weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-caused-nuclear-war.htm
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 satellite's 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 radar's 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 radar's 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 radar's 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).
