Starman said:
Mystery Meat II said:
Impact map based on the yield and it being a groundburst (don't have the exact location of where the bomb landed, but at this size it's probably not that big a deal):
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=3800&lat=35.3848841&lng=-77.9927651&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&ff=55&zm=10
Goldsboro wiped off the map, Mount Olive takes damage and finds itself in a pickle, Depending on the winds, Raleigh, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Greensville or Rocky Mount could get more than 1000 rad of radiation per hour after the blast, which would be almost certain death for those exposed. Lesser but still strong levels or radiation could affect Norfolk, Greensboro, Charlotte and Myrtle Beach, again depending on the winds.
Because it would have been a groundblast, as opposed to an airblast, the fallout produced would be a lot higher and the immediate impact around ground zero would be greater, but the radius of blast and heat damage wouldn't be as big.
Plus in 1961 we didn't have the virtual saturation radar, satellite and GPS coverage of the entire globe we have today, and nuclear bombs going off about 100 miles in from the Atlantic coast would have ignited instant suspicion they had been launched by Soviet missile subs just offshore (their submarine missile program was never as advanced as the U.S., but they did have some subs capable of launching missiles -- see the "Hotel II" class).
Given the itchy-trigger-finger nature of the U.S. brass at the moment, and JFK just getting settled into the White House, it's hard to imagine some of those hell-bent-for-leather types wouldn't have been storming into the Oval Office and shouting at him to nuke out Moscow
just in case it had indeed been a surprise sub attack.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_class_submarine
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 **** 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?
