --> 00:28:00,844 and Bill Stevens, the head of the Safety Department at Sandia, 389 00:28:00,913 --> 00:28:05,749 saying thousands of weapons in the American nuclear arsenal 390 00:28:05,818 --> 00:28:10,254 were vulnerable during an accident, 391 00:28:10,322 --> 00:28:15,693 including the most powerful warhead on an American missile, 392 00:28:15,761 --> 00:28:18,662 the warhead on top of the Titan II. 393 00:28:38,984 --> 00:28:40,451 HOLDER: I was sitting down 394 00:28:40,519 --> 00:28:43,187 in the kitchen, eating a sandwich, 395 00:28:43,255 --> 00:28:45,556 when the klaxon went off. 396 00:28:45,624 --> 00:28:50,694 (alarm beeping) 397 00:28:50,763 --> 00:28:52,896 So I didn't think too much of it. 398 00:28:52,965 --> 00:28:54,264 I mean, it went off, 399 00:28:54,333 --> 00:28:56,533 it's like, "Okay, they just... 400 00:28:56,602 --> 00:28:58,135 They're doing their procedures." 401 00:28:58,204 --> 00:29:01,772 But about ten seconds later, we got another klaxon. 402 00:29:01,841 --> 00:29:06,877 (alarm beeping) 403 00:29:06,946 --> 00:29:09,413 I got up and I walked about halfway down the stairs. 404 00:29:09,482 --> 00:29:13,150 And I looked down and I can see the commander's console. 405 00:29:13,219 --> 00:29:17,955 Then the commander's console has lots of red lights flashing, 406 00:29:18,023 --> 00:29:23,494 and so I know something's wrong. 407 00:29:23,562 --> 00:29:26,296 CHILDERS: Captain Mazzaro was our crew commander. 408 00:29:26,365 --> 00:29:28,031 The first thing that Mazzaro heard 409 00:29:28,100 --> 00:29:31,502 and that the other team members heard are the words, "Uh-oh." 410 00:29:31,570 --> 00:29:33,637 Mazzaro said, "What do you mean, uh-oh? 411 00:29:33,706 --> 00:29:36,306 What's going on?" 412 00:29:36,375 --> 00:29:39,376 They said, "There's smoke in the bottom of the launch duct." 413 00:29:39,445 --> 00:29:41,378 Commander's trying to clear up. 414 00:29:41,447 --> 00:29:43,413 "What do you mean, smoke in the bottom of the launch duct? 415 00:29:43,482 --> 00:29:45,015 Do you see a fire?" 416 00:29:48,754 --> 00:29:50,921 POWELL: The fuel vapors in the silo are just climbing 417 00:29:50,990 --> 00:29:53,223 and climbing and climbing. 418 00:29:58,164 --> 00:30:00,864 So I radioed back that we had a cloud. 419 00:30:00,933 --> 00:30:05,402 A milky white cloud. 420 00:30:05,471 --> 00:30:09,540 I wasn't going to say "fuel" over the radio. 421 00:30:09,608 --> 00:30:12,709 The reason I didn't want to say the word "fuel" over the radio 422 00:30:12,778 --> 00:30:14,511 was because, uh, 423 00:30:14,580 --> 00:30:17,881 in case the missile commander was listening, 424 00:30:17,950 --> 00:30:19,550 I didn't want him to freak out. 425 00:30:25,090 --> 00:30:27,925 PLUMB: I think David was just scared to say anything 426 00:30:27,993 --> 00:30:29,793 about really what was happening. 427 00:30:32,298 --> 00:30:35,365 Only being 21 years old. 428 00:30:35,434 --> 00:30:37,267 I guess it'd almost be like, you know, 429 00:30:37,336 --> 00:30:39,803 you doing something wrong as a kid 430 00:30:39,872 --> 00:30:43,874 and you got to tell your parents about it, you know? 431 00:30:43,943 --> 00:30:45,742 You know, how you kind of just stand there 432 00:30:45,811 --> 00:30:47,945 and you don't want to say what you just did. 433 00:31:00,693 --> 00:31:05,729 POWELL: I grabbed Plumb and we walked back up the cableway. 434 00:31:05,798 --> 00:31:09,833 I immediately started looking at the fuel level reader. 435 00:31:09,902 --> 00:31:13,337 When it hits that explosive level, 436 00:31:13,405 --> 00:31:17,841 any spark can set off the fuel. 437 00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:23,947 CHILDERS: You could run through each of the tanks on each stage 438 00:31:24,016 --> 00:31:25,782 and see what the pressure was, 439 00:31:25,851 --> 00:31:27,918 and we saw that the pressure was dropping. 440 00:31:27,987 --> 00:31:29,319 It was dropping fast. 441 00:31:31,891 --> 00:31:33,123 And then all of a sudden, 442 00:31:33,192 --> 00:31:34,958 sprays came on in the launch duct. 443 00:31:35,027 --> 00:31:37,594 We thought, "Well, there must be a fire." 444 00:31:37,663 --> 00:31:41,498 It doesn't make any sense, nothing made any sense. 445 00:31:41,567 --> 00:31:44,835 And I jumped into my checklist. 446 00:31:44,904 --> 00:31:46,970 We did everything according to checklists. 447 00:31:47,039 --> 00:31:48,872 (voice breaking): You know, we ran the oxidizer checklists, 448 00:31:48,941 --> 00:31:51,208 we ran the fuel checklists. 449 00:31:51,277 --> 00:31:53,710 You know, you stay in the checklist, 450 00:31:53,779 --> 00:31:56,113 it'll take care of you. 451 00:31:58,751 --> 00:32:01,885 HOLDER: About that time, the PTS team that had been out working 452 00:32:01,954 --> 00:32:03,553 had gotten back, 453 00:32:03,622 --> 00:32:06,490 and they're standing over in the short cableway, 454 00:32:06,558 --> 00:32:09,960 and the maintenance team chief went over and met them 455 00:32:10,029 --> 00:32:14,298 and they started talking. 456 00:32:14,366 --> 00:32:17,868 At that point, I said, "Okay, guys, what happened?" 457 00:32:17,937 --> 00:32:19,469 And they came in 458 00:32:19,538 --> 00:32:22,472 and then they explained to the crew at that point 459 00:32:22,541 --> 00:32:24,074 exactly what happened. 460 00:32:27,479 --> 00:32:29,146 And that's when we finally got him to admit 461 00:32:29,214 --> 00:32:31,214 that he had done something, that he had dropped it, 462 00:32:31,283 --> 00:32:33,717 and there was a hole, and he saw vapors coming out. 463 00:32:33,786 --> 00:32:34,985 It was more than "uh-oh." 464 00:32:35,054 --> 00:32:36,653 And that was the first time we knew. 465 00:32:36,722 --> 00:32:39,356 It was a good half-hour into it. 466 00:32:39,425 --> 00:32:42,326 By then it was basically out of control. 467 00:32:42,394 --> 00:32:45,929 (alarm beeping) 468 00:33:08,587 --> 00:33:10,620 MAN: When I became secretary of defense, 469 00:33:10,689 --> 00:33:14,624 we had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. 470 00:33:14,693 --> 00:33:16,293 The numbers were a big problem, 471 00:33:16,362 --> 00:33:23,500 because it only takes a few or one getting out of hand 472 00:33:23,569 --> 00:33:28,171 to cause a catastrophic problem. 473 00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:30,807 And we worried about that. 474 00:33:30,876 --> 00:33:32,909 We probably didn't worry about it enough. 475 00:33:35,514 --> 00:33:39,049 The Titan II missiles by 1980 were both old 476 00:33:39,118 --> 00:33:43,186 and much more prone to accidents. 477 00:33:44,923 --> 00:33:48,191 NEWS ANNOUNCER: At a silo near Searcy, 53 construction workers died 478 00:33:48,260 --> 00:33:51,094 when a welding torch sparked flammable hydraulic oil. 479 00:33:51,163 --> 00:33:53,430 NEWS ANNOUNCER: Nitrogen tetroxide drifted from the missile site. 480 00:33:53,499 --> 00:33:57,200 NEWS ANNOUNCER: This would be missile leak number ten so far in Arkansas. 481 00:33:59,938 --> 00:34:01,805 Why was it still in the arsenal? 482 00:34:01,874 --> 00:34:05,142 Uh, in part because it was 483 00:34:05,210 --> 00:34:10,947 the only missile that had a heavy payload. 484 00:34:11,016 --> 00:34:12,983 SCHLOSSER: The United States had a thousand 485 00:34:13,052 --> 00:34:18,155 land-based missiles, and those 54 Titan IIs 486 00:34:18,223 --> 00:34:21,892 represented one third of the mega-tonnage 487 00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,594 of our entire missile force. 488 00:34:24,663 --> 00:34:29,299 In September 1980, the Soviet Union was in the midst 489 00:34:29,368 --> 00:34:32,002 of a huge nuclear arms build-up. 490 00:34:32,071 --> 00:34:36,973 By then, they had more land-based missiles than we did. 491 00:34:37,042 --> 00:34:39,976 (applause) 492 00:34:40,045 --> 00:34:45,115 BROWN: It also I think was part of a negotiating strategy. 493 00:34:47,352 --> 00:34:53,924 We anticipated trading them off against Soviet heavy missiles 494 00:34:53,992 --> 00:34:57,127 in strategic arms negotiations. 495 00:34:57,196 --> 00:34:59,129 SCHLOSSER: It was a bargaining chip, 496 00:34:59,198 --> 00:35:02,265 something that we could give up in order to persuade the Soviets 497 00:35:02,334 --> 00:35:04,668 to get rid of a class of their missiles. 498 00:35:07,339 --> 00:35:09,606 BROWN: So that was why we still had it, 499 00:35:09,675 --> 00:35:13,944 and it was therefore available for an accident. 500 00:35:14,012 --> 00:35:16,213 REPORTER: Of the 18 Titan missiles stationed in Kansas, 501 00:35:16,281 --> 00:35:20,183 there were serious leaks in 17. 502 00:35:20,252 --> 00:35:22,052 REPORTER: Nearly 14,000 gallons 503 00:35:22,121 --> 00:35:24,554 of poisonous liquid fuel poured out, 504 00:35:24,623 --> 00:35:28,091 killing two persons and injuring more than 20 others. 505 00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:31,228 The Titan II is potentially an awesome weapon of war 506 00:35:31,296 --> 00:35:34,364 whose only victims so far have been Americans. 507 00:35:36,268 --> 00:35:38,668 PRYOR: There were stories about accidents 508 00:35:38,737 --> 00:35:41,238 that might have happened in Kansas, 509 00:35:41,306 --> 00:35:44,007 or maybe one or two smaller ones in Arkansas. 510 00:35:44,076 --> 00:35:47,744 I think more and more, it became a matter of concern. 511 00:35:49,915 --> 00:35:52,782 RUTHERFORD: A year before the Damascus accident, 512 00:35:52,851 --> 00:35:56,786 Senator David Pryor and I toured a Titan missile site. 513 00:35:56,855 --> 00:35:59,089 We were concerned about safety issues. 514 00:35:59,158 --> 00:36:00,857 (metal detector whirring) 515 00:36:00,926 --> 00:36:03,760 They were very helpful, they answered questions... 516 00:36:06,798 --> 00:36:11,868 ...and we had a very pleasant, educational tour 517 00:36:11,937 --> 00:36:14,571 of a Titan missile site. 518 00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:16,873 We talked about how helpful it was 519 00:36:16,942 --> 00:36:20,243 and quite frankly had some reassurance 520 00:36:20,312 --> 00:36:22,979 that maybe things were okay, 521 00:36:23,048 --> 00:36:26,483 that maybe things weren't as bad as we had been led to believe. 522 00:36:26,552 --> 00:36:28,485 What I was very, very impressed with, 523 00:36:28,554 --> 00:36:31,121 it was of course the Titan II. 524 00:36:31,190 --> 00:36:33,823 It's about 110 feet tall... 525 00:36:33,892 --> 00:36:38,161 RUTHERFORD: We get back, and in a matter of no time, 526 00:36:38,230 --> 00:36:42,832 a phone call comes from some airmen 527 00:36:42,901 --> 00:36:45,435 who said they'd like to meet with us. 528 00:36:48,674 --> 00:36:51,241 They wanted to come to our office. 529 00:36:51,310 --> 00:36:56,012 They didn't want anybody to know that we were meeting. 530 00:36:56,081 --> 00:36:59,349 We met there that night scared to death. 531 00:36:59,418 --> 00:37:02,419 You know, we were 20-something kids; 532 00:37:02,487 --> 00:37:05,088 we had no idea what we were doing. 533 00:37:05,157 --> 00:37:08,091 We took the logbook to their office and showed them. 534 00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:09,926 They put your life in danger, 535 00:37:09,995 --> 00:37:14,097 and they didn't tell you that when they sent you out there. 536 00:37:14,166 --> 00:37:18,969 The day that they had walked the senator through the site, 537 00:37:19,037 --> 00:37:22,205 their hazard sensing system was off alert. 538 00:37:22,274 --> 00:37:26,209 If the system is down, you could have vapors in the silo 539 00:37:26,278 --> 00:37:28,411 that could kill you, 540 00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:31,848 and so they should have provided the senator with a gas mask. 541 00:37:31,917 --> 00:37:33,850 But they just walked him through 542 00:37:33,919 --> 00:37:36,319 like it was a normal day and there was no problem. 543 00:37:36,388 --> 00:37:39,456 The Air Force didn't want the senator 544 00:37:39,524 --> 00:37:41,291 to have any understanding 545 00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:44,995 of just how unreliable the systems were. 546 00:37:49,334 --> 00:37:51,901 People inside of our chain of command 547 00:37:51,970 --> 00:37:53,870 weren't listening to us, 548 00:37:53,939 --> 00:37:57,440 and that's why we went to Senator Pryor. 549 00:37:57,509 --> 00:38:00,744 And we told him about our absolute fear 550 00:38:00,812 --> 00:38:03,413 for the safety of Arkansas, 551 00:38:03,482 --> 00:38:07,117 the safety of everybody working on those systems. 552 00:38:07,185 --> 00:38:10,754 They were telling me that it wasn't a matter 553 00:38:10,822 --> 00:38:14,424 of if we were going to have an explosion; 554 00:38:14,493 --> 00:38:16,359 it was a matter of when. 555 00:38:16,428 --> 00:38:21,598 After that meeting, we proposed a warning siren 556 00:38:21,667 --> 00:38:26,336 at each of the silos, much like a tornado-warning siren. 557 00:38:26,405 --> 00:38:28,838 On Tuesday, I passed an amendment 558 00:38:28,907 --> 00:38:32,108 which is going to mandate the Air Force 559 00:38:32,177 --> 00:38:33,777 to put early warning systems 560 00:38:33,845 --> 00:38:36,279 on all of the 54 missile sites in this country. 561 00:38:36,348 --> 00:38:43,019 RUTHERFORD: The passage of that amendment was on September 17, 562 00:38:43,088 --> 00:38:46,856 two days before the tragedy at Damascus. 563 00:39:05,777 --> 00:39:08,345 MAN: September 18, 1980, 564 00:39:08,413 --> 00:39:09,679 I got a call 565 00:39:09,748 --> 00:39:12,816 from the command post, said we had a serious problem. 566 00:39:16,221 --> 00:39:20,223 In June of 1980, I had assumed command 567 00:39:20,292 --> 00:39:22,058 of the 308th Strategic Missile Wing 568 00:39:22,127 --> 00:39:25,762 at Little Rock Air Force Base, and that was a Titan wing. 569 00:39:25,831 --> 00:39:31,935 I had no previous experience in Titan, 570 00:39:32,003 --> 00:39:38,308 I had no training in Titan, so I was the new guy. 571 00:39:38,377 --> 00:39:41,010 I had about three months under my belt 572 00:39:41,079 --> 00:39:45,281 before the accident occurred on the night of September 18. 573 00:39:45,350 --> 00:39:48,284 I got to the command center, 574 00:39:48,353 --> 00:39:52,856 started to figure out what was going on. 575 00:39:52,924 --> 00:39:55,592 Nobody knew too much about what happened 576 00:39:55,660 --> 00:39:58,161 except that a socket dropped in the silo. 577 00:40:00,499 --> 00:40:03,166 I had heard before that tools had been dropped, 578 00:40:03,235 --> 00:40:08,238 but they always went straight to the bottom. 579 00:40:08,306 --> 00:40:12,475 But in this case, it penetrated the missile. 580 00:40:12,544 --> 00:40:17,580 I had no idea that that could ever happen. 581 00:40:17,649 --> 00:40:20,250 I had never even given that a thought at all. 582 00:40:20,318 --> 00:40:24,888 And then I activated the missile potential hazard team. 583 00:40:24,956 --> 00:40:27,724 SCHLOSSER: The missile potential hazard team 584 00:40:27,793 --> 00:40:30,727 gathered together some of the top figures in the Air Force 585 00:40:30,796 --> 00:40:31,995 to deal with the accident. 586 00:40:32,063 --> 00:40:35,965 At Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, 587 00:40:36,034 --> 00:40:38,067 there was Colonel Ben Scallorn, 588 00:40:38,136 --> 00:40:41,771 the Air Force's leading expert on the Titan II missile. 589 00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:44,774 As we're dumping fuel, 590 00:40:44,843 --> 00:40:46,776 things are heating up in that silo 591 00:40:46,845 --> 00:40:48,211 and the launch duct all the time. 592 00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:54,184 If the temperature rises the oxidizer expands, 593 00:40:54,252 --> 00:40:57,520 and there's a possibility that it can rupture a tank. 594 00:40:57,589 --> 00:40:59,589 And with a silo full of fuel 595 00:40:59,658 --> 00:41:03,693 and you rupture an oxidizer tank and the oxidizer hits the fuel, 596 00:41:03,762 --> 00:41:05,562 it's gone. 597 00:41:05,630 --> 00:41:10,300 SCHLOSSER: In Denver, there were executives from Martin Marietta, 598 00:41:10,368 --> 00:41:15,138 who designed and built the Titan II missile. 599 00:41:15,207 --> 00:41:18,174 And in Omaha, Nebraska, there was the underground headquarters 600 00:41:18,243 --> 00:41:23,513 of the Strategic Air Command, known as SAC. 601 00:41:23,582 --> 00:41:25,715 That night, all the major decisions 602 00:41:25,784 --> 00:41:29,052 would be made at SAC headquarters. 603 00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,321 MOSER: The Strategic Air Command 604 00:41:31,389 --> 00:41:34,257 handled the nuclear weapons for the Air Force. 605 00:41:34,326 --> 00:41:37,560 (men talking, phones ringing) 606 00:41:37,629 --> 00:41:43,366 SAC was a very, very professional organization, 607 00:41:43,435 --> 00:41:48,404 and there were no errors really tolerated. 608 00:41:48,473 --> 00:41:50,573 SCHLOSSER: The night of the accident, General Lloyd Leavitt 609 00:41:50,642 --> 00:41:55,278 assumed control of the Missile Potential Hazard Team. 610 00:41:55,347 --> 00:41:58,815 MOSER: General Leavitt was a very dedicated pilot, 611 00:41:58,884 --> 00:42:03,019 a very courageous pilot in Korea and Vietnam, 612 00:42:03,088 --> 00:42:08,458 but he had no missile background at all that I'm aware of. 613 00:42:11,463 --> 00:42:13,596 As things progressed, we were trying to do 614 00:42:13,665 --> 00:42:14,964 everything we could. 615 00:42:15,033 --> 00:42:16,633 We knew what was going to happen 616 00:42:16,701 --> 00:42:19,235 if we lost pressure in the fuel tank. 617 00:42:19,304 --> 00:42:21,237 You know, of course, the missile was going to collapse 618 00:42:21,306 --> 00:42:22,472 on top of itself. 619 00:42:26,678 --> 00:42:30,647 The pressures in the tanks kept the missile erect. 620 00:42:34,185 --> 00:42:37,120 If we lost all the pressure in that, 621 00:42:37,188 --> 00:42:39,756 the missile would collapse upon itself. 622 00:42:42,761 --> 00:42:44,561 If the missile collapsed, 623 00:42:44,629 --> 00:42:47,730 the entire missile would blow up, 624 00:42:47,799 --> 00:42:49,832 but what would happen to the warhead 625 00:42:49,901 --> 00:42:52,201 was anybody's guess. 626 00:42:54,806 --> 00:42:58,841 There was no one that we kept on alert 627 00:42:58,910 --> 00:43:01,744 that knew anything about the warhead. 628 00:43:01,813 --> 00:43:03,313 There was no checklist, 629 00:43:03,381 --> 00:43:06,616 probably the only thing that I ever was involved with 630 00:43:06,685 --> 00:43:08,318 with Strategic Air Command 631 00:43:08,386 --> 00:43:10,186 that there wasn't a checklist for, 632 00:43:10,255 --> 00:43:12,589 and so it became a seat-of-the-pants operation 633 00:43:12,657 --> 00:43:14,324 as things unfolded, 634 00:43:14,392 --> 00:43:17,927 and I used every resource we had that night 635 00:43:17,996 --> 00:43:22,532 to try to face the problem and solve the problem. 636 00:43:24,135 --> 00:43:26,235 One of the options was, 637 00:43:26,304 --> 00:43:28,805 if the silo closure door was opened, 638 00:43:28,873 --> 00:43:34,177 there's a possibility that the gas could have been vented. 639 00:43:34,245 --> 00:43:37,714 But there was also a possibility, 640 00:43:37,782 --> 00:43:41,951 if the missile did explode while that door was open, 641 00:43:42,020 --> 00:43:45,254 it would throw the warhead out of the silo. 642 00:43:49,060 --> 00:43:51,194 We would not have known where it went. 643 00:43:51,262 --> 00:43:53,563 It could go almost anywhere. 644 00:43:58,203 --> 00:44:00,169 (explosion) 645 00:44:14,386 --> 00:44:19,222 BROWN: Very few people, almost none 646 00:44:19,290 --> 00:44:21,724 in a decision-making capacity, 647 00:44:21,793 --> 00:44:25,094 have ever seen a nuclear explosion. 648 00:44:25,163 --> 00:44:30,500 I went out to the Pacific in 1954. 649 00:44:30,568 --> 00:44:35,004 I would have been 26, 650 00:44:35,073 --> 00:44:39,208 having worked for a couple of years before then 651 00:44:39,277 --> 00:44:41,344 on the development of nuclear weapons. 652 00:44:46,985 --> 00:44:50,386 SCHLOSSER: In 1954, the United States 653 00:44:50,455 --> 00:44:53,589 was testing a new design for a hydrogen bomb. 654 00:44:53,658 --> 00:44:56,759 It was the same sort of weapon 655 00:44:56,828 --> 00:45:01,497 that would later be put on top of the Titan II. 656 00:45:01,566 --> 00:45:04,000 It had been anticipated 657 00:45:04,069 --> 00:45:07,603 that the blast would be about five megatons. 658 00:45:07,672 --> 00:45:11,808 That is the equivalent of five million tons of TNT. 659 00:45:11,876 --> 00:45:14,143 (booming explosion) 660 00:45:14,212 --> 00:45:17,947 When the device detonated, there was an enormous explosion 661 00:45:18,016 --> 00:45:22,618 that got bigger and bigger and bigger. 662 00:45:22,687 --> 00:45:26,289 And soon, the observers were terrified 663 00:45:26,357 --> 00:45:28,825 because they didn't know when it was going to stop. 664 00:45:28,893 --> 00:45:33,463 (rumbling) 665 00:45:33,531 --> 00:45:37,066 The Bravo test wound up being three times more powerful 666 00:45:37,135 --> 00:45:39,836 than they had estimated. 667 00:45:41,439 --> 00:45:44,574 (rumbling continues) 668 00:45:49,013 --> 00:45:50,880 BROWN: I saw it go off 669 00:45:50,949 --> 00:45:56,552 from a distance of 200 miles. 670 00:45:56,621 --> 00:45:58,955 All you see is the light. 671 00:46:05,029 --> 00:46:09,165 The light stays on for a long time, 672 00:46:09,234 --> 00:46:12,535 and if you see it from total darkness, 673 00:46:12,604 --> 00:46:18,574 it gets bright enough to read a newspaper by that light. 674 00:46:18,643 --> 00:46:21,377 That's enormously impressive. 675 00:46:21,446 --> 00:46:26,883 Everybody knew that there was a great deal of radioactivity 676 00:46:26,951 --> 00:46:31,888 generated in a nuclear explosion. 677 00:46:31,956 --> 00:46:35,391 The question always was what would happen to it. 678 00:46:40,565 --> 00:46:45,134 REPORTER: Radiation survey teams were flown back to the exposed atoll. 679 00:46:47,238 --> 00:46:49,939 We were able to document for the first time 680 00:46:50,008 --> 00:46:54,076 fallout data from high-yield detonations. 681 00:46:55,814 --> 00:46:59,415 Fallout blanketed areas of more than 5,000 square miles 682 00:46:59,484 --> 00:47:02,385 with radioactive material that would have been lethal 683 00:47:02,453 --> 00:47:04,287 to unprotected personnel. 684 00:47:06,791 --> 00:47:08,424 Back in Washington, 685 00:47:08,493 --> 00:47:11,460 they took a map of the fallout pattern 686 00:47:11,529 --> 00:47:13,362 from the Bravo test, 687 00:47:13,431 --> 00:47:16,699 and they superimposed it on a map of the United States. 688 00:47:18,102 --> 00:47:24,874 A similar weapon detonated over Washington, D.C., 689 00:47:24,943 --> 00:47:27,743 could release enough radioactive fallout 690 00:47:27,812 --> 00:47:30,379 to kill everyone in Washington, D.C., 691 00:47:30,448 --> 00:47:33,850 everyone in Baltimore, everyone in Philadelphia, 692 00:47:33,918 --> 00:47:36,686 half the population of New York City, 693 00:47:36,754 --> 00:47:40,723 with casualties and fatalities as far north as Boston. 694 00:47:55,673 --> 00:48:00,076 HOLDER: The fuel tank readings started going negative, 695 00:48:00,144 --> 00:48:01,944 and at that point, 696 00:48:02,013 --> 00:48:06,215 I felt that it was potentially going to collapse. 697 00:48:08,386 --> 00:48:14,123 And although there are safety measures within the warhead, 698 00:48:14,192 --> 00:48:18,561 in the back of my mind, you always wonder. 699 00:48:18,630 --> 00:48:20,796 I don't think anybody truly knew 700 00:48:20,865 --> 00:48:24,166 what was going to happen with the warhead. 701 00:48:24,235 --> 00:48:27,904 (men speaking on radios) 702 00:48:27,972 --> 00:48:29,972 PLUMB: As they were talking about these tank pressures 703 00:48:30,041 --> 00:48:33,309 and all these different things, 704 00:48:33,378 --> 00:48:34,911 I'm getting more and more anxious 705 00:48:34,979 --> 00:48:37,013 and more and more anxious, 706 00:48:37,081 --> 00:48:40,116 thinking, "I need, we need to get out of here. 707 00:48:40,184 --> 00:48:43,019 "We need to get the hell out of this complex, 708 00:48:43,087 --> 00:48:44,654 because this thing's going to blow up." 709 00:48:47,725 --> 00:48:53,029 POWELL: At this point, Mazzaro wanted to evacuate the control center. 710 00:48:53,097 --> 00:48:58,100 He didn't really want to be down there if it did explode. 711 00:48:58,169 --> 00:48:59,602 MOSER: Some of the crewmembers 712 00:48:59,671 --> 00:49:02,338 were eager to make an exit, 713 00:49:02,407 --> 00:49:07,043 so with that in mind, we started discussing, 714 00:49:07,111 --> 00:49:11,113 should we evacuate the people in the launch control center 715 00:49:11,182 --> 00:49:13,716 or leave them in there? 716 00:49:13,785 --> 00:49:16,118 The reason to get them out of the silo, 717 00:49:16,187 --> 00:49:18,120 we had no idea what was going to happen 718 00:49:18,189 --> 00:49:21,557 to the launch control center if the missile exploded. 719 00:49:21,626 --> 00:49:26,696 I still thought we should be there. 720 00:49:26,764 --> 00:49:28,064 We needed to be there. 721 00:49:30,268 --> 00:49:33,469 If we evacuated that launch control center, 722 00:49:33,538 --> 00:49:35,404 we would be giving up any ability 723 00:49:35,473 --> 00:49:39,408 to control any of the equipment, 724 00:49:39,477 --> 00:49:41,377 we would be giving up the capacity 725 00:49:41,446 --> 00:49:44,280 to try any of the ideas 726 00:49:44,349 --> 00:49:46,115 that people were trying to come up with 727 00:49:46,184 --> 00:49:49,218 in order to save this system. 728 00:49:53,524 --> 00:49:55,825 Rodney and I told the crew commander 729 00:49:55,893 --> 00:50:00,062 that we wanted to stay behind. 730 00:50:00,131 --> 00:50:01,897 I couldn't leave. 731 00:50:01,966 --> 00:50:03,933 You know, emotionally, I couldn't go. 732 00:50:04,002 --> 00:50:06,002 From our standpoint, we could stay 733 00:50:06,070 --> 00:50:09,805 because neither one of us had children at that time, and... 734 00:50:09,874 --> 00:50:12,408 Not that we didn't care about our lives, 735 00:50:12,477 --> 00:50:18,247 but, you know, it just seemed that it made sense to us 736 00:50:18,316 --> 00:50:20,750 that we should stay and let everybody else go. 737 00:50:39,370 --> 00:50:42,638 (people chatting) 738 00:50:42,707 --> 00:50:45,341 MAN: On the evening of September 18, 739 00:50:45,410 --> 00:50:47,810 people were gathering in Hot Springs. 740 00:50:47,879 --> 00:50:50,079 Vice President Mondale was the keynote speaker. 741 00:50:50,148 --> 00:50:52,815 Senator Pryor and Governor Clinton and others 742 00:50:52,884 --> 00:50:57,787 had already gone to Hot Springs. 743 00:50:57,855 --> 00:51:02,024 And I was scheduled to go over the next day. 744 00:51:02,093 --> 00:51:05,327 That night we had invited a friend over for dinner, 745 00:51:05,396 --> 00:51:07,063 and the phone rang. 746 00:51:07,131 --> 00:51:09,665 (phone ringing) 747 00:51:09,734 --> 00:51:15,871 And it was one of the airmen whom I had talked with. 748 00:51:15,940 --> 00:51:18,374 But when I got off the phone from this airman, 749 00:51:18,443 --> 00:51:22,645 I looked around and people started asking me, saying, 750 00:51:22,713 --> 00:51:24,580 "What's happening?" 751 00:51:24,649 --> 00:51:31,020 And I said, "A Titan missile is going to explode." 752 00:51:31,089 --> 00:51:33,923 And the question was, "Well, what does that mean?" 753 00:51:33,991 --> 00:51:41,664 "What it means is, if that nuclear warhead explodes, 754 00:51:41,732 --> 00:51:43,499 we're incinerated." 755 00:51:43,568 --> 00:51:46,836 You know, I said, "Little Rock's gone." 756 00:51:46,904 --> 00:51:48,537 I said, "Little Rock is gone. 757 00:51:48,606 --> 00:51:54,477 We're 46 miles from this site, we're gone." 758 00:51:57,415 --> 00:52:03,519 I walked into our living room and looked out the front window, 759 00:52:03,588 --> 00:52:05,087 and it was still daylight savings time, 760 00:52:05,156 --> 00:52:08,224 so it wasn't totally dark, 761 00:52:08,292 --> 00:52:10,426 and you could see children in the front yard 762 00:52:10,495 --> 00:52:14,697 or people walking out to their cars, 763 00:52:14,765 --> 00:52:16,532 carrying on their normal everyday lives, 764 00:52:16,601 --> 00:52:22,872 and I thought, "Do I run out on the street 765 00:52:22,940 --> 00:52:26,742 "and say we got a potential nuclear explosion 766 00:52:26,811 --> 00:52:30,546 "46 miles from here? 767 00:52:30,615 --> 00:52:33,649 "Do I grab my friends and neighbors 768 00:52:33,718 --> 00:52:36,285 "and get in the car and start driving? 769 00:52:36,354 --> 00:52:39,955 "Do I call up Senator Pryor and say, 770 00:52:40,024 --> 00:52:41,290 "'Let's call a press conference 771 00:52:41,359 --> 00:52:44,727 and tell them that the Air Force is not telling the truth'"? 772 00:52:44,795 --> 00:52:46,795 What do you do? 773 00:52:48,299 --> 00:52:51,934 MAN: I was there in Hot Springs at night, 774 00:52:52,003 --> 00:52:56,805 and the phone rang and it was Skip. 775 00:52:56,874 --> 00:52:59,241 And Skip says, "We have a problem." 776 00:52:59,310 --> 00:53:00,943 He said, "What's the Air Force saying?" 777 00:53:01,012 --> 00:53:03,112 I said, "The Air Force is telling people 778 00:53:03,181 --> 00:53:04,847 "it's not happening, 779 00:53:04,916 --> 00:53:06,782 "That's what they've told the people on the site. 780 00:53:06,851 --> 00:53:13,656 "They're going to tell you that these things are under control. 781 00:53:13,724 --> 00:53:16,492 But I think you need to be prepared for an explosion." 782 00:53:34,078 --> 00:53:37,313 MAN: As the general manager of the radio station in Clinton, 783 00:53:37,381 --> 00:53:38,981 we were doing quite a bit of local news, 784 00:53:39,050 --> 00:53:41,250 and you realize in a small town 785 00:53:41,319 --> 00:53:42,985 that you need to have a police scanner, 786 00:53:43,054 --> 00:53:44,620 because everything comes off of it. 787 00:53:44,689 --> 00:53:48,224 And the person said, "We've got a chemical leak 788 00:53:48,292 --> 00:53:50,459 at the Titan II missile silo." 789 00:53:50,528 --> 00:53:53,929 (sirens blaring) 790 00:53:53,998 --> 00:53:56,599 We get there about the same time the sheriff is getting there, 791 00:53:56,667 --> 00:53:58,801 Gus Anglin. 792 00:53:58,869 --> 00:54:00,169 This is Gus Anglin. 793 00:54:00,238 --> 00:54:02,271 He was the sheriff of Van Buren County, 794 00:54:02,340 --> 00:54:04,707 very popular sheriff, by the way. 795 00:54:06,544 --> 00:54:09,778 And so we decide to walk down the narrow road 796 00:54:09,847 --> 00:54:12,748 that goes down to the silo. 797 00:54:12,817 --> 00:54:14,416 And when you get down there, 798 00:54:14,485 --> 00:54:17,486 there's, like, this ten-foot-tall chain link fencing 799 00:54:17,555 --> 00:54:21,857 with barbed wire around the top of it. 800 00:54:21,926 --> 00:54:26,328 Out of nowhere, here comes two guys with M-16 rifles. 801 00:54:28,266 --> 00:54:31,233 Gus says, "Do I need to start evacuating?" 802 00:54:31,302 --> 00:54:32,568 "Oh, no, sir, no, sir, 803 00:54:32,637 --> 00:54:35,104 we've got it under control, I assure you." 804 00:54:35,172 --> 00:54:36,939 You know, if they had come up and said, 805 00:54:37,008 --> 00:54:38,607 "Man, we got a hell of a situation, 806 00:54:38,676 --> 00:54:42,378 this thing may blow like hell," I'd have got out of there. 807 00:54:42,446 --> 00:54:45,881 CHILDERS: You know, the attitude that a lot 808 00:54:45,950 --> 00:54:48,717 of military commanders have was to tell everybody, 809 00:54:48,786 --> 00:54:51,153 "Everything's okay, we'll take care of it." 810 00:54:51,222 --> 00:54:52,988 And that's what we were doing that night. 811 00:54:53,057 --> 00:54:54,356 That was the wrong answer. 812 00:54:54,425 --> 00:54:58,227 KING: So we went back to the edge of the road, 813 00:54:58,296 --> 00:55:00,529 which was just off Highway 65. 814 00:55:00,598 --> 00:55:04,300 There's homes real close to the silo. 815 00:55:04,368 --> 00:55:05,968 WOMAN: My mother said, 816 00:55:06,037 --> 00:55:08,404 "There's something wrong at the missile base. 817 00:55:08,472 --> 00:55:10,406 There's cars, there's a lot of cars going in." 818 00:55:10,474 --> 00:55:15,511 The missile site is probably less than a quarter of a mile 819 00:55:15,579 --> 00:55:19,415 through the field from the back door. 820 00:55:19,483 --> 00:55:23,585 They basically condemned our land and took it. 821 00:55:23,654 --> 00:55:25,587 We didn't know the danger. 822 00:55:25,656 --> 00:55:28,324 We didn't know that that was a nuclear missile there. 823 00:55:28,392 --> 00:55:30,392 I mean, it was a secret base. 824 00:55:30,461 --> 00:55:32,194 It had a chain link fence 825 00:55:32,263 --> 00:55:34,463 with barbed wire around the top and guards. 826 00:55:34,532 --> 00:55:35,964 Big signs on the fence said, 827 00:55:36,033 --> 00:55:37,466 "We gonna shoot you if you come in here." 828 00:55:39,470 --> 00:55:42,404 But you wasn't gonna change it and we wasn't gonna move. 829 00:55:42,473 --> 00:55:45,007 It just didn't make much sense to dwell on it, 830 00:55:45,076 --> 00:55:47,643 so you just put up with it, 831 00:55:47,712 --> 00:55:51,480 kind of like a bad neighbor or an in-law or something. 832 00:55:51,549 --> 00:55:55,517 But the crowds were starting to gather on 65. 833 00:55:55,586 --> 00:55:58,354 REPORTER: This is as close as the military will allow us to get. 834 00:55:58,422 --> 00:56:02,024 KING: So here comes Channel 4, here comes Channel 11. 835 00:56:02,093 --> 00:56:06,362 Before you know it, we've got about 25 people out there. 836 00:56:06,430 --> 00:56:09,765 They ignored us. 837 00:56:09,834 --> 00:56:11,300 We'd yell at them as they'd come by. 838 00:56:11,369 --> 00:56:13,369 We'd go, "Hey, is everything under control?" 839 00:56:13,437 --> 00:56:15,270 You know, "Have you fixed it yet?" 840 00:56:15,339 --> 00:56:16,939 And they'd just keep driving. 841 00:56:17,007 --> 00:56:19,007 They wouldn't even acknowledge that you existed. 842 00:56:19,076 --> 00:56:21,477 HARPER: My dad talked to a man 843 00:56:21,545 --> 00:56:24,780 that was in law enforcement that he knew. 844 00:56:24,849 --> 00:56:26,815 This law enforcement man said, 845 00:56:26,884 --> 00:56:29,385 "Ralph, get your family and get out of here, 846 00:56:29,453 --> 00:56:31,854 and if you tell this, I'll get fired." 847 00:56:31,922 --> 00:56:33,889 And we all got together 848 00:56:33,958 --> 00:56:35,824 and drove to Choctaw to spend the night. 849 00:56:35,893 --> 00:56:37,893 HUTTO: Sheriff Gus Anglin, 850 00:56:37,962 --> 00:56:41,663 he didn't get the information he thought he needed from them 851 00:56:41,732 --> 00:56:43,232 to make really good decisions, 852 00:56:43,300 --> 00:56:45,300 and finally he just went to running everybody off. 853 00:56:45,369 --> 00:56:47,269 When they were evacuating, he said, you know, 854 00:56:47,338 --> 00:56:48,871 "I don't know how bad it's going to be or anything else, 855 00:56:48,939 --> 00:56:50,406 "get out of here right now 856 00:56:50,474 --> 00:56:52,274 and then we'll get you back in quick as we can." 857 00:56:54,545 --> 00:56:57,513 They had roadblocks set up back two miles from it 858 00:56:57,581 --> 00:57:00,082 diverting traffic around the area. 859 00:57:02,386 --> 00:57:07,523 I had a problem that nine months before that happened, 860 00:57:07,591 --> 00:57:10,759 I had synchronized a bunch of heifers, 861 00:57:10,828 --> 00:57:12,294 which means you give them a shot of Lutalyse 862 00:57:12,363 --> 00:57:14,263 and they all come into heat at the same time. 863 00:57:14,331 --> 00:57:16,465 You breed them all at the same time, 864 00:57:16,534 --> 00:57:20,169 which also means they're all going to calve at the same time. 865 00:57:20,237 --> 00:57:23,005 Well, their due date was that day. 866 00:57:24,909 --> 00:57:28,677 We would have lost the farm, everything we had, 867 00:57:28,746 --> 00:57:31,447 you know, if them cows got sick and died. 868 00:57:31,515 --> 00:57:34,783 So, well, we were going back in. 869 00:57:48,032 --> 00:57:55,938 MOSER: We finally made the decision to evacuate the crew, 870 00:57:56,006 --> 00:57:57,906 because when the missile explodes, 871 00:57:57,975 --> 00:57:59,708 if it does explode, 872 00:57:59,777 --> 00:58:04,546 you're risking life of the four crewmembers on site. 873 00:58:04,615 --> 00:58:07,182 So we thought the best avenue 874 00:58:07,251 --> 00:58:09,852 was to take the crew out of the control center. 875 00:58:12,323 --> 00:58:14,356 Mike said, "We're going to have to evacuate." 876 00:58:17,061 --> 00:58:20,829 Uh... 877 00:58:20,898 --> 00:58:23,765 It was one of the hardest things I think anybody could do, 878 00:58:23,834 --> 00:58:25,934 because you were responsible for a nuclear weapon 879 00:58:26,003 --> 00:58:28,670 that was capable of destroying 880 00:58:28,739 --> 00:58:31,406 an unbelievable amount of territory 881 00:58:31,475 --> 00:58:35,444 and an unbelievable number of people, 882 00:58:35,513 --> 00:58:37,246 and you were leaving it behind. 883 00:58:37,314 --> 00:58:38,614 And you owned it. 884 00:58:38,682 --> 00:58:41,283 For that alert, you owned it, and you had to give it up, 885 00:58:41,352 --> 00:58:43,919 and there was nobody to give it to. 886 00:58:48,659 --> 00:58:50,792 Nobody left it before. 887 00:58:50,861 --> 00:58:52,961 Nobody would leave a nuclear warhead. 888 00:58:57,801 --> 00:58:59,668 The whole time I was leaving, I kept thinking, 889 00:58:59,737 --> 00:59:01,670 "I need to stay, I should have stayed." 890 00:59:01,739 --> 00:59:03,071 I look back on it now, 891 00:59:03,140 --> 00:59:05,140 I still can't believe we left it empty. 892 00:59:06,744 --> 00:59:08,644 (alarm beeping, men talking) 893 00:59:12,483 --> 00:59:15,017 We had all these classified checklists. 894 00:59:15,085 --> 00:59:16,818 Nobody had ever tried to put them in a safe before-- 895 00:59:16,887 --> 00:59:18,120 they wouldn't fit. 896 00:59:18,188 --> 00:59:21,590 So we left all of them in the safe with the door open. 897 00:59:24,762 --> 00:59:26,762 HOLDER: Fuel vapor can ignite, 898 00:59:26,830 --> 00:59:29,998 and so we need to cut 899 00:59:30,067 --> 00:59:34,069 as much electrical power from the silo as we can. 900 00:59:34,138 --> 00:59:37,506 We don't want any electrical spark or anything going on. 901 00:59:37,575 --> 00:59:39,341 CHILDERS: We thought, 902 00:59:39,410 --> 00:59:40,676 "We're going to go out the regular way, 903 00:59:40,744 --> 00:59:41,677 we'll open a door up." 904 00:59:47,484 --> 00:59:50,686 HOLDER: As we started to open the blast door, 905 00:59:50,754 --> 00:59:53,655 we immediately saw vapor. 906 00:59:57,494 --> 00:59:59,595 Once we closed that door, 907 00:59:59,663 --> 01:00:03,599 that cut off our main escape route. 908 01:00:03,667 --> 01:00:06,602 We were instructed to evacuate 909 01:00:06,670 --> 01:00:09,104 through the emergency escape hatch, 910 01:00:09,173 --> 01:00:12,774 which we had never actually fully opened. 911 01:00:12,843 --> 01:00:16,445 CHILDERS: It was just a metal tube with a ladder in it, 912 01:00:16,513 --> 01:00:20,916 buried a good 40 feet under the ground. 913 01:00:20,985 --> 01:00:22,684 There's a light at the top, 914 01:00:22,753 --> 01:00:26,254 and it's supposed to shine down into the escape route, 915 01:00:26,323 --> 01:00:27,589 and it didn't come on. 916 01:00:27,658 --> 01:00:28,991 It wasn't working. 917 01:00:29,059 --> 01:00:31,326 Nothing was working. 918 01:00:31,395 --> 01:00:34,997 POWELL: We had donned gas masks because there was some concern 919 01:00:35,065 --> 01:00:39,434 about missile fuel vapors blowing over the escape hatch. 920 01:00:43,874 --> 01:00:45,807 CHILDERS: It was a hell of a thing 921 01:00:45,876 --> 01:00:48,910 to climb up five stories in the dark with this mask on, 922 01:00:48,979 --> 01:00:50,512 and you couldn't breathe, 923 01:00:50,581 --> 01:00:52,981 and it filled up with vapors and you couldn't see anything. 924 01:00:56,854 --> 01:00:58,820 We knew there was very little wind that night, 925 01:00:58,889 --> 01:01:00,122 and all of the vapors 926 01:01:00,190 --> 01:01:03,759 that were being evacuated out of the launch duct 927 01:01:03,827 --> 01:01:05,894 were settling over the site. 928 01:01:21,245 --> 01:01:24,179 JAMES SANDAKER: I was at home with my wife and kid, 929 01:01:24,248 --> 01:01:28,050 and I got a call from job control, 930 01:01:28,118 --> 01:01:32,220 and they said they had a problem out at 4-7. 931 01:01:32,289 --> 01:01:35,824 So I drove up to the barracks, 932 01:01:35,893 --> 01:01:41,329 and I was banging on doors, getting PTS guys. 933 01:01:41,398 --> 01:01:42,931 They told everybody here, 934 01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:44,700 "This is a very dangerous situation, 935 01:01:44,768 --> 01:01:46,568 "we don't know what's going to happen, 936 01:01:46,637 --> 01:01:50,172 "this is a purely voluntary mission only, 937 01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:53,141 and if you don't want to go, you don't have to go." 938 01:01:53,210 --> 01:01:56,044 (engine roaring) 939 01:01:56,113 --> 01:02:00,449 The PTS group, it was like a brotherhood. 940 01:02:00,517 --> 01:02:04,052 There's no question that we weren't going to be the team 941 01:02:04,121 --> 01:02:05,954 that was going out there. 942 01:02:06,023 --> 01:02:08,156 Dave Livingston was one of the guys, 943 01:02:08,225 --> 01:02:11,660 and he was sitting in the back seat 944 01:02:11,729 --> 01:02:13,962 and he said to me, 945 01:02:14,031 --> 01:02:16,064 "Somebody's going to die out here tonight. 946 01:02:16,133 --> 01:02:17,566 I just feel it." 947 01:02:17,634 --> 01:02:20,802 And I said, "Dave, don't say something like that, man. 948 01:02:20,871 --> 01:02:22,370 Don't even say it." 949 01:02:22,439 --> 01:02:24,206 And he goes, "No, I got a bad vibe, man, 950 01:02:24,274 --> 01:02:25,674 Somebody's going to die out here, man." 951 01:02:27,478 --> 01:02:30,679 HOLDER: We know at this point that there's a helicopter 952 01:02:30,748 --> 01:02:34,182 on the way, and Jeff Kennedy was on there. 953 01:02:34,251 --> 01:02:38,320 He was one of the best, if not the best, 954 01:02:38,388 --> 01:02:41,556 team chief in the wing. 955 01:02:41,625 --> 01:02:43,125 DAVE POWELL: Jeff Kennedy was 956 01:02:43,193 --> 01:02:47,362 the kind of guy that he would never ask you 957 01:02:47,431 --> 01:02:49,998 to do anything he wouldn't do himself. 958 01:02:50,067 --> 01:02:52,801 PLUMB: He had an authoritative voice 959 01:02:52,870 --> 01:02:56,738 that would just, you know, kind of rattle your cage. 960 01:02:56,807 --> 01:02:58,607 KENNEDY: When I got out on site, 961 01:02:58,675 --> 01:03:01,543 Powell came running up to me 962 01:03:01,612 --> 01:03:05,413 and said, "Jeff, I ------ up like you wouldn't believe." 963 01:03:05,482 --> 01:03:08,750 I know that I need to get the tank readings 964 01:03:08,819 --> 01:03:11,887 to find out how serious the leak is. 965 01:03:11,955 --> 01:03:15,490 POWELL: Getting the tank pressure readings 966 01:03:15,559 --> 01:03:17,425 was probably the most important thing that we could do. 967 01:03:17,494 --> 01:03:22,697 Jeff thought the longer we wait, the more dangerous it gets. 968 01:03:22,766 --> 01:03:26,768 What Jeff didn't tell anybody was 969 01:03:26,837 --> 01:03:29,371 we're going to go down into that silo 970 01:03:29,439 --> 01:03:32,073 and look at those pressures. 971 01:03:32,142 --> 01:03:38,580 So we run across the silo to the escape hatch. 972 01:03:41,718 --> 01:03:43,952 Kennedy goes into the tube first, 973 01:03:44,021 --> 01:03:45,854 I follow him in, and all of a sudden, 974 01:03:45,923 --> 01:03:48,757 he looks up at me and he says, "Stay here." 975 01:03:48,826 --> 01:03:53,495 We violated the most sacred rule in SAC, 976 01:03:53,564 --> 01:03:55,697 which is the two-man rule. 977 01:03:55,766 --> 01:03:58,300 Nobody goes to certain parts of the silo 978 01:03:58,368 --> 01:04:01,503 without being accompanied by another person. 979 01:04:01,572 --> 01:04:05,607 He felt like that he could get in and out quicker 980 01:04:05,676 --> 01:04:07,676 if he went by himself. 981 01:04:14,218 --> 01:04:19,721 KENNEDY: Stage one fuel was now at a negative imbalance. 982 01:04:19,790 --> 01:04:22,891 There's 14,000 gallons of fuel 983 01:04:22,960 --> 01:04:25,460 that have leaked out of the tank. 984 01:04:25,529 --> 01:04:28,196 It sends out a tremendous amount of heat. 985 01:04:28,265 --> 01:04:30,732 Oxidizer reacts to heat, 986 01:04:30,801 --> 01:04:34,569 so now we have less than 30 pounds of pressure 987 01:04:34,638 --> 01:04:38,707 before stage one oxidizer blows. 988 01:04:43,247 --> 01:04:48,016 POWELL: Kennedy shows the readings that he just got 989 01:04:48,085 --> 01:04:51,486 and says we still had time to save it, but we had to move. 990 01:04:51,555 --> 01:04:52,687 We had to move now. 991 01:04:52,756 --> 01:04:56,258 CHILDERS: The commander was furious 992 01:04:56,326 --> 01:04:58,727 that he had violated the two-man policy 993 01:04:58,795 --> 01:05:00,128 by going down there 994 01:05:00,197 --> 01:05:02,030 and didn't even have a crew member with him; 995 01:05:02,099 --> 01:05:03,298 he was just on his own. 996 01:05:03,367 --> 01:05:04,532 He violated everything. 997 01:05:04,601 --> 01:05:08,570 KENNEDY: The colonel now calls SAC headquarters. 998 01:05:08,639 --> 01:05:10,939 15 minutes later, 999 01:05:11,008 --> 01:05:15,577 SAC headquarters relieves us of all command decision making. 1000 01:05:17,781 --> 01:05:20,315 Now, here's SAC headquarters 1001 01:05:20,384 --> 01:05:25,287 that has never stepped foot on a complex, 1002 01:05:25,355 --> 01:05:31,393 and they're making decisions on what's going to happen. 1003 01:05:31,461 --> 01:05:34,829 That just pissed me off. 1004 01:05:40,837 --> 01:05:42,003 (phones ringing) 1005 01:05:46,643 --> 01:05:48,310 BEN SCALLORN: Time was of the essence 1006 01:05:48,378 --> 01:05:50,745 if we were going to accomplish anything. 1007 01:05:50,814 --> 01:05:52,414 Every minute that passed by, 1008 01:05:52,482 --> 01:05:56,584 we were further, simply because we're dumping more fuel 1009 01:05:56,653 --> 01:05:58,720 and everything is getting worse. 1010 01:05:58,789 --> 01:06:01,489 We all thought it was getting to be more and more dangerous 1011 01:06:01,558 --> 01:06:02,624 to go in the site. 1012 01:06:04,394 --> 01:06:08,663 Martin Marietta, the manufacturer of the missile, 1013 01:06:08,732 --> 01:06:13,101 told us to back out and just wait and see. 1014 01:06:13,170 --> 01:06:15,203 Martin Marietta recommended 1015 01:06:15,272 --> 01:06:18,239 not to even go in or go near the missile, 1016 01:06:18,308 --> 01:06:21,910 and if it blew, there would be no injuries. 1017 01:06:21,979 --> 01:06:27,682 SAC made the decision to I guess not listen to Martin Marietta. 1018 01:06:32,255 --> 01:06:35,123 HOLDER: People started showing up from base. 1019 01:06:37,260 --> 01:06:42,564 Communications, portable vapor detectors, 1020 01:06:42,632 --> 01:06:46,301 they were bringing all kinds of maintenance equipment. 1021 01:06:46,370 --> 01:06:48,536 KING: You think all of these experts 1022 01:06:48,605 --> 01:06:50,672 must be coming in to work on this thing. 1023 01:06:54,077 --> 01:06:56,511 Then I see this bus come in, 1024 01:06:56,580 --> 01:07:00,849 and here are these about ten guys, 1025 01:07:00,917 --> 01:07:05,887 and they start putting on what looks like space outfits. 1026 01:07:05,956 --> 01:07:08,990 And you're looking at these and you're thinking, 1027 01:07:09,059 --> 01:07:14,496 "I'm 24 years old and they're all younger than me, 1028 01:07:14,564 --> 01:07:16,564 "and these guys are the experts 1029 01:07:16,633 --> 01:07:18,933 that are going to go in there and fix this?" 1030 01:07:21,104 --> 01:07:23,538 All I saw was just young guys 1031 01:07:23,607 --> 01:07:26,841 that were being thrown to the lions. 1032 01:07:29,446 --> 01:07:31,446 DEVLIN: One of the hard things for us was 1033 01:07:31,515 --> 01:07:35,183 it seemed like we were waiting and waiting and waiting 1034 01:07:35,252 --> 01:07:37,886 for some decision to be made at SAC 1035 01:07:37,954 --> 01:07:40,221 as specifically what to do. 1036 01:07:40,290 --> 01:07:42,690 So the time frame of, like, 1037 01:07:42,759 --> 01:07:46,728 "Man, you know, whatever we're going to do, let's do it." 1038 01:07:46,797 --> 01:07:47,962 (phone ringing) 1039 01:07:51,101 --> 01:07:54,069 MOSER: The SAC command center finally decided that 1040 01:07:54,137 --> 01:07:56,371 we had to know what the status was 1041 01:07:56,440 --> 01:07:58,606 in the silo, if we could get back in. 1042 01:08:00,610 --> 01:08:03,044 What they considered the best alternative 1043 01:08:03,113 --> 01:08:05,814 was go back in and check pressures. 1044 01:08:08,151 --> 01:08:10,285 DEVLIN: When we find out what the plan is, 1045 01:08:10,353 --> 01:08:12,987 we have to break into a nuclear missile complex, 1046 01:08:13,056 --> 01:08:15,623 which has never been done before in history. 1047 01:08:15,692 --> 01:08:18,760 CHILDERS: If we had stayed in the control center, 1048 01:08:18,829 --> 01:08:22,997 we could have opened every door they had to break their way in. 1049 01:08:23,066 --> 01:08:27,969 HOLDER: The plan was to go down and go through the blast doors, 1050 01:08:28,038 --> 01:08:30,138 get into the control center, 1051 01:08:30,207 --> 01:08:34,609 and depending on the fuel and oxidizer readings, 1052 01:08:34,678 --> 01:08:38,980 they wanted to get to the missile itself. 1053 01:08:39,049 --> 01:08:43,718 The real grand scheme was 1054 01:08:43,787 --> 01:08:47,388 to go out to the silo to level four, 1055 01:08:47,457 --> 01:08:51,526 open up a valve to vent that tank 1056 01:08:51,595 --> 01:08:57,599 so it would stabilize and not collapse. 1057 01:08:57,667 --> 01:09:00,268 The only way we could try to save the thing 1058 01:09:00,337 --> 01:09:02,937 was to get in and connect up to the missile 1059 01:09:03,006 --> 01:09:05,073 and have an emergency offload. 1060 01:09:08,311 --> 01:09:11,613 KENNEDY: That was absolute, total bull----. 1061 01:09:11,681 --> 01:09:13,615 You know, I said, 1062 01:09:13,683 --> 01:09:16,451 "Colonel, why don't we just go down the escape hatch?" 1063 01:09:16,520 --> 01:09:18,553 "Kennedy, this plan has come down, 1064 01:09:18,622 --> 01:09:24,392 it's the plan we're going to go with, and that's it." 1065 01:09:24,461 --> 01:09:26,127 POWELL: Jeff thought the plan 1066 01:09:26,196 --> 01:09:27,896 was nuts. 1067 01:09:27,964 --> 01:09:30,465 But on the other hand, you're... 1068 01:09:30,534 --> 01:09:33,601 This is what you do; you're a PTS guy. 1069 01:09:33,670 --> 01:09:36,404 This is the plan that came down 1070 01:09:36,473 --> 01:09:39,974 and you suck it up and you do it. 1071 01:09:43,046 --> 01:09:48,349 MOSER: We were directed to ask for volunteers to go back in. 1072 01:09:48,418 --> 01:09:51,986 I personally wasn't in favor of sending anybody else in 1073 01:09:52,055 --> 01:09:53,621 after all the time. 1074 01:09:53,690 --> 01:09:56,624 It was the wee hours of the morning, 1075 01:09:56,693 --> 01:10:02,030 this has been going on for many hours at this point, 1076 01:10:02,098 --> 01:10:03,932 probably eight hours. 1077 01:10:04,000 --> 01:10:08,203 But I guess you go back and say, as a good soldier, 1078 01:10:08,271 --> 01:10:13,708 your boss says "Do this" and you eventually do it. 1079 01:10:13,777 --> 01:10:16,311 And we had enough brave souls 1080 01:10:16,379 --> 01:10:21,015 to volunteer to go back in the silo. 1081 01:10:21,084 --> 01:10:24,485 DEVLIN: Rex Hukle and I were the first guys to go in. 1082 01:10:24,554 --> 01:10:28,456 They said, "You only have 30 minutes of air. 1083 01:10:28,525 --> 01:10:31,726 There is no crew down there, the crew is already evacuated," 1084 01:10:31,795 --> 01:10:33,728 so they said, "You're going to have to cut 1085 01:10:33,797 --> 01:10:35,964 and break your way into this missile complex." 1086 01:10:45,542 --> 01:10:48,142 SCALLORN: When they got to the exhaust duct, 1087 01:10:48,211 --> 01:10:50,478 they took a reading and the meter pegged out, 1088 01:10:50,547 --> 01:10:53,982 which is 250 parts per million. 1089 01:10:54,050 --> 01:10:57,785 I had made a recommendation that 1090 01:10:57,854 --> 01:11:01,756 if it was 250 parts per million or higher, we backed off 1091 01:11:01,825 --> 01:11:05,960 because the protective clothing wouldn't protect our guys. 1092 01:11:06,029 --> 01:11:09,998 HOLDER: 250 parts per million is when the vapor 1093 01:11:10,066 --> 01:11:12,934 is in such a high concentration, 1094 01:11:13,003 --> 01:11:16,271 it could start to melt the RFHCO suits. 1095 01:11:16,339 --> 01:11:20,975 Almost anything could cause it to ignite. 1096 01:11:23,980 --> 01:11:29,917 SCALLORN: General Leavitt directed them to press on. 1097 01:11:29,986 --> 01:11:32,420 I knew it was the wrong thing to do. 1098 01:11:32,489 --> 01:11:35,089 Whatever was going to happen was not going to be good. 1099 01:11:39,596 --> 01:11:43,364 DEVLIN: We got to the portal door. 1100 01:11:43,433 --> 01:11:46,467 We used bolt cutters and a great big crowbar 1101 01:11:46,536 --> 01:11:49,003 to pry open the main lock 1102 01:11:49,072 --> 01:11:51,806 and then go down three levels of steps 1103 01:11:51,875 --> 01:11:56,177 to get to your first 6,000-pound blast lock door 1104 01:11:56,246 --> 01:11:59,747 with great big hydraulic pins that lock it in place. 1105 01:12:01,351 --> 01:12:03,818 We had to manually start to pump it open. 1106 01:12:03,887 --> 01:12:07,088 We had never used a hydraulic pump. 1107 01:12:07,157 --> 01:12:09,524 We were getting close to the 30 minutes of air, 1108 01:12:09,592 --> 01:12:11,025 and then they had... they sent us back. 1109 01:12:11,094 --> 01:12:13,461 So they said, "You guys got it hooked up, come on back. 1110 01:12:13,530 --> 01:12:15,997 We're going to send Kennedy and Livingston in to replace you." 1111 01:12:22,105 --> 01:12:24,605 MOSER: Those guys were brave. 1112 01:12:24,674 --> 01:12:26,908 They knew what they were getting into 1113 01:12:26,976 --> 01:12:28,910 when they went back in on the underground-- 1114 01:12:30,280 --> 01:12:33,815 what could happen to them. HOLDER: I was sitting in a security police vehicle, 1115 01:12:33,883 --> 01:12:36,050 listening and hearing what's going on. 1116 01:12:36,119 --> 01:12:38,786 The next team went in, 1117 01:12:38,855 --> 01:12:42,123 which was going to be Kennedy and Livingston. 1118 01:12:42,192 --> 01:12:46,794 MAN (over radio): AR to CC, stand by. 1119 01:12:49,032 --> 01:12:51,366 HOLDER: They're relaying the information 1120 01:12:51,434 --> 01:12:53,368 that they've opened the blast door. 1121 01:13:03,146 --> 01:13:05,913 KENNEDY: When we went into the blast lock area, 1122 01:13:05,982 --> 01:13:11,252 there's eight lights, bright as hell. 1123 01:13:11,321 --> 01:13:16,691 I'm less than ten feet away from it and I can't even see it. 1124 01:13:20,930 --> 01:13:25,266 HOLDER: So they immediately evacuated and started topside. 1125 01:13:29,139 --> 01:13:31,172 KENNEDY: I had got topside, 1126 01:13:31,241 --> 01:13:34,242 and now we get a command from the team chief 1127 01:13:34,310 --> 01:13:39,080 to go down and turn on an exhaust fan. 1128 01:13:39,149 --> 01:13:43,251 Livingston taps himself on the chest, and he went down. 1129 01:13:52,996 --> 01:14:01,402 HOLDER: After that, within seconds, I saw the explosion. 1130 01:14:02,972 --> 01:14:07,308 (booming explosion) 1131 01:14:15,351 --> 01:14:17,718 (radio static) 1132 01:14:19,823 --> 01:14:22,223 MOSER: All of a sudden, I lost all communications. 1133 01:14:23,960 --> 01:14:26,294 PTS-1, do you copy? 1134 01:14:26,362 --> 01:14:28,429 I repeat, PTS-1, do you copy? 1135 01:14:28,498 --> 01:14:31,098 MOSER: Everything you ever read or heard 1136 01:14:31,167 --> 01:14:33,568 about a nuclear explosion, 1137 01:14:33,636 --> 01:14:37,738 all communications were lost until things settled out. 1138 01:14:37,807 --> 01:14:40,107 And that's the first thing I, uh... 1139 01:14:40,176 --> 01:14:42,844 that's the first thing that entered my mind, 1140 01:14:42,912 --> 01:14:47,315 that we had a nuclear explosion out there 1141 01:14:47,383 --> 01:14:48,683 and we may have a shock wave 1142 01:14:48,751 --> 01:14:50,952 coming into Little Rock Air Force Base 1143 01:14:51,020 --> 01:14:53,321 and all the surrounding communities, 1144 01:14:53,389 --> 01:14:56,624 and that's the first thing I thought about. 1145 01:14:56,693 --> 01:15:01,095 And all the people would be dead out there on site, of course, 1146 01:15:01,164 --> 01:15:03,998 and I just... 1147 01:15:04,067 --> 01:15:07,935 it was unimaginable what was going through my mind. 1148 01:15:08,004 --> 01:15:09,704 It was almost like 1149 01:15:09,772 --> 01:15:12,874 you wanted to get down on your knees and, uh... 1150 01:15:12,942 --> 01:15:16,210 and, uh, pray to the higher power... 1151 01:15:16,279 --> 01:15:18,446 (laughs) 1152 01:15:18,515 --> 01:15:21,782 ...uh, to protect everybody. 1153 01:15:21,851 --> 01:15:27,421 It was a very traumatic moment in my life. 1154 01:15:27,490 --> 01:15:31,359 It affects me to this day when I think about that. 1155 01:15:34,163 --> 01:15:36,264 HUTTO: About 3:00 in the morning, 1156 01:15:36,332 --> 01:15:39,000 I decided, "Well, might as well go milk." 1157 01:15:42,071 --> 01:15:45,306 And just before I got to the roadblock, 1158 01:15:45,375 --> 01:15:48,609 you drop off a hill on Highway 65, there's a spot 1159 01:15:48,678 --> 01:15:51,445 that you can see the ground at the missile base. 1160 01:15:51,514 --> 01:15:55,082 Just as I got to that spot, it blew. 1161 01:15:57,520 --> 01:15:59,587 You felt it more than you saw it. 1162 01:15:59,656 --> 01:16:02,223 I mean, I was a mile and three quarters, 1163 01:16:02,292 --> 01:16:04,325 two miles away from it, 1164 01:16:04,394 --> 01:16:06,627 and it almost shook my truck off the road. 1165 01:16:08,898 --> 01:16:12,733 HARPER: The explosion woke us up eight miles away in Choctaw. 1166 01:16:12,802 --> 01:16:15,536 It shook the home, it shook the bed you were in, 1167 01:16:15,605 --> 01:16:19,307 and we immediately all jumped up, and my dad said, 1168 01:16:19,375 --> 01:16:22,043 "Get everybody, get in the cars, and we're heading north." 1169 01:16:25,715 --> 01:16:28,316 KING: Gus was sitting in his sheriff's car. 1170 01:16:28,384 --> 01:16:31,819 I was sitting on the hood of Gus's car, 1171 01:16:31,888 --> 01:16:34,055 just kind of sitting there, 1172 01:16:34,123 --> 01:16:37,291 and had on slip-on shoes and was kicking one off and on. 1173 01:16:37,360 --> 01:16:40,428 Then all of a sudden, it was just, "Ka-whoom!" 1174 01:16:50,506 --> 01:16:51,806 KING: Everybody was running 1175 01:16:51,874 --> 01:16:53,975 as hard as they could to get out of there 1176 01:16:54,043 --> 01:16:55,543 because we may be living our last few minutes. 1177 01:16:55,612 --> 01:16:58,479 MAN: Go, go, go! 1178 01:16:58,548 --> 01:17:00,948 KING: I thought, when I jumped in my car 1179 01:17:01,017 --> 01:17:04,652 and drove as hard as I could, 1180 01:17:04,721 --> 01:17:08,089 that I was probably outrunning a nuclear blast, you know? 1181 01:17:08,157 --> 01:17:11,325 I thought, "This Dodge Omni is going to outrun this thing." 1182 01:17:14,063 --> 01:17:17,798 And I remember we had almost made it to Choctaw, 1183 01:17:17,867 --> 01:17:19,567 and I turned to Tom and I said, 1184 01:17:19,636 --> 01:17:22,670 "We just left a bunch of dead people back there, Tom." 1185 01:17:25,308 --> 01:17:27,241 CHILDERS: The sky just lit up. 1186 01:17:27,310 --> 01:17:30,678 It really looked like the sun was coming up, 1187 01:17:30,747 --> 01:17:33,881 which is why our initial reaction was, 1188 01:17:33,950 --> 01:17:39,587 "The nuclear bomb went off, the nuclear warhead exploded." 1189 01:17:39,656 --> 01:17:42,490 HOLDER: I look up and I saw fire 1190 01:17:42,558 --> 01:17:45,159 just shooting straight up out of the silo-- 1191 01:17:45,228 --> 01:17:48,663 a thousand feet, maybe more-- and it's like a roman candle 1192 01:17:48,731 --> 01:17:51,732 just shooting straight up in the air. 1193 01:17:51,801 --> 01:17:54,568 We ducked under the tailgate of a truck. 1194 01:17:54,637 --> 01:17:59,273 (rumbling, glass shattering) 1195 01:18:01,577 --> 01:18:04,211 (people shouting) 1196 01:18:04,280 --> 01:18:08,015 (glass shattering) 1197 01:18:08,084 --> 01:18:11,218 CHILDERS: So much gravel and rocks were coming down. 1198 01:18:11,287 --> 01:18:14,422 It was smashing windshields and putting holes in trucks. 1199 01:18:14,490 --> 01:18:17,425 I was literally trying to crawl underneath a truck, 1200 01:18:17,493 --> 01:18:19,860 and it started to move and I crawled out again 1201 01:18:19,929 --> 01:18:22,863 real fast, and somebody drove it off. 1202 01:18:22,932 --> 01:18:25,866 (tires screeching) 1203 01:18:25,935 --> 01:18:26,867 (debris falling) 1204 01:18:26,936 --> 01:18:28,135 MAN: Oh my God! 1205 01:18:28,204 --> 01:18:30,171 CHILDERS: The stuff stopped falling, 1206 01:18:30,239 --> 01:18:35,509 but there was flames everywhere and you could hear this roar. 1207 01:18:35,578 --> 01:18:38,279 And you looked down there, you could see 1208 01:18:38,347 --> 01:18:40,614 this steam and fire coming out of the complex. 1209 01:18:42,919 --> 01:18:44,085 DEVLIN: All I know is 1210 01:18:44,153 --> 01:18:45,519 the first thing to hit me was wind. 1211 01:18:45,588 --> 01:18:47,154 It was like a, "Boom!" 1212 01:18:47,223 --> 01:18:50,157 Just like a concussion, man, it was like, "Bang!" 1213 01:18:50,226 --> 01:18:51,625 And you're blown backwards, 1214 01:18:51,694 --> 01:18:53,461 you have no control over anything. 1215 01:18:53,529 --> 01:18:55,129 (booming explosion) 1216 01:18:55,198 --> 01:18:57,331 As I was sliding on my back, 1217 01:18:57,400 --> 01:19:00,301 burning, going up the street, my left eye opened 1218 01:19:00,369 --> 01:19:02,970 and I could see glowing steel blowing past me. 1219 01:19:03,039 --> 01:19:05,306 And in my heart, I said, "It's over. 1220 01:19:05,374 --> 01:19:06,874 You're not going to live through this." 1221 01:19:06,943 --> 01:19:08,609 You know, "I just hope it's not painful." 1222 01:19:08,678 --> 01:19:10,111 That's the only thing that went through my brain, 1223 01:19:10,179 --> 01:19:11,278 "I hope it's not painful." 1224 01:19:11,347 --> 01:19:16,650 And I heard two blood-curdling screams 1225 01:19:16,719 --> 01:19:18,719 to "Run! Run!" 1226 01:19:18,788 --> 01:19:20,454 I got up and took off running. 1227 01:19:20,523 --> 01:19:22,423 I got five steps away, 1228 01:19:22,492 --> 01:19:25,626 and a chunk of concrete bigger than a school bus 1229 01:19:25,695 --> 01:19:27,161 hits the ground right behind me, 1230 01:19:27,230 --> 01:19:30,765 and it's got steel rebar hanging out of it. 1231 01:19:30,833 --> 01:19:32,266 As I'm running, 1232 01:19:32,335 --> 01:19:36,804 I feel this whack hit my ankle and just shatters my ankle. 1233 01:19:36,873 --> 01:19:39,673 The next step I took, I just buckled and went down. 1234 01:19:39,742 --> 01:19:41,242 That's when I started to realize 1235 01:19:41,310 --> 01:19:44,178 that my face and neck and back were all on fire. 1236 01:19:47,049 --> 01:19:50,751 CHILDERS: And I was picking people up and carrying them up the road, 1237 01:19:50,820 --> 01:19:53,454 trying to get them away from the debris. 1238 01:19:53,523 --> 01:19:56,690 I remember helping one of them into the back of a truck, 1239 01:19:56,759 --> 01:19:58,959 and as we were carrying him, 1240 01:19:59,028 --> 01:20:01,829 the suit would snag on rocks and rebar 1241 01:20:01,898 --> 01:20:03,898 and just wrench his broken leg, 1242 01:20:03,966 --> 01:20:05,599 and he was just screaming in pain. 1243 01:20:07,904 --> 01:20:09,336 DEVLIN: And they said, 1244 01:20:09,405 --> 01:20:12,106 "Devlin, you've got to go to the hospital." 1245 01:20:12,175 --> 01:20:15,509 And I said, "No, don't take me 1246 01:20:15,578 --> 01:20:17,545 "until you have Livingston, until you have Kennedy. 1247 01:20:17,613 --> 01:20:20,014 I don't wanna leave until you have everybody." 1248 01:20:20,082 --> 01:20:22,383 And he said, "No, man, we're going to send you now, 1249 01:20:22,451 --> 01:20:23,918 we've got to get you to the hospital." 1250 01:20:23,986 --> 01:20:25,719 (tires screeching) 1251 01:20:28,157 --> 01:20:29,657 MAN: Evacuate, evacuate! 1252 01:20:29,725 --> 01:20:31,926 CHILDERS: All you heard was, "Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate!" 1253 01:20:31,994 --> 01:20:33,928 Air Force Colonel said, 1254 01:20:33,996 --> 01:20:35,062 "The other two who are on the site, 1255 01:20:35,131 --> 01:20:36,230 they have to be dead." 1256 01:20:36,299 --> 01:20:37,565 And we looked down at the site and said, 1257 01:20:37,633 --> 01:20:40,100 "I'm with you, Colonel, they have to be dead." 1258 01:20:40,169 --> 01:20:43,838 I got into the last truck that was there 1259 01:20:43,906 --> 01:20:47,808 with a bunch of hurt guys, and I said, "Let's go." 1260 01:20:58,621 --> 01:21:01,388 (sirens blaring) 1261 01:21:23,980 --> 01:21:26,580 KENNEDY: As soon as it blew, 1262 01:21:26,649 --> 01:21:30,017 I can remember being flipped ass over tea kettle. 1263 01:21:37,360 --> 01:21:40,127 When I woke up, I was laying on my back, 1264 01:21:40,196 --> 01:21:43,397 my legs were up against the complex fence. 1265 01:21:43,466 --> 01:21:47,868 I was screaming and crying. 1266 01:21:51,607 --> 01:21:57,511 There was nobody there, absolutely zero. 1267 01:21:57,580 --> 01:22:01,982 You only had yourself. 1268 01:22:02,051 --> 01:22:05,152 You know, the pain I had to deal with 1269 01:22:05,221 --> 01:22:08,489 was trivial to the fact that I wanted to live, 1270 01:22:08,557 --> 01:22:09,990 I wanted to survive. 1271 01:22:10,059 --> 01:22:11,926 I mean, I thought of my kids, my wife. 1272 01:22:11,994 --> 01:22:15,396 I said, "I am not going to die in this complex." 1273 01:22:17,700 --> 01:22:22,336 I went to stand up, and I fell right down. 1274 01:22:22,405 --> 01:22:24,505 My leg was broken. 1275 01:22:24,573 --> 01:22:28,208 I fell down four, five times, got back up. 1276 01:22:31,280 --> 01:22:37,184 All the time that I'm walking, I can hear Livingston, 1277 01:22:37,253 --> 01:22:39,153 "Oh my God, help me. 1278 01:22:39,221 --> 01:22:42,122 Please, somebody help me." 1279 01:22:42,191 --> 01:22:45,526 Because of my leg being broken, 1280 01:22:45,594 --> 01:22:48,829 I determined that I could not get him. 1281 01:22:50,933 --> 01:22:56,403 This is something that I fought with for eons. 1282 01:22:56,472 --> 01:23:02,042 If Livingston had known that I was there, 1283 01:23:02,111 --> 01:23:05,379 would that have been enough of an adrenaline rush, 1284 01:23:05,448 --> 01:23:07,848 to know somebody's got to get some help? 1285 01:23:12,989 --> 01:23:16,056 Off the complex was a truck. 1286 01:23:16,125 --> 01:23:18,225 I had to make it from one end of the complex to the other. 1287 01:23:18,294 --> 01:23:21,095 You know, I fell down a half dozen times. 1288 01:23:21,163 --> 01:23:23,497 Had to take me 45 minutes. 1289 01:23:26,035 --> 01:23:29,536 When I got to the truck and I radioed for help, 1290 01:23:29,605 --> 01:23:31,538 the truck went dead. 1291 01:23:42,852 --> 01:23:46,053 SANDAKER: On my way back to the missile site, 1292 01:23:46,122 --> 01:23:49,223 I could hear Kennedy on the radio in the truck. 1293 01:23:49,291 --> 01:23:51,925 (switching through radio frequencies) 1294 01:23:51,994 --> 01:23:54,661 KENNEDY (on radio): Help! Help me! 1295 01:23:54,730 --> 01:23:56,797 Help me! 1296 01:24:00,636 --> 01:24:02,836 Can anybody read me? 1297 01:24:05,674 --> 01:24:07,775 SANDAKER: And I headed down the road 1298 01:24:07,843 --> 01:24:10,177 as fast as I could get that truck to go. 1299 01:24:10,246 --> 01:24:12,713 I got partway there, 1300 01:24:12,782 --> 01:24:16,517 and two security policemen were in the road 1301 01:24:16,585 --> 01:24:17,918 and they waved me down. 1302 01:24:17,987 --> 01:24:19,153 (knocking) 1303 01:24:21,791 --> 01:24:22,956 Who's bringing them? 1304 01:24:23,025 --> 01:24:23,957 What? 1305 01:24:24,026 --> 01:24:25,692 Who's bringing people here? 1306 01:24:25,761 --> 01:24:27,628 They've got them in trucks. 1307 01:24:27,696 --> 01:24:30,764 SANDAKER: And he told us to evacuate and not go down there. 1308 01:24:30,833 --> 01:24:33,333 And I said, "Screw you. 1309 01:24:33,402 --> 01:24:35,769 Our friends are down there, we're going." 1310 01:24:37,406 --> 01:24:39,740 I'm not gonna wait here. 1311 01:24:39,809 --> 01:24:41,942 KENNEDY (on radio): Please help me! 1312 01:24:42,011 --> 01:24:44,611 Where are you? 1313 01:24:44,680 --> 01:24:47,114 SANDAKER: When I got back to the missile site, 1314 01:24:47,183 --> 01:24:50,084 I saw Kennedy. 1315 01:24:50,152 --> 01:24:54,922 He was burnt, and... 1316 01:24:54,990 --> 01:25:00,928 ...he had a hole in his leg the size of your fist. 1317 01:25:00,996 --> 01:25:05,365 He was really hurt bad, and... 1318 01:25:08,904 --> 01:25:12,172 ...he told me to go find Livingston. 1319 01:25:14,477 --> 01:25:18,745 We put our helmets on and we went onto the site. 1320 01:25:23,352 --> 01:25:27,187 It was like another world. 1321 01:25:27,256 --> 01:25:30,457 Ordnance guys had told us that the warhead 1322 01:25:30,526 --> 01:25:32,359 was full of plastic explosives 1323 01:25:32,428 --> 01:25:34,528 that could be laying all over the ground, 1324 01:25:34,597 --> 01:25:40,000 so somehow we were not supposed to step on them. 1325 01:25:40,069 --> 01:25:44,071 There was giant chunks of concrete blasted all over 1326 01:25:44,140 --> 01:25:49,109 that looked like the size of semi trucks. 1327 01:25:52,314 --> 01:25:54,314 There's a strange glow 1328 01:25:54,383 --> 01:25:56,216 coming out of where the silo used to be. 1329 01:26:03,959 --> 01:26:05,325 And when we got back to the truck, 1330 01:26:05,394 --> 01:26:10,797 they had already found Livingston, 1331 01:26:10,866 --> 01:26:17,004 and I was angry because they didn't have an ambulance. 1332 01:26:17,072 --> 01:26:19,640 I put him in the back of a pickup truck. 1333 01:26:22,978 --> 01:26:24,978 And we... 1334 01:26:25,047 --> 01:26:27,114 I held him. 1335 01:26:33,222 --> 01:26:38,091 He begged me not to tell his mother, 1336 01:26:38,160 --> 01:26:41,028 like he had done something wrong. 1337 01:26:43,199 --> 01:26:49,736 And I told him that he didn't do anything wrong. 1338 01:26:52,641 --> 01:26:56,076 (sirens blaring) 1339 01:26:56,145 --> 01:26:59,613 DEVLIN: When we arrived at the hospital, I was hyperventilating, 1340 01:26:59,682 --> 01:27:03,450 breathing, because the burn pain was so great. 1341 01:27:07,356 --> 01:27:09,289 I had a nurse tell me, 1342 01:27:09,358 --> 01:27:12,626 "If you don't calm down, you're going to pass out." 1343 01:27:12,695 --> 01:27:14,461 And I couldn't calm down. 1344 01:27:14,530 --> 01:27:17,397 I was on fire, I felt like I was on fire. 1345 01:27:17,466 --> 01:27:18,632 MAN: Take it easy, Dev. 1346 01:27:22,538 --> 01:27:27,574 I went to the hospital that Kennedy and Livingston went to. 1347 01:27:27,643 --> 01:27:31,578 And we were there for a few hours, I think. 1348 01:27:31,647 --> 01:27:35,315 And then the doctor comes out and informs us 1349 01:27:35,384 --> 01:27:38,518 that David Livingston had passed away 1350 01:27:38,587 --> 01:27:42,189 and that Kennedy was, like, hanging by a thread. 1351 01:27:46,829 --> 01:27:49,763 You just keep replaying things in your head. 1352 01:27:49,832 --> 01:27:51,265 "What if I did this? 1353 01:27:51,333 --> 01:27:52,933 What if I did that?" 1354 01:27:53,002 --> 01:27:54,868 The ifs and buts. 1355 01:27:54,937 --> 01:27:58,005 You know, and you just keep replaying it. 1356 01:28:00,943 --> 01:28:04,544 PLUMB: Dave Powell was a lot closer to David Livingston 1357 01:28:04,613 --> 01:28:09,349 than most people knew. 1358 01:28:09,418 --> 01:28:12,719 I remember looking over when I was at the funeral, 1359 01:28:12,788 --> 01:28:17,457 and I remember Powell just weeping. 1360 01:28:17,526 --> 01:28:19,793 He feels responsible for the death of David, 1361 01:28:19,862 --> 01:28:21,128 he really does. 1362 01:28:21,196 --> 01:28:24,131 He felt responsible for the death of his friend. 1363 01:28:25,868 --> 01:28:29,803 KENNEDY: As soon as I found out Livingston died, 1364 01:28:29,872 --> 01:28:33,540 I wanted nothing more to do with the Air Force. 1365 01:28:33,609 --> 01:28:35,876 We were in the hospital two days 1366 01:28:35,944 --> 01:28:41,381 before a single, solitary Air Force personnel 1367 01:28:41,450 --> 01:28:43,684 were out at that hospital. 1368 01:28:45,788 --> 01:28:49,089 DEVLIN: They came in every eight hours on my face, neck, and back, 1369 01:28:49,158 --> 01:28:51,591 and they used a scrub pad-- it was like a Brillo pad-- 1370 01:28:51,660 --> 01:28:55,562 and they scrubbed all the skin, the dead skin, off 1371 01:28:55,631 --> 01:28:57,664 so that the new skin would grow back. 1372 01:28:57,733 --> 01:29:02,903 All the scrubbing was immensely painful. 1373 01:29:04,840 --> 01:29:06,940 The Air Force was in a really big hurry 1374 01:29:07,009 --> 01:29:12,913 to get me back to the base so that no one could get to us, 1375 01:29:12,981 --> 01:29:14,414 there could be no interviews, 1376 01:29:14,483 --> 01:29:17,184 and you would not be speaking to the press. 1377 01:29:19,755 --> 01:29:22,255 (phone ringing) 1378 01:29:22,324 --> 01:29:24,791 SKIP RUTHERFORD: The phone rang about 3:30 1379 01:29:24,860 --> 01:29:27,761 with a call from one of the airmen that said, 1380 01:29:27,830 --> 01:29:30,263 "It just blew." 1381 01:29:30,332 --> 01:29:32,132 The first thing I did was look around and say, 1382 01:29:32,201 --> 01:29:36,236 "I'm alive, we're alive, my family's alive, 1383 01:29:36,305 --> 01:29:39,106 my neighborhood's alive." 1384 01:29:39,174 --> 01:29:46,246 And my response was, "Where's the warhead?" 1385 01:29:46,315 --> 01:29:51,084 And the person said, "We don't know." 1386 01:29:54,156 --> 01:29:56,923 KING: When the Titan II missile exploded, 1387 01:29:56,992 --> 01:30:01,261 I drove as fast as I could to the radio station 1388 01:30:01,330 --> 01:30:03,296 and turned it back on the air. 1389 01:30:03,365 --> 01:30:05,832 MAN (on radio): ...will once again, partly, will be up 1390 01:30:05,901 --> 01:30:07,567 throughout the remainder of the night 1391 01:30:07,636 --> 01:30:09,936 and into the morning... 1392 01:30:10,005 --> 01:30:13,707 When you were trying to talk to the Air Force to find out, 1393 01:30:13,776 --> 01:30:15,709 is there a nuclear warhead? 1394 01:30:15,778 --> 01:30:17,377 Was one involved? 1395 01:30:17,446 --> 01:30:19,212 Did you find it? 1396 01:30:19,281 --> 01:30:22,883 Was it... you know, what condition was it in? 1397 01:30:22,951 --> 01:30:24,217 Had it burst open? 1398 01:30:24,286 --> 01:30:27,254 Was there uranium spread all over the area? 1399 01:30:27,322 --> 01:30:32,159 They would not admit that there was even a nuclear warhead. 1400 01:30:32,227 --> 01:30:35,162 We could not tell the local populace 1401 01:30:35,230 --> 01:30:39,499 or any of the political or law enforcement people 1402 01:30:39,568 --> 01:30:41,501 that we had a warhead on the missile. 1403 01:30:41,570 --> 01:30:46,006 That was, we could not confirm nor deny that we had 1404 01:30:46,074 --> 01:30:49,342 a nuclear weapon on-site, 1405 01:30:49,411 --> 01:30:55,148 and that was SAC and national policy at that time. 1406 01:31:00,355 --> 01:31:02,122 You know, I'm afraid that 1407 01:31:02,191 --> 01:31:05,225 you and I are reaching an impasse on this question. 1408 01:31:05,294 --> 01:31:07,093 I believe that I have answered the question 1409 01:31:07,162 --> 01:31:08,562 as fully as I intend to. 1410 01:31:08,630 --> 01:31:10,363 REPORTER: Can you tell us where it is now? 1411 01:31:10,432 --> 01:31:12,866 May I have another question? 1412 01:31:12,935 --> 01:31:15,569 My personal feeling was that it was a ridiculous policy, 1413 01:31:15,637 --> 01:31:18,205 but nevertheless, we had to live with it. 1414 01:31:22,478 --> 01:31:24,277 Sheriff, has the Air Force told you very much? 1415 01:31:24,346 --> 01:31:26,446 Haven't told me a darned thing. 1416 01:31:26,515 --> 01:31:27,447 Does that make you mad? 1417 01:31:27,516 --> 01:31:28,648 Yes, it does. 1418 01:31:28,717 --> 01:31:30,283 I need to know what's going on 1419 01:31:30,352 --> 01:31:32,686 so I'll know how to handle the situation. 1420 01:31:32,754 --> 01:31:35,755 And if they wanna tell me in confidence, that'd be great. 1421 01:31:35,824 --> 01:31:39,159 At least I'd know when and how to evacuate the people, 1422 01:31:39,228 --> 01:31:42,429 tell them not to return to their homes 1423 01:31:42,498 --> 01:31:45,165 or to return to their homes or how serious it is. 1424 01:31:45,234 --> 01:31:47,868 But of course they don't... they don't tell you that. 1425 01:31:50,706 --> 01:31:53,940 KING: I heard the phrase "We will not confirm nor deny" 1426 01:31:54,009 --> 01:31:57,077 probably 50 times in that week's period. 1427 01:31:57,145 --> 01:31:59,679 KING (on radio): Once again, our word from the Air Force is, 1428 01:31:59,748 --> 01:32:01,615 "Will not confirm nor deny." 1429 01:32:01,683 --> 01:32:04,117 KING: One of the local merchants in town 1430 01:32:04,186 --> 01:32:05,652 found the Air Force frequencies. 1431 01:32:05,721 --> 01:32:09,756 So they wouldn't tell us anything, but we could... 1432 01:32:09,825 --> 01:32:12,826 we started getting this all relayed to us. 1433 01:32:12,895 --> 01:32:14,561 MAN: Could you give us a status 1434 01:32:14,630 --> 01:32:16,897 on those EOD and disaster preparedness people? 1435 01:32:16,965 --> 01:32:18,999 MAN (on Air Force radio): Still walking up the hill. 1436 01:32:19,067 --> 01:32:21,735 KING: They know that you're listening to them, 1437 01:32:21,803 --> 01:32:24,204 so they're changing frequencies, and they said, 1438 01:32:24,273 --> 01:32:28,208 "Be real evasive about what you talk about." 1439 01:32:28,277 --> 01:32:30,043 They keep on talking about, 1440 01:32:30,112 --> 01:32:33,947 "We cannot find it, we cannot find the unit." 1441 01:32:34,016 --> 01:32:37,250 And that's how we knew they were trying to figure out 1442 01:32:37,319 --> 01:32:39,252 what happened to this nuclear warhead. 1443 01:32:39,321 --> 01:32:40,854 Where did it go? 1444 01:32:45,127 --> 01:32:46,693 MAN (on radio): Roger, on-scene commander. 1445 01:32:46,762 --> 01:32:49,362 The team went to the unit, 1446 01:32:49,431 --> 01:32:53,266 now they're on their way out to give a full report. 1447 01:32:53,335 --> 01:32:54,901 MAN: Team commander command post, 1448 01:32:54,970 --> 01:32:56,703 what unit are you talking about, sir? 1449 01:32:56,772 --> 01:32:58,371 MAN (on radio): Let's not talk about that. 1450 01:33:02,010 --> 01:33:04,244 KING: We could tell there was some activity on the road 1451 01:33:04,313 --> 01:33:07,948 going down to the silo, that they were showing 1452 01:33:08,016 --> 01:33:10,116 a lot of interest right there in that one area. 1453 01:33:10,185 --> 01:33:14,120 MAN (on radio): I wish I had something secure. 1454 01:33:14,189 --> 01:33:16,957 They've located what they want to locate, 1455 01:33:17,025 --> 01:33:20,460 and it's laying in a ditch beside. 1456 01:33:20,529 --> 01:33:22,062 You know, it's not even up close. 1457 01:33:22,130 --> 01:33:24,197 It blew it out and it's laying in the ditch, 1458 01:33:24,266 --> 01:33:25,498 it's all exposed, 1459 01:33:25,567 --> 01:33:29,436 and so all they need to do is go in and get it. 1460 01:33:31,340 --> 01:33:33,306 MOSER: I went out there the next day. 1461 01:33:33,375 --> 01:33:36,309 Somebody said, "There it is." 1462 01:33:36,378 --> 01:33:39,079 And it was in the ditch 1463 01:33:39,147 --> 01:33:43,416 and somewhat, as I recall, somewhat buried. 1464 01:33:43,485 --> 01:33:48,955 And then someone called the nuclear people at Sandia 1465 01:33:49,024 --> 01:33:52,959 to assess whether or not we had a hazardous situation. 1466 01:33:53,028 --> 01:33:54,628 BOB PEURIFOY: The phone rang. 1467 01:33:54,696 --> 01:33:57,931 They said, "We had a problem." 1468 01:33:58,000 --> 01:34:01,267 I knew I had to get to Damascus. 1469 01:34:03,438 --> 01:34:07,173 We helicoptered into the silo. 1470 01:34:12,080 --> 01:34:14,848 I was apprehensive. 1471 01:34:14,916 --> 01:34:20,954 I knew that the warhead could have been armed, 1472 01:34:21,023 --> 01:34:23,523 ready to fire. 1473 01:34:23,592 --> 01:34:29,195 It was only after we had landed I learned 1474 01:34:29,264 --> 01:34:33,933 that because of the absence of any power source, 1475 01:34:34,002 --> 01:34:41,241 the risk of a nuclear detonation was approximately zero. 1476 01:34:43,879 --> 01:34:45,812 SCHLOSSER: Luckily, the explosion 1477 01:34:45,881 --> 01:34:48,548 separated the warhead from its power source. 1478 01:34:48,617 --> 01:34:52,318 That made a nuclear detonation impossible. 1479 01:34:52,387 --> 01:34:54,320 But the luck could have gone another way. 1480 01:34:57,259 --> 01:34:58,858 Is there a warhead on this site? 1481 01:34:58,927 --> 01:35:00,093 I cannot confirm or deny. 1482 01:35:00,162 --> 01:35:02,996 KING: CNN, Channel 7, 1483 01:35:03,065 --> 01:35:07,100 all the TV stations were on guard there. 1484 01:35:07,169 --> 01:35:10,003 They were trying to get a shot of the warhead 1485 01:35:10,072 --> 01:35:14,307 as it came out of the complex as they would leave. 1486 01:35:14,376 --> 01:35:17,210 REPORTER: Now, public information officers have promised us... 1487 01:35:17,279 --> 01:35:19,946 KING: They made a couple of dummy runs. 1488 01:35:20,015 --> 01:35:22,615 They brought a couple of tractor trailer trucks 1489 01:35:22,684 --> 01:35:24,384 and they would have escorts and lights, 1490 01:35:24,453 --> 01:35:26,986 and they would come out of the compound real quick 1491 01:35:27,055 --> 01:35:28,354 and hit the highway. 1492 01:35:28,423 --> 01:35:29,923 Then they would speed off out of there 1493 01:35:29,991 --> 01:35:33,026 with something under a tarp on a trailer. 1494 01:35:33,095 --> 01:35:35,128 Well, everybody would jump in their vehicles and head out. 1495 01:35:35,197 --> 01:35:38,398 Well, about 15 minutes later, 1496 01:35:38,467 --> 01:35:41,634 here would come another one doing the same thing. 1497 01:35:41,703 --> 01:35:44,337 I made a decision that we were gonna move it 1498 01:35:44,406 --> 01:35:47,440 at 5:00 the next morning 1499 01:35:47,509 --> 01:35:50,110 because I didn't want that warhead 1500 01:35:50,178 --> 01:35:52,879 to be brought back during peak traffic times. 1501 01:35:56,852 --> 01:35:58,651 (sirens wailing) 1502 01:36:02,257 --> 01:36:04,691 REPORTER: The flatbed truck carrying the two canisters 1503 01:36:04,760 --> 01:36:07,460 was preceded and closely followed 1504 01:36:07,529 --> 01:36:09,062 by military security police. 1505 01:36:09,131 --> 01:36:11,765 One of the two canisters was believed to be carrying 1506 01:36:11,833 --> 01:36:13,533 a five-megaton thermonuclear warhead. 1507 01:36:15,637 --> 01:36:17,470 TOM BROKAW: Officials do say the warhead 1508 01:36:17,539 --> 01:36:19,873 will be taken apart at a plant near Amarillo, Texas. 1509 01:36:19,941 --> 01:36:21,441 We don't know where it is right now. 1510 01:36:21,510 --> 01:36:25,378 On the containers, there was the signature "do not drop." 1511 01:36:25,447 --> 01:36:30,150 SCHLOSSER: The news reports all said there was no possibility 1512 01:36:30,218 --> 01:36:32,852 that this warhead could have detonated. 1513 01:36:32,921 --> 01:36:35,421 So it was a big news story for a few days, 1514 01:36:35,490 --> 01:36:38,158 and then it was forgotten. 1515 01:36:38,226 --> 01:36:41,161 The governor of the state of Arkansas is Bill Clinton. 1516 01:36:41,229 --> 01:36:43,630 As you can see, he's standing by in Little Rock this morning 1517 01:36:43,698 --> 01:36:45,431 to talk with us about the situation. 1518 01:36:45,500 --> 01:36:47,100 Do you think that the people of Arkansas 1519 01:36:47,169 --> 01:36:48,701 who lived around the Titan II missile site, Governor, 1520 01:36:48,770 --> 01:36:50,603 were in danger at the time of the explosion? 1521 01:36:50,672 --> 01:36:53,706 Well, Tom, of course as regards to nuclear explosion, 1522 01:36:53,775 --> 01:36:55,942 all we can do is to trust the experts there. 1523 01:36:56,011 --> 01:36:58,044 They say there was never a danger of a nuclear explosion. 1524 01:36:58,113 --> 01:37:00,547 REPORTER: As far as the community itself is concerned 1525 01:37:00,615 --> 01:37:02,816 and the danger from possible radioactive leak, 1526 01:37:02,884 --> 01:37:04,851 if the warhead itself has been... 1527 01:37:04,920 --> 01:37:07,020 if there is a warhead and if it has been damaged, 1528 01:37:07,088 --> 01:37:09,189 have you heard anything from Washington confirming 1529 01:37:09,257 --> 01:37:11,157 whether there is one there or not? 1530 01:37:11,226 --> 01:37:12,559 I have not. 1531 01:37:12,627 --> 01:37:15,528 I've heard rumors, I won't go into those right now. 1532 01:37:15,597 --> 01:37:18,531 I remember that Vice President Mondale, 1533 01:37:18,600 --> 01:37:24,504 he was trying to find out, "Did this have a real warhead? 1534 01:37:24,573 --> 01:37:29,209 Did this missile... was it armed with a nuclear warhead?" 1535 01:37:29,277 --> 01:37:32,879 MOSER: You know, when Vice Commander Colonel Ryan 1536 01:37:32,948 --> 01:37:34,714 went to Hot Springs, 1537 01:37:34,783 --> 01:37:38,017 Vice President Mondale asked that question, 1538 01:37:38,086 --> 01:37:40,086 whether a nuclear weapon was involved, 1539 01:37:40,155 --> 01:37:43,857 and of course, Colonel Ryan said, 1540 01:37:43,925 --> 01:37:46,025 "I can't confirm or deny," 1541 01:37:46,094 --> 01:37:48,528 and that's to the vice president. 1542 01:37:48,597 --> 01:37:52,765 That's when he got on the phone with Secretary Brown. 1543 01:37:52,834 --> 01:37:56,703 BROWN: The first thing I wanted to know was 1544 01:37:56,771 --> 01:37:58,571 whether there had been any scattering 1545 01:37:58,640 --> 01:38:01,241 of nuclear material, 1546 01:38:01,309 --> 01:38:04,577 or still worse, a nuclear explosion. 1547 01:38:04,646 --> 01:38:08,781 And when I heard that there had not been, 1548 01:38:08,850 --> 01:38:13,620 my level of attention went way down. 1549 01:38:13,688 --> 01:38:20,226 Accidents were not unusual in the Defense Department. 1550 01:38:20,295 --> 01:38:22,462 There was at least... 1551 01:38:22,530 --> 01:38:25,665 there must have been several every day. 1552 01:38:25,734 --> 01:38:31,604 When the public affairs people took over, the strategy was 1553 01:38:31,673 --> 01:38:35,808 to let the secretary of the Air Force handle it. 1554 01:38:35,877 --> 01:38:37,810 I've spent many years 1555 01:38:37,879 --> 01:38:40,346 working on the design of nuclear explosives, 1556 01:38:40,415 --> 01:38:41,814 and I can guarantee you 1557 01:38:41,883 --> 01:38:43,750 the one thing that we spend most time on 1558 01:38:43,818 --> 01:38:46,419 is to make sure that they can't go off 1559 01:38:46,488 --> 01:38:51,891 under any conceivable accidental circumstances, 1560 01:38:51,960 --> 01:38:53,459 and that's as much as I want to say. 1561 01:38:53,528 --> 01:38:54,861 INTERVIEWER: Was there a chance 1562 01:38:54,930 --> 01:38:56,596 that that bomb could have detonated? 1563 01:38:56,665 --> 01:38:59,699 Yes. 1564 01:38:59,768 --> 01:39:01,067 We can't know. 1565 01:39:01,136 --> 01:39:02,669 That's the thing that terrifies. 1566 01:39:02,737 --> 01:39:06,272 We can't know what the risk is. 1567 01:39:06,341 --> 01:39:09,809 Uh, I can't tell you it's gonna detonate 1568 01:39:09,878 --> 01:39:12,979 or not detonate, because every accident 1569 01:39:13,048 --> 01:39:15,949 is this unpredictable set of circumstances. 1570 01:39:23,458 --> 01:39:25,058 (sirens wailing) 1571 01:39:25,126 --> 01:39:28,461 SCHLOSSER: There's a culture of secrecy around nuclear weapons 1572 01:39:28,530 --> 01:39:31,864 that on the one hand has been necessary, 1573 01:39:31,933 --> 01:39:34,867 on the other hand has made the management of these weapons 1574 01:39:34,936 --> 01:39:36,703 even more dangerous. 1575 01:39:36,771 --> 01:39:40,039 According to the Department of Defense, 1576 01:39:40,108 --> 01:39:43,176 there have been 32 broken arrows-- 1577 01:39:43,244 --> 01:39:46,512 that is, serious nuclear weapons accidents 1578 01:39:46,581 --> 01:39:48,815 that could have endangered the public. 1579 01:39:48,883 --> 01:39:51,317 But a few years ago, 1580 01:39:51,386 --> 01:39:55,488 the Department of Energy released a declassified document 1581 01:39:55,557 --> 01:39:58,658 that said there had been more than a thousand accidents 1582 01:39:58,727 --> 01:40:01,160 and incidents involving our nuclear weapons. 1583 01:40:04,933 --> 01:40:07,900 Not only had the public not been told 1584 01:40:07,969 --> 01:40:11,371 about these hundreds and hundreds of accidents, 1585 01:40:11,439 --> 01:40:12,939 but even the man responsible 1586 01:40:13,008 --> 01:40:16,409 for the safety of our nuclear weapons 1587 01:40:16,478 --> 01:40:19,078 wasn't being told about accidents 1588 01:40:19,147 --> 01:40:21,514 involving those weapons. 1589 01:40:21,583 --> 01:40:24,717 PEURIFOY: When I was the director of weapon development, 1590 01:40:24,786 --> 01:40:34,794 I was unaware of a large number of accidents and incidents 1591 01:40:34,863 --> 01:40:38,731 because I had no access to the information. 1592 01:40:42,804 --> 01:40:46,539 I was surprised when I read about the number 1593 01:40:46,608 --> 01:40:51,077 of nuclear accidents that we had in the Air Force. 1594 01:40:51,146 --> 01:40:53,046 I knew about some of those, 1595 01:40:53,114 --> 01:40:56,549 but I didn't know there were so many. 1596 01:40:59,320 --> 01:41:01,921 SCHLOSSER: Again and again, in looking at these documents, 1597 01:41:01,990 --> 01:41:05,058 you find an effort to blame the person 1598 01:41:05,126 --> 01:41:06,426 who dropped the wrench, 1599 01:41:06,494 --> 01:41:09,162 who used the wrong tool at a Minuteman site, 1600 01:41:09,230 --> 01:41:10,963 blew the warhead off the missile, 1601 01:41:11,032 --> 01:41:13,800 who brought the seat cushions onto the plane 1602 01:41:13,868 --> 01:41:15,802 that caught on fire and crashed the plane. 1603 01:41:15,870 --> 01:41:18,938 There's this instinct to blame the operator, 1604 01:41:19,007 --> 01:41:20,606 to blame the little guy. 1605 01:41:20,675 --> 01:41:24,010 If the system worked properly, somebody dropping a tool 1606 01:41:24,079 --> 01:41:30,349 couldn't send a nuclear warhead into a field. 1607 01:41:30,418 --> 01:41:32,085 No special precautions have been ordered 1608 01:41:32,153 --> 01:41:33,753 at other Titan missile bases around the country 1609 01:41:33,822 --> 01:41:35,922 because of that explosion in Arkansas. 1610 01:41:35,990 --> 01:41:39,292 NEWS ANNOUNCER: In Arkansas, the system itself apparently did not fail. 1611 01:41:39,360 --> 01:41:41,260 A mechanic's wrench fell from a ledge 1612 01:41:41,329 --> 01:41:43,429 and struck the missile, puncturing a fuel tank. 1613 01:41:43,498 --> 01:41:45,998 That is classified as human error. 1614 01:41:46,067 --> 01:41:49,001 NEWS ANNOUNCER: The Air Force says the Titan is not to blame-- 1615 01:41:49,070 --> 01:41:52,038 that it was human error that caused the accident. 1616 01:41:52,107 --> 01:41:57,310 The accident that I've described here 1617 01:41:57,378 --> 01:42:02,215 is unrelated to the state or the age of this system. 1618 01:42:02,283 --> 01:42:07,653 I was served with an article 15 for dereliction of duty 1619 01:42:07,722 --> 01:42:09,655 because I chose to use the ratchet 1620 01:42:09,724 --> 01:42:13,793 instead of the torque wrench. 1621 01:42:13,862 --> 01:42:16,529 Sergeant Kennedy got a letter of reprimand 1622 01:42:16,598 --> 01:42:19,899 for violating the two-man rule. 1623 01:42:19,968 --> 01:42:23,035 I gave them my all. 1624 01:42:23,104 --> 01:42:26,072 And what did I get from them? 1625 01:42:26,141 --> 01:42:27,540 A letter of reprimand. 1626 01:42:28,977 --> 01:42:34,881 A letter of reprimand for doing everything I thought was right. 1627 01:42:36,851 --> 01:42:42,388 SANDAKER: After the accident, I thought that Kennedy and Devlin 1628 01:42:42,457 --> 01:42:45,892 and the others that were hurt would be treated like heroes, 1629 01:42:45,960 --> 01:42:47,994 because they were. 1630 01:42:48,062 --> 01:42:53,699 And they were treated like crap. 1631 01:42:53,768 --> 01:42:59,138 They told Devlin that he couldn't do his job anymore 1632 01:42:59,207 --> 01:43:02,141 and they made him work at the coffee bar, 1633 01:43:02,210 --> 01:43:04,410 selling hot dogs and coffee. 1634 01:43:04,479 --> 01:43:08,614 That was jobs that they gave to guys that were caught 1635 01:43:08,683 --> 01:43:15,254 with drugs or getting DWIs or disobeying orders. 1636 01:43:15,323 --> 01:43:17,290 Some of the officials here at the air base 1637 01:43:17,358 --> 01:43:19,592 apparently have also changed their attitude 1638 01:43:19,661 --> 01:43:22,428 towards some of the men who risked their lives that morning. 1639 01:43:22,497 --> 01:43:26,332 DEVLIN: Channel 4 News called and said, "You want to tell us 1640 01:43:26,401 --> 01:43:28,334 "about how well the Air Force is treating you 1641 01:43:28,403 --> 01:43:29,835 since the missile explosion?" 1642 01:43:29,904 --> 01:43:31,604 I said, "Yeah, I'll tell them." 1643 01:43:31,673 --> 01:43:33,439 I worked three-and-a-half years, 1644 01:43:33,508 --> 01:43:35,274 did a good job for three-and-a-half years, 1645 01:43:35,343 --> 01:43:38,344 and then I wound up hurt from this explosion, 1646 01:43:38,413 --> 01:43:41,581 and then all of a sudden, they don't want you anymore. 1647 01:43:41,649 --> 01:43:44,884 You know, you're not any good to them 1648 01:43:44,953 --> 01:43:47,920 because you're crippled or injured for a while. 1649 01:43:47,989 --> 01:43:49,589 So I don't know, you know? 1650 01:43:49,657 --> 01:43:51,090 I don't know if... 1651 01:43:51,159 --> 01:43:53,659 I don't know about the system. 1652 01:43:53,728 --> 01:43:54,961 I don't know if I'm going 1653 01:43:55,029 --> 01:43:56,395 to be railroaded out, 1654 01:43:56,464 --> 01:43:59,298 or you know, I don't know where I stand, really. 1655 01:43:59,367 --> 01:44:02,802 Oh man, were they mad. 1656 01:44:02,870 --> 01:44:07,073 I think every brass on base was mad at me. 1657 01:44:07,141 --> 01:44:10,910 When I wore my military uniform with my boots on, 1658 01:44:10,979 --> 01:44:12,912 I almost couldn't walk. 1659 01:44:12,981 --> 01:44:15,781 I couldn't even move the boot because my ankle was shattered, 1660 01:44:15,850 --> 01:44:17,917 there's no Achilles tendon. 1661 01:44:17,986 --> 01:44:20,152 So I just went in and said, "Colonel, would it be possible 1662 01:44:20,221 --> 01:44:22,255 for me to wear a gym shoe on my left foot?" 1663 01:44:22,323 --> 01:44:23,923 He looked at me and he said, 1664 01:44:23,992 --> 01:44:27,893 "Devlin, I wouldn't authorize a ------- thing for you." 1665 01:44:27,962 --> 01:44:32,665 I planned on staying in the Air Force for a career. 1666 01:44:32,734 --> 01:44:35,601 Within only a few months, 1667 01:44:35,670 --> 01:44:38,104 I knew I couldn't stay in the Air Force. 1668 01:44:41,576 --> 01:44:46,145 I kind of lost it, um, after that accident. 1669 01:44:46,214 --> 01:44:47,613 I just had a meltdown. 1670 01:44:47,682 --> 01:44:53,019 I went into the TV room where we all played cards one evening, 1671 01:44:53,087 --> 01:44:55,688 and there was beer bottles all over the place, 1672 01:44:55,757 --> 01:44:57,623 and I just started throwing a bunch of beer bottles 1673 01:44:57,692 --> 01:44:58,958 all over the place 1674 01:44:59,027 --> 01:45:02,328 and took my frustrations out on that. 1675 01:45:02,397 --> 01:45:05,298 The base commander, he gave me an honorable discharge 1676 01:45:05,366 --> 01:45:08,301 which I was thankful for, but that was not my goal, 1677 01:45:08,369 --> 01:45:10,670 was to leave the military at that time. 1678 01:45:12,940 --> 01:45:15,641 There was an old motto that went around 1679 01:45:15,710 --> 01:45:20,713 that to err was human, to forgive wasn't SAC policy. 1680 01:45:22,617 --> 01:45:24,350 MOSER: We have a checklist 1681 01:45:24,419 --> 01:45:26,018 in our command post 1682 01:45:26,087 --> 01:45:30,456 that calls for us to notify the OES. 1683 01:45:30,525 --> 01:45:32,291 Now, I'm not saying it broke down there. 1684 01:45:32,360 --> 01:45:34,126 Don't misconstrue what I'm saying. 1685 01:45:34,195 --> 01:45:36,195 What I'm saying is from there on down, 1686 01:45:36,264 --> 01:45:37,530 there was no plan. 1687 01:45:37,598 --> 01:45:38,831 This is the test bed, 1688 01:45:38,900 --> 01:45:41,500 4-7 was the test bed, and we never... 1689 01:45:41,569 --> 01:45:43,602 nothing like this has ever happened before. 1690 01:45:43,671 --> 01:45:49,075 RUTHERFORD: I tried to contact Colonel Moser not too long after the accident, 1691 01:45:49,143 --> 01:45:53,079 and I was told that he was no longer there. 1692 01:45:53,147 --> 01:45:57,216 It almost appeared that he was gone in the night. 1693 01:45:57,285 --> 01:46:03,189 MOSER: Even though, you know, I'd just had three months there, 1694 01:46:03,257 --> 01:46:04,857 I was in charge, 1695 01:46:04,926 --> 01:46:10,896 and a senior guy is responsible for the whole operation. 1696 01:46:10,965 --> 01:46:13,399 I expected I was going to lose my job, 1697 01:46:13,468 --> 01:46:15,668 let's put it that way, after that happened. 1698 01:46:15,737 --> 01:46:17,770 I thought that was... that would be the next step, 1699 01:46:17,839 --> 01:46:20,673 and that happened on Thanksgiving. 1700 01:46:25,613 --> 01:46:32,451 My regret was that I took orders from my boss, 1701 01:46:32,520 --> 01:46:35,287 I clicked my heels like a good soldier 1702 01:46:35,356 --> 01:46:39,258 and tried to execute those orders as best I could. 1703 01:46:39,327 --> 01:46:41,327 (rifles fire a salute) 1704 01:46:41,396 --> 01:46:44,363 And as a result of that, we lost life. 1705 01:46:47,268 --> 01:46:50,102 POWELL: I think about Livingston often-- 1706 01:46:50,171 --> 01:46:54,373 what it'd be like to still have him around 1707 01:46:54,442 --> 01:46:56,876 and call him up on the phone. 1708 01:47:00,848 --> 01:47:05,084 Jeff Kennedy passed away a couple of years ago. 1709 01:47:05,153 --> 01:47:08,954 I have no doubt that Jeff died from being involved at Damascus, 1710 01:47:09,023 --> 01:47:11,290 no doubt in my mind. 1711 01:47:13,961 --> 01:47:18,764 I hear a song on the radio, I'll see something on TV, 1712 01:47:18,833 --> 01:47:22,735 and bam, there it is, it's back, you know? 1713 01:47:24,739 --> 01:47:27,573 It's very hard to talk about, even today. 1714 01:47:27,642 --> 01:47:33,312 I try to live as normal a life as I can, 1715 01:47:33,381 --> 01:47:39,518 but there isn't a day goes by that I don't think about it. 1716 01:47:39,587 --> 01:47:44,857 30, whatever, 35 years, whatever it's been. 1717 01:47:44,926 --> 01:47:46,625 Every day. 1718 01:48:30,037 --> 01:48:32,438 NEWS ANNOUNCER: It went like clockwork, 1719 01:48:32,507 --> 01:48:36,542 6,500 pounds of explosives set to go at high noon. 1720 01:48:38,246 --> 01:48:39,178 (beeping) 1721 01:48:42,183 --> 01:48:44,283 It marked the beginning of the end 1722 01:48:44,352 --> 01:48:46,051 for the 17 missile silos in the state-- 1723 01:48:46,120 --> 01:48:48,587 perhaps a cruel fate for a facility 1724 01:48:48,656 --> 01:48:52,424 that has served Arkansas and the country for 25 years. 1725 01:49:06,207 --> 01:49:08,374 (cow mooing) 1726 01:49:10,311 --> 01:49:11,911 HUTTO: If you didn't know they were there, 1727 01:49:11,979 --> 01:49:13,412 you wouldn't know what it was now. 1728 01:49:13,481 --> 01:49:15,748 It just looks like a small hill. 1729 01:49:19,320 --> 01:49:22,254 SANDAKER: I think nowadays, people don't even think 1730 01:49:22,323 --> 01:49:26,926 about all the nuclear weapons we have. 1731 01:49:26,994 --> 01:49:29,128 They think that's all in the past 1732 01:49:29,196 --> 01:49:32,531 and that they're not there anymore, 1733 01:49:32,600 --> 01:49:35,534 and the reality is they're all over the place. 1734 01:49:38,439 --> 01:49:42,942 HOLDER: If nothing goes wrong for seven or eight years, 1735 01:49:43,010 --> 01:49:45,477 people don't think about it, don't realize it. 1736 01:49:45,546 --> 01:49:49,481 Unless you're working in that industry, people forget. 1737 01:49:51,652 --> 01:49:54,153 BROWN: Nuclear accidents continue to the present day, 1738 01:49:54,221 --> 01:49:58,524 although there have not been nearly as many occasions 1739 01:49:58,593 --> 01:50:03,095 of things being dropped or blown out of silos. 1740 01:50:03,164 --> 01:50:07,933 In part, that's because there are fewer of them. 1741 01:50:08,002 --> 01:50:15,941 On the other hand, the degree of oversight and attention has, 1742 01:50:16,010 --> 01:50:19,612 if anything, gotten worse, 1743 01:50:19,680 --> 01:50:23,782 because people don't worry about nuclear war as much. 1744 01:50:26,654 --> 01:50:29,088 SCHLOSSER: Since the beginning of the atomic age, 1745 01:50:29,156 --> 01:50:35,394 the United States has built about 70,000 nuclear weapons. 1746 01:50:35,463 --> 01:50:40,232 None of them have ever detonated by accident. 1747 01:50:40,301 --> 01:50:42,668 That's due to the skills of our weapons designers, 1748 01:50:42,737 --> 01:50:47,306 whose safety recommendations were finally adopted, 1749 01:50:47,375 --> 01:50:50,075 and the bravery of our military personnel. 1750 01:50:52,279 --> 01:50:55,648 But it's also due to luck. 1751 01:50:55,716 --> 01:50:57,650 Pure luck. 1752 01:50:57,718 --> 01:51:02,121 And the problem with luck is eventually, it runs out. 1753 01:51:04,492 --> 01:51:07,326 Nuclear weapons are machines, 1754 01:51:07,395 --> 01:51:11,864 and every machine ever invented eventually goes wrong. 1755 01:51:16,537 --> 01:51:19,438 CHILDERS: It doesn't matter how much you plan, 1756 01:51:19,507 --> 01:51:21,473 it doesn't matter how many checklists you have, 1757 01:51:21,542 --> 01:51:23,275 somebody's got a ringer somewhere 1758 01:51:23,344 --> 01:51:24,743 they're going to throw out there at you. 1759 01:51:29,717 --> 01:51:34,319 PEURIFOY: Nuclear weapons will always have a chance 1760 01:51:34,388 --> 01:51:38,657 of an accidental detonation. 1761 01:51:38,726 --> 01:51:41,560 It will happen. 1762 01:51:41,629 --> 01:51:46,565 It may be tomorrow, or it may be a million years from now, 1763 01:51:46,634 --> 01:51:48,233 but it will happen. 1764 01:52:02,516 --> 01:52:04,950 ♪ ♪ 1765 01:52:11,759 --> 01:52:14,159 ♪ ♪ 1766 01:52:14,261 --> 01:52:16,495 Coming to American Experience... 1767 01:52:16,597 --> 01:52:18,363 RACHEL CARSON: Children born today are exposed 1768 01:52:18,466 --> 01:52:20,032 to these chemicals from birth. 1769 01:52:20,134 --> 01:52:23,836 What is going to happen to them as a result of that exposure? 1770 01:52:23,938 --> 01:52:26,972 She helped launch the modern environmental movement. 1771 01:52:27,074 --> 01:52:29,842 WOMAN: She was determined that this message would get out. 1772 01:52:29,944 --> 01:52:32,044 She's willing to endure almost everything 1773 01:52:32,146 --> 01:52:33,946 to get that message out. 1774 01:52:34,048 --> 01:52:37,916 "Rachel Carson," coming to American Experience. 1775 01:52:38,018 --> 01:52:40,686 American Experience "Command and Control" 1776 01:52:40,788 --> 01:52:42,688 is available on DVD. 1777 01:52:42,790 --> 01:52:47,559 To order, visit shopPBS.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS. 1778 01:52:47,661 --> 01:52:49,328 American Experience is also available 1779 01:52:49,430 --> 01:52:51,063 for download on iTunes.