American Experience (1988–…): Season 29, Episode 3 - Command and Control - full transcript

Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.

Contact DCA, you read?

Roger, loud and clear.

Roger, station 7,
prepare for pressurization

of stage 2 oxidizer.

Roger.

I was fairly new to working out
on the missile sites.

At the age of 19, you know,

you've got that "no fear"
mentality.

WCB, we got a transient read
on 54...

Right above us



was a nine-megaton
thermonuclear warhead.

To see the magnitude
of that weapon

within ten feet from you,

it was a monster
waiting to go off.

When you think about working
on a weapon of mass destruction,

you're counting on everything
to work perfect all the time,

and things just don't work
perfect all the time.

The first thing
that my commander heard

are the words, "Uh-oh."

The fuel vapors in the silo

are just climbing and climbing
and climbing.

We need to get the hell out
of this complex

because this thing's
going to blow up.

Do we let the world know?



Do I run out and say, "We got
a potential nuclear explosion"?

What do you do?

Complex 3-1 has phase 14
missile age inspection.

Complex 3-2, instructor crew
scheduled for...

That day, September 18,

it was basically five days
before my 24th birthday.

So I was 23.

Lieutenant Childers was 24,
was the deputy.

When we went on alert
in a Titan system,

we were on alert for 24 hours.

That's what a tour was,
24 hours.

We had 18 silos spread
all the way out

to the eastern corner
of Arkansas.

We went to a complex
where there was supposed to be

very little maintenance,
and that was 4-7.

We went up the main highway
to a certain point,

and then you had to pull off
of the highway

onto much smaller roads.

Until you came over
a particular rise,

you wouldn't even know that
the missile complex was there.

As we drove up
to missile complex 4-7,

it's very unassuming.

There's not a lot there.

There's this huge door
and there are some antennas.

However, underneath that door
was the most powerful warhead

that the U.S. has ever operated.

CHILDERS;
Before you left the base,
they gave you some codes

that gave you access
to the complex.

MCC, what is your ident code?

Ident code is
alpha-niner-victor...

You would read the code
to the commander

and then you would
take a lighter,

set the codes on fire,
and drop them down into a box

so they would burn up and no one
else could use those codes.

All four of the crewmembers went
down three flights of stairs.

At the bottom of that,
you got to a blast door.

There were a series of blast
doors: 6, 7, 8, and 9.

So you'd walk through this,

and you'd step
into the middle level

of the launch control center,

with all of the equipment
that you needed

to maintain the missile.

When we took charge
of a complex,

that meant that we owned
that missile

until the next crew came out.

So if we went to war,
we were prepared

to launch
those weapons on command.

Apps power, silo soft,
guidance go.

We're standing by
for fire engine.

We never knew
what our specific targets were,

because you didn't really
want to know

who you were going to destroy.

Turning on my command,
everybody, turn keys.

On the word "keys,"
we will turn.

Is the crew ready?

Your B-Man?

B-Man's Ready.

MFT?

MFT ready.

Deputy?

Deputy ready.

Crew is ready... ready?

You had to be prepared to
destroy an entire civilization,

and we were trained on that.

I still today refer to myself

and other missileers
as crew dogs.

You had to almost be rote
in your actions

and not question the fact

that you were going to destroy
an entire civilization

if you had to launch
those ICBMS.

As heartless as it sounds,
I never had a problem with it.

I was doing it for my country,

I was doing it
to protect my country.

The whole reason I sat out there

was to prevent that
kind of thing from happening.

That's what deterrence
was about.

But deterrence is worthless

if you don't demonstrate that
you're willing to do it, too,

and we always had to demonstrate

that I would walk out there
and turn those keys in a second

and I would kill ten million
people and never hesitate.

Every time I went
onto a complex,

every time I saw
a Titan II missile,

I had the same sense
of excitement.

You couldn't see the warhead
from the bottom

because you were
eight stories down,

and the cone of the warhead
disappeared off in the distance.

The warhead on top
of the Titan II

was three times as powerful
as all the bombs

used by all of the armies
in the Second World War,

including both the atomic bombs.

When the crewmembers
successfully turned the keys,

the 330,000-pound missile would
lift up out of the silo.

And it would head out for about
five minutes of powered flight

to the edge of space,

fly for another 20 minutes,

and hit its target
halfway around the world.

Before September 18,

the only warheads
that we thought

would go off
in the United States

would be Soviet warheads.

We never considered
that our own warheads

could detonate
on our own continent.

From the very beginning
of the atomic age,

there has been a sense
of this immense power

just being on the verge
of slipping out of our control.

The world's first nuclear device
was fully assembled

in a small tent
in the middle of the desert.

Nobody was sure
what would happen

when this thing would detonate.

They were even concerned

that when the first nuclear
device detonated,

the Earth's atmosphere
would catch on fire

and every single living thing
on Earth would die.

And yet they did the test
anyway.

After the war ended,

an engineering section
of the nuclear weapons program

became known
as the Sandia Laboratory,

and Sandia became America's
first atomic bomb factory.

I realized if I joined Sandia,
I would be working

on atomic bombs,
and that was okay with me.

We were driven by the fear
of the Soviet Union.

You couldn't talk about what you
did outside of the tech area,

but you could feel a sense of,

"This is the number one
national priority."

The early atomic bombs
were essentially handmade,

and if you wanted to use one,
it would take days

for a team of 20 or 30 people
to put it together.

My computer was a slide rule.

You ever seen a slide rule?

Anybody?

We pressed and pressed
to improve the early product

to make it smaller
and more deadly.

Anything we conceived of
the military wanted,

and money was free.

As the technology improved,

as the number of nuclear weapons
in our arsenal increased,

there were soon assembly lines
for making nuclear weapons.

We had bombers in the air
at all times

loaded with nuclear weapons.

We had submarines
that had missiles

carrying nuclear warheads.

It was feared that the Soviets

would have far more missiles
than the United States,

so we went on a huge
missile-building binge.

At one point, we only thought
we needed

50 to 200 nuclear weapons

to completely annihilate
the Soviet Union,

and by the mid-1960s,
we had 32,000 nuclear weapons.

But every one of those weapons
you build

not only threatens your enemy,
but poses a threat to yourself.

One more time, ready?

Launch verification...

September 18

was one of those days
where nothing was going

the way it was supposed to go.

Step one, power on/off switch:

on.

What we did every day is

we went through a daily shift
verification checklist.

We had a whole book
full of checklists,

and we lived by checklists.

On/off rotary switch: on.

That day, September 18,
we find out

that we're going to actually
have some major maintenance

because they have a problem
with the oxidizer tank,

that the pressure
is a little bit low.

Each stage of the missile
had two separate tanks.

One was filled with fuel

and the other was filled
with oxidizer.

All you got to do
is mix those two fuels

and you're going to have
an explosion.

We called back to base.

They said, "We have
a maintenance team coming out."

A specialized unit,
they called them the PTS team.

The difference
between PTS people

and any other person
on a missile site is,

we get to play with fuel
and oxidizer, and they don't.

I loved PTS.

I loved my job.

My major goal at that time
was to be a PTS team chief,

and be the best PTS team chief
ever.

When I arrived
at Little Rock Air Force Base,

I would have been 19, yeah.

Ah, no, 18.

My birthday is in March,

so I would have been
one month away from being 19.

I think I was ready to take on
the world at that point.

I wanted to go out to the field

and work
on that Titan II missile.

You know, we called it a bird,

and I wanted to work
on the birds, you know?

Rocket fuel is extremely
poisonous.

We were always told
if we could smell it,

it was already too much.

Oxidizer, when you breathe it,
it turns to nitric acid.

And you basically drown
in your lungs

if you breathe enough of it.

We would work 12-, 14-hour,
up to 16-hour shifts,

and then go to sleep,

and then five hours later or so,
you get up and head back in

for another 12-, 13-,
or 14-hour day.

On September 18,
we'd had a long week,

we had the next day off,

so when we finished
the maintenance task

at the site that we were at,

you know,
we thought we were done.

Roger that, we'll send them
back your way.

Our team chief called back
to the base

to tell them
we were on our way back

and they said,
"Well, before you come back,

we want you to stop over at 4-7
at Damascus."

When we got there,
they didn't have the right part.

They had to bring the part out
on a helicopter.

I would say we waited from 3:30
to about 6:00 in the evening

before we could actually enter
the silo.

We'd been on duty
about 11 1/2 hours.

Myself and airman Plumb
suited up into a RFHCO.

You're wearing this backpack
for air,

then you're going to slip
into a stiff,

neoprene rubber glove

that your hand just floats
around inside of.

It's not tight.

The only communication we had
was these radios,

and they didn't always work
correctly.

You could very easily
misunderstand.

So we started down the cableway
to the silo,

when all of a sudden, I realized
that I had forgotten

the torque wrench
up in the truck.

There was a change
in the checklist

that we were supposed
to use a torque wrench

from here on out,

but that was a recent change.

I had spent three years

basically taking
the pressure cap off

with a ratchet.

And so instead of sending
somebody back

to get the torque wrench,

I grabbed the ratchet
to do that.

The ratchet's
about three feet long

and the socket's
about eight pounds.

And I radioed to the team chief

that we're ready to begin
the checklist

for pressurization
of stage 2 oxidizer tank.

We had a problem
with that ratchet.

It wouldn't allow Dave
to actually get the socket

to clip or snap into place
to be secure.

He held the socket
up against the dust cap

and he put the ratchet
up against it.

Basically you hold it with one
hand on that ratchet handle,

and one hand cradles
the head of the ratchet

with the socket on it.

And so I got on the end of it

and kind of gave it
a little force,

and I remember saying to him,
"You got this?"

"Yeah, I got it, I got it,
let go of it."

And I go to pick it up,

and the socket falls off the end
of the ratchet.

Just boompf,
right through the hole

and just straight down.

As it was falling,
I was thinking,

"Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no."

I wanted to jump
after that thing.

Anytime I want,

I can close my eyes
and see that socket.

I see the socket
bouncing off the platform.

I see my RFHCO glove
reaching for it.

And I see it falling
in slow motion.

70 feet.

Hitting the thrust mount
like it had eyeballs.

And then a stream of fuel
coming out of the missile.

I was just in total shock.

I think we both just looked
at each other for a second,

and we're like, "Oh, my God,
what are we going to do?"

That missile was just
blowing fuel.

Then the magnitude set in
as far as what could happen.

The destructive force
if that thing exploded,

and we can't stop it.

19 years before
the Damascus accident,

a B-52 bomber carrying
two powerful hydrogen bombs

took off on a routine mission
over North Carolina.

During the mission, the plane
experienced a fuel leak,

and suddenly, the B-52 began
to break apart mid-air.

As the fuselage was spinning

and heading back towards Earth,

the centrifugal forces pulled
on a lanyard in the cockpit,

and that lanyard was pulled
exactly the way it would be

if a crewmember wanted
to release its hydrogen bombs

over enemy territory.

Bombs are relatively dumb.

They sort of think that

if you drop the bomb
out of the bomb bay,

you must have intended
to do that.

One of the weapons in particular

went through all of its
arming steps to detonate,

and when that weapon
hit the ground,

a firing signal was sent.

And the only thing
that prevented

a full-scale detonation
of a powerful hydrogen bomb

in North Carolina
was a single safety switch.

All it is
is a two-position on-off switch.

That prevented
a four-megaton disaster.

If the right two wires
had touched,

the bomb would have detonated.

Period.

The Goldsboro accident occurred
at a time

when the number
of nuclear weapons accidents

was increasing.

I read through all of the known
accident reports.

And it scared
the hell out of me.

The three bombs
that fell on land

weren't all recovered
until five days after the crash.

We were shocked when we realized

all these years,
we've been thinking

along this nice, neat line.

That's not reality.

These orderly sequences
of events

were not going to happen
in an accident

because an accident
by definition

is something not definable.

There had been all these
statistical assurances

that weapons wouldn't detonate
in an accident.

And then there was a realization
that the weapons

were nowhere near as safe
as everyone had assumed.

We knew that fire, for example,
could set off

these electro-explosive devices

inside the warhead
in a random way.

During a fire, the solder
might melt on a circuit board.

It created all kinds
of new electrical pathways

that could completely circumvent
a safety device.

Of the 20,000 or 25,000 weapons
that we had in stockpile,

I could not in good conscience

swear that they were
adequately safe.

You had Bob Peurifoy,

one of the vice presidents
of the lab,

and Bill Stevens, the head of
the Safety Department at Sandia,

saying thousands of weapons
in the American nuclear arsenal

were vulnerable
during an accident,

including the most powerful
warhead on an American missile,

the warhead on top
of the Titan II.

I was sitting down

in the kitchen,
eating a sandwich,

when the klaxon went off.

So I didn't think
too much of it.

I mean, it went off,

it's like, "Okay, they just...

They're doing
their procedures."

But about ten seconds later,
we got another klaxon.

I got up and I walked about
halfway down the stairs.

And I looked down and I can see
the commander's console.

Then the commander's console has
lots of red lights flashing,

and so I know something's wrong.

Captain Mazzaro
was our crew commander.

The first thing
that Mazzaro heard

and that the other team members
heard are the words, "Uh-oh."

Mazzaro said,
"What do you mean, uh-oh?

What's going on?"

They said, "There's smoke in
the bottom of the launch duct."

Commander's trying to clear up.

"What do you mean, smoke in the
bottom of the launch duct?

Do you see a fire?"

The fuel vapors in the silo
are just climbing

and climbing and climbing.

So I radioed back
that we had a cloud.

A milky white cloud.

I wasn't going to say "fuel"
over the radio.

The reason I didn't want to say
the word "fuel" over the radio

was because, uh,

in case the missile commander
was listening,

I didn't want him to freak out.

I think David was just scared
to say anything

about really what was happening.

Only being 21 years old.

I guess it'd almost be like,
you know,

you doing something wrong
as a kid

and you got to tell your parents
about it, you know?

You know, how you kind of
just stand there

and you don't want to say
what you just did.

I grabbed Plumb and we walked
back up the cableway.

I immediately started looking
at the fuel level reader.

When it hits
that explosive level,

any spark can set off the fuel.

You could run through
each of the tanks on each stage

and see what the pressure was,

and we saw that the pressure
was dropping.

It was dropping fast.

And then all of a sudden,

sprays came on
in the launch duct.

We thought,
"Well, there must be a fire."

It doesn't make any sense,
nothing made any sense.

And I jumped into my checklist.

We did everything
according to checklists.

You know, we ran
the oxidizer checklists,

we ran the fuel checklists.

You know,
you stay in the checklist,

it'll take care of you.

About that time, the PTS team
that had been out working

had gotten back,

and they're standing over
in the short cableway,

and the maintenance team chief
went over and met them

and they started talking.

At that point, I said,
"Okay, guys, what happened?"

And they came in

and then they explained
to the crew at that point

exactly what happened.

And that's when we finally
got him to admit

that he had done something,
that he had dropped it,

and there was a hole,
and he saw vapors coming out.

It was more than "uh-oh."

And that was the first time
we knew.

It was a good half-hour into it.

By then it was basically
out of control.

When I became
secretary of defense,

we had tens of thousands
of nuclear weapons.

The numbers were a big problem,

because it only takes a few
or one getting out of hand

to cause a catastrophic problem.

And we worried about that.

We probably didn't worry
about it enough.

The Titan II missiles by 1980
were both old

and much more prone
to accidents.

At a silo near Searcy,
53 construction workers died

when a welding torch sparked
flammable hydraulic oil.

Nitrogen tetroxide drifted
from the missile site.

This would be missile leak
number ten so far in Arkansas.

Why was it still in the arsenal?

Uh, in part because it was

the only missile
that had a heavy payload.

The United States had a thousand

land-based missiles,
and those 54 Titan IIs

represented one third
of the mega-tonnage

of our entire missile force.

In September 1980, the Soviet
Union was in the midst

of a huge nuclear arms build-up.

By then, they had more
land-based missiles than we did.

It also I think was part
of a negotiating strategy.

We anticipated trading them off
against Soviet heavy missiles

in strategic arms negotiations.

It was a bargaining chip,

something that we could give up
in order to persuade the Soviets

to get rid of a class
of their missiles.

So that was why we still had it,

and it was therefore available
for an accident.

Of the 18 Titan missiles
stationed in Kansas,

there were serious leaks in 17.

Nearly 14,000 gallons

of poisonous liquid fuel
poured out,

killing two persons and injuring
more than 20 others.

The Titan II is potentially
an awesome weapon of war

whose only victims so far
have been Americans.

There were stories
about accidents

that might have happened
in Kansas,

or maybe one or two smaller ones
in Arkansas.

I think more and more,
it became a matter of concern.

A year before the Damascus
accident,

Senator David Pryor and I
toured a Titan missile site.

We were concerned
about safety issues.

They were very helpful,
they answered questions...

and we had a very pleasant,
educational tour

of a Titan missile site.

We talked about
how helpful it was

and quite frankly
had some reassurance

that maybe things were okay,

that maybe things weren't as bad
as we had been led to believe.

What I was very,
very impressed with,

it was of course the Titan II.

It's about 110 feet tall...

We get back, and in a matter
of no time,

a phone call comes
from some airmen

who said they'd like
to meet with us.

They wanted to come
to our office.

They didn't want anybody to know
that we were meeting.

We met there that night
scared to death.

You know,
we were 20-something kids;

we had no idea
what we were doing.

We took the logbook
to their office and showed them.

They put your life in danger,

and they didn't tell you that
when they sent you out there.

The day that they had walked
the senator through the site,

their hazard sensing system
was off alert.

If the system is down, you could
have vapors in the silo

that could kill you,

and so they should have provided
the senator with a gas mask.

But they just walked him through

like it was a normal day
and there was no problem.

The Air Force
didn't want the senator

to have any understanding

of just how unreliable
the systems were.

People inside
of our chain of command

weren't listening to us,

and that's why we went
to Senator Pryor.

And we told him
about our absolute fear

for the safety of Arkansas,

the safety of everybody working
on those systems.

They were telling me that
it wasn't a matter

of if we were going to have
an explosion;

it was a matter of when.

After that meeting,
we proposed a warning siren

at each of the silos, much like
a tornado-warning siren.

On Tuesday,
I passed an amendment

which is going to mandate
the Air Force

to put early warning systems

on all of the 54 missile sites
in this country.

The passage of that amendment
was on September 17,

two days before the tragedy
at Damascus.

September 18, 1980,

I got a call

from the command post,
said we had a serious problem.

In June of 1980,
I had assumed command

of the 308th Strategic
Missile Wing

at Little Rock Air Force Base,
and that was a Titan wing.

I had no previous experience
in Titan,

I had no training in Titan,
so I was the new guy.

I had about three months
under my belt

before the accident occurred
on the night of September 18.

I got to the command center,

started to figure out
what was going on.

Nobody knew too much
about what happened

except that a socket dropped
in the silo.

I had heard before that
tools had been dropped,

but they always went straight
to the bottom.

But in this case,
it penetrated the missile.

I had no idea that
that could ever happen.

I had never even given that
a thought at all.

And then I activated the missile
potential hazard team.

The missile potential
hazard team

gathered together some of the
top figures in the Air Force

to deal with the accident.

At Barksdale Air Force Base
in Louisiana,

there was Colonel Ben Scallorn,

the Air Force's leading expert
on the Titan II missile.

As we're dumping fuel,

things are heating up
in that silo

and the launch duct
all the time.

If the temperature rises
the oxidizer expands,

and there's a possibility
that it can rupture a tank.

And with a silo full of fuel

and you rupture an oxidizer tank
and the oxidizer hits the fuel,

it's gone.

In Denver, there were executives
from Martin Marietta,

who designed and built
the Titan II missile.

And in Omaha, Nebraska, there
was the underground headquarters

of the Strategic Air Command,
known as SAC.

That night,
all the major decisions

would be made
at SAC headquarters.

The Strategic Air Command

handled the nuclear weapons
for the Air Force.

SAC was a very, very
professional organization,

and there were no errors
really tolerated.

The night of the accident,
General Lloyd Leavitt

assumed control of the Missile
Potential Hazard Team.

General Leavitt was
a very dedicated pilot,

a very courageous pilot
in Korea and Vietnam,

but he had no missile background
at all that I'm aware of.

As things progressed,
we were trying to do

everything we could.

We knew what was going to happen

if we lost pressure
in the fuel tank.

You know, of course, the missile
was going to collapse

on top of itself.

The pressures in the tanks
kept the missile erect.

If we lost all the pressure
in that,

the missile would collapse
upon itself.

If the missile collapsed,

the entire missile
would blow up,

but what would happen
to the warhead

was anybody's guess.

There was no one
that we kept on alert

that knew anything
about the warhead.

There was no checklist,

probably the only thing that
I ever was involved with

with Strategic Air Command

that there wasn't
a checklist for,

and so it became
a seat-of-the-pants operation

as things unfolded,

and I used every resource
we had that night

to try to face the problem
and solve the problem.

One of the options was,

if the silo closure door
was opened,

there's a possibility that
the gas could have been vented.

But there was also
a possibility,

if the missile did explode
while that door was open,

it would throw the warhead
out of the silo.

We would not have known
where it went.

It could go almost anywhere.

Very few people,

almost none
in a decision-making capacity,

have ever seen
a nuclear explosion.

I went out to the Pacific
in 1954.

I would have been 26,

having worked for a couple
of years before then

on the development
of nuclear weapons.

In 1954, the United States

was testing a new design
for a hydrogen bomb.

It was the same sort of weapon

that would later be put on top
of the Titan II.

It had been anticipated

that the blast would be
about five megatons.

That is the equivalent
of five million tons of TNT.

When the device detonated,
there was an enormous explosion

that got bigger and bigger
and bigger.

And soon, the observers
were terrified

because they didn't know
when it was going to stop.

The Bravo test wound up being
three times more powerful

than they had estimated.

I saw it go off

from a distance of 200 miles.

All you see is the light.

The light stays on
for a long time,

and if you see it
from total darkness,

it gets bright enough to read
a newspaper by that light.

That's enormously impressive.

Everybody knew that there was
a great deal of radioactivity

generated in a nuclear
explosion.

The question always was
what would happen to it.

Radiation survey teams were
flown back to the exposed atoll.

We were able to document
for the first time

fallout data
from high-yield detonations.

Fallout blanketed areas
of more than 5,000 square miles

with radioactive material
that would have been lethal

to unprotected personnel.

Back in Washington,

they took a map
of the fallout pattern

from the Bravo test,

and they superimposed it
on a map of the United States.

A similar weapon
detonated over Washington, D.C.,

could release
enough radioactive fallout

to kill everyone
in Washington, D.C.,

everyone in Baltimore,
everyone in Philadelphia,

half the population
of New York City,

with casualties and fatalities
as far north as Boston.

The fuel tank readings
started going negative,

and at that point,

I felt that it was potentially
going to collapse.

And although there are safety
measures within the warhead,

in the back of my mind,
you always wonder.

I don't think anybody truly knew

what was going to happen
with the warhead.

As they were talking
about these tank pressures

and all these different things,

I'm getting
more and more anxious

and more and more anxious,

thinking, "I need,
we need to get out of here.

"We need to get the hell out
of this complex,

because this thing's going
to blow up."

At this point, Mazzaro wanted
to evacuate the control center.

He didn't really want to be
down there if it did explode.

Some of the crewmembers

were eager to make an exit,

so with that in mind,
we started discussing,

should we evacuate the people
in the launch control center

or leave them in there?

The reason to get them
out of the silo,

we had no idea
what was going to happen

to the launch control center
if the missile exploded.

I still thought
we should be there.

We needed to be there.

If we evacuated
that launch control center,

we would be giving up
any ability

to control any of the equipment,

we would be giving up
the capacity

to try any of the ideas

that people were trying
to come up with

in order to save this system.

Rodney and I told
the crew commander

that we wanted to stay behind.

I couldn't leave.

You know, emotionally,
I couldn't go.

From our standpoint,
we could stay

because neither one of us had
children at that time, and...

Not that we didn't care
about our lives,

but, you know, it just seemed
that it made sense to us

that we should stay
and let everybody else go.

On the evening of September 18,

people were gathering
in Hot Springs.

Vice President Mondale
was the keynote speaker.

Senator Pryor
and Governor Clinton and others

had already gone to Hot Springs.

And I was scheduled to go over
the next day.

That night we had invited
a friend over for dinner,

and the phone rang.

And it was one of the airmen
whom I had talked with.

But when I got off the phone
from this airman,

I looked around and people
started asking me, saying,

"What's happening?"

And I said, "A Titan missile
is going to explode."

And the question was,
"Well, what does that mean?"

"What it means is, if
that nuclear warhead explodes,

we're incinerated."

You know, I said,
"Little Rock's gone."

I said, "Little Rock is gone.

We're 46 miles from this site,
we're gone."

I walked into our living room
and looked out the front window,

and it was still
daylight savings time,

so it wasn't totally dark,

and you could see children
in the front yard

or people walking out
to their cars,

carrying on
their normal everyday lives,

and I thought,
"Do I run out on the street

"and say we got
a potential nuclear explosion

"46 miles from here?

"Do I grab my friends
and neighbors

"and get in the car
and start driving?

"Do I call up Senator Pryor
and say,

"Let's call a press conference

and tell them that the Air Force
is not telling the truth ""?

What do you do?

I was there in Hot Springs
at night,

and the phone rang
and it was Skip.

And Skip says,
"We have a problem."

He said, "What's the Air Force
saying?"

I said, "The Air Force
is telling people

"it's not happening,

"That's what they've told
the people on the site.

"They're going to tell you that
these things are under control.

But I think you need to be
prepared for an explosion."

As the general manager of
the radio station in Clinton,

we were doing
quite a bit of local news,

and you realize in a small town

that you need to have
a police scanner,

because everything comes
off of it.

And the person said,
"We've got a chemical leak

at the Titan II missile silo."

We get there about the same time
the sheriff is getting there,

Gus Anglin.

This is Gus Anglin.

He was the sheriff
of Van Buren County,

very popular sheriff,
by the way.

And so we decide to walk down
the narrow road

that goes down to the silo.

And when you get down there,

there's, like, this
ten-foot-tall chain link fencing

with barbed wire
around the top of it.

Out of nowhere, here comes
two guys with M-16 rifles.

Gus says, "Do I need
to start evacuating?"

"Oh, no, sir, no, sir,

we've got it under control,
I assure you."

You know, if they had come up
and said,

"Man, we got a hell
of a situation,

this thing may blow like hell,"
I'd have got out of there.

You know, the attitude
that a lot

of military commanders have
was to tell everybody,

"Everything's okay,
we'll take care of it."

And that's what we were doing
that night.

That was the wrong answer.

So we went back
to the edge of the road,

which was just off Highway 65.

There's homes real close
to the silo.

My mother said,

"There's something wrong
at the missile base.

There's cars,
there's a lot of cars going in."

The missile site is probably
less than a quarter of a mile

through the field
from the back door.

They basically condemned
our land and took it.

We didn't know the danger.

We didn't know that that was
a nuclear missile there.

I mean, it was a secret base.

It had a chain link fence

with barbed wire around the top
and guards.

Big signs on the fence said,

"We gonna shoot you
if you come in here."

But you wasn't gonna change it
and we wasn't gonna move.

It just didn't make much sense
to dwell on it,

so you just put up with it,

kind of like a bad neighbor
or an in-law or something.

But the crowds were starting
to gather on 65.

This is as close as the military
will allow us to get.

So here comes Channel 4,
here comes Channel 11.

Before you know it, we've got
about 25 people out there.

They ignored us.

We'd yell at them
as they'd come by.

We'd go, "Hey, is everything
under control?"

You know,
"Have you fixed it yet?"

And they'd just keep driving.

They wouldn't even acknowledge
that you existed.

My dad talked to a man

that was in law enforcement
that he knew.

This law enforcement man said,

"Ralph, get your family
and get out of here,

and if you tell this,
I'll get fired."

And we all got together

and drove to Choctaw
to spend the night.

Sheriff Gus Anglin,

he didn't get the information
he thought he needed from them

to make really good decisions,

and finally he just went
to running everybody off.

When they were evacuating,
he said, you know,

"I don't know how bad it's going
to be or anything else,

"get out of here right now

and then we'll get you back in
quick as we can."

They had roadblocks set up
back two miles from it

diverting traffic
around the area.

I had a problem that nine months
before that happened,

I had synchronized
a bunch of heifers,

which means you give them
a shot of Lutalyse

and they all come into heat
at the same time.

You breed them
all at the same time,

which also means they're all
going to calve at the same time.

Well, their due date
was that day.

We would have lost the farm,
everything we had,

you know, if them cows
all got sick and died.

So, well, we were going back in.

We finally made the decision
to evacuate the crew,

because when the missile
explodes,

if it does explode,

you're risking life of
the four crewmembers on site.

So we thought the best avenue

was to take the crew
out of the control center.

Mike said, "We're going to have
to evacuate."

Uh...

It was one of the hardest things
I think anybody could do,

because you were responsible
for a nuclear weapon

that was capable of destroying

an unbelievable amount
of territory

and an unbelievable number
of people,

and you were leaving it behind.

And you owned it.

For that alert, you owned it,
and you had to give it up,

and there was nobody
to give it to.

Nobody left it before.

Nobody would leave
a nuclear warhead.

The whole time I was leaving,
I kept thinking,

"I need to stay,
I should have stayed."

I look back on it now,

I still can't believe
we left it empty.

We had all these
classified checklists.

Nobody had ever tried
to put them in a safe before...

They wouldn't fit.

So we left all of them
in the safe with the door open.

Fuel vapor can ignite,

and so we need to cut

as much electrical power
from the silo as we can.

We don't want any electrical
spark or anything going on.

We thought,

"We're going to go out
the regular way,

we'll open a door up."

As we started to open
the blast door,

we immediately saw vapor.

Once we closed that door,

that cut off
our main escape route.

We were instructed to evacuate

through the emergency
escape hatch,

which we had never actually
fully opened.

It was just a metal tube
with a ladder in it,

buried a good 40 feet
under the ground.

There's a light at the top,

and it's supposed to shine down
into the escape route,

and it didn't come on.

It wasn't working.

Nothing was working.

We had donned gas masks
because there was some concern

about missile fuel vapors
blowing over the escape hatch.

It was a hell of a thing

to climb up five stories
in the dark with this mask on,

and you couldn't breathe,

and it filled up with vapors
and you couldn't see anything.

We knew there was
very little wind that night,

and all of the vapors

that were being evacuated
out of the launch duct

were settling over the site.

I was at home
with my wife and kid,

and I got a call
from job control,

and they said they had a problem
out at 4-7.

So I drove up to the barracks,

and I was banging on doors,
getting PTS guys.

They told everybody here,

"This is a very dangerous
situation,

"we don't know what's going
to happen,

"this is a purely
voluntary mission only,

and if you don't want to go,
you don't have to go."

The PTS group,
it was like a brotherhood.

There's no question that
we weren't going to be the team

that was going out there.

Dave Livingston was
one of the guys,

and he was sitting
in the back seat

and he said to me,

"Somebody's going to die
out here tonight.

I just feel it."

And I said, "Dave, don't say
something like that, man.

Don't even say it."

And he goes,
"No, I got a bad vibe, man,

Somebody's going to die
out here, man."

We know at this point
that there's a helicopter

on the way,
and Jeff Kennedy was on there.

He was one of the best,
if not the best,

team chief in the wing.

Jeff Kennedy was

the kind of guy that
he would never ask you

to do anything
he wouldn't do himself.

He had an authoritative voice

that would just, you know,
kind of rattle your cage.

When I got out on site,

Powell came running up to me

and said, "Jeff, I fucked up
like you wouldn't believe."

I know that I need
to get the tank readings

to find out how serious
the leak is.

Getting the tank
pressure readings

was probably the most important
thing that we could do.

Jeff thought the longer we wait,
the more dangerous it gets.

What Jeff
didn't tell anybody was

we're going to go down
into that silo

and look at those pressures.

So we run across the silo
to the escape hatch.

Kennedy goes
into the tube first,

I follow him in,
and all of a sudden,

he looks up at me and he says,
"Stay here."

We violated the most sacred rule
in SAC,

which is the two-man rule.

Nobody goes to certain parts
of the silo

without being accompanied
by another person.

He felt like that he could get
in and out quicker

if he went by himself.

Stage one fuel was now
at a negative imbalance.

There's 14,000 gallons of fuel

that have leaked out
of the tank.

It sends out a tremendous amount
of heat.

Oxidizer reacts to heat,

so now we have less than
30 pounds of pressure

before stage one oxidizer blows.

Kennedy shows the readings
that he just got

and says we still had time
to save it, but we had to move.

We had to move now.

The commander was furious

that he had violated
the two-man policy

by going down there

and didn't even have
a crew member with him;

he was just on his own.

He violated everything.

The colonel now calls
SAC headquarters.

15 minutes later,

SAC headquarters relieves us
of all command decision making.

Now, here's SAC headquarters

that has never stepped foot
on a complex,

and they're making decisions
on what's going to happen.

That just pissed me off.

Time was of the essence

if we were going
to accomplish anything.

Every minute that passed by,

we were further, simply because
we're dumping more fuel

and everything is getting worse.

We all thought it was getting
to be more and more dangerous

to go in the site.

Martin Marietta,
the manufacturer of the missile,

told us to back out
and just wait and see.

Martin Marietta recommended

not to even go in
or go near the missile,

and if it blew,
there would be no injuries.

SAC made the decision to I guess
not listen to Martin Marietta.

People started showing up
from base.

Communications,
portable vapor detectors,

they were bringing all kinds
of maintenance equipment.

You think all of these experts

must be coming in
to work on this thing.

Then I see this bus come in,

and here are these
about ten guys,

and they start putting on
what looks like space outfits.

And you're looking at these
and you're thinking,

"I'm 24 years old
and they're all younger than me,

"and these guys are the experts

that are going to go in there
and fix this?"

All I saw was just young guys

that were being thrown
to the lions.

One of the hard things
for us was

it seemed like we were waiting
and waiting and waiting

for some decision
to be made at SAC

as specifically what to do.

So the time frame of, like,

"Man, you know, whatever
we're going to do, let's do it."

The SAC command center
finally decided that

we had to know
what the status was

in the silo,
if we could get back in.

What they considered
the best alternative

was go back in
and check pressures.

When we find out
what the plan is,

we have to break
into a nuclear missile complex,

which has never been done before
in history.

If we had stayed
in the control center,

we could have opened every door
they had to break their way in.

The plan was to go down
and go through the blast doors,

get into the control center,

and depending on the fuel
and oxidizer readings,

they wanted to get
to the missile itself.

The real grand scheme was

to go out to the silo
to level four,

open up a valve
to vent that tank

so it would stabilize
and not collapse.

The only way we could try
to save the thing

was to get in and connect
up to the missile

and have an emergency offload.

That was absolute,
total bullshit.

You know, I said,

"Colonel, why don't we just
go down the escape hatch?"

"Kennedy, this plan
has come down,

it's the plan we're going
to go with, and that's it."

Jeff thought the plan

was nuts.

But on the other hand, you're...

This is what you do;
you're a PTS guy.

This is the plan that came down

and you suck it up
and you do it.

We were directed to ask
for volunteers to go back in.

I personally wasn't in favor
of sending anybody else in

after all the time.

It was the wee hours
of the morning,

this has been going on
for many hours at this point,

probably eight hours.

But I guess you go back
and say, as a good soldier,

your boss says "Do this"
and you eventually do it.

And we had enough brave souls

to volunteer
to go back in the silo.

Rex Hukle and I
were the first guys to go in.

They said, "You only have
30 minutes of air.

There is no crew down there,
the crew is already evacuated,"

so they said,
"You're going to have to cut

and break your way
into this missile complex."

When they got
to the exhaust duct,

they took a reading
and the meter pegged out,

which is 250 parts per million.

I had made a recommendation that

if it was 250 parts per million
or higher, we backed off

because the protective clothing
wouldn't protect our guys.

250 parts per million
is when the vapor

is in such a high concentration,

it could start to melt
the RFHCO suits.

Almost anything
could cause it to ignite.

General Leavitt directed them
to press on.

I knew it was
the wrong thing to do.

Whatever was going to happen
was not going to be good.

We got to the portal door.

We used bolt cutters
and a great big crowbar

to pry open the main lock

and then go down
three levels of steps

to get to your first
6,000-pound blast lock door

with great big hydraulic pins
that lock it in place.

We had to manually start
to pump it open.

We had never used
a hydraulic pump.

We were getting close
to the 30 minutes of air,

and then they had...
they sent us back.

So they said, "You guys
got it hooked up, come on back.

We're going to send Kennedy and
Livingston in to replace you."

Those guys were brave.

They knew what they were
getting into

when they went back in
on the underground...

What could happen to them.

I was sitting
in a security police vehicle,

listening and hearing
what's going on.

The next team went in,

which was going to be Kennedy
and Livingston.

AR to CC, stand by.

They're relaying the information

that they've opened
the blast door.

When we went
into the blast lock area,

there's eight lights,
bright as hell.

I'm less than ten feet away
from it and I can't even see it.

So they immediately evacuated
and started topside.

I had got topside,

and now we get a command
from the team chief

to go down
and turn on an exhaust fan.

Livingston taps himself
on the chest, and he went down.

After that, within seconds,
I saw the explosion.

All of a sudden,
I lost all communications.

PTS-1, do you copy?

I repeat, PTS-1, do you copy?

Everything you ever read
or heard

about a nuclear explosion,

all communications were lost
until things settled out.

And that's the first thing
I, uh...

that's the first thing
that entered my mind,

that we had a nuclear explosion
out there

and we may have a shock wave

coming into Little Rock
Air Force Base

and all the surrounding
communities,

and that's the first thing
I thought about.

And all the people would be dead
out there on site, of course,

and I just...

it was unimaginable
what was going through my mind.

It was almost like

you wanted to get down
on your knees and, uh...

and, uh, pray
to the higher power...

uh, to protect everybody.

It was a very traumatic moment
in my life.

It affects me to this day
when I think about that.

About 3:00 in the morning,

I decided,
"Well, might as well go milk."

And just before I got
to the roadblock,

you drop off a hill
on Highway 65, there's a spot

that you can see the ground
at the missile base.

Just as I got to that spot,
it blew.

You felt it
more than you saw it.

I mean, I was
a mile and three quarters,

two miles away from it,

and it almost shook my truck
off the road.

The explosion woke us up
eight miles away in Choctaw.

It shook the home,
it shook the bed you were in,

and we immediately
all jumped up, and my dad said,

"Get everybody, get in the cars,
and we're heading north."

Gus was sitting
in his sheriff's car.

I was sitting on the hood
of Gus's car,

just kind of sitting there,

and had on slip-on shoes
and was kicking one off and on.

Then all of a sudden,
it was just, "Ka-whoom!"

Everybody was running

as hard as they could
to get out of there

because we may be living
our last few minutes.

Go, go, go!

I thought,
when I jumped in my car

and drove as hard as I could,

that I was probably outrunning
a nuclear blast, you know?

I thought, "This Dodge Omni
is going to outrun this thing."

And I remember we had almost
made it to Choctaw,

and I turned to Tom and I said,

"We just left a bunch
of dead people back there, Tom."

The sky just lit up.

It really looked like the sun
was coming up,

which is why our initial
reaction was,

"The nuclear bomb went off,
the nuclear warhead exploded."

I look up and I saw fire

just shooting straight up
out of the silo...

A thousand feet, maybe more...
And it's like a roman candle

just shooting straight up
in the air.

We ducked under the tailgate
of a truck.

So much gravel and rocks
were coming down.

It was smashing windshields
and putting holes in trucks.

I was literally trying
to crawl underneath a truck,

and it started to move
and I crawled out again

real fast,
and somebody drove it off.

Oh my God!

The stuff stopped falling,

but there was flames everywhere
and you could hear this roar.

And you looked down there,
you could see

this steam and fire
coming out of the complex.

All I know is

the first thing to hit me
was wind.

It was like a, "Boom!"

Just like a concussion, man,
it was like, "Bang!"

And you're blown backwards,

you have no control
over anything.

As I was sliding on my back,

burning, going up the street,
my left eye opened

and I could see glowing steel
blowing past me.

And in my heart, I said,
"It's over.

You're not going to live
through this."

You know, "I just hope
it's not painful."

That's the only thing
that went through my brain,

"I hope it's not painful."

And I heard two
blood-curdling screams

to "Run! Run!"

I got up and took off running.

I got five steps away,

and a chunk of concrete
bigger than a school bus

hits the ground right behind me,

and it's got steel rebar
hanging out of it.

As I'm running,

I feel this whack hit my ankle
and just shatters my ankle.

The next step I took,
I just buckled and went down.

That's when I started to realize

that my face and neck and back
were all on fire.

And I was picking people up
and carrying them up the road,

trying to get them away
from the debris.

I remember helping one of them
into the back of a truck,

and as we were carrying him,

the suit would snag
on rocks and rebar

and just wrench his broken leg,

and he was just screaming
in pain.

And they said,

"Devlin, you've got
to go to the hospital."

And I said, "No, don't take me

"until you have Livingston,
until you have Kennedy.

I don't wanna leave
until you have everybody."

And he said, "No, man,
we're going to send you now,

we've got to get you
to the hospital."

Evacuate, evacuate!

All you heard was,
"Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate!"

Air Force Colonel said,

"The other two
who are on the site,

they have to be dead."

And we looked down
at the site and said,

"I'm with you, Colonel,
they have to be dead."

I got into the last truck
that was there

with a bunch of hurt guys,
and I said, "Let's go."

As soon as it blew,

I can remember being flipped
ass over tea kettle.

When I woke up,
I was laying on my back,

my legs were up
against the complex fence.

I was screaming and crying.

There was nobody there,
absolutely zero.

You only had yourself.

You know, the pain
I had to deal with

was trivial to the fact that
I wanted to live,

I wanted to survive.

I mean, I thought of my kids,
my wife.

I said, "I am not going to die
in this complex."

I went to stand up,
and I fell right down.

My leg was broken.

I fell down four, five times,
got back up.

All the time that I'm walking,
I can hear Livingston,

"Oh my God, help me.

Please, somebody help me."

Because of my leg being broken,

I determined that
I could not get him.

This is something that
I fought with for eons.

If Livingston had known
that I was there,

would that have been enough
of an adrenaline rush,

to know somebody's
got to get some help?

Off the complex was a truck.

I had to make it from one end
of the complex to the other.

You know, I fell down
a half dozen times.

Had to take me 45 minutes.

When I got to the truck
and I radioed for help,

the truck went dead.

On my way back
to the missile site,

I could hear Kennedy
on the radio in the truck.

Help! Help me!

Help me!

Can anybody read me?

And I headed down the road

as fast as I could get
that truck to go.

I got partway there,

and two security policemen
were in the road

and they waved me down.

Who's bringing them?

What?

Who's bringing people here?

They've got them in trucks.

And he told us to evacuate
and not go down there.

And I said, "Screw you.

Our friends are down there,
we're going."

I'm not gonna wait here.

Please help me!

Where are you?

When I got back
to the missile site,

I saw Kennedy.

He was burnt, and...

he had a hole in his leg
the size of your fist.

He was really hurt bad, and...

he told me
to go find Livingston.

We put our helmets on
and we went onto the site.

It was like another world.

Ordnance guys had told us
that the warhead

was full of plastic explosives

that could be laying
all over the ground,

so somehow we were not supposed
to step on them.

There was giant chunks
of concrete blasted all over

that looked like the size
of semi trucks.

There's a strange glow

coming out of where the silo
used to be.

And when we got back
to the truck,

they had already found
Livingston,

and I was angry because
they didn't have an ambulance.

I put him in the back
of a pickup truck.

And we...

I held him.

He begged me
not to tell his mother,

like he had done
something wrong.

And I told him that
he didn't do anything wrong.

When we arrived at the hospital,
I was hyperventilating,

breathing, because the burn pain
was so great.

I had a nurse tell me,

"If you don't calm down,
you're going to pass out."

And I couldn't calm down.

I was on fire,
I felt like I was on fire.

Take it easy, Dev.

I went to the hospital that
Kennedy and Livingston went to.

And we were there
for a few hours, I think.

And then the doctor comes out
and informs us

that David Livingston
had passed away

and that Kennedy was, like,
hanging by a thread.

You just keep replaying things
in your head.

"What if I did this?

What if I did that?"

The ifs and buts.

You know, and you just keep
replaying it.

Dave Powell was a lot closer
to David Livingston

than most people knew.

I remember looking over
when I was at the funeral,

and I remember Powell
just weeping.

He feels responsible
for the death of David,

he really does.

He felt responsible
for the death of his friend.

As soon as I found out
Livingston died,

I wanted nothing more to do
with the Air Force.

We were in the hospital two days

before a single, solitary
Air Force personnel

were out at that hospital.

They came in every eight hours
on my face, neck, and back,

and they used a scrub pad...
It was like a Brillo pad...

And they scrubbed all the skin,
the dead skin, off

so that the new skin
would grow back.

All the scrubbing was
immensely painful.

The Air Force was
in a really big hurry

to get me back to the base
so that no one could get to us,

there could be no interviews,

and you would not be speaking
to the press.

The phone rang about 3:30

with a call from one
of the airmen that said,

"It just blew."

The first thing I did was
look around and say,

"I'm alive, we're alive,
my family's alive,

my neighborhood's alive."

And my response was,
"Where's the warhead?"

And the person said,
"We don't know."

When the Titan II missile
exploded,

I drove as fast as I could
to the radio station

and turned it back on the air.

Will once again, partly,
will be up

throughout the remainder
of the night

and into the morning...

When you were trying to talk
to the Air Force to find out,

is there a nuclear warhead?

Was one involved?

Did you find it?

Was it... you know,
what condition was it in?

Had it burst open?

Was there uranium spread
all over the area?

They would not admit that there
was even a nuclear warhead.

We could not tell
the local populace

or any of the political
or law enforcement people

that we had a warhead
on the missile.

That was, we could not
confirm nor deny that we had

a nuclear weapon on-site,

and that was SAC and national
policy at that time.

You know, I'm afraid that

you and I are reaching
an impasse on this question.

I believe that I have answered
the question

as fully as I intend to.

Can you tell us where it is now?

May I have another question?

My personal feeling was that
it was a ridiculous policy,

but nevertheless,
we had to live with it.

Sheriff, has the Air Force
told you very much?

Haven't told me a darned thing.

Does that make you mad?

Yes, it does.

I need to know what's going on

so I'll know how to handle
the situation.

And if they wanna tell me
in confidence, that'd be great.

At least I'd know when and how
to evacuate the people,

tell them not to return
to their homes

or to return to their homes
or how serious it is.

But of course they don't...
they don't tell you that.

I heard the phrase
"We will not confirm nor deny"

probably 50 times
in that week's period.

Once again, our word
from the Air Force is,

"Will not confirm nor deny."

One of the local
merchants in town

found the Air Force frequencies.

So they wouldn't tell us
anything, but we could...

we started getting this
all relayed to us.

Could you give us a status

on those EOD and disaster
preparedness people?

Still walking up the hill.

They know that you're
listening to them,

so they're changing frequencies,
and they said,

"Be real evasive
about what you talk about."

They keep on talking about,

"We cannot find it,
we cannot find the unit."

And that's how we knew
they were trying to figure out

what happened to this
nuclear warhead.

Where did it go?

Roger, on-scene commander.

The team went to the unit,

now they're on their way out
to give a full report.

Team commander command post,

what unit are you
talking about, sir?

Let's not talk about that.

We could tell there was
some activity on the road

going down to the silo,
that they were showing

a lot of interest right there
in that one area.

I wish I had something secure.

They've located
what they want to locate,

and it's laying
in a ditch beside.

You know,
it's not even up close.

It blew it out
and it's laying in the ditch,

it's all exposed,

and so all they need to do
is go in and get it.

I went out there the next day.

Somebody said, "There it is."

And it was in the ditch

and somewhat, as I recall,
somewhat buried.

And then someone called
the nuclear people at Sandia

to assess whether or not we had
a hazardous situation.

The phone rang.

They said, "We had a problem."

I knew I had to get to Damascus.

We helicoptered into the silo.

I was apprehensive.

I knew that the warhead
could have been armed,

ready to fire.

It was only after we had landed
I learned

that because of the absence
of any power source,

the risk of a nuclear detonation
was approximately zero.

Luckily, the explosion

separated the warhead
from its power source.

That made a nuclear detonation
impossible.

But the luck could have gone
another way.

Is there a warhead on this site?

I cannot confirm or deny.

CNN, Channel 7,

all the TV stations
were on guard there.

They were trying to get a shot
of the warhead

as it came out of the complex
as they would leave.

Now, public information officers
have promised us...

They made a couple
of dummy runs.

They brought a couple
of tractor trailer trucks

and they would have escorts
and lights,

and they would come out
of the compound real quick

and hit the highway.

Then they would speed off
out of there

with something under a tarp
on a trailer.

Well, everybody would jump
in their vehicles and head out.

Well, about 15 minutes later,

here would come another one
doing the same thing.

I made a decision that
we were gonna move it

at 5:00 the next morning

because I didn't want
that warhead

to be brought back
during peak traffic times.

The flatbed truck
carrying the two canisters

was preceded
and closely followed

by military security police.

One of the two canisters
was believed to be carrying

a five-megaton
thermonuclear warhead.

Officials do say the warhead

will be taken apart
at a plant near Amarillo, Texas.

We don't know where it is
right now.

On the containers, there was
the signature "do not drop."

The news reports all said
there was no possibility

that this warhead
could have detonated.

So it was a big news story
for a few days,

and then it was forgotten.

The governor of the state
of Arkansas is Bill Clinton.

As you can see, he's standing by
in Little Rock this morning

to talk with us
about the situation.

Do you think that
the people of Arkansas

who lived around the Titan II
missile site, Governor,

were in danger at the time
of the explosion?

Well, Tom, of course
as regards to nuclear explosion,

all we can do is to trust
the experts there.

They say there was never
a danger of a nuclear explosion.

As far as the community
itself is concerned

and the danger from possible
radioactive leak,

if the warhead itself
has been...

if there is a warhead
and if it has been damaged,

have you heard anything
from Washington confirming

whether there is
one there or not?

I have not.

I've heard rumors,
I won't go into those right now.

I remember that
Vice President Mondale,

he was trying to find out,
"Did this have a real warhead?

Did this missile... was it armed
with a nuclear warhead?"

You know, when Vice Commander
Colonel Ryan

went to Hot Springs,

Vice President Mondale
asked that question,

whether a nuclear weapon
was involved,

and of course,
Colonel Ryan said,

"I can't confirm or deny,"

and that's
to the vice president.

That's when he got on the phone
with Secretary Brown.

The first thing
I wanted to know was

whether there had been
any scattering

of nuclear material,

or still worse,
a nuclear explosion.

And when I heard that
there had not been,

my level of attention went
way down.

Accidents were not unusual
in the Defense Department.

There was at least...

there must have been several
every day.

When the public affairs people
took over, the strategy was

to let the secretary
of the Air Force handle it.

I've spent many years

working on the design
of nuclear explosives,

and I can guarantee you

the one thing that we spend
most time on

is to make sure that
they can't go off

under any conceivable
accidental circumstances,

and that's as much as
I want to say.

Was there a chance

that that bomb
could have detonated?

Yes.

We can't know.

That's the thing that terrifies.

We can't know what the risk is.

Uh, I can't tell you
it's gonna detonate

or not detonate,
because every accident

is this unpredictable set
of circumstances.

There's a culture of secrecy
around nuclear weapons

that on the one hand
has been necessary,

on the other hand has made
the management of these weapons

even more dangerous.

According to the Department
of Defense,

there have been
32 broken arrows...

That is, serious
nuclear weapons accidents

that could have endangered
the public.

But a few years ago,

the Department of Energy
released a declassified document

that said there had been
more than a thousand accidents

and incidents involving
our nuclear weapons.

Not only had the public
not been told

about these hundreds
and hundreds of accidents,

but even the man responsible

for the safety
of our nuclear weapons

wasn't being told
about accidents

involving those weapons.

When I was the director
of weapon development,

I was unaware of a large number
of accidents and incidents

because I had no access
to the information.

I was surprised when I read
about the number

of nuclear accidents that we had
in the Air Force.

I knew about some of those,

but I didn't know
there were so many.

Again and again,
in looking at these documents,

you find an effort
to blame the person

who dropped the wrench,

who used the wrong tool
at a Minuteman site,

blew the warhead
off the missile,

who brought the seat cushions
onto the plane

that caught on fire
and crashed the plane.

There's this instinct
to blame the operator,

to blame the little guy.

If the system worked properly,
somebody dropping a tool

couldn't send a nuclear warhead
into a field.

No special precautions
have been ordered

at other Titan missile bases
around the country

because of that explosion
in Arkansas.

In Arkansas, the system itself
apparently did not fail.

A mechanic's wrench
fell from a ledge

and struck the missile,
puncturing a fuel tank.

That is classified
as human error.

The Air Force says the Titan
is not to blame...

That it was human error
that caused the accident.

The accident
that I've described here

is unrelated to the state
or the age of this system.

I was served with an article 15
for dereliction of duty

because I chose
to use the ratchet

instead of the torque wrench.

Sergeant Kennedy got
a letter of reprimand

for violating the two-man rule.

I gave them my all.

And what did I get from them?

A letter of reprimand.

A letter of reprimand for doing
everything I thought was right.

After the accident, I thought
that Kennedy and Devlin

and the others that were hurt
would be treated like heroes,

because they were.

And they were treated like crap.

They told Devlin that
he couldn't do his job anymore

and they made him work
at the coffee bar,

selling hot dogs and coffee.

That was jobs that they gave
to guys that were caught

with drugs or getting DWIs
or disobeying orders.

Some of the officials here
at the air base

apparently have also
changed their attitude

towards some of the men who
risked their lives that morning.

Channel 4 News called and said,
"You want to tell us

"about how well the Air Force
is treating you

since the missile explosion?"

I said, "Yeah, I'll tell them."

I worked three-and-a-half years,

did a good job
for three-and-a-half years,

and then I wound up hurt
from this explosion,

and then all of a sudden,
they don't want you anymore.

You know, you're not
any good to them

because you're crippled
or injured for a while.

So I don't know, you know?

I don't know if...

I don't know about the system.

I don't know if I'm going

to be railroaded out,

or you know, I don't know
where I stand, really.

Oh man, were they mad.

I think every brass on base
was mad at me.

When I wore my military uniform
with my boots on,

I almost couldn't walk.

I couldn't even move the boot
because my ankle was shattered,

there's no Achilles tendon.

So I just went in and said,
"Colonel, would it be possible

for me to wear a gym shoe
on my left foot?"

He looked at me and he said,

"Devlin, I wouldn't authorize
a fucking thing for you."

I planned on staying
in the Air Force for a career.

Within only a few months,

I knew I couldn't stay
in the Air Force.

I kind of lost it, um,
after that accident.

I just had a meltdown.

I went into the TV room where
we all played cards one evening,

and there was beer bottles
all over the place,

and I just started throwing
a bunch of beer bottles

all over the place

and took my frustrations out
on that.

The base commander, he gave me
an honorable discharge

which I was thankful for,
but that was not my goal,

was to leave the military
at that time.

There was an old motto
that went around

that to err was human,
to forgive wasn't SAC policy.

We have a checklist

in our command post

that calls for us
to notify the OES.

Now, I'm not saying
it broke down there.

Don't misconstrue
what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is
from there on down,

there was no plan.

This is the test bed,

4-7 was the test bed,
and we never...

nothing like this
has ever happened before.

I tried to contact Colonel Moser
not too long after the accident,

and I was told that he was
no longer there.

It almost appeared that
he was gone in the night.

Even though, you know,
I'd just had three months there,

I was in charge,

and a senior guy is responsible
for the whole operation.

I expected I was going
to lose my job,

let's put it that way,
after that happened.

I thought that was...
that would be the next step,

and that happened
on Thanksgiving.

My regret was that
I took orders from my boss,

I clicked my heels
like a good soldier

and tried to execute
those orders as best I could.

And as a result of that,
we lost life.

I think about Livingston often...

What it'd be like
to still have him around

and call him up on the phone.

Jeff Kennedy passed away
a couple of years ago.

I have no doubt that Jeff died
from being involved at Damascus,

no doubt in my mind.

I hear a song on the radio,
I'll see something on TV,

and bam, there it is,
it's back, you know?

It's very hard to talk about,
even today.

I try to live
as normal a life as I can,

but there isn't a day goes by
that I don't think about it.

30, whatever, 35 years,
whatever it's been.

Every day.

It went like clockwork,

6,500 pounds of explosives
set to go at high noon.

It marked the beginning
of the end

for the 17 missile silos
in the state...

Perhaps a cruel fate
for a facility

that has served Arkansas
and the country for 25 years.

If you didn't know
they were there,

you wouldn't know
what it was now.

It just looks like a small hill.

I think nowadays,
people don't even think

about all the nuclear weapons
we have.

They think that's all
in the past

and that they're
not there anymore,

and the reality is
they're all over the place.

If nothing goes wrong
for seven or eight years,

people don't think about it,
don't realize it.

Unless you're working
in that industry, people forget.

Nuclear accidents continue
to the present day,

although there have not been
nearly as many occasions

of things being dropped
or blown out of silos.

In part, that's because
there are fewer of them.

On the other hand, the degree
of oversight and attention has,

if anything, gotten worse,

because people don't worry
about nuclear war as much.

Since the beginning
of the atomic age,

the United States has built
about 70,000 nuclear weapons.

None of them have ever detonated
by accident.

That's due to the skills
of our weapons designers,

whose safety recommendations
were finally adopted,

and the bravery
of our military personnel.

But it's also due to luck.

Pure luck.

And the problem with luck is
eventually, it runs out.

Nuclear weapons are machines,

and every machine ever invented
eventually goes wrong.

It doesn't matter
how much you plan,

it doesn't matter
how many checklists you have,

somebody's got a ringer
somewhere

they're going to throw out there
at you.

Nuclear weapons
will always have a chance

of an accidental detonation.

It will happen.

It may be tomorrow, or it may be
a million years from now,

but it will happen.

I don't wanna hear it

I don't wanna know

I just wanna run and hide

This is just a nightmare

Soon I'm gonna wake up

Someone's gonna bring me round

This is our warning

Four minute warning.