Goldsboro, North Carolina Is Where The Atomic Bomb Nearly Detonated
According to recently declassified documents published by the British newspaper, The Guardian, a Hydrogen Bomb almost detonated about 50 miles east of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser obtained conclusive evidence from a Freedom of Information Act inquiry that not one but two hydrogen bombs were dropped from a B-52 airplaine that broke up in the air over Goldsboro, North Carolina.
He recounts how in one incident in 1961, days after President John F Kennedy’s inauguration, two hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped on Goldsboro, North Carolina, as a B-52 bomber went into a tailspin.
Eric Schlosser detailed everything in his book “Command and Control.”
Hardcover edition: Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (Thorndike Press Large Print Nonfiction Series)
Kindle version: Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion ofSafety
Only the failure of a single low-voltage switch prevented disaster, Schlosser explains to the BBC’s Katty Kay.
“The bomb assumed it was being deliberately released over an enemy target – and went through all its arming mechanisms save one, and very nearly detonated over North Carolina,” said Schlosser.
“And Robert McNamara had just become secretary of defense and he was terrified by this news. We nearly had a hydrogen bomb detonate a few days after JFK’s inauguration that would have changed literally the course of history.”
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