Cuban missile crisis

[Luke Pemberton]

How close did we actually come to mutual assured destruction? I've been reading JFK's biography and watching 13 Days (historical inaccuracies understood), and was wondering if the Cuban crisis was the closest we got the brink, or did incidents between NATO and the Warsaw Pact troops in Berlin have us closer to the brink? Maybe our US friends could throw light on my question.

[LunarOrbit]

How close did we actually come to mutual assured destruction? I've been reading JFK's biography and watching 13 Days (historical inaccuracies understood), and was wondering if the Cuban crisis was the closest we got the brink, or did incidents between NATO and the Warsaw Pact troops in Berlin have us closer to the brink? Maybe our US friends could throw light on my question.

I remember reading this a few years ago:

http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-cold-war-close-calls

#4 happened on my 8th birthday.

[bknight]

How close did we actually come to mutual assured destruction? I've been reading JFK's biography and watching 13 Days (historical inaccuracies understood), and was wondering if the Cuban crisis was the closest we got the brink, or did incidents between NATO and the Warsaw Pact troops in Berlin have us closer to the brink? Maybe our US friends could throw light on my question.

I remember reading this a few years ago:

http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-cold-war-close-calls

#4 happened on my 8th birthday.

IMO #4(The 1983 Nuclear False Alarm) was the closest followed by #5(The Able Archer 83 Exercise).  Number 5 just like the Cuban missile crisis was too slow moving giving cooler heads time to think the situation out and evaluate for alternative solutions.

[Luke Pemberton]

#4 happened on my 8th birthday.

Answered my question, the Cuban Missile Crisis was played out very slowly, but events like #4 could have happened much more quickly. I've heard anecdotal evidence that troop movements around Berlin could have been misinterpreted by either side and been the catalyst for nuclear war.

[bknight]

I have a friend, retired Air Force officer, who was in the targeting department for ICBM's.  He told me in recent past, not specifying actual dates, that all the ICBM's were targeting US sites due to a programing error!

[revmic]

Slightly tangental, but in the '61s we also dropped two live nukes on North Carolina, and in '62, Operation Northwoods was making the rounds. Although neither is comparable to the events of the CMC, either could have ushered us right into a MAD situation

[bknight]

Slightly tangental, but in the '61s we also dropped two live nukes on North Carolina, and in '62, Operation Northwoods was making the rounds. Although neither is comparable to the events of the CMC, either could have ushered us right into a MAD situation

Hardly a "drop" as the bombs left a disintegrating B-52.  But this would not have been interpreted as a threat to the US, nor would the former USSR have regarded such an accident as a preliminary to a full nuclear strike.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

[revmic]

True, and I paired it with Northwoods to suggest that if the climate of thought at the time was receptive to a false flag event, they may have called the new parking lot in the Carolinas an attack by America's enemies.

[ka9q]

the new parking lot in the Carolinas

Parking lot? Try "bay".

[revmic]

the new parking lot in the Carolinas

Parking lot? Try "bay".

Well if it were destructive enough to create a bay, pretty sure it would create ample parking lots surrounding it.

At the bottom of the Wiki link cited by bknight, there is a link to Nukemap, an app that purports to calculate nuclear weapon damage. It claims that a 4 megaton surface detonation would create a fireball of 2.23km and an air blast radius of 7.39km @ 5psi. Theoretical ground zero looks to be, eh, 70 miles inland. Doesn't look nearly powerful enough to create a bay, in the sense of connecting with the ocean, so I'm thinking that Lt. Revelle ( as quoted about becoming a bay) may have been hyperbolic? Not sure how to calculate the physical blast damage and whether creating a bay would have been  a probable outcome

Yeah, quick check on Wiki shows a 20 MT detonation levels about 4 miles of urban areas, moderate damage to structures at 29 miles out. Staggering destruction but doesn't seem bay-creating from 70 miles away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions

[Chew]

John Oliver discusses the Goldsboro incident starting at 8:47.

The whole video is worth watching.

[bknight]

There have been many accidental nuclear releases by the US and I suspect the former Soviet union.  These incidents may well have created "mass" contamination areas.  However all of these incidents, even detonation effects,  would not have brought the world to MAD, as Luke asked in the OP.

[gwiz]

There have been many accidental nuclear releases by the US and I suspect the former Soviet union.

This one for starters...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak