Filming Armageddon: Air Force Movies Depict U.S. Preparations for Nuclear War

Washington, D.C., March 20, 2023 -The declassified Air Force film shows the crew of a U.S. B-52 bomber reaching its “Positive Control” (“fail safe”) point on the way to its target in the Soviet Union. But instead of turning around as usual, they get an order to proceed to their assigned objective. Having received and authenticated a “Go Code” message from U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC), the pilot announces, “We’re going in,” navigating the aircraft in low over mountains, lakes, fields, and forests to avoid Soviet air defenses. The dramatic soundtrack swells as the bomber nears its target, unleashes its nuclear payload, and then speeds away to create “separation distance” between itself and the effects of the resulting explosion. Undamaged by the thermal blast and shockwave, the aircrew heads back home, but not before flying through “the contaminated cloud of another bomb dropped 30 minutes ago” by a different SAC B-52.

While this dramatization of a U.S. nuclear strike is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic, Dr. Strangelove, it’s actually the climactic sequence of a 1960 SAC training film recently declassified by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Titled “Nuclear Effects During SAC Delivery Missions,” the film’s purpose is to familiarize SAC pilots and crew members with the devastating effects of nuclear weapons detonations and the detailed plans that the command had developed to help the crews evade the dangers of navigating through a nuclear battlefield. The narrator assures trainees that SAC had taken into account the effects of the blasts on U.S. aircrews and had prepared a “workable plan for every sortie to and from the target area.” SAC crewmembers are advised that they can safely navigate the aircraft home “if you follow rigidly your flight plan.”

Today’s posting includes the “Nuclear Effects” film and four other movies produced by SAC and the U.S. Air Force during the 1960s that were declassified in response to requests by the National Security Archive. Published here for the first time, the films reveal how SAC prepared bomber pilots and crews for nuclear war, educated them on the effects of the devastating weapons, and acquainted them with the contents of their “Combat Mission Folders,” which included guidance needed to reach targets and return to base safely.

A pair of SAC “film reports” from the mid-1960s feature the 1965-66 “Arc Light” bombings, a major SAC contribution to the rapidly escalating Vietnam War, and fascinating footage from the initial efforts to clean up the radioactive mess left behind by a January 1966 “Broken Arrow” accident in which a nuclear-armed B-52 crashed near Palomares, Spain. After all these years, the U.S. and Spain are still negotiating the terms of the cleanup of dangerous plutonium left behind by the accident.

A final film from 1966 gives viewers an inside look at the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) site in Thule, Greenland, and the men working inside its secret Tactical Operations Room (TOR), where an Air Force officer is shown evaluating information on unidentified objects that may or may not represent a missile launch against the United States.

 

Overview

The films depict Strategic Air Command the way its leaders wanted it to be seen: as an elite, highly disciplined, military organization that was always ready for war and always preparing for it because, according to the narrator in the film on nuclear effects, “one never knows when.” For SAC, that was what made deterrence possible. Following SAC founding father Gen. Curtis LeMay’s insistence on standardized operations and constant training, the Command prepared every bombing mission (sortie) in detail and instructed SAC crews to follow itemized checklists when they prepared their aircraft for nuclear alert operations, whether on the ground or airborne. Steadfast in their belief that the constant readiness of their forces was a significant deterrent, the Command’s leaders acted as if they were already at war, with forces prepared for rapid action at all times. By the late 1950s, the perception that a Soviet missile attack could be launched at any moment also shaped SAC culture, producing a climate of fear under which SAC leaders required alert forces to be ready for launch with only 15 minutes of warning.[1]

Demonstrating SAC’s organizational culture is the declassified film on the “Combat Mission Folder” that was available on every alert, nuclear-armed B-52. The lecturer depicted in the film reviews the secret intelligence inputs—including U-2 photos—behind the contents of the folder, and behind its navigation charts in particular, showing how each bombing sortie was planned in detail. In that way, the crews would know exactly how to get to the target areas, how to get back, and how to prepare for the unexpected, such as an emergency landing.

Two SAC “semi-annual film reports” covering developments during 1965 and 1966 further convey the command’s preparations for wartime. Both films depict training on the Minuteman ballistic missile system, with scenes that feature the testing of a salvo launch, crewmembers going through pre-launch checklists, and the retraining of SAC personnel for the new Minuteman II. SAC even created a full-scale mockup of a Minuteman launch facility at its training school so that maintenance staff could become familiar with the new operational requirements.

The 1965-1966 SAC film report includes an unflattering story: the January 1966 nuclear accident at Palomares, on Spain’s southeastern coast, in which an airborne alert nuclear bomber and a tanker aircraft crashed into each other, causing seven U.S. casualties and the dropping of four nuclear weapons, two of which broke apart, scattering deadly plutonium about the countryside. (Two others were recovered intact, though one was lost in the Mediterranean for several months.) The film report covers the major cleanup operation undertaken by the Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission, during which uniformed personnel were exposed to dangerous levels of radioactive plutonium. Several other “Broken Arrow” accidents involving nuclear-armed bombers had occurred earlier in the 1960s, highlighting the risks of the airborne alert program, but it continued in curtailed form for two more years until another B-52 carrying four B28 nuclear bombs crashed near Thule Air Base in Greenland in January 1968.

The film reports from 1965-1966 also feature an important element of the escalating Vietnam War: the bombing of South Vietnam by SAC B-52s conducted under the code name Arc Light. The first Arc Light bombing occurred on June 18, 1965, when SAC dropped high-explosive bombs on National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) fighters. Aimed at disrupting NLF military operations, the Arc Light bombings killed unknown numbers of fighters and civilians, shattered traditional ways of life in the countryside, and created untold numbers of refugees, without decisively affecting the course of the war in South Vietnam.

An interesting aspect of these films is the presence of African-Americans in the U.S. Air Force, not that many years after President Harry S. Truman’s 1948 decision to desegregate the armed forces. Some African-American men are shown among those involved in the radioactive material cleanup at Palomares, but others are shown working with computers, on a Minuteman launch crew, or on the staff of the operations room at a BMEWS site. The officers shown are invariably white males, which would change over time. The films also convey SAC’s highly gendered culture, which was depicted in the 1950s motion picture, Strategic Air Command, starring Jimmy Stewart.

Several, perhaps all, of these film reports were prepared by the Air Force’s 1365^th Photographic Squadron, which was then part of the Military Airlift Command. The squadron’s unit histories, when they eventually become available, may shed light on the production of the films and how they were commissioned. Some of films, such as the ones on nuclear effects, combat mission folders, and on the BMEWS, were clearly prepared for internal training at SAC and the Air Force. The SAC film reports from 1965-1966 may have been designed for distribution to a wider SAC audience and perhaps also to higher-level officials at the Pentagon and elsewhere. There is certainly more to be learned about how SAC and the Air Force commissioned and used these films.

 

 

Watch the Films

 

Document 1

United States Air Force Training Film 5363, “Nuclear Effects During SAC Delivery Missions,” 1960, Secret

 

 

The U.S. Air Force produced this film to help prepare SAC bomber crews to carry out nuclear strikes and to evade the dangerous effects of those detonations. After a detailed presentation of what SAC had learned about the problem of nuclear effects and how to safeguard the bomber crews from them, the film includes a dramatization of what crew members could experience during a nuclear strike mission that looks like a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s famous film, Dr. Strangelove.

As the narrator explains, no previous training and experience could ever fully prepare the crew for a nuclear war environment. Once a crew dropped a nuclear bomb, their health and survival required distancing the aircraft from the detonation’s thermal, blast and radiation effects. The film had an educational purpose: to explain the basics of weapons effects and the efforts that the U.S. Air Force had taken to prepare the crews for situations where they might experience them, especially by working out the safest routes for their bombing missions that will create distance between their aircraft and the detonations they and other SAC crews would cause.

The film begins and ends with the depiction of a B-52 bomber and crew launched under Positive Control arrangements. The crew would not know if it was the “real thing or not” until the bomber arrived at the “Go/No Go” position. In the event that they received the “Go Code,” the crew had Combat Mission Folders that detailed the route for the bombing sortie (mission) that they would undertake.

Much of the presentation covers the effects of nuclear explosions and the measures taken to minimize crew exposure to them. The narrator then provides an overview of atmospheric nuclear tests, from Crossroads in 1946 to Hard Tack in 1958, which increasingly included efforts to measure the effects of the tests on aircraft and structures and which often used drones to measure radioactivity in the air.[2] Associated research by university and Air Force scientists led to greater refinement of SAC operational procedures so that bomber crews could take the safest routes possible.

In addition, the film depicts SAC’s procedures to apply Joint Chiefs of Staff target priorities to each bomber’s mission under the Emergency War Order (EWO). SAC prepared the detailed route for each sortie, from takeoff to landing, including the set time for the release of weapons. The film further demonstrates how SAC used IBM computers to prevent scheduling conflicts by applying weapons effects criteria to each sortie and comparing the timing of each against the others. A final IBM printout for the EWO listed the target details for all launch options. The sum total of the bomber sorties for each launch option described in the printout (including those for missiles) would constitute the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), the comprehensive nuclear war plan that President Eisenhower approved in late 1960.[3]

The film includes a discussion of SAC manuals and directives that the crew would have onboard—an “overwhelming mass of facts and figures” on nuclear effects and other matters that that the aircrew could not be expected to remember in detail. “It is reassuring to know that the documents in your Combat Mission Folder represent solid results based on countless manhours by EWO personnel,” the narrator explains, “for one never knows when.”

The film then shows the B-52 approaching the H-Hour Control Line (HHCL), later known as the Positive Control Turnaround Point, but just when the crew thinks they are about to turn around and return to base, the balloon goes up. An incoming radio message from SAC says: “Sky King. Sky King. This is Migrate. This is Migrate. Do not answer. Break. Break. Alpha Sierra Foxtrot Juliet Oscar Papa Mike Tango. Break. Go-Code.” The opening words are standard communications language received routinely by B-52 pilots, but the rest is an emergency action message, with the crew instructed to maintain radio silence. After the “Go Code” message is decoded and the EWO officer verifies the authenticity of the message, the pilot tells crewmembers to check their combat mission envelopes. With the “Go Code” checked and verified, the pilot tells the crew: “This is it. We’re going in.”

From there on, the film is a dramatic rendering of a SAC nuclear combat operation, featuring the crew’s continued interactions (including experiencing the shockwave from another bomb), and the B-52’s low-altitude flight over lakes, mountains, forests and fields to avoid Soviet air defense missiles. (The film evokes the footage used in the last part of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove when Major Kong and his crew are flying towards the “Laputa” ICBM base inside the Soviet Union.) After the bomber crew hits their target, they fly through the radioactive cloud caused by another bomb dropped 30 minutes earlier.

The narrator concludes with statements exemplifying SAC culture: “This could happen. If this nightmare situation ever materializes into grim reality, you may have a real bear by the tail, but at least you are assured of escaping from the nuclear effects of our own weapons.” That was because SAC had developed a “workable plan for every sortie to and from the target area.” Every SAC crew would “have this security if you follow rigidly your flight plan.”

 

Document 2

SAC Film Report No. 4, “Your Combat Mission Folder Materials,” November 1961, Secret

 

 

A year later, SAC produced another film report designed for bomber pilots trained to conduct Emergency War Order missions. This one, presented as a lecture by a SAC officer, covers the Combat Mission Folder that included documents the crewmembers needed for guidance on their bomb run. The lecturer reviews the major documents included in the folder, such as the Jet Navigation Chart (used for high-speed and long-range navigation), the Operational Navigation Chart (a more detailed map used for visual and radar navigation), and the Series 200 chart (used for planning and executing the bomb release), all based on the latest intelligence. The folder would also include the “Go Codes” and weapons unlock information, though those details are not mentioned.

Most of the lecture describes the intelligence inputs that went into the various charts to help the pilots better understand the sources of information that informed the planning for their sorties. The reference to intelligence sources is what gave the film its “Secret NOFORN” classification status, meaning that it was not for distribution to foreign nationals (even the British). The lecturer details a number of major intelligence sources, including travel guides, the debriefings of tourists and defectors, World War II maps of China and the Soviet Union, and especially photographs. The sources of the latter included Chinese Nationalist overflights, captured German World War II photos, ground photos by tourists and defectors, and also “Secret NOFORN Eyebid photography.”

What exactly “Eyebid” meant in this context is unclear. It may have been a term used internally at SAC to control secret photographic intelligence, however derived, used for the combat mission folder. In this film, the lecturer discusses photo intelligence produced by CIA U-2 missions without mentioning either U-2s or the Agency.

Showing photos of heavy bombers (“high on the SAC targeting list”), bomber factories, atomic energy plants and fighter aircraft bases, the lecturer presents a brief case study of how photographic intelligence was used for targeting. An airfield at Vanino, near the Port of Sovetskaya in the Russian Far East, was once a “high priority” target because it was thought to have bombers. Photography from March 1958, however, showed no bombers at Vanino, but did show a Badger unit to the north at Alexeyevskoye. That correlated with the CIA’s U-2 mission #6011 of March 1, 1958, the only U-2 flight over USSR from Japan. The mission report described the base at Alexeyevskoye as “prob[ably] a primary bomber base.”[4] Once SAC had access to this and probably other intelligence information, it gave Alexeyevskoye higher priority, while Vanino was dropped to a lower position.

During the balance of the presentation, the lecturer discusses how the intelligence in the CMF is analyzed and evaluated and how it is used to produce target and navigation material. He describes a “defensive intelligence overprint,” a clear layer of plastic to cover the Jet Navigation and Operational Navigation Charts that provided more detail on how to get to and return from the target safely. The film covers how to avoid enemy defenses and the use of glide path indicators (GPI) for emergency situations such as crash landing or bailout over enemy territory. Apparently, the information embedded in the overprint included details from “JCS SIOP charts,” but the film does elaborate. Also incorporating the latest intelligence is the Series 200 chart, a “vital” precision chart with current information on target location, topographic details, radar reflectivity, and other data to help find a target using radar or, in an emergency, visual means for low or high-altitude bombings.

The presentation goes into detail on the technology used by SAC analysts to prepare the Series 200 chart and the overprints used with the Jet Navigation and Operational Navigation Charts. SAC’s work was supported by the latest technology, including IBM’s 7090 mainframe computer (featured in the book and film, Hidden Figures), the Eastman precision enlargers, and Bausch and Lomb rectifiers (to remove geometric distortions from photos). Another machine, the Benson Lerner Electric plotter, used geographic coordinates, such as radar sites from the JCS SIOP Charts, to produce target intelligence and graphic material. The missile counterpart to the CMF was the Missile Target Trajectory Kit, and the viewer sees a complicated computer set up that provided mathematical formulas that would be incorporated in the kit.

Another computer system presented is the FINDER (Ferret Intelligence Data Evaluator), which developed target information by processing taped radar emissions collected by ferret missions on the Soviet periphery. Data about specific radar targets, such as air defenses, would be incorporated into the SIOP.

After describing the system for storing photographic intelligence and other data, and the intelligence library that held charts and reports, the lecturer concludes by stating that SAC would continue to update and improve target and navigation material. “Use it with confidence.”

 

Document 3

U.S. Air Force Film Report FR 646, “SAC Semi-Annual Film Report August 1965-January 1966,” January 1966, Secret

 

 

Conventional bombing operations in the Vietnam War are a central theme in this semi-annual film report, which also covered strategic nuclear activities. SAC Commander-in-Chief John D. Ryan introduces the film with comments that embody the SAC self-image as an elite group, noting the “high quality” of SAC personnel, which was the basis for credibility and confidence, which in turn were “vital elements” of deterrence and combat operations. The report reviews SAC operations in Southeast Asia and the introduction of two new aircraft, the SR-71 and the FB-111, that would be integrated into SAC operations. Another segment covers training and testing of SAC ICBMs, including the Titan missile, and the introduction of Minuteman II.

It is not clear who the projected audience for these films reports was, whether an in-house audience of officers and staff and/or a broader audience of defense officials or beyond. Certainly, there is a public relations dimension to the film, which could have been used for internal morale building purposes at a time when the Vietnam War was making heavy demands on SAC.

On the strategic delivery vehicle front, at 11:08 the report reviews ongoing plans to develop a bomber version of the F-111 fighter designed to replace the B-58 and earlier models of the B-52. Still undergoing environmental tests, the report provides a lengthy quote by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara extolling the FB-111 as having twice the speed of the B-52 and greater capabilities for penetrating enemy defenses. According to McNamara, the FB-111 would be operational by 1971 with a planned force of 200.

Beginning in the late 1950s, SAC began to incorporate ICBMs into its organizational culture, applying to launch crews and maintenance staff the standardized check-list procedures that typified the organization. The film report on Missile Activities at 15: 31 begins with Minuteman and Titan ICBM launch tests at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Using missiles selected from the ICBM force and participants from crews on ICBM alert duty, the tests sought to verify the capabilities of the missiles and the competence of the launch crew. The report also presents Minuteman training at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois, both for combat crews and for maintenance specialists. In early 1966, with Minuteman II entering the SAC inventory, Minuteman I crews were retrained at Chanute for the new ICBM. Training occurred in a “realistic environment,” including a full-scale mockup of a launch facility, so that the crew could become familiar with operational procedures.

Over 60 feet longer than Minuteman I, Minuteman II would have greater range, a larger payload and better accuracy. With a force of 1,000 Minutemen programmed by the end of January 1966, SAC already had 830 missiles deployed in hardened complexes, according to the film.

Four reports relate to the Vietnam War, with a focus on heavy bombing operations in South Vietnam: “SEA [Southeast Asia] Tanker Activities” (at 2:27 minutes), “New Concept in Reconnaissance” (7:36), “Big Belly” (12:25), and “Arc Light” (19:39). SAC was not involved in the Rolling Thunder strikes against targets in North Vietnam, which began in February 1965, but its B-52s conducted bombing operations in the South under the nick name Arc Light. Occurring during the period when the Johnson administration was escalating and Americanizing the war, the first Arc Light bombing occurred on June 18, 1965, only days after Gen. William Westmoreland sent Washington a request for 100,000 combat troops.[5]

The purpose of the B-52s sent from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam was to attack “Vietcong” [National Liberation Front] targets in the south. According to the film report, by January 1966, the B-52s had dropped over 37,000 tons of munitions, mostly bombs ranging in size from 500 to 1,000 pounds for collapsing tunnels or striking through heavy jungle. SAC bombers also dropped BLU-3B “antimaterial” bombs, better known as cluster bombs, which became the subject of an international convention aimed at prohibiting their use as an inhumane weapon (but that is not yet signed by the U.S., among other countries).

According to the narrator, the purpose of most of the strikes is to provide close air support to U.S. ground troops in combat operations, with the projected “shock effect” aimed at disrupting NLF operations. The narrator leaves unsaid an important element of the strategy: The bombings were part of the U.S. “free fire zone” approach, the objective of which was to disrupt and depopulate rural South Vietnam through routine “harassment and interdiction” campaigns aimed at separating the NLF from its support networks in the countryside.[6] Unmentioned in this film report is that some SAC leaders were unhappy that B-52s were being used for tactical missions instead of the strategic purposes for which they were designed, with a potentially adverse impact on SAC’s nuclear deterrence posture.[7] Sometime during this period, military personnel nicknamed the B-52, “BUFF,” for “Big Ugly Fat F*****” (or, more politely, Big Ugly Fat Fellow).

The presentation spells out the procedures for ordering an Arc Light attack: The U.S. Military Assistance Command in South Vietnam, Westmoreland’s headquarters, issued requests to the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon for approval of specific strikes, with the requests copied to SAC, the Pacific Air Force, and the 3rd Air Division so that sorties could be planned. According to the report, the turnaround time was 24 hours from the request, including the six hours that it took for the bombers to reach South Vietnam. In emergency situations, a turnaround time of 15 hours was possible. Through radar reconnaissance of South Vietnam, the Air Force began to acquire detailed knowledge of the topography, permitting SAC to pinpoint target areas using radar offset.

The report on Arc Light includes details on refueling operations by KC-135 tankers based at Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa, Japan. Refueling operations are also discussed in detail in the opening of the film report on “SEA Tanker Activities.” To support refueling operations over Thailand and the Gulf of Tonkin, SAC had 55 KC-135 tankers based at Kadena and at two bases in Thailand: Takhli and Bangkok. By January 1966, SAC had over 1,000 refueling operations a month to support air strikes seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

To expedite the bombing raids, SAC tested the so-called “Big Belly” concept for packing bombs in B-52s so that bombs could be loaded more efficiently and in greater numbers. With “Big Belly,” which was eventually put into effect, the bomber could carry 108 weapons internally and on its wings—27 tons in all. To lend further support to bombing operations in Vietnam, SAC developed an air-conditioned, relocatable laboratory for processing and exploiting strategic overhead photography. According to a report titled, “New Concept in Reconnaissance Lab,” the Strategic Air Relocatable Photographic Facility would prove “indispensable” for military commanders and intelligence specialists. The first lab had been deployed at Ton Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam.

To provide raw material for intelligence analysts, SAC had a new strategic reconnaissance aircraft in the works: the SR-71 (later known as the Blackbird). Characterized by the report as the “world’s most advanced reconnaissance plane,” the SR-71 was slated to cruise at better than Mach 3 and as high as 15 miles above the earth. Staffed by a pilot and a mission officer, the SR-71 could survey 60,000 square miles of land or ocean in an hour.

 

Document 4

U.S. Air Force Film Report FR 735, “SAC Semi-Annual Film Report February to July 1966,” Secret

 

 

Aimed at SAC crews, this film report leads off with an introduction by SAC Vice Commander-in-Chief Joseph Nazzaro, who affirms that SAC’s mission derives from the incessant conflict between the United States and the Communist world. SAC was building up its strength with ongoing weapons modernization programs, including deployments of FB-111s to replace early model B-52s, Minuteman II missiles to replace the first Minuteman ICBMs, and a new strategic reconnaissance aircraft entering the inventory, the SR-71. The report covers several topics: the nuclear accident in Spain (4:20), the bombing of South Vietnam (at 9:25 and 12:14), the Mixed Marble nuclear bombs reliability exercise (19:00), a Minuteman salvo test (21:38), and the deployment of the first operational model of the SR-71 (23:45).

The report begins with an account of a “Broken Arrow in Spain,” an accident caused by the collision of B-52 bomber on airborne alert and a KC-135 fuel tanker during a refueling operation off the Mediterranean coast with seven crewmembers killed. Four nuclear weapons, B-28s, were strewn about, with one found intact and one lost in the Mediterranean for weeks. Two bombs were destroyed during the crash, with their high explosives [HE] detonating on contact with the ground; according to the narrator there was no danger of a nuclear explosion because of unspecified built-in safeguards.[8] (Nevertheless, soon after the accident, a newly constituted Air Force advisory committee supported measures to further reduce these risks.)[9]

Several airborne alert accidents had occurred earlier in the 1960s, highlighting inherent risks of the program and SAC’s “blind spot” about them, but airborne alert continued for two more years, until another major accident ended it in January 1968.[10] This was the first airborne alert accident producing significant ground contamination, with plutonium fragments scattered over 650 acres around the village of Palomares. The “hot spots” were located near the craters caused by the HE detonations.

To locate the weapons and then clean up the radioactive mess, a 100-member Disaster Control Team supported by at least 700 Air Force personnel worked for three months. In the process, the team washed down and painted every building in Palomares that had traces of contamination, while contaminated vegetables were chopped up and burned. To convince the villagers and farmers that contamination had not destroyed their crops, the U.S. bought tons of locally grown tomatoes, which were then “safely washed” and cooked and served to the U.S. military. The U.S. team filled some 5,000 55-gallon drums with contaminated material, welded them shut and shipped them to an Atomic Energy Commission “burial ground” near Aiken, South Carolina. An additional 200,000 pounds of uncontaminated wreckage from the bomber and the tanker were dumped deep in the Atlantic Ocean away from shipping lanes.

Depicting a “harmonious” relationship between the Air Force and the Spanish government, the film does not mention that there were serious disagreements over decontamination procedures, which are discussed in the State Department history of the incident. Also overlooked is the mutual U.S.-Spanish interest in trying to expedite the cleanup so as to not interfere with the tourist industry. One of the reasons that the U.S. opted to ship contaminated material to South Carolina was to avoid the creation of a “nuclear dump” or a “monument” that would provide gist for political campaigns by anti-U.S. and anti-nuclear activists.

The film shows that some of the personnel involved in the cleanup operations wore special garments and surgical masks, but many did not. Safety precautions were “haphazard,” according to the most recent history of the accident.[11] That helps explain why, since the time of the cleanup, questions have been raised about the risks to health of the villagers and Air Force personnel.

A 2019 study by Jan Beyea and Frank von Hippel found that the exposure of military personnel to radioactivity at Palomares had been improperly assessed and that those who have suffered from leukemia or liver, bone and lung cancer deserved compensation.[12] Another study raised questions about whether the U.S. had done due diligence to remove plutonium and other radioactive residue from the countryside. In response to that concern, Secretary of State John Kerry and Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo in 2015 signed an agreement (or, more precisely, a statement of intent) for the U.S. to complete the cleanup and “store the contaminated earth at a suitable location in the United States.” Both countries moved forward in identifying and removing contaminated soil; the next step is for the U.S. to remove the soil to a U.S. site.

The Veterans Administration has in many cases denied the disability claims of Palomares veterans who reported adverse health effects, leading to the filing of a lawsuit in 2021. In 2022, President Biden effectively voided the complaint by signing the PACT Act to ensure access to disability compensation and healthcare benefits by veterans who were “exposed to toxic fumes and radiation [and developed] linked medical conditions.”

Among other nuclear activities depicted in this film is the “Mixed Marble” program to test the reliability of stockpiled weapons. MK-28 weapons from the operational stockpile were denuclearized and packed with instrumentation to permit post-test analysis by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The tests, which took place at McCoy Air Force Base in Florida, involved a variety of bomb delivery maneuvers, including air and ground bursts, free fall and “lay down” (with parachute, as depicted in the film) weapon deployment, and low and high-altitude retarded (delayed) air burst, presumably to maximize time for bomber crews to distance their aircraft from a nuclear burst. According to the narrator, the tests achieved “all objectives.”

The other major nuclear activity depicted is a salvo test of two Minuteman missiles at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. One of the purposes was to “evaluate multiple firing techniques that could be used … under actual combat conditions.” Using missiles from the alert force, a launch crew from the 331^st Strategic Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base (MT) is shown following the checklist used to authenticate a launch execution message. After communicating with the commander of the other combat crew, the crewmembers follow the two-person concept, meant to prevent inadvertent launch, with each person watching the other turn the key to begin the final countdown. This was the typical SAC procedure, where B-52 or ICBM launch crewmembers would observe each other to ensure that all were following the rules.

Following the simultaneous launch of the two ICBMs is their 5,000-mile flight in the Air Force’s Western Test Range, with reentry vehicles landing in the Eniwetok Lagoon target area.

The report included more detail on SAC’s new SR-71 aircraft and its projected use. The first operational model arrived at Beale Air Force Base in California in 1966, only three years after research and development work had been initiated. With its capability for “specialized surveillance” over large geographic areas at an altitude of 80,000 feet, the SR-71 could perform missions ranging from simple battlefield reconnaissance to strategic reconnaissance, all involving multiple sensors (such as electronic and photographic). Shown in detail is SAC’s construction of strip maps to guide the pilot during the during the flight, with the speed of the map synchronized with the aircraft’s ground speed. Possible geographic targets for the SR-71 are not identified but it would receive extensive use, such as during the Vietnam War and conflicts in the Middle East.

Like the previous SAC film report, this one covers SAC’s Vietnam War activities, with reports on “Arc Light” and “SEA Activities.” By this point, the “Big Belly” technology presented in the previous SAC report had been deployed, and each B-52 could carry 108 bombs totaling 60,000 pounds for the bombing raids. On April 12, 1966, the first Arc Light strike was on North Vietnam. Since the air strikes began in June 1965, SAC had conducted 350 bomb runs, and facilities at Anderson and Kadena Air Force bases (in Guam and Okinawa) and in Thailand had been expanded to accommodate the increased air traffic. According to the report, the “firepower” that SAC was then delivering exceeded by two and a half times the monthly average of bombing during the Korean War.

On the objectives of Arc Light and its supposed impact, the report highlights Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) commander Gen. William Westmoreland’s approving inspection of B-52 bombers in Guam. The goal of the air strikes was to raise the “morale” of the South Vietnamese and U.S. troops and to “drastically” damage the morale of NLF fighters who were “no longer safe anywhere.” The narrator speaks of “mounting evidence” of the bombing’s “devastating effects both on the enemy’s morale and ability to wage war.” Yet, at the time, the Air Force had no information corroborating any such impact.[13]

Unquestionably, B-52 saturation bombing had a “terrifying impact” on NLF fighters, as it was meant to, but post-war interviews indicated that NLF fighters adjusted and did not give up. Speaking generally about the impact of U.S. escalation during the mid-1960s, State Department intelligence found that “Hanoi remained determined to persist, the Viet Cong forces were stronger than ever, and the Communists continued to hold the initiative.” Also worth noting was that the Arc Light bombing alienated many South Vietnamese, not least because it contributed to the destruction of traditional ways of life in the countryside.[14]

 

Document 5

U.S. Air Force Training Film TF 5746, “BMEWS Mission: The Men of the TOR [Tactical Operations Room],” 1966, Secret

 

 

Beginning in 1960, the radar-based Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) was capable of providing the Pentagon with about 15 minutes of warning time in the event of a mass ballistic missile attack on U.S. territory. SAC relied on timely warnings from BMEWS to maintain the readiness of bomber and missile launch crews for speedy action in the event such an attack was detected.

This Air Force training film demonstrates how BMEWS operated in the mid-1960s, including the classified activities of the Tactical Operations Room (TOR), the system’s “nerve center.” At the BMEWS site 1 in Thule, Greenland, 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle, one of the TOR staffers is at work “looking for something, and he hopes he never sees it.” With a capability of looking some 3,000 miles into space over the Eurasian landmass, BMEWS was able to track missile launch activities and any satellites heading towards North American air space, with the key purpose of detecting and providing warning of a “mass raid” of ICBMS, which TOR operators were trained to recognize.

Taking a deep dive into BMEWS technical operations, the narrator provides a “two-dollar tour” of the BMEWS site, showing the huge radar reflectors, tracking radar, nine-foot tall vacuum tubes, and the 35 miles of wave guides that sent radar energy to the antenna and back. All were used to project two fan-shaped beams of radar energy into space to detect missile launches. BMEWS had three sites, one at Thule, Site 2 at Clear, Alaska, and Site 3 at Fylingdales Moor in the United Kingdom. According to the narrator, with the three sites, the U.S. had the Soviet Union “covered like a blanket,” enabling BMEWS to “give a pretty good case history” on where a detected missile came from and its impact point. When tracking radar picked up suspicious activity, the TOR could warn NORAD [North American Air Defense Command], SAC and the Pentagon immediately.

The narrator provides a detailed account of the various pieces of equipment that constitute the BMEWS and their respective roles in detecting missile launches. For example, the Doppler Filter Bank could tell whether an object was approaching or receding, while the Detection radar data takeoff computer (DTO) worked in conjunction with the Missile Impact Predictor (MIP) to analyze the threat potential of detected “real world objects.” An object detected by the fan of the two radar beams was called a “Q point,” and if it was determined to have threat potential it was called a “single fan event.” Further tests could confirm threat potential and produce rough data on the expected targets (“impacts”) of the incoming missiles. Unmentioned in the film is that BMEWS could not detect submarine-launched ballistic missiles, a significant gap in coverage.

Noting that most visitors on the “two-dollar tour” would leave with the impression that the radar and computer equipment were enough to identify threats, the narrator declares, “That’s not quite true.” Excluded from tours of the BMEWS site, the narrator explains, is the secret Tactical Operations Room (TOR), where human judgment plays a crucial role. Working three eight-hour shifts daily, the eight-person staff had the responsibility to ensure that the detection and warning technology was operating to its full potential.

The senior duty officer, known as the Space Surveillance Officer (SSO), was assisted by a Space Surveillance Monitor (SSM) working at the data analysis console. Together, the two with their assistants reviewed various consoles used for tracking and evaluating detected objects. Facilitating overall system tracking capability was a continuous flow of data on satellites, with prediction sheets helping console monitors operators forecast a satellite’s estimated arrival time.

Space Surveillance Officer made an hourly radio check with a nuclear-loaded SAC airborne alert aircraft that circled above the BMEWS site.[15] In the event of a communications problem at the site, the SAC aircraft could relay a message to NORAD. Two years later, in January 1968, the “Thule Monitor” aircraft crashed, causing a major accident when plutonium from its nuclear weapons was left scattered about on Greenland’s icy surface.

The narrator presents several possible scenarios to show how the TOR worked in practice. One is a case where a satellite does not show up as scheduled, either because it had decayed or there was a system failure, leading the SSO to advise NORAD’s Missile Warning Officer that there was a possible “degradation” of the radar. Once the problem is resolved, the narrator discusses the vital importance of catching equipment failures because if, for example, one of the consoler operators had not been aware that an object was missing, “we’d all be thinking that everything … was functioning properly.” He asks rhetorically: What if a missile attack had begun, and the operator had been unaware of a malfunction? That was something he would “rather not think about.”

Another situation was possible external interference. The SSO is shown announcing Condition Bravo, indicating unknown external interference, leading the staff to scramble to the equipment. The danger of efforts to jam through ECM (electronic countermeasures) was always on the minds of TOR staffers, making them alert to any unusual phenomena. As an Institute for Defense Analyses history later mentioned, BMEWS could be “deliberately spoofed, blacked out or attacked,” but any of those events could have provided warnings of an attack. In this instance, ECM were not a problem, and, after a number of equipment checks, the interference faded away, and the SSO informed NORAD’s Missile Warning Officer that the station was at condition Green, with slight interference only. The SSO announces, “All clear. Return to normal operations.”

A third situation described in the film concerns how the TOR would deal with a mass missile raid. A crucial point is systems confidence: the TOR staff would play a crucial role in helping the SSO determine the reliability of Missile Impact Predictor reports. Explaining that the “degree of confidence I report to [the NORAD Missile Warning Officer] is based on how well we think the system is operating,” the SSO begins a training exercise with a computer tape of a simulated mass missile raid. Uncorrelated (unexpected) “targets” (possible incomings) are detected, while the launch and impact (strike) areas appear on the BMEWS display at NORAD’s combat operations center. With uncorrelated targets confirmed, there is “high system confidence” that there would be 40 impacts in 13 minutes.

The SSO informs NORAD of the impending impacts, information that NORAD would then relay to SAC and the Pentagon. Early detection and warning would make it possible to prepare missiles for rapid launch and to deploy SAC aircraft. Alluding to regular efforts to assure systems confidence, the narrator assures trainees that BMEWS is a system with a “built in reliability guarantee.”

Not mentioned in the film is that BMEWS could provide false warnings, as it did in October 1960, when a misreading of echoes from the Moon was quickly seen as a false alarm. BMEWS also generated false warnings in 1964 (detection of multiple satellites) and 1966 (software error) which NORAD quickly identified as mistakes.

As this film was being prepared, the Pentagon was overseeing the R&D and testing of a new detection system designed to provide even more warning time—up to 27 minutes: the infrared-based Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites that would detect the plumes of missiles as they launched from the ground.