Declassified report: Two nuclear bombs nearly wiped out North Carolina in 1961

Who, me?

 

We'll have "trying too hard to be funny" for $200, Alex ...

 

It happened on the third full day of the JFK presidency. Can you imagine a worse start to your tenure in the White House? One of your own military dropping a nuclear bomb that would have posed a threat to millions of citizens -- including the population in Washington -- would have been the absolute worst. Amazing how history nearly changed.

 

Not that I wish mayhem and death, but North Carolina wouldn't miss Goldsboro.

 

My admittedly-limited understanding of nukes in that era was that any Soviet attack on the U.S. would be mostly if not exclusively bomber-based, at least prior to placing the shorter-range missiles in Cuba. And while radar wasn't what it is today, 1961 is when the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System started to come online at Thule AFB in Greenland and Clear Air Force Station in Alaska. Plus a Russian bogey would have shown up on radars well before it reached its destination, and a sub would a) have to actually make the trip without catastrophic failure, which wasn't a sure thing for those early subs, and b) get close enough to the East Coast to launch while going unnoticed by the Navy.

The other thing to consider is that Goldsboro, N.C. would be such a random target, and an only target, that it wouldn't jibe with Soviet nuclear strategy. Neither side would send one bomber/missile out, and certainly not to a place that had neither counterforce nor countervalue significance. I guess you could make the case that a sub somehow got close enough to launch at a military target and missed, but Camp Lejeune, while probably on the list, wouldn't rate being the first target, and Norfolk or Charleston would be a hell of a misfire. EDIT TO ADD: Also, according to Wikipediaa, the Soviets' Hotel II subs were launched in 1960 but not commissioned until July 1961, six months after the Goldsboro incident. I guess it's possible they could have sent a sub over here pre-comisssioning, but it sounds like they weren't ready yet.

Finally, even if Kennedy and his military advisers were convinced that it was a Soviet attack, they wouldn't launch at Moscow because that would guarantee a full-scale response. They'd be more likely to respond in kind, which means finding a Goldsboro-sized town in the USSR to destroy. Of course, since this would turn out to be a first strike against the Soviets, they would respond, which we would consider a second attack and ... well, you see where this is going.

There might have been some hot heads in positions of power, and a newly minted President may be more likely to give them credence, but I think it would have been obvious fairly quickly what actually happened. The key would be keeping the public from losing their shit thinking it WAS a red attack.

A bit of alt-history wanking: If the Goldsboro bombs detonated, how would that change the U.S. response to the Soviets placing missiles in Cuba? Even if they knew the Soviets had nothing to do with Goldsboro, they'd be a lot more sensitive to threats to the southeast U.S. Conversely, would the Soviets take a different approach and not put missiles in Cuba at all, fearing that the U.S. would be more likely to cast a dramatic response?

 

No worries. I took the lead by putting all my money on the Daily Double in the category of "things I don't give a damn about"

 

Stay classy ...

 

When I first saw the headline for this story it read like current news. A 1961 in there somewhere would've been nice.

Micro, my next thought was where was Helms at the time this happened.

 

Also, it should be pointed out that the headline is over-exaggerated. North Carolina would not have been wiped out. Goldsboro would cease to exist and there would be significant casualties between the immediate effects of the blast and the fallout. It's possible a town like Greensville or Kinston would be a Chernobyl-style site for some time, depending on the fallout pattern. And cities from Raleigh to Wilmington could have gotten at least short-term significant fallout impacts (again, depending on the winds). But North Carolina would have survived as a functioning state, and the overwhelming majority of residents would not have been directly affected (the emotional aftermath would of course be another story)

 

Yeah, it would have survived.

But Wayne and Wilson counties would be basically vacant, maybe Johnston County, too.

Goldsboro and Wilson would have been Chernobyl-like. Kinston and Greenville? Maybe.

If so, the Triangle wouldn't be the population center it is now. The fallout might have been severe enough to affect the coastline between Cape Hatteras and Myrtle Beach.

In summary, Fort Bragg, Seymour Johnson AFB, and Camp Lejuene wouldn't have been the only government-controlled spots.

 

Oh, there definitely would have been a lot of bad times in eastern N.C. outside of Goldsboro proper. I think the Triangle *might* have been relatively OK because winter winds tend to come from the northwest to the northeast, except ahead of approaching fronts. So while Raleigh and Norfolk probably would contend with fallout occasionally, most of it would have gone south toward Fayetteville and the coast. Jacksonville and Wilmington could end up worse off than Greenville, even though the latter would be closer to ground zero.

Of course, there's something of a halo effect too. Would people be willing to live that close to a nuked site, even if it's cleared to live in?

 

Not thrilled by this revelation.