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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

30 Oct

OTD 55 years ago, this small announcement of a new federal construction contract appeared in the Baltimore Sun. It probably didn't attract much attention, but the facility it referenced would go onto become an integral part of the US government's plans to survive a nuclear war.

Built and operated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Virginia, and dedicated on December 10, 1969, the bunker inside Mount Pony, about 70 miles SW of Washington, DC, served as the central hub for all electronic funds transfers in America. But it also had a secret function.

From December 1969 until 1988, the Federal Reserve stored several billion dollars of shrink-wrapped currency—incl. for awhile a large number of $2 bills—in a 23,500 sq. ft. vault in this 139,800 sq. ft. radiation-hardened building. The money was in 9-foot high stacks on pallets.

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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

30 Oct

60 years ago today, the Soviet Union tested the largest-ever thermonuclear bomb—a 50-Mt RDS-220 (originally designed for 100 Mt). The device, later dubbed “Tsar Bomba,” was dropped by a Tu-95 Bear bomber and exploded ~13,123 feet above Novaya Zemlya inside the Arctic Circle.

The RDS-220—designed and built in only 4 months—was 26 ft. long, 6.9 ft. in diameter, and weighed 59,525 lbs., including an 1,800-lb. retardation parachute. It was released above 34,000 ft. and fell for 188 seconds, allowing the aircraft time to reach a safe distance (~30 miles).

The 50-Megaton blast was more than 3,300 times as powerful as the 15-kiloton atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. It was 10 times more powerful than _all_ of the conventional munitions used in World War II. Although skies were cloudy, the flash was visible 621 miles away.

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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

30 Oct

Today in 1958, the United States conducted its last four nuclear tests (all in Nevada) before entering into a mutual testing moratorium with the Soviet Union during negotiations on a nuclear test ban treaty:

Santa Fe—W54 below a tethered balloon 1,500 ft. above Yucca Flat, 1.3kt

Ganymede—zero yield safety experiment of a W45 variant in a containment structure on Yucca Flat
Blanca—alternate W47 primary in a tunnel 987 feet beneath Rainer Mesa, 22kt (slight venting)
Titania—one-point safety test of original W47 primary on a 25-ft tower, Yucca Flat, 0.2kt

The Soviet Union's last tests were on November 1 and 3, until it resumed testing 34 months later on September 1, 1961. The United States quickly followed on September 15, 1961. From then until the end of 1962, the US and the USSR conducted 108 and 138 tests, respectively.

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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

30 Oct

Today in 1958 at RAF Sculthorpe, ~3 miles west of Fakenham, England, USAF atomic bomb technician MSgt Leander Cunningham, 41, suffered a mental breakdown, locked himself in the bomb maintenance building, and threatened to detonate a Mark-5 bomb by shooting it with his .45 pistol.

Although the bomb likely did not contain a fissile plutonium capsule—meaning it could not achieve a nuclear detonation—shooting it could have set off the bomb's conventional high explosives, killing Cunningham, possibly igniting other bombs inside, and causing significant damage.

After an 8-hour standoff, during which Cunningham reportedly climbed into the building's rafters, he was talked down and surrendered peacefully. After some medical care and evaluation, the senior technician was sent home to the United States.

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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

27 Oct

Fifty-nine years ago today—October 27, 1962—was arguably the most dangerous day of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a day when human error and sky-high tensions together nearly started World War III by accident at least three separate times. Here's what happened:

While flying a scheduled Strategic Air Command air-sampling mission out of Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, over the North Pole to collect debris from Soviet atmospheric nuclear tests, Capt. Charles Maultsby’s U-2 accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace for more than an hour …

starting at 8:00am Alaska time (Noon in Washington, DC) because he was blinded by the aurora borealis and unable to navigate accurately using the stars. MiG-19 fighters were scrambled from Pevek Airport on the Chukotka Peninsula at 11:56am EDT (and a little later from Anadyr) …

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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

25 Oct

Today in 1973, in response to CIA reports the USSR was shipping nuclear weapons and troops to Egypt to intervene in the Yom Kippur War, Strategic Air Command, Continental Air Defense Command, European Command, and the Sixth Fleet moved to DEFCON 3 for the first time since 1962.

A Soviet flotilla off Egypt dispersed hours after the alert began. SAC and CONAD reverted to DEFCON 4 the next day. EUCOM returned to DEFCON 4 on Oct. 31, as did the Sixth Fleet on Nov. 17. The merchant ship suspected of carrying nuclear weapons had reached Alexandria on Oct. 24.

Below, a declassified CIA memorandum on the possible shipment of Soviet nuclear weapons to Egypt. It concludes, “The evidence should not yet be regarded as though it creates a strong presumptive case that the Soviets dispatched nuclear weapons to Egypt.” cia.gov/readingroom/do…

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