This is an excerpt from "Always/Never: The Quest for Nuclear Safety, Control, and Survivability," a documentary made by the Sandia National Laboratories in 2010, categorized as OFFICIAL USE ONLY, and never released to the public. The film was produced, directed, and edited by Dan Curry.
In this sequence, Sandia weapon designers discuss how a 4 megaton hydrogen bomb almost detonated in North Carolina on January 23, 1961, when a B-52 bomber broke apart midair, three days after the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.
A single switch---the arm/safe switch in the cockpit--prevented a nuclear detonation that would have destroyed much of North Carolina and blanketed the east coast with lethal radioactive fallout. But as the Sandia engineers note in the film, that type of switch failed on numerous occasions and was subsequently replaced. What they don't say in the film is that stray electricity from loose wires in the airplane, as it broke apart, could also have fully armed the hydrogen bomb and detonated it.
The details of this nuclear weapon accident and of many others can be found in the book, Command and Control, by Eric Schlosser.
Although Israel has refused to publicly acknowledge its chemical weapons program, the U.S. Office of Technology has identified Israel as a nation with likely offensive chemical weapons capabilities. In addition to Israel's controversial chemical weapons program, Israel is one of few nations not to ratify the nuclear non-proliferation agreement.
David Krieger, Jim Lobe, American Friends Service Committee
Second guided-missile destroyer to join the USS John McCain; annual joint US-South Korean maneuvers that have so far included, fly-overs by B-52 bombers and mock bombing runs close to the North's border by two B-2 Stealth bombers that flew directly from the US. The exercises, appear to have provoked the latest escalation in tensions, already at near-record highs after the UN Security Council imposed new economic and diplomatic sanctions against Pyongyang last month.
Although Israel has refused to publicly acknowledge its chemical weapons program, the U.S. Office of Technology has identified Israel as a nation with likely offensive chemical weapons capabilities. In addition to Israel's controversial chemical weapons program, Israel is one of few nations not to ratify the nuclear non-proliferation agreement.
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