Nuclear close calls: times we almost blew the world up
Misunderstandings that could have had drastic consequences
It’s been more than 8 months since the release of the Academy Award-winning film ‘Oppenheimer’. The film vividly depicted the life of renowned physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer worked extensively in fields such as theoretical astronomy and quantum field theory, but he is undoubtedly best known for being the director of the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project, of course, led to the creation of the first nuclear fission bomb.
Ever since the Manhattan Project, the world has almost been destroyed using these weapons of mass destruction several times over. This is the story of 3 nuclear close calls when nuclear weapons were almost fired by a nation (post World War II).
1. The Suez Crisis, 1956
The Suez Crisis is also known as the Second Arab-Israeli War. In the Arab World, it is also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression while in Israel, it is also referred to as the Sinai War. The Suez Crisis was a joint British, French and Israeli invasion of Egypt.
The UK and France wanted to ensure the free flow of ships through the Suez Canal, which had been severely restricted by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Free flow of ships through the canal was important to these countries for various reasons, the most important being securing access to oil and maintaining good accessibility with the rest of their empires (especially for The UK, which had more colonies in Eastern Africa and Asia). Israel wanted to restore Israeli shipping through the Straits of Tiran south of the country.
Well, the Soviet Union wasn’t too happy about The UK and France attacking their ally Egypt. They threatened to conduct airstrikes on London and Paris unless British and French forces withdrew. On November 5, 1956, the world thought these threats had manifested themselves. The North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) detected unidentified aircraft flying over Türkiye and 100 Soviet MIGs flying over Syria. That was not all. Reports suggested that a British bomber had been shot down over Syria and a Soviet naval fleet was passing through the Black Sea north of Türkiye.
These unprecedented actions by the Soviet Union urged The US to warn fellow NATO members that a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union may be necessary.
However, after further clarifications, all of these turned out to be false alarms. The planes flying over Türkiye turned out to be swans, the Soviet MIGs were just an air force escort for the Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli, the British bomber was brought down due to mechanical issues and the Soviet fleet was conducting a routine naval exercise.
In case you were wondering who came out victorious in The Suez Crisis… it’s complicated. Israel restored their shipping through the Straits of Tiran but Egypt maintained control over the Suez Canal. President Nasser retained his title until he died in 1970. The Suez Crisis eventually led to the Six-Day War between Israel and a coalition of Arab States in 1967, which led to a decisive Israeli victory.
2. The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
The Cuban Missile Crisis is possibly the most famous nuclear close call. What most people don’t know is The Cuban Missile Crisis was not a solitary event. It was a series of events and interactions between The US and the Soviet Union.
The beginning of the crisis is often attributed to the failed ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion of Cuba by The US. The goal of this invasion was to overthrow the regime led by Fidel Castro. After the failed attempt, Castro negotiated with the Soviets to heavily arm Cuba in fear of another American invasion. On October 14, 1962, an American U-2 spy plane spotted a large number of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs) in Cuba.
On October 22, President John F. Kennedy ordered a “quarantine” of Cuba. The use of the term “quarantine” was a careful choice, as ordering a “blockade” would create a state of war between The US and Cuba. The same day, Kennedy sent a letter to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev demanding him to dismantle all missile launch sites in Cuba and take all weapons back to Soviet lands. DEFCON 3 was initiated.
2 days later, Khrushchev responded to Kennedy stating that the US “quarantine” was, in fact, a “blockade”. Thus, Soviet ships bound for Cuba will proceed as planned. However, some Soviet ships turned back anyway. On the other hand, it was observed by The US that missile sites in Cuba were nearing operational readiness. DEFCON 2 was initiated.
On October 26, Khrushchev sent a message to Kennedy asking for a guarantee that The US wouldn’t attack Cuba in exchange for the removal of missiles from Cuba. The next day, Khrushchev sent another message demanding that any agreement must include the removal of American Jupiter missiles from Türkiye. The American Attorney General Robert Kennedy met with the Soviet Ambassador to the US, Anatoly Dobrynin, to finalise the deal. The US would withdraw its Jupiter missiles and promise not to attack Cuba and the Soviets would withdraw their missiles from Cuba.
During this whole exchange between The White House and The Kremlin, actual nuclear torpedos were very close to being launched.
On October 25, the USS Beale destroyer was dropping practice depth charges to get Soviet patrol submarine B-59 to surface. However, the captain of the B-59, Valentin Grigoryevich Savitsky, believed that the depth charges were real. As the submarine was underwater, it couldn’t communicate with Moscow. Thus, the captain assumed that war with The US had begun. He decided to launch the 10-kiloton nuclear torpedo at the American naval vessels. Fortunately, his second in command, Vasily Arkhipov, refused to permit to launch of the nuclear torpedo. He told the captain to wait for orders from Moscow.
That was a bit too close for comfort!
3. The Norwegian Rocket Incident, 1995
At this point, the Cold War had ended. The Soviet Union had collapsed into 15 independent countries in 1991. A Russian warning radar had detected a missile launch off the coast of Norway. The rocket fired resembled American ballistic missiles. Russian President Boris Yeltsin accessed the Russian nuclear launch codes for the first time since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Russian ballistic missile submarines were put on high alert and told to prepare for a retaliatory strike.
After the incident, Russian satellites monitoring American launch sites did not detect any further launches. The Norwegian rocket was deemed a false alarm.
The Norwegian missile was a Black Brant XII scientific research rocket. The rocket was launched to study the aurora borealis. Norway had informed Russia about the rocket launch, yet the message had not reached The Kremlin.
Conclusion
These incidents show how minor misunderstandings can have disastrous consequences. They show how dangerous humans have become. Even a small mix-up can lead to the death of thousands, millions, or even billions. Who knows, maybe one of these misconceptions could have led to the extinction of the human race!
These incidents also show how fragile the human race is. A few individuals have the power to wipe out every one of us. A small disagreement takes place between these individuals, and suddenly we’re not far from that happening.
This sad reality scares me. The fact that this has happened a multitude of times in the past and could happen again scares me.
The final dialogues of the film Oppenheimer encapsulate this situation in a hauntingly beautiful way:
Oppenheimer to Einstein: When I came to you with those calculations, we thought we might start a chain reaction that would destroy the world.
Einstein: What of it?
Oppenheimer: I believe we did.
hi Sifar, enjoyed reading this.
Its a wakeup call to prevent disasters from happening.
While the number of close calls due to political brinkmanship is quite high, equal number of mishaps have been likely due to administrative negligence of those physically controlling the resources and codes.
That would make an interesting read as well.