9 ms·

The Okinawa missiles of October 1962

278 points by sehugg 11y ago

autobahn 11y ago
Just makes me so very, very glad that the right decisions were made by so many people in those trying times. I'm sure there are plenty of individual heroes whose small contributions individually and collectively prevented nuclear war that we'll never hear about.
AUmrysh 11y ago
As many times as the world has come close to nuclear war and mutually assured destruction since the end of WW2, it's actually one of the most reassuring things about humanity that people refused orders to fire missiles every time. I'm always reminded of "Talking to god..."[1] when I read about these close calls with nuclear weapons. The most important paragraph in the entire short story is the following: "The only ones who reach level two are those who learn to accept and to live with their most dangerous knowledge. Each and every individual in such a species must eventually become capable of destroying their entire species at any time. Yet they must learn to control themselves to the degree that they can survive even such deadly insight. And frankly, they’re the only ones we really want to see leaving their solar systems. Species that haven’t achieved that maturity could not be allowed to infect the rest of the universe, but fortunately that has never required my intervention. The knowledge always does the trick". 1: http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal
- jlaporte 11y ago
  As many times as the world has come close to nuclear war and mutually assured destruction since the end of WW2, it's actually one of the most reassuring things about humanity that people refused orders to fire missiles every time If you accept the account in the linked story, this episode itself is a counterexample: "...the situation of one launch crew was particularly stark: All its targets were in Russia. Its launch officer, a lieutenant, did not acknowledge the authority of the senior field officer—i.e. Capt. Bassett—to override the now-repeated order of the major. The second launch officer at that site reported to Bassett that the lieutenant had ordered his crew to proceed with the launch of its missiles..."
kensai 11y ago
Argh. I wish the game "East vs West" was a reality to test all these things! :D
dabeeeenster 11y ago
For those interested, the Eric Schlosser book is a superb, in depth look at the entire history of nuclear control. Very very good read. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Command-Control-Eric-Schlosser/dp/0141037911/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Command-Control-Eric-Schlosser/dp/01...
ohitsdom 11y ago
Absolutely incredible. I really hope the Freedom of Information Act requests get somewhere and we get to hear how a screw up of this magnitude happened.
Mithaldu 11y ago
The entire thing is worth a read, but here's a short summary: John Bordne claims that missile launch crews in okinawa received nuclear missile launch orders via calm encoded voice comms, which seemed suspect, since they were given at defcon 2, not defcon 1. According to the claim they ended up contacting the sender of the codes and requested codes to either stand down or upgrade defcon, at which point the sender issued stand down with considerable stress in his voice. Bordne also claims that to his knowledge no real consequences for this ever happened. He's asking for corroboration to help with his own old memories and to straighten out history.
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  My own thoughts separately: If this is all correctly remembered and truthful, it could mean that someone managed to sneak those codes into the command chain and the person passing them on wasn't even aware they were the launch codes. In that case i would suspect any consequences, if they happened, to be kept quiet on as well. Or it's super mundane and just a coincidence/typo.
  - spydum 11y ago
    I'm curious what the actual protocol was for defining the codes. Could it have been an accidental collision? depending on the codes, what is the probability all three matched? You have to wonder if there was some sort of covert op in play, and cooler minds prevailed (Capt bassets' rigorous adherence to protocol maybe was not planned for by the attacker. Refusal to launch at defcon2, which could have been overlooked by a less attentive sr official).
    - Pinckney 11y ago
      What sort of covert op? Who would want to start WWIII?
      - arethuza 11y ago
        In the decade or so before the Cuban Missile Crisis there were some US military leaders who thought that a "preventative" attack on the Soviets was a good idea - by the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis the public estimates of Soviet capabilities were so high (overestimated by a factor of 100 in some cases) that people probably thought it was too late for such an attack. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2005/03/13/to-be-sorted/the-executioner-of-tokyo/#.Vi5_sStRqZc http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2005/03/13/to-be-sorted/the...
apaprocki 11y ago
Interesting -- a prior 2012 story relating to Bordne. I guess in hind sight he knew more than he was letting onto then if this all turns out to have some truth to it. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2012/07/08/general/okinawas-first-nuclear-missile-men-break-silence/ http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2012/07/08/general/okinawas... Bordne also recounted some of it earlier this year in March but it didn't seem to get picked up much: http://japanfocus.org/events/view/249 http://japanfocus.org/events/view/249 edit: Bordne himself posted on another site that this was the crew Crew #1 (Wave Makers) (1960 through 1963) Launch Officer - Capt. William Bassett Crew Chief SSgt William “Bill” Voorhees Mech. #1 A2C Eugene “Geno” Boozer Mech. #2 A2C John “JC” Bordne (Guest book signer #135) Mech. #3 A2C Michael “Mike” Schaubach Mech. #4 A2C William “Bill” O’Hara (Guest book signer #25) Mech. #5 A2C Richard “Rick” Marshal http://www.mace-b.com/38tmw/kadena/Kadena-2.htm http://www.mace-b.com/38tmw/kadena/Kadena-2.htm
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
arethuza 11y ago
"Why target non-belligerent countries?" Worth noting that until not long before the Cuban missile crisis there was only one single unconditional plan for the US fighting a nuclear war: the first version of SIOP - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_Plan#The_first_SIOP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_... This targeted the Soviets, China, Warsaw Pact countries and even the likes of Yugoslavia and Albania. There was an exchange between General Power and David Shoup, Commandant of the Marine Corps, that went as follows: "What would happen if Beijing was not fighting; was there an option to leave Chinese targets out of the attack plan?" Power was reported to have said that he hoped no one would think of that "because it would really screw up the plan"—that is, the plan was supposed to be executed as a whole. Apparently Shoup then observed that "any plan that kills millions of Chinese when it isn't even their war is not a good plan. This is not the American way." Edit: For anyone interested in the Cuban Missile Crisis I can strongly recommend "One Minute To Midnight" by Michael Dobbs - it is full of episodes like this (some even more alarming).
- pdeuchler 11y ago
  To play devil's advocate that kind of makes sense... in the advent of a nuclear launch you have no idea how other people will respond, and if China et al were to respond it's reasonable to assume it would have been directed at the US (even if the US was not the aggressor). At that point you have to go scorched earth and take out any possible retaliation. It is nuclear war after all, when you're launching an arsenal of 32,000 warheads there's only going to be one survivor at best so you might as well do everything in your power to make sure it's you.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    American military planners don't seem to agree with that, since they revised it later on to add options. It looks more likely that the original all-or-nothing SIOP was just an organizational thing due to limited planning resources available. To make a bad and inadequate analogy, it's like writing a computer program that does a bunch of unnecessary work because it's easier and you want to get it out the door. Except instead of wasted CPU cycles, it's millions of lives.
ivan_ah 11y ago
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...
Tossrock 11y ago
Perhaps counterintuitively, but I actually find this somewhat reassuring - another example of regular soldiers declining to initiate a nuclear war. Yeah, the magnitude of the mistake is awful, but the final failsafe (ie, human conscience) seems to work. See also Vasili Arkhipov, Stanislav Petrov, etc.
- eggoa 11y ago
  They were also at the wrong DEFCON level for that kind of order, so protocol acted a partial failsafe too.
- Pinckney 11y ago
  But consider survivorship bias.
  - JackFr 11y ago
    It seems more like the anthropic principal than survivorship bias -- since we're here talking about it, we must live in a universe where the fail-safes work.
    - emiliobumachar 11y ago
      I don't think that even total nuclear war would actually wipe out human life on Earth. Keep in mind, 0.1% of a billion people is a whole million people.
  - Pinatubo 11y ago
    You mean we never think about all of those guys that actually did start a nuclear war?
USNetizen 11y ago
As someone who was stationed on Okinawa some years later, I find this quite interesting and had seen even a few parallels to this story during my time there, albeit not with nuclear warheads involved.
medymed 11y ago
Whenever I can spare the time, I try to make mobile apps and computer games. I think it can add value to the world. But compared to calling the shots in the dark on a imminent nuclear holocaust? Geez louise. If this story is true, this guy did far, far more for the world than any app or gizmo I could hope to see developed by me or others. It seems our destructive capabilities (which are practically infinite) in some sense far outweigh our creative capabilities. It's too bad nobody throws a few million dollars at this guy or his family like money is thrown at promising startups. Even if having saved the world is a sunk benefit (a la sunk cost), it would be well-deserved. Equally interesting, his Soviet counterpart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
- arethuza 11y ago
  It would be good to have a monument somewhere with the names of as many people as possible who acted sanely during those dangerous days - the least we can do is remember them and take it as a lesson.
  - meatysnapper 11y ago
    A memorial to people who exercised good judgement and common sense in stressful situations would be great. Maybe we could have a reality show about this, to prove to the rest of the world we aren't just a bunch of slobbering troglodytes.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I am actually starting to sort-of observe the Stanislav Petrov Day[0] - 26th of September. It seems worth it to add to the list the Vasili Arkhipov Day, the 27th of October, and John Bordne day, the 28th of October. Maybe we should actually make a list of such days, in memory of people who actually saved (a big part of) the world, or had a significant contribution towards its continued prosperity. Come to think of it, today's the 27th. Happy Vasili Arkhipov Day, HN! [0] - http://blog.jaibot.com/there-is-a-button/ http://blog.jaibot.com/there-is-a-button/
  - ericd 11y ago
sveit 11y ago
I contact my U.S. Representative requesting the Air Force release records pertaining to the incident. We need to know that facts.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
MaysonL 11y ago
Interesting coincidence – TAC Missileers, "a US Air Force, Cold War veterans group, whose members proudly served our country, as part of the Mace or Matador cruise missile programs." (quoted from their website) is having a reunion next week in Orlando, Florida.
ck2 11y ago
But don't worry, all the people in charge of our nuclear missiles now are constantly caught cheating at their tests. I believe I read recently the way the military solved this huge scandal is by making the tests easier and simply pass/fail. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/30/22508088-92-nuclear-missile-officers-implicated-in-cheating-scandal-air-force-says http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/30/22508088-92-nucle... http://www.defenseone.com/management/2014/04/after-cheating-scandal-air-force-switches-pass-fail-nuclear-missileers/83173/ http://www.defenseone.com/management/2014/04/after-cheating-...
meshko 11y ago
ok, hold on. Could these 1960s era missiles really be retargeted like this? I always assumed that they were programmed for a single target and changing the target was a big deal.
- TorKlingberg 11y ago
  The article does not mention any retargeting.
  - meshko 11y ago
    Didn't it talk about transmission specifying targets to hit?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

278 points by sehugg 11y ago

Just makes me so very, very glad that the right decisions were made by so many people in those trying times. I'm sure there are plenty of individual heroes whose small contributions individually and collectively prevented nuclear war that we'll never hear about.

AUmrysh 11y ago

As many times as the world has come close to nuclear war and mutually assured destruction since the end of WW2, it's actually one of the most reassuring things about humanity that people refused orders to fire missiles every time. I'm always reminded of "Talking to god..."[1] when I read about these close calls with nuclear weapons. The most important paragraph in the entire short story is the following: "The only ones who reach level two are those who learn to accept and to live with their most dangerous knowledge. Each and every individual in such a species must eventually become capable of destroying their entire species at any time. Yet they must learn to control themselves to the degree that they can survive even such deadly insight. And frankly, they’re the only ones we really want to see leaving their solar systems. Species that haven’t achieved that maturity could not be allowed to infect the rest of the universe, but fortunately that has never required my intervention. The knowledge always does the trick". 1: http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal

jlaporte 11y ago
As many times as the world has come close to nuclear war and mutually assured destruction since the end of WW2, it's actually one of the most reassuring things about humanity that people refused orders to fire missiles every time If you accept the account in the linked story, this episode itself is a counterexample: "...the situation of one launch crew was particularly stark: All its targets were in Russia. Its launch officer, a lieutenant, did not acknowledge the authority of the senior field officer—i.e. Capt. Bassett—to override the now-repeated order of the major. The second launch officer at that site reported to Bassett that the lieutenant had ordered his crew to proceed with the launch of its missiles..."

kensai 11y ago

Argh. I wish the game "East vs West" was a reality to test all these things! :D

dabeeeenster 11y ago

For those interested, the Eric Schlosser book is a superb, in depth look at the entire history of nuclear control. Very very good read. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Command-Control-Eric-Schlosser/dp/0141037911/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Command-Control-Eric-Schlosser/dp/01...

ohitsdom 11y ago

Absolutely incredible. I really hope the Freedom of Information Act requests get somewhere and we get to hear how a screw up of this magnitude happened.

Mithaldu 11y ago

The entire thing is worth a read, but here's a short summary: John Bordne claims that missile launch crews in okinawa received nuclear missile launch orders via calm encoded voice comms, which seemed suspect, since they were given at defcon 2, not defcon 1. According to the claim they ended up contacting the sender of the codes and requested codes to either stand down or upgrade defcon, at which point the sender issued stand down with considerable stress in his voice. Bordne also claims that to his knowledge no real consequences for this ever happened. He's asking for corroboration to help with his own old memories and to straighten out history.

Mithaldu 11y ago
My own thoughts separately: If this is all correctly remembered and truthful, it could mean that someone managed to sneak those codes into the command chain and the person passing them on wasn't even aware they were the launch codes. In that case i would suspect any consequences, if they happened, to be kept quiet on as well. Or it's super mundane and just a coincidence/typo.
- spydum 11y ago
  I'm curious what the actual protocol was for defining the codes. Could it have been an accidental collision? depending on the codes, what is the probability all three matched? You have to wonder if there was some sort of covert op in play, and cooler minds prevailed (Capt bassets' rigorous adherence to protocol maybe was not planned for by the attacker. Refusal to launch at defcon2, which could have been overlooked by a less attentive sr official).
  - Pinckney 11y ago
    What sort of covert op? Who would want to start WWIII?
    - arethuza 11y ago
      In the decade or so before the Cuban Missile Crisis there were some US military leaders who thought that a "preventative" attack on the Soviets was a good idea - by the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis the public estimates of Soviet capabilities were so high (overestimated by a factor of 100 in some cases) that people probably thought it was too late for such an attack. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2005/03/13/to-be-sorted/the-executioner-of-tokyo/#.Vi5_sStRqZc http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2005/03/13/to-be-sorted/the...

apaprocki 11y ago

Interesting -- a prior 2012 story relating to Bordne. I guess in hind sight he knew more than he was letting onto then if this all turns out to have some truth to it. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2012/07/08/general/okinawas-first-nuclear-missile-men-break-silence/ http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2012/07/08/general/okinawas... Bordne also recounted some of it earlier this year in March but it didn't seem to get picked up much: http://japanfocus.org/events/view/249 http://japanfocus.org/events/view/249 edit: Bordne himself posted on another site that this was the crew Crew #1 (Wave Makers) (1960 through 1963) Launch Officer - Capt. William Bassett Crew Chief SSgt William “Bill” Voorhees Mech. #1 A2C Eugene “Geno” Boozer Mech. #2 A2C John “JC” Bordne (Guest book signer #135) Mech. #3 A2C Michael “Mike” Schaubach Mech. #4 A2C William “Bill” O’Hara (Guest book signer #25) Mech. #5 A2C Richard “Rick” Marshal http://www.mace-b.com/38tmw/kadena/Kadena-2.htm http://www.mace-b.com/38tmw/kadena/Kadena-2.htm

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

arethuza 11y ago

"Why target non-belligerent countries?" Worth noting that until not long before the Cuban missile crisis there was only one single unconditional plan for the US fighting a nuclear war: the first version of SIOP - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_Plan#The_first_SIOP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_... This targeted the Soviets, China, Warsaw Pact countries and even the likes of Yugoslavia and Albania. There was an exchange between General Power and David Shoup, Commandant of the Marine Corps, that went as follows: "What would happen if Beijing was not fighting; was there an option to leave Chinese targets out of the attack plan?" Power was reported to have said that he hoped no one would think of that "because it would really screw up the plan"—that is, the plan was supposed to be executed as a whole. Apparently Shoup then observed that "any plan that kills millions of Chinese when it isn't even their war is not a good plan. This is not the American way." Edit: For anyone interested in the Cuban Missile Crisis I can strongly recommend "One Minute To Midnight" by Michael Dobbs - it is full of episodes like this (some even more alarming).

pdeuchler 11y ago
To play devil's advocate that kind of makes sense... in the advent of a nuclear launch you have no idea how other people will respond, and if China et al were to respond it's reasonable to assume it would have been directed at the US (even if the US was not the aggressor). At that point you have to go scorched earth and take out any possible retaliation. It is nuclear war after all, when you're launching an arsenal of 32,000 warheads there's only going to be one survivor at best so you might as well do everything in your power to make sure it's you.
- mikeash 11y ago
  American military planners don't seem to agree with that, since they revised it later on to add options. It looks more likely that the original all-or-nothing SIOP was just an organizational thing due to limited planning resources available. To make a bad and inadequate analogy, it's like writing a computer program that does a bunch of unnecessary work because it's easier and you want to get it out the door. Except instead of wasted CPU cycles, it's millions of lives.

ivan_ah 11y ago

cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

Tossrock 11y ago

Perhaps counterintuitively, but I actually find this somewhat reassuring - another example of regular soldiers declining to initiate a nuclear war. Yeah, the magnitude of the mistake is awful, but the final failsafe (ie, human conscience) seems to work. See also Vasili Arkhipov, Stanislav Petrov, etc.

eggoa 11y ago
They were also at the wrong DEFCON level for that kind of order, so protocol acted a partial failsafe too.
Pinckney 11y ago
But consider survivorship bias.
- JackFr 11y ago
  It seems more like the anthropic principal than survivorship bias -- since we're here talking about it, we must live in a universe where the fail-safes work.
  - emiliobumachar 11y ago
    I don't think that even total nuclear war would actually wipe out human life on Earth. Keep in mind, 0.1% of a billion people is a whole million people.
- Pinatubo 11y ago
  You mean we never think about all of those guys that actually did start a nuclear war?

USNetizen 11y ago

As someone who was stationed on Okinawa some years later, I find this quite interesting and had seen even a few parallels to this story during my time there, albeit not with nuclear warheads involved.

medymed 11y ago

Whenever I can spare the time, I try to make mobile apps and computer games. I think it can add value to the world. But compared to calling the shots in the dark on a imminent nuclear holocaust? Geez louise. If this story is true, this guy did far, far more for the world than any app or gizmo I could hope to see developed by me or others. It seems our destructive capabilities (which are practically infinite) in some sense far outweigh our creative capabilities. It's too bad nobody throws a few million dollars at this guy or his family like money is thrown at promising startups. Even if having saved the world is a sunk benefit (a la sunk cost), it would be well-deserved. Equally interesting, his Soviet counterpart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov

arethuza 11y ago
It would be good to have a monument somewhere with the names of as many people as possible who acted sanely during those dangerous days - the least we can do is remember them and take it as a lesson.
- meatysnapper 11y ago
  A memorial to people who exercised good judgement and common sense in stressful situations would be great. Maybe we could have a reality show about this, to prove to the rest of the world we aren't just a bunch of slobbering troglodytes.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I am actually starting to sort-of observe the Stanislav Petrov Day[0] - 26th of September. It seems worth it to add to the list the Vasili Arkhipov Day, the 27th of October, and John Bordne day, the 28th of October. Maybe we should actually make a list of such days, in memory of people who actually saved (a big part of) the world, or had a significant contribution towards its continued prosperity. Come to think of it, today's the 27th. Happy Vasili Arkhipov Day, HN! [0] - http://blog.jaibot.com/there-is-a-button/ http://blog.jaibot.com/there-is-a-button/
- ericd 11y ago

sveit 11y ago

I contact my U.S. Representative requesting the Air Force release records pertaining to the incident. We need to know that facts.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

MaysonL 11y ago

Interesting coincidence – TAC Missileers, "a US Air Force, Cold War veterans group, whose members proudly served our country, as part of the Mace or Matador cruise missile programs." (quoted from their website) is having a reunion next week in Orlando, Florida.

ck2 11y ago

But don't worry, all the people in charge of our nuclear missiles now are constantly caught cheating at their tests. I believe I read recently the way the military solved this huge scandal is by making the tests easier and simply pass/fail. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/30/22508088-92-nuclear-missile-officers-implicated-in-cheating-scandal-air-force-says http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/30/22508088-92-nucle... http://www.defenseone.com/management/2014/04/after-cheating-scandal-air-force-switches-pass-fail-nuclear-missileers/83173/ http://www.defenseone.com/management/2014/04/after-cheating-...

meshko 11y ago

ok, hold on. Could these 1960s era missiles really be retargeted like this? I always assumed that they were programmed for a single target and changing the target was a big deal.

TorKlingberg 11y ago
The article does not mention any retargeting.
- meshko 11y ago
  Didn't it talk about transmission specifying targets to hit?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]