20 Mishaps
That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War
by
Alan F. Philips, M.D.
Ever since the
two adversaries in the Cold War, the U.S.A. an the U.S.S.R., realized
that their nuclear arsenals were sufficient to do disastrous damage
to both countries at short notice, the leaders and the military
commanders have thought about the possibility of a nuclear war starting
without their intention or as a result of a false alarm. Increasingly
elaborate accessories have been incorporated in nuclear weapons
and their delivery systems to minimize the risk of unauthorized
or accidental launch or detonation. A most innovative action was
the establishment of the "hot line" between Washington and Moscow
in 1963 to reduce the risk of misunderstanding between the supreme
commanders.
Despite all
precautions, the possibility of an inadvertent war due to an unpredicted
sequence of events remained as a deadly threat to both countries
and to the world. That is the reason I am prepared to spend the
rest of my life working for abolition of nuclear weapons.
One way a war
could start is a false alarm via one of the warning systems, followed
by an increased level of nuclear forces readiness while the validity
of the information was being checked. This action would be detected
by the other side, and they would take appropriate action; detection
of the response would tend to confirm the original false alarm;
and so on to disaster. A similar sequence could result from an accidental
nuclear explosion anywhere. The risk of such a sequence developing
would be increased if it happened during a period of increased international
tension.
On the American
side many "false alarms" and significant accidents have been listed
, ranging from trivial to very serious, during the Cold War . Probably
many remain unknown to the public and the research community because
of individuals' desire to avoid blame and maintain the good reputation
of their unit or command. No doubt there have been as many mishaps
on the Soviet Side.
Working with
any new system, false alarms are more likely. The rising moon was
misinterpreted as a missile attack during the early days of long-range
radar. A fire at a broken gas pipeline was believed to be enemy
jamming by laser of a satellites infrared sensor when those
sensors were first deployed.
The risks are
illustrated by the following selection of mishap. If the people
involved had exercised less caution, or if some unfortunate coincidental
event had occurred, escalation to nuclear war can easily be imagined.
Details of some of the events differ in different sources: where
there have been disagreements, I have chosen to quote those from
the carefully researched book, The Limits of Safety by Scott
D. Sagan. Sagan gives references to original sources in all instances.
The following
selections represent only a fraction of the false alarms that have
been reported on the American side. Many probably remain unreported,
or are hidden in records that remain classified. There are likely
to have been as many on the Soviet Side which are even more difficult
to access.
1) November
5, 1956: Suez Crisis Coincidence
British and
French Forces were attacking Egypt at the Suez Canal;. The Soviet
Government had suggested to the U.S. that they combine forces to
stop this by a joint military action, and had warned the British
and French governments that (non-nuclear) rocket attacks on London
and Paris were being considered. That night NORAD HQ received messages
that:
(i) unidentified
aircraft were flying over Turkey and the Turkish air force was on
alert
(ii) 100 Soviet
MIG-15's were flying over Syria
(iii) a British
Canberra bomber had been shot down over Syria
(iv) the Soviet
fleet was moving through the Dardanelles.
It is reported
that in the U.S.A. General Goodpaster himself was concerned that
these events might trigger the NATO operations plan for nuclear
strikes against the U.S.S.R.
The four reports
were all shown afterwards to have innocent explanations. They were
due, respectively, to:
(i) a flight
of swans
(ii) a routine
air force escort (much smaller than the number reported) for the
president of Syria, who was returning from a visit to Moscow
(iii) the Canberra
bomber was forced down by mechanical problems
(iv) the Soviet
fleet was engaged in scheduled routine exercises.
2) November
24, 1961: BMEWS Communication Failure
On the night
of November 24, 1961, all communication links went dead between
SAC HQ and NORAD. The communication loss cut off SAC HQ from the
three Ballistic Missile Early Warning Sites (BMEWS) at Thule (Greenland,)
Clear (Alaska,) and Fillingdales (England,). There were two possible
explanations facing SAC HQ: either enemy action, or the coincidental
failure of all the communication systems, which had redundant and
ostensibly independent routes, including commercial telephone circuits.
All SAC bases in the United States were therefore alerted, and B-52
bomber crews started their engines, with instructions not to to
take off without further orders. Radio communication was established
with an orbiting B-52 on airborne alert, near Thule. It contacted
the BMEWS stations by radio and could report that no attack had
taken place.
The reason for
the "coincidental" failure was the redundant routes for telephone
and telegraph between NORAD and SAC HQ all ran through one relay
station in Colorado. At that relay station a motor had overheated
and caused interruption of all the lines.
3) August
23, 1962: B-52 Navigation Error
SAC Chrome Dome
airborne alert route included a leg from the northern tip of Ellesmore
Island, SW across the Arctic Ocean to Barter Island, Alaska. On
August 23, 1962, a B-52 nuclear armed bomber crew made a navigational
error and flew 20 degrees too far north. They approached within
300 miles of Soviet airspace near Wrangel island, where there was
believed to be an interceptor base with aircraft having an operational
radius of 400 miles.
Because of the
risk of repetition of such an error, in this northern area where
other checks on Navigation are difficult to obtain, it was decided
to fly a less provocative route in the future. However, the necessary
orders had not been given by the time of the Cuban missile crisis
in October 1962, so throughout that crisis the same northern route
was being flown 24 hours a day.
4) August-October,
1962: U2 Flights into Soviet Airspace
U2 high altitude
reconnaissance flights from Alaska occasionally strayed unintentionally
into Soviet airspace. One such episode occurred in August 1962.
During the Cuban missile crisis on October of 1962, the U2 pilots
were ordered not to fly within 100 miles of Soviet airspace.
On the night
of October 26, for a reason irrelevant to the crisis, a U2 pilot
was ordered to fly a new route, over the north pole, where positional
checks on navigation were by sextant only. That night the aurora
prevented good sextant readings and the plane strayed over the Chukotski
Peninsula. Soviet MIG interceptors took off with orders to shoot
down the U2. The pilot contacted his U.S. command post and was ordered
to fly due east towards Alaska. He ran out of fuel while still over
Siberia. In response to his S.O.S., U.S. F102-A fighters were launched
to escort him on his glide to Alaska, with orders to prevent the
MIG's from entering U.S. airspace. The U.S. interceptor aircraft
were armed with nuclear missiles. These could have been used by
any one of the F102-A pilots at his own discretion.
5) October
24, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: A Soviet Satellite Explodes
On October 24,
a Soviet satellite entered its own parking orbit, and shortly afterward
exploded. Sir Bernard Lovell, director of the Jodrell Bank observatory
wrote in 1968: "the explosion of a Russian spacecraft in orbit during
the Cuban missile crisis... led the U.S. to believe that the USSR
was launching a massive ICBM attack." The NORAD Command Post logs
of the dates in question remain classified, possibly to conceal
reaction to the event. Its occurrence is recorded, and U.S. space
tracking stations were informed on October 31 of debris resulting
from the breakup of "62 BETA IOTA."
6) October
25, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: Intruder in Duluth
At around midnight
on October 25, a guard at the Duluth Sector Direction Center saw
a figure climbing the security fence. He shot at it, and activated
the "sabotage alarm." This automatically set off sabotage alarms
at all bases in the area. At Volk Field, Wisconsin, the alarm was
wrongly wired, and the Klaxon sounded which ordered nuclear armed
F-106A interceptors to take off. The pilots knew there would be
no practice alert drills while DEFCON 3 was in force, and they believed
World War III had started.
Immediate communication
with Duluth showed there was an error. By this time aircraft were
starting down the runway. A car raced from command center and successfully
signaled the aircraft to stop. The original intruder was a bear.
7) October
26, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: ICBM Test Launch
At Vandenburg
Air Force Base, California, there was a program of routine ICBM
test flights. When DEFCON 3 was ordered all the ICBM's were fitted
with nuclear warheads except one Titan missile that was scheduled
for a test launch later that week. That one was launched for its
test, without further orders from Washington, at 4a.m. on the 26th.
It must be assumed
that Russian observers were monitoring U.S. missile activities as
closely as U.S. observers were monitoring Russian and Cuban activities.
They would have known of the general changeover to nuclear warheads,
but not that this was only a test launch.
8) October
26, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: Unannounced Titan Missile Launch
During the Cuba
crisis, some radar warning stations that were under construction
and near completion were brought into full operation as fast as
possible. The planned overlap of coverage was thus not always available.
A normal test
launch of a Titan-II ICBM took place in the afternoon of October
26, from Florida to the South Pacific. It caused temporary concern
at Moorestown Radar site until its course could be plotted and showed
no predicted impact within the United States. It was not until after
this event that the potential for a serious false alarm was realized,
and orders were given that radar warning sites must be notified
in advance of test launches, and the countdown be relayed to them.
9) October
26, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: Malstrom Air Force Base
When DEFCON
2 was declared on October 24, solid fuel Minuteman-1 missiles at
Malmstrom Air Force Base were being prepared for full deployment.
The work was accelerated to ready the missiles for operation, without
waiting for the normal handover procedures and safety checks. When
one silo and missile were ready on October 26 no armed guards were
available to cover transport from the normal separate storage, so
the launch enabling equipment and codes were all placed in the silo.
It was thus physically possible for a single operator to launch
a fully armed missile at a SIOP target.
During the remaining
period of the Crisis the several missiles at Malstrom were repeatedly
put on and off alert as errors and defects were found and corrected.
Fortunately no combination of errors caused or threatened an unauthorized
launch, but in the extreme tension of the period the danger can
be well imagined.
10) October,
1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: NATO Readiness
It is recorded
on October 22, that British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and
NATO Supreme Commander, General Lauris Norstad agreed not to put
NATO on alert in order to avoid provocation of the U.S.S.R. When
the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered DEFCON 3 Norstad was authorized
to use his discretion in complying. Norstad did not order
a NATO alert. However, several NATO subordinate commanders did order
alerts to DEFCON 3 or equivalent levels of readiness at bases in
West Germany, Italy, Turkey, and United Kingdom. This seems largely
due to the action of General Truman Landon, CINC U.S. Air Forces
Europe, who had already started alert procedures on October 17 in
anticipation of a serious crisis over Cuba.
11) October,
1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: British Alerts
When the U.S.
SAC went to DEFCON 2, on October 24, Bomber Command (the U.K.) was
carrying out an unrelated readiness exercise. On October 26, Air
Marshall Cross, CINC of Bomber Command, decided to prolong the exercise
because of the Cuba crisis, and later increased the alert status
of British nuclear forces, so that they could launch in 15 minutes.
It seems likely
that Soviet intelligence would perceive these moves as part of a
coordinated plan in preparation for immediate war. They could not
be expected to know that neither the British Minister of Defense
nor Prime Minister Macmillian had authorized them.
It is disturbing
to note how little was learned from these errors in Europe. McGeorge
Bundy wrote in Danger and Survival (New York: Random House
1988), "the risk [of nuclear war] was small, given the prudence
and unchallenged final control of the two leaders."
12) October
28, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: Moorestown False Alarm
Just before
9 a.m., on October 28, the Moorestown, New Jersey, radar operators
informed the national command post that a nuclear attack was under
way. A test tape simulating a missile launch from Cuba was being
run, and simultaneously a satellite came over the horizon.
Operators became
confused and reported by voice line to NORAD HQ that impact was
expected 18 miles west of Tampa at 9:02 a.m. The whole of NORAD
was reported, but before irrevocable action had taken place it was
reported that no detonation had taken place at the predicted time,
and Moorestown operators reported the reason for the false alarm.
During the incident
overlapping radars that should have confirmed or disagreed
were not in operation . The radar post had not received routine
information of satellite passage because the facility carrying out
that task had been given other work for the duration of the crisis.
13) October
28, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: False Warning Due to Satellite
At 5:26 p.m.
on October 28, the Laredo radar warning site had just become operational.
Operators misidentified a satellite in orbit as two possible missiles
over Georgia and reported by voice line to NORAD HQ. NORAD was unable
to identify that the warning came from the new station at Laredo
and believed it to be from Moorestown, and therefore more reliable.
Moorestown failed to intervene and contradict the false warning.
By the time the CINC, NORAD had been informed, no impact had been
reported and the warning was "given low credence."
14) November
2, 1962: The Penkovsky False Warning
In the fall
of 1962, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky was working with the Soviets as
a double agent for the (U.S.) C.I.A. He had been given a code by
which to warn the CIA if he was convinced that a Soviet attack on
the United States was imminent. He was to call twice, one minute
apart, and only blow into the receiver. Further information was
then to be left at a "dead drop" in Moscow.
The pre-arranged
code message was received by the CIA on November 2, 1962.
It was known
at the CIA that Penkovsky had been arrested on October 22. Penkovsky
knew he was going to be executed. It is not known whether he had
told the KGB the meaning of the code signal or only how it would
be given, nor is it known exactly why or with what authorization
the KGB staff used it. When another CIA agent checked the dead drop
he was arrested.
15) November,
1965: Power Failure and Faulty Bomb Alarms
Special bomb
alarms were installed near military facilities and near cities in
the U.S.A., so that the locations of nuclear bursts would be transmitted
before the expected communication failure. The alarm circuits were
set up to display a red signal at command posts the instant that
the flash of a nuclear detonation reached the sensor and before
the blast put it out of action. Normally the display would show
a green signal, and yellow if the sensor was not operating or was
out of communication for any other reason.
During the commercial
power failure in the NE United States, in November 1965, displays
from all the bomb alarms for the area should have shown yellow.
In fact, two of them from different cities showed red because of
circuit errors. The effect was consistent with the power failure
being due to nuclear weapons explosions, and the Command Center
of the Office of Emergency Planning went on full alert. Apparently
the military did not.
16) January
21, 1968: B-52 Crash near Thule
Communication
between NORAD HQ and the BMEWS station at Thule had 3 elements:
1. Direct radio
communication.
2. A "bomb alarm"
as described above.
3. Radio Communication
relayed by a b-52 bomber on airborne alert.
On January 21,
1968, a fire broke out in the b-52 bomber on airborne alert near
Thule. The pilot prepared for an emergency landing at the base.
However the situation deteriorated rapidly, and the crew had to
bale out. There had been no time to communicate with SAC HQ, and
the pilotless plane flew over the Thule base before crashing on
the ice 7 miles miles offshore. Its fuel and high explosive component
of its nuclear weapons exploded, but there was no nuclear detonation.
At that time,
the "one point safe" condition of the nuclear weapons could not
be guaranteed, and it is believed that a nuclear explosion could
have resulted form accidental detonation of the high explosive trigger.
Had there been a nuclear detonation even at 7 miles distant, and
certainty much nearer the base, all three communication methods
would have given an indication consistent with a succsessful nuclear
attack on both the base and the B-52 bomber. The bomb alarm would
have shown red, and the other two communication paths would have
gone dead. It would hardly have been anticipated that the combination
could have been caused by accident, particularly as the map of the
routes for B-52 airborne flights approved by the President showed
no flight near to Thule. The route had been apparently changed without
informing the White House.
17) October
24-25, 1973: False Alarm During Middle East Crisis
On October 24,
1973, when the U.N. sponsored cease fire intended to end the Arab-Israeli
war was in force, further fighting stared between Egyptian and Israeli
troops in the Sinai desert. U.S. intelligence reports and other
sources suggested that the U.S.S.R. was planning to intervene to
protect the Egyptians. President Nixon was in the throes of Watergate
episode and not available for a conference, so Kissinger and other
U.S. officials ordered DEFCON 3. The consequent movements of aircraft
and troops were of course observed by Soviet intelligence. The purpose
of the alert was not to prepare for war, but to warn the U.S.S.R.
not to intervene in the Sinai. However, if the following accident
had not been promptly corrected then the Soviet command might have
had a more dangerous interpretation.
On October 25,
while DEFCON 3 was in force, mechanics were repairing one of the
Klaxons at Kinchole Air Force Base, Michigan, and accidentally activated
the whole base alarm system. B-52 crews rushed to their aircraft
and started the engines. The duty officer recognized the alarm was
false and recalled the crews before any took off.
18) November
9, 1979: Computer Exercise Tape
At 8:50 a.m.
on November 9, 1979, duty officers at 4 command centers (NORAD HQ,
SAC Command Post, The Pentagon National Military Command Center,
and the Alternate National Military Command Center) all saw on their
displays a pattern showing a large number of Soviet Missiles in
a full scale attack on the U.S.A. During the next 6 minutes emergency
preparations for retaliation were made. A number of Air Force planes
were launched, including the President's National Emergency Airborne
Command Post, though without the President! The President had not
been informed, perhaps because he could not be found.
No attempt was
made to use the hot line either to ascertain the Soviet intentions
or to tell the Soviets the reasons for U.S. actions. This seems
to me to have been culpable negligence. The whole purpose of the
"Hot Line" was to prevent exactly the type of disaster that was
threatening at that moment.
With commendable
speed, NORAD was able to contact PAVE PAWS early warning radar and
learn that no missiles had been reported. Also, the sensors on the
satellites were functioning that day and had detected no missiles.
In only 6 minutes the threat assessment conference was terminated.
The reason for
the false alarm was an exercise tape running on the computer system.
U.S. Senator Charles Percy happened to be in NORAD HQ at the time
and is reported to have said there was absolute panic. A question
was asked in Congress. The General Accounting Office conducted an
investigation, and an off-site testing facility was constructed
so that test tapes did not in the future have to be run on a system
that could be in military operation.
19) June
, 1980: Faulty Computer Chip
The Warning
displays at the Command Centers mentioned in the last episode included
windows that normally showed
0000 ICBMs detected
0000 SLBMs detected
At 2:25 a.m.
on June 3, 1980, these displays started showing various numbers
of missiles detected, represented by 2's in place of one or more
0's. Preparations for retaliation were instituted, including nuclear
bomber crews staring their engines, launch of Pacific Command's
Airborne Command Post, and readying of Minutemen missiles for launch.
It was not difficult to assess that this was a false alarm because
the numbers displayed were not rational.
While the cause
of that false alarm was still being investigated 3 days later, the
same thing happened and again preparations were made for retaliation.
The cause was a single faulty chip that was failing in a random
fashion. The basic design of the system was faulty, allowing this
single failure to cause a deceptive display at several command posts.
The following
incident is added to illustrate that even now, when the Cold War
has been over for 8 years errors can still cause concern. This particular
one could have hardly brought nuclear retaliation.; but there are
still 30,000 nuclear weapons deployed, and two nuclear weapon states
could get into a hostile adversarial status again.
20) January,
1995: Russian False Alarm
On January 25,
1995, the Russian early warning radars detected an unexpected
missile launch near Spitzbergen. The estimated flight time to Moscow
was 5 minutes. The Russian President, the Defense Minister and the
Chief of Staff were informed. The early warning and the control
and command center switched to combat mode. Within 5 minutes, the
radars determined that the missile's impact would be outside
the Russian borders.
The missile
was Norwegian, and was launched for scientific measurements. ON
January 16, Norway had notified 35 countries including Russia that
the launch was planned. Information had apparently reached the Russian
Defense Ministry, but failed to reach the on-duty personnel of the
early warning system.
See article
in Scientific American by Bruce
G. Blair, Harold A. Feiveson and Frank N. von Hippel
Comment
and Note On Probability
The probability
of actual progression to nuclear war on any one of the occasions
listed may have been small, due to planned "fail-safe" features
had failed. However, the accumulation of small probabilities of
disaster from a long sequence of risks add up to serious danger.
There is no
way of telling what the actual level of risk was in these mishaps
but if the chance of disaster in every one of the 20 incidents had
been only 1 in 100, it is mathematical fact that the chance of surviving
al 20 would have been 82%, i.e. about the same as the chance of
surviving a single pull of the trigger at Russian roulette played
with a 6 shooter. With a similar series of mishaps on the Soviet
side: another pull of the trigger. If the risk in some of the events
had been as high as 1 in 10, then the chance of surviving just seven
such events would have been less than 50:50.
Acronyms
BMEWS: Ballistic
Missile Early Warning Site
CIA: Central
Intelligence Agency
CINC: Commander
in Chief
DEFCON: Defense
Readiness Condition (DEFCON 5 is the peacetime state; DEFCON 1 is
a maximum war readiness).
HQ: Headquarters
ICBM: Intercontinental
Ballistic Missile (land based)
KGB: Soviet
Secret Police and Intelligence
NORAD: North
American Air Defense Command
PAVE PAWS: Precision
Acquisition of Vehicle Entry Phased-Array Warning System
SAC: Strategic
Air Command
SIOP: Single
Integrated Operational Plan
SLBM: Submarine
Launched Ballistic Missile
Principal
Sources
Britten, Stewart:
The Invisible Event, (London: Menard Press, 1983).
Calder, Nigel:
Nuclear Nightmares, (London: British Broadcasting Corporation,
1979)
Peace Research
Reviews, vol. ix: 4, 5 (1984); vol. x: 3, 4 (1986) (Dundas,
ON.: Peace Research Institute, Dundas).
Sagan, Scott
D.: The Limits of Safety, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, (1993).
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