WEBVTT - Part Four: The Men Who Might Have Killed Us All 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:08.200 Also media, Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:10.920 about how everyone might die in nuclear hell fire. This 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:13.400 is part four of our series on the bastards who 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.279 built the doomsday device that we all currently live under, 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:18.800 the looming sword of Damocles above all of our heads, 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.080 the several thousand nuclear weapons ready at a moment's notice 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:24.919 to destroy everything any of us have ever loved or 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.319 cared about. Back with me to really get into some shit, 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.000 because I did not expect it to take this long 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.560 to get to the mid fifties. But there's a lot 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.560 to talk about. Margaret Kiljoy, how are you doing. 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:39.680 I'm good. I've come up with a strategy and the 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.560 strategies I've decided. I believe you are telling me Warhammer 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:45.479 forty k lore that. 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:46.800 Would make this a lot more comforting. 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.839 Huh. Yeah, this is just something that some space orcs 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:52.080 have decided to do. 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:54.400 There are orcs in space and Warhammer that's a very 0:00:54.440 --> 0:01:05.200 important part of the setting. So I'm going to start 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.920 this episode with something that happened concurrent to the last 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:09.960 couple of years that we've talked about in part three, 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.880 right as you know, the kind of fallout from the 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.840 Korean War is going on, and the US and the 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.679 Soviet nuclear stockpiles are ballooning from the hundreds to the thousands. 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.040 Curtis LeMay had, as I noted, become obsessed with the 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.360 idea of being able to land a first strike that 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.560 would compromise or cripple the Soviet ability to strike back. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.480 In public, President Eisenhower was very careful to only discuss 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.639 a US nuclear response in defensive terms, but in nineteen 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.240 fifty four, the Eisenhower Dulles Declaration announced that the US 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:44.000 would respond to Soviet provocation anywhere, even using conventional weapons 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.440 quote at places and with means of our own choosing. 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:52.000 The term massive retaliation came to symbolize the Eisenhower administration's 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:55.400 promise to the Soviet Union. Right, basically, if you provoke us, 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:58.560 if you fuck with us, we'll kill everybody. Right, that's 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:00.440 kind of the idea. You know, that's not exact, but 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:04.000 it's we will retaliate massively. And that that that isn't 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.120 that means nuclear, right. 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:08.359 Trying to have a fist fight with someone who has 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:10.120 like a suicide vest on and you're. 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.240 Just in a room, which, by the way, is the 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:14.240 best way to get into a fist fight, which is 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:15.880 why if you want to buy one of our patented 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.760 suicide vests today, you know, never get beat up again. Yeah, 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.280 or get beat up exactly one more time. It's probably 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:23.640 a more accurate way to look at the way the 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:24.560 suicide vest works. 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.640 Well, we've actually we've workshopped it. They're called lifefests, now. 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:31.519 Called life vest. Now we're currently suing the boat people 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:33.560 over their life vest. But I think this is going 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:34.440 to work out well for us. 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:36.720 The lawsuit worked really well because we went in wearing 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:37.440 our product. 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:39.720 Yeah, we wore our product and we can't. We brought 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:40.440 a life rate. 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:41.600 To by stopping. 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:47.800 Oh man. So this whole idea of the Eisenower Dolus declaration, 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.000 it's not a promise that we actually keep, right Eisenhower, 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:53.919 I think there's a degree to which I mean elements 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:55.360 of this are things that the US will do at 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.639 other times without using nuclear weapons. But Ike is fundamentally 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.839 a guy who he has some respect for human life. Right. 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.160 So there's this big conflict between Taiwan and the People's 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.399 Republic of China that comes very close during his presidency 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.839 to exploding into nuclear hostilities. Like we're seriously considering using 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:19.320 nukes to like basically like clear Taiwan's flanks, right, because 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.600 they're in a rough strategic situation for US to respond 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:26.360 to with anything else. But Eisenower proves less willing to 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.800 massively retaliate than he was willing to talk about massive retaliation, 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.280 and the situation eventually resolves without the use of nuclear weapons, 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.080 thank fucking God. Right, Yeah, So it is this situation 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.520 where Eisenhower is he wants to, he wants that threat 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.160 to be out there, but he really does not, and 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.640 none of our presidents really do. After Truman, they don't 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:50.440 want a nuke. People, they're really anti nuke because they're 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:54.320 not insane as a general rule, like Nixon kind of is, 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.720 but even he's not that crazy for the most part, Right, 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.800 for the most part. The evolving nature of nuclear warfare 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.040 it meant that units across the globe are now by 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.240 the mid to late fifties armed with nukes meant for 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.640 defensive purposes. This becomes an obsession for the military as 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:10.840 a whole. The idea was that nuclear weapons could be 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.360 launched to air burst and destroy entire fleets of Soviet 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.040 bombers or naval vessels at a time. Now by the 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:18.839 mid nineteen fifties, every American was well aware of the 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.279 horrors of nuclear war, and one of the few comforting 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:23.520 thoughts they could rely on was the fact that only 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.000 the president could order a nuclear attack. That was a lie. 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.720 Turns out that was not true. In the book Fifteen Minutes, L. 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:32.880 Douglas Keeney reveals, and I think this is the thing 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.240 that was came to light while he was writing his 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.280 book as a result of like information requests and stuff 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.080 that he was filing. But in nineteen fifty seven, this 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.160 was not known until very recently. In nineteen fifty seven, 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:48.279 President Eisenhower issued a presidential authorization that provided instructions for 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:52.760 field commanders to use nuclear weapons in specific defensive situations 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.840 without any outside approval. A small number of authorizing commanders 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.320 in chief even had the ability to launch and command 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.279 a retalian nuclear strike on the Soviet Union after a 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:06.000 direct attack on the United States. Right, it was never 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:09.240 really true during this period of time, like, at least 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:12.559 not after the middle of the Eisenhower administration, that only 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:14.800 the president could order a nuclear strike. For one thing, 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.440 there's no governor on these so theoretically anybody who had 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:22.000 one could have made the decision, but also Eisenhower gives 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.720 field commanders the ability and this is mainly meant for 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:26.520 with the exception of those guys who had that small 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:28.560 number of guys who could do a retaliatory strike. Most 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:30.760 of these are guys who if they see a fleet 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:35.279 of bombers incoming, they can fire anti aircraft nuclear artillery, right, Like, 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:37.679 it's that sort of thing. So it's not as crazy 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.880 as it could have been, but it's pretty crazy, right this. 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.640 Like this does have Would that have brought on like 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:45.600 if we had been like, oh, fuck these bombers and 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.640 nuked them in the sky, would that have like brought 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:50.680 on USSR's retaliation. 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:53.479 I mean, at that point, they were already sending a 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.760 bomber fleet over right, So I mean they probably would 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.320 have continued to fight. 0:05:59.120 --> 0:05:59.240 Right. 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.520 It's you know, at this point, because we don't have ICBMs, 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:04.840 we still might have had a nuclear war that didn't 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.680 kill everybody, right, because you could have theoretically had one 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.000 that was devastating enough that the major powers are not 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.640 able to keep fighting. But everything doesn't get expended because 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.000 we can't just launch thousands of ICBMs at a moment's notice, Right, 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.960 That's not really an option right now. What makes this dangerous, though, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.640 is that by the late nineteen fifties, there are nuclear 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.560 weapons US nuclear weapons fucking everywhere all over the world 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.920 at all times. Curtis LeMay had insisted from the beginning 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.160 because he's really obsessed with the SAC's readiness, right, and 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.640 so he from the jump is like, our bomber crews 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.680 have to train regularly by flying test missions with functional 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.520 nuclear weapons on board. It's not a real test if 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:47.239 they don't have an actual nuke on the plane, right. 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.240 Okay, I don't understand why, but. 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.839 Sure, well, because he's the craziest man who ever lived. 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:53.960 Our second text to MacArthur, maybe. 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.159 Yeah, you can only dry fire with bullets in. 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.320 The right, right, it's fucking insane. And what this means 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.440 practically is that from this point on, thousands of nuclear 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.800 weapons are flying across the US and the world. Every year. 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:08.200 There are always nukes flying around at all times, tons 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:12.000 of them. It's so scary, it's fucking insane. 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.280 That's okay, soviy, this is warhammer, yeah, warhammer lore. 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.200 In the early nineteen fifties, LeMay had developed the beginning 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.080 of a strategy to keep what he called an air 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.520 fleet in readiness, with planes always armed and always in 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.000 the air, with nukes ready to divert their course to 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:29.960 attack the Soviet heartland or other targets at a moment's notice. 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.200 The reasoning for this seemed sound to the men doing it. 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:35.640 If the Soviets knew that they could get away with 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.280 a first strike on the US, they might try. The 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.520 best way to make sure they never did was by 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.880 always having bombers in the air and ready to fight 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.440 at all times, which meant at all times dozens to 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.200 hundreds to even thousands of nukes might be out in 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.280 the world, and this meant there would always be nukes 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:56.160 going missing. Right, h If you are flying thousands of 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.680 flights a year that have nukes on them, a percentage 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.280 of those bombers are going to crash or are going 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:04.280 to need to drop their nukes in order to deal 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:06.680 with some sort of like engine trouble that is going 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.520 to happen. And it does, in fact happen, right, I'm 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.240 gonna guess people are aware that this has happened once 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.560 or twice, generally like a couple there was one off 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:20.480 like the coast of Spain. The reality is it happened constantly. 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.080 This happens so much more often than you would have 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.080 gett It's fucking shocking how many nukes we just straight 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.600 up lose. LeMay and his successor at the SAC General 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.680 Power considered it a necessity that the US always have 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.320 armed nuclear bombers in the air, and a consequence of 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:38.280 that is, of course, all these things getting lost. I'm 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.360 gonna provide you with two examples. Operation Reflex was an 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.040 ESSAC training mission to switch crews on ground alert every 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.200 twenty one days. This is kind of the start of 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:50.720 what allowed. Like, we always have a fleet of bombers 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.320 that are like six to fifteen minutes away from being 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.520 in the air. They have a nuke on them, they're 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:57.400 loaded up and fueled up on the tarmac. They have 0:08:57.440 --> 0:08:59.440 a crew and a bunker nearby that can run onto 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:01.240 the plane and take off at a moment's notice. Right, 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:03.800 And we also have I think it's like ten or 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:06.680 eleven percent of those planes are flying with a bomb 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:08.920 in them at any given time. Right, That's what operates. 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.520 It starts as a testing plan to see if this 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:14.000 is feasible, and in July of nineteen fifty seven, we 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.560 make this like the SAC standard Plan each B forty 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:20.880 seven bomber flying out on reflex overseas or heading home 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.559 carried a six thousand pound four megaton Mk thirty nine 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:29.040 hydrogen bomb. These are these thermonuclear depth machines. That same month, 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:32.440 a B forty seven in Texas crashed, killing the four 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.280 man crew. The crash listed the bomber as part of 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.839 the emergency war plan load, but as Kini notes in 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.560 the book fifteen minutes, as of this writing, No nineteen 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:43.240 fifty seven bomber crash in Texas is included in any 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:48.200 official document disclosing accents evolving nuclear weapons. And there are 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.640 several of these where, well, we know that plane crashed, 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:53.640 and based on how it was coded, we know it 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:55.480 should have had a nuke on it, but they never 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:59.400 reported losing a nuke because they covered it up. So 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.960 this new presumably just blew up in Texas and they 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:04.240 kind of they covered it up. 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.240 You know, how often are they just being like, oh, whoops, 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.600 it fell off the back of the truck. All off 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:10.360 the back of the truck. 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:12.319 No, not off a truck. They're falling out a plane. 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:14.679 Oh so I mean, like, are they being stolen? Like 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:15.839 are they ever like. 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:18.560 Not that we know not that we know that there's 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.959 not evidence of that. What's actually happening is much dumber 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.600 than if they like someone stealing a nuke, and scarier, 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.560 to be honest. There are several examples like this, you know, 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.160 where a bomber that we know should have been loaded 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:33.400 with a nuke crashed and no report was ever made 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:37.520 of a nuke getting lost. But cover ups weren't always possible. 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:40.880 The same month that General Power takes over sac command 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.360 from LeMay, who goes on himself become the vice chief 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.360 of Staff and then Chief of Staff or the Air Force, 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.840 a C four cargo plane bound for an air base 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.560 in Morocco with three atom bombs encountered engine trouble between 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.520 Rehoboth Beach and Cape May, New Jersey. The pilot ejected 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.440 two out of three nuclear bombs on his plane to 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.160 lighten the load. These fall in the ocean, and the 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.600 Navy searches for the bombs and doesn't find any of 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.079 them ever, even though the ocean is just one hundred 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.120 and fifty feet deep at some parts of the potential 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.360 drop zone. So at like New Treasure questus, yes this 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.680 is dropped. There are folks listeners. If you live in 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.280 the Jersey area. You could be the owner of an 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.360 Mk five atom bomb if you just spend some time 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:25.840 swimming around in the ocean. 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:26.080 You know. 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.600 And once you've got a nuke for one thing, you're 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:31.600 not paying taxes anymore. I'll tell you that much, brother. 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:35.280 Can you got a lot of You got a lot 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:37.079 of leverage if you get your if you become a 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:43.400 nuclear armed state in and of yourself, it always goes well. Yeah, 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:46.840 so again, both three thousand pound Mk five bombs are missing. 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.320 To this day, these are never found. The number of 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:53.600 times this happens is fucking shocking. Nineteen fifty seven is 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:55.559 a key year for our story because it is the 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.520 year that we start being fifteen to thirty minutes away 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.960 from nuclear catastrophe at any given time. On August twenty six, 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:06.440 the Kremlin announces their first successful ICBM test. Their new missile, 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.000 the SS six Sapwood, could travel six thousand miles carrying 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.800 a warhead. Soviet premiere Nikita Krushchev bragged could make Europe 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.520 or the United States quote a veritable cemetery. A couple 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.520 of months later, in October, Spudnik entered orbit. If you're 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.040 wondering why that freaked out Americans so much. This is 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:24.880 one of those things I actually I have a little 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.600 more under empathy for, like why so many people because Oh, 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.480 because they also fired an ICBM right before that. Yeah, 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:35.079 that's a little scary, Okay, So they invented the ICBM, 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.240 they get they have a functional ICBM before we do. 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.080 They have a successful test before we do, not long before, 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.920 because between those two events. In September of nineteen fifty seven, 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:48.480 the u SO, after the Soviets launched their ICBM before Spudnik, 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:52.679 the US Air Force tests its first Atlas ICBM successfully. 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.920 Now it can't really hit things accurately yet, but the 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.160 idea is you're going to stick a thermonuclear bomb on 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.200 this thing, probably, So it doesn't really if you're off 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:03.440 by a couple by a mile or two even, Yeah, 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:07.320 but you'll do some damage. Probably. In November of that year, 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.880 General Power revealed to the public for the first time 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.199 that the Air Force was maintaining a fleet of ground 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.280 alert bombers in a permanent state of readiness. Eleven percent 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.760 of the SAC's fleet was always parked on a runway, 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:19.560 loaded with a live nuke, ready to take off in 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.120 less than fifteen minutes, and a certain number of bombers 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.160 were kept up in the air at all times when 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:26.679 they admitted they are bombed up and they don't carry 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:27.800 bows and arrows. 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:29.960 Bombed up, bombed up. 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.079 Maybe, Yeah, it sounds like he's because like he's kind 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:37.079 of horny for these things. Yeah, in this period after 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.520 the ice So the ICBMs exist now, but they're not 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:41.559 a viable weapons system yet. Right, We've had we have 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.560 our proof of concept, but we don't We don't immediately 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.040 go from testing an ICBM to having them ready to fire, right. 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:49.800 It takes a little bit of time. You know, that's 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:54.480 just science. Right, So during this kind of awkward inner 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.920 still period, the actual odds of an accidental nuclear war 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:00.960 are extremely low. For one reason. The only way to 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.319 deliver an atom bomb is by air, right, I mean, 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:05.320 you could drive it somewhere, set it off on the ground, 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:07.880 but really, like realistically you're going to be using like 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:10.920 a bomber or a tailler's you can't launch it across 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.120 continents yet, right, unless you're flying it. That means that 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.120 you could theoretically, if you send out a bomber fleet 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.960 to start a nuclear war, you could because you're in 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.840 contact with these guys, you could theoretically recall that bomber 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.000 fleet right up to the last moment. You can't do 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.360 that with ICBMs. People think you can. People think you 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:30.800 can do it with like the sub mounted nukes, we cannot. 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.360 It is not possible once they're launched there heading for 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.560 their targets, right, that's how these things work. But you 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.200 can recall bombers if you can reach them up until 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.280 the last minute, right now, if you can reach them 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.000 is a key part of this, because that presents a 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:47.760 conundrum to the SAC. This is the fucking late fifties. 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.720 Coms aren't as good as they're going to be. That 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.080 we're starting to figure out stuff that will allow us 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.760 to stay in regular contact, you know, in all sorts 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.960 of situations, but it's not nearly good enough for us 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.840 to gamble the survival of the human race on right. 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.640 And the SAC has another problem, which is that nobody 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.440 outside of their weird little death cult is comfortable yet 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:10.880 with the idea of nukes being sent off without a 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:13.240 way to recall them. And while radio code, you know, 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.320 it's just not there's not a great, perfect way to 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.160 guarantee you can reach these bombers. And that's really important. 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:21.920 And this brings us to one of the most interesting 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:27.080 innovations in nuclear war and it's honestly the simplest. This 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:31.400 doesn't require any technology whatsoever, and it's maybe it may 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:33.800 have saved the world. Right, we may all exist because 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:38.560 of this. It's called Project fail Safe now rather than 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:42.000 relying on technology which could fail. The way failsafe worked 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:46.280 is that all dispatched bombers were under permanent orders to 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.960 return without dropping their payloads, no matter what they were 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:54.080 ordered to do, unless they were transmitted to GO code. Right. 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.920 The innovation of fail safe isn't that a got This 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:03.120 is important. The go code does not trigger the bombing, right. Instead, 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:07.240 the default is in all instances, return home without bombing 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.000 unless you're given the code. And that's a meaningful distinction, right. 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:13.760 That means there's no room for a bomber public. Well, 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:15.520 they didn't give us the go code, but right over 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:17.880 the target, should we do it? No, you fly home 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.120 unless you get the code, right, yeah, And that's tech proof. 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:23.560 It doesn't matter if your coms are out right, and 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:26.680 that means the default assumption is we should err on 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:28.720 the side of not dropping the bombs. 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.920 Right. No, that seems so obvious in retrospect, but it 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.640 makes sense that that was like literally a technological development. 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:36.720 Yeah, it was an It was a development by a 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:40.720 single dude at the Rand Corporation named Albert Wolstetter. He 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.560 visualized failsafe, and again you could argue this guy might 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:44.800 have saved all of humanity. 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:45.520 Was doing so. 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.320 Good idea. Thank you, Albert. 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.280 The opposite of a dead man's switch, you know, yeah, yeah, 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:55.800 it's a it's a I guess, a live man switch. 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:59.720 I don't know. Speaking of a dead man switched, I 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:03.920 have one that will launch a nuclear attack unless you 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.760 spend money on the products and services advertise on the show. 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:17.760 Oh boy, we're back. So we've just hit the point 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.800 where failsafe has been implemented and. 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:22.560 Which were fit on your knuckles. I'm just going to 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:23.159 point out. 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.240 Right, Oh actually, yeah, that's a pretty good idea. Yeah yeah, 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.120 I've been meaning to get a knuckle tattoo. So yeah, 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:31.920 we've now reduced the risk of some guys starting World 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.080 War three because the radio goes out right, which is 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.280 a good thing to do. Now, in February of nineteen 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:40.240 fifty eight, the Strategic Air Command has another nuclear error, 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:42.880 a bomber and a fighter wing in Florida. We're doing 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.359 a training mission which for some reason required a trio 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:47.240 of fighters to try and intercept a pair of B 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:50.480 forty seven bombers armed with actual one point six megaton 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.280 Mk fifteen nuclear bombs. One of these fighters fucked up 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.080 and crashed into one of the bombers, damaging its engines. 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:59.760 The bomber had to come in for an emergency landing, 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.399 but the nearest airfield was under construction, and to make 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:04.480 a long story short, the pilot was worried that when 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:06.680 landing they would crash into something that would send the 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.920 nuke in their bombay launching forward like a bullet into 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.600 the crew cabin. In order to protect the crew, the 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.480 pilot dropped a nuclear bomb somewhere over the Wasauce Sound, 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.520 east of Savannah, Georgia. It may have been two bombs. 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.199 It's a little unclear to me. These are never found. 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.399 This bomb is never found. It is theoretically still some 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:27.400 east east of Savannah to this day. 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.280 Oh my god, I'm gonna write terrible fiction about a 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:33.160 crew of people who go and find these things. 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.280 Go new Cutting, Let's go find up. Let's get us 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.480 a nuke yeah, yeah, we could be the we could 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:40.399 be at finally a nuclear armed podcast. This is this 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.879 is what podcasting has been missing. So it's obviously big 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.920 news that we dropped atomic bombs on our own Georgia, 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.480 not even the one overseas, and the good people of 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.000 that state expected the Air Force to recover the nuke. 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:56.359 A study of the Air Force press releases around this 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.600 matter is useful. Their first message denounced the jettisoning of 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.240 a portion of a nuclear weapon and added that no 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.840 one knew quote whether the nuclear device landed in the 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:09.280 sea or on land. Great, there's a chance some hillbilly 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:11.879 has just been passing this nuke down to his kids 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.000 for the last like, that's. 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:16.439 What I want. Now they'll be like, you take some 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:20.399 pride in our family. We are incular power. Yeah. 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.000 Now, don't don't touch it too much. I don't really 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:23.679 know how it works. 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:24.920 Yeah. 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.920 Now, when they dropped these this bomb or bombs, both 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.440 pilots took coordinates down for where they thought they were 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.479 when they dropped it. But they both write down different 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.399 sets of coordinates, which is a real watermark for the 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:41.200 competency of our brave boys in the sac. After several 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:43.440 days of searching with no luck. The Air Force issued 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.200 another press release elaborating that the bomb had been carried 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:51.080