[Music] you might not think about November 9th 1979 as being one of the most important dates in history and yet it honestly might have been it might have been one of the most important dates in world history it might even have been the end of history and what happened and what didn't happen and the reason you probably never heard about it all tell us something about the era it is history that deserves to be remembered the idea that a nation can develop such a massive military potential that it makes War Unthinkable the thing we today know as mutually assured destruction goes farther back than you might think in fact both Richard Gatling who in 1862 invented the Gatling gun and Alfred Nobel who invented dynamite in 1867 suggested that their weapons were so destructive that they might make war futile the concept of using a nuclear bomb to deter someone else's use of a nuclear bomb goes goes back to the very earliest development of such weapons in March of 1940 two scientists living in England Oto frish and Rudolph peels published an extraordinary memorandum that was the first technical exposition of a practical nuclear weapon in short their analysis of the critical mass needed to sustain a nuclear chain reaction was much smaller than had been previously theorized small enough to incorporate into a practical bomb in addition to the scientific calculations FR and peels talked about such a bomb's strategic potential arguing that if Germany were to develop such a weapon the most effective reply would be a counter threat with a similar bomb the FR Peel's memorandum was considered to be a prime motivation behind the Manhattan Project and both frish and peels would later be part of the team that produced the first atomic bombs after the second world war a new competition between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its satellites began the date of the official start of what came to be called the cold war is often seen as March 12th 1947 the the day that US president Harry S Truman made a speech to the US Congress enunciating the Truman Doctrine an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion arguing that it was a threat to the National Security of the United States there is no specific day designed to represent the start of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union that was a centerpiece of the Cold War although August 29th 1949 the day the Soviet Union first tested a nuclear bomb might be as good a date as any the rds1 otherwise known as first lightning had a yield of 22 kilotons of TNT and surprised the West coming nearly 4 years earlier than the US had expected the Soviets would be able to develop a nuclear bomb by the mid 1950s both countries had developed much larger thermonuclear bombs as well as heavy bombers such as the Conair b36 and the Tuple of t95 that were capable of delivering these bombs well into each other's territory during the 1960s not only did strategic bombers improve but both the US and the Soviet Union developed submarine launched ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver the there ever more potent nuclear weapons these Delivery Systems strategic bombers intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine launch ballistic missiles became what was called the nuclear Triad and were part of a philosophy of assured destruction described by US Secretary of Defense Robert mcamera in 1967 in brief mcnamar argued that to deter nuclear war a threat of assured destruction was necessary this required not only a nuclear capacity but so much nuclear capacity that even if an enemy were to use their nuclear weapons in a hypothetical first strike the ability to respond would remain so that the destruction of that enemy would still be assured the purpose of having a three branch nuclear capability is to significantly reduce the possibility that an enemy could destroy all of the nation's nuclear forces in a first strike attack this in turn ensures a credible threat of a second strike new technologies and uncertainty over each other's capabilities continue to drive the arms race As Leaders on both sides worried about hypothetical missile gaps or bomber gaps it was the financial demands of the arms race and the concepts of massive retaliation and assured destruction that led President Dwight Eisenhower in 1955 to change US military strategy and what became known as the new look a policy which emphasized Reliance on strategic nuclear weapons to deter potential threats thus allowing the nation to reduce the size of the conventional Army and Navy as part of the new look the role of the United States Strategic Air Command or sack tasked with the air defense of the continental United States was amended under the new look the major purpose of air defense was not to shoot down enemy bombers it was to allow sack bombers to get into the air and not be destroyed on the ground to allow for massive retaliation but survivability required more than planes and missiles to truly allow survivability you have to have sufficient warning that an attack was coming thus in 1957 the US and Canada formed a joint military group called the North American Air Defense command or NORAD whose primary purpose was to provide an early warning in defense for saxs retaliatory forces and NORAD needed a Harden facility designed to protect its operations from Soviet attack in May of 1961 the US started to excavate underneath a 9570 ft Colorado Mountain to create the facility known as the cheyen Mountain Complex the complex became operational in 1967 for a total cost of $142.4 million and monitored the airspace of Canada and the United States through a worldwide early warning system for missiles Space Systems and foreign aircraft the 5 acre facility is built under 2,000 ft of granite and houses 15 three-story buildings hidden behind 25ton blast doors and mounted on giant Springs to keep them from shifting in the event of a nuclear blast the bunker is built to deflect a 30 Megaton nuclear explosion as close as 2 km at its height the tunnels of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex hosted nearly 2,000 Personnel during the 1970s norad's early warning systems at the cheyen Mountain Complex were not fully automated in 1972 cheyen Mountain began to integrate those systems with what was called the cheyen Mountain Complex improvements program 427m which became operational in 1979 427m was a Consolidated program for Command Center ballistic missile and space functions developed using new software technology and designed for computers with large processing capacity it was intended to give greater reliability and quicker early warning capability and it was there in the early morning of November 9th 1979 in the world's most advanced bunker using the brand new and robust early warning system that the unthinkable happened Decades of strategy around massive retaliation and mutually assured destruction collapsed as the screens at the nor Command Center showed indisputably that America's worst nightmare had occurred the Soviet Union had launched an allout nuclear attack on the United States designed to destroy our Command functions and our nuclear weapons this was no drill the pentagon's National military command center and the alternate National military command center in Fort Richie Maryland all showed the same thing the Soviets had launched more than 200 submarine launched ballistic missiles following standard procedures the launch control center is for America's 550 Minutemen 3 and 450 Minutemen 2 missiles missiles whose combined Warheads represented approximately 55,000 times the explosive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima were given a preliminary warning to prepare for a Counterattack the crews of the sack ready alert bombers and tankers removed to their aircraft emerging from the Readiness crew buildings commonly called mole holes to man their B-52 bombers each armed with up to 20 nuclear tipped AGM 69 short range attack missiles and start their engines the entire Continental Air Defense Interceptor Force fighter aircraft tasked to defend the United States was put on alert and at least 10 F16 Delta Dart fighter interceptors were launched to protect us airspace finally the president's doomsday plane the National Emergency Airborne command post was launched although without the president or Secretary of Defense on board US National Security advisers big new binski later recalled the event he was awakened at 3:00 a.m. by a call from his military assistant Major General William Odum who is informed him that 250 Soviet ballistic missiles were headed to the United States brazinski knew that the president's decision time to order retaliation was just 3 to 7 minutes they were still waiting for satellite confirmation of the launch and brzinsky did not want to call the president until that confirmation but asked to confirm that sack was launching its planes a moment later odm called back to inform him that the command center was reporting that the Soviets had now launched over 2200 missiles an allout nuclear attack as binski prepared to call the president he made a silent decision of his own he chose not to wake his wife if the world was going to end in half an hour he would let her go quietly in her sleep moments before he picked up the phone to call President Jimmy Carter and recommend massive retaliation Odum called a third time raw data from the early warning satellites and groundbase radar were seeing nothing it was apparently a false alarm later it was determined that software simulating a Soviet nuclear attack intended to test the new 427m system had in explicably been transferred into the regular warning display as all the command centers were linked they all showed the same thing the Air Force insisted that there was never any real risk and that all the actions taken were merely precautionary Secretary of Defense Harold Brown cited the human element is preventing the risk of any irretrievable actions Brown also said that we must be prepared for the possibility that another unrelated malfunction May someday generate another false alert a note that proved true as there were three more false alerts in 1980 all attributed to a flaw in a 46 computer chip a senior State Department official at the time warmed Secretary of State Cyrus Vance that false reports of this kind are not a rare occurrence we may have been lucky in the timing in that us Soviet relations were relatively calm in 1979 a year which saw the signing of the second of the US Soviet strategic arms limitation treaties giving more reason to question the validity of the alert but they deteriorated quickly partly because of a diplomatic exchange based on the reports in the 1979 alert and even more so as the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 19 80 as relations deteriorated the risk of miscalculation due to false alarms became even more real while flaws were recognized in the 427 M system from the start it took nearly a decade to replace the system and much has happened in the time since the Soviet Union is gone as is the Strategic Air Command which was reorganized out of existence and cheyen Mountain Complex is no longer the headquarters for NORAD the complex today host about a tenth as many employees as it did in its height in 1979 the risk today of a nuclear war St because of a false alarm is uncertain but still real in the end Decades of false alarms in both United States and the Soviet Union have never resulted in what Harold Brown called irretrievable actions the event in 1979 was little and inaccurately reported at the time and the vast majority of the world's billions of people slept through the night not knowing that anything extraordinary at all had happened in the early morning of November 9th whether this is just a memory of the tensions of the past or a warning of the risk of the future it is history that deserves to be [Music] remembered large public works from ancient pyramids to Modern super highways have transformed the world and why these projects are amazing in their own right they often have unintended consequences that go far beyond the original scope of the project and that is particularly true of one massive public work project that occurred in the middle of the 1950s between February of 1954 and July of 1957 the United States and Canadian governments cooperated on one of the largest and most ambitious construction projects in the history of the world and in doing so they transformed Canada they changed its culture its economy its governance its very geography it is history that deserves to be remembered the realities of the second world war first brought the US and Canada to the realization that we had much to gain by Mutual military cooperation the early risk that England may fall to Nazi Germany suggested that Canada with its vast natural resources and a relatively small population might be the next Target officials in both the United States and Canada recognize the value of joint cooperation in defense of the continent in August of 1940 Canadian Prime Minister McKenzie King and US President Franklin Roosevelt signed the ogdenburg agreement which created the permanent joint board on defense the board includes both Canadian and American Military and civilian Representatives with the task of providing policy level consultation on bilateral defense matters the existence of the joint board positioned the countries for further cooperation during the T times of the Cold War as both Nations became concerned about Continental defense or the protection of North America from the threat of attack by long-range bombers the obvious idea was to build a line of radar installations that could detect incoming bombers early giving time to direct fighter aircraft to attack the bomber formations but both nations were also facing a public demand to reduce defense spending and increasing mans to meet their NATO commitments in Europe and radar technology at the time had its limitations it was expensive it was relatively short ranged it required large support teams and if you put your radar installations farther out on the frontier where they could detect Soviet bombers earlier that magnified the difficulty of building and maintaining such installations plans for a joint early warning system started as early as 1946 but it took the first Soviet test of a nuclear bomb called first lightning August 29th of 1949 to finally compel the US Congress to appropriate funds the first Continental radar defense line was called the Pine Tree Line The Joint project was constructed around the 50th parallel under the philosophy that a Soviet attack would likely set around major population and Industrial centers but even as it became operational in 1954 it was in many ways outdated the line used classic pulse mode radar which was relatively short- ranged imprecise and often unable to detect objects flying close to the ground additionally the location of the stations close to the population centers they were protecting provided only limited warning time while parts of the Pine Tree Line remained in service into the 1990s it was clear from the beginning that the Pine Tree Line would provide insufficient protection from bomber attack in 1956 construction began on a new line of radar stations across the 55th parallel this line used newer forward scattered by Static radar technology with greater range and automation the so-called mid Canada Line was seen more as a supplement for the Pine Tree Line than a replacement and unlike the pine tree line was wholly funded by Canada and staffed by Royal Canadian Air Force personnel but despite the new technology the mid Canada line also had technological limitations while the bistatic radar technology meant that the radar could detect to higher altitudes and longer ranges it was not able to determine exact locations and as such was more of a trip wire than a useful tool for vectoring fighter interceptors just as problematic the radar signal could be overwhelmed by flocks of birds during migration season like the Pine Tree Line the mid candada line was largely outdated before it was operational and another more capable line was being planned even as the mid candada line line was being constructed the final line was by far the most capable utilizing newer Technologies and placed much farther towards the North Pole as the pole was the shortest route that Soviet bombers would take if attacking into North America while improved radar technology and automation made it more practical to staff a line so far north the distant early warning line or du line was nonetheless an ambitious feat of engineering it planned to take some of the world's most Advanced Technologies and place them into some of the world's most remote and inhospitable environments the DU line would be placed along the 69th parallel 2 to 300 km north of the Arctic Circle the DU Line stations included two types of radar the longrange detection system had two back-to-back antennas one with a pencil Beam for long range Precision detection and one with a square Beam for General search with a wider beam those antennas would be flanked by shorter ranged btic Gaper Radars which would detect any aircraft trying to sneak between the longrange radar that system was similar to the the one that was used on the mid Canada line but used the Doppler effect which allowed it to filter out slow moving objects and avoid the issues with migrating birds blocking the radar the two systems provided a more comprehensive barrier than the previous two echelons and location at the edge of the Arctic offered far greater warning of an attack allowing better time to plan and ready both defensive interceptors and strategic bombers that would allow Counterattack the stations were connected to each other and commanded control through a communication Network called the white Alice communication system or wax that required large parabolic int because of the remoteness and inaccessibility of the locations the stations needed to be designed for both self-sufficiency and for Mutual support designs had to include extensive for storage facilities repair and maintenance capabilities and multiple system redundancies merely doing the survey to identify the 63 sites that stretch from Alaska to the Baffin Islands was an epic feat there was no infrastructure in the north of Canada survey teams operated in primitive conditions and extreme weather to try to identify locations that you could access via water for con construction and resupply that had room for airfields that had ground where you could build an installation or if not enough gravel nearby that they could literally build ground to build an installation and of course most importantly that had an unobstructed radar view to the north the construction process was massive involving some 25,000 people 3,000 members of the US Army transportation Corps managed the sea lift during the brief Summers materials were airlifted by Massive US Air Force ski equipped locki LC 130s as well as Douglas C1 24 Globe Masters and Fairchild c119 flying box cars the rugged conditions for construction and Supply created a market for short takeoff and Landing Bush planes like the deavin Canada dhc2 Beaver whatever could not be moved by plane or boat would be dragged in cat trains of sledges dragged by snowcats and bulldozers in all some 460,000 tons of material was moved from the US and Southern Canada to the Arctic in some of the most difficult to reach locations and brutal weather conditions on Earth subcontractors then use thousands of workers to transform those into bases building housing air strips aircraft hangers outdoor uncovered antennas and antenna Towers often in the dark and in its Sub-Zero temperatures despite the challenges the line was constructed quickly and in 1957 2 years and 8 months after the decision to build was made the line was operational the 63 stations came in different sizes some were unmanned and only required maintenance during the pre Summers others had Crews of just three people larger stations might have as many as a 100 person now all those people so far up north that in the debt of Winter the temperature outside might be as low as -60° F the construction and operation in what was previously an almost completely undeveloped part of the world did offer some economic and scientific benefits small bush plane operations that got Supply contracts got so much business that they grew to major airlines with both Canadian Airlines and Eastern provincial Airlines deriving from such operations likewise Canadian electronic contractors with Supply contracts gained substantial business and grew as an industry the D line provided opportunities for research and scientific development the experience in the construction provided valuable insights into building and maintaining materials and bases in remote locations and extreme environments and the stations offered an unprecedented opportunity for the study of Arctic weather and oceanographic study but the D line also offered unique challenges in environmental impacts building and maintaining the stations required roads that cut through the permafrost damaging watersheds and Wildlife migration routes as the bases required significant storage due to the difficulty of resupply they had many tanks both above and below ground with which time have leaked millions of gallons of fuel and dangerous chemicals a Canadian project to remediate the environmental damage from 21 du line sites that were decommissioned in the 1960s conducted between 1996 and 2014 was the largest environmental cleanup in Canadian history and cost $575 million the scope of the project was staggering with hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of contaminated soils and debris some soil was so contaminated that it had to be removed to to facilities in the South others were buried in specifically constructed landfills but one of the most significant effects of the manufacturer of the line was on Canadian culture and the native peoples of Canada's North while there was a concern about the effect on these remote populations from the start Canada appointed Northern Resource officers to represent their interest the impact on culture proved to be Beyond management while it offered a pipeline of government services to populations which previously had been largely ignored and offered economic educational and Healthcare opportunities that were barely existing previously new line operations also had an irreparable impact on The hund Gather peoples of Canada's North as one Canadian University Professor noted in all of recorded human history there is no group of people who went from hunting and Gathering culture to a modern one in such a short period of time the resulting upheaval left the Inuit with deep social scars and the concurrent risks of a new sedentary wage economy including new health risks and challenges like alcohol rated violence like the pine treee line and the mid Canada Line the D line one of the most ambitious construction projects in world history was largely outdated before it was even completed the Advent of nuclear missiles made these sites that detected only incoming bombers less important in 1985 the United States and Canada came to an agreement to dismantle the D line some stations were upgraded with better radar other stations were simply decommissioned and the last official du Line Station was decommissioned in 1993 what is left is now called the north warning system and unlike the D line those stations that are in Canada are man exclusively by Canadian Personnel while the United States mans those stations that are in the United States and helps to fund the entire system the project was extraordinary in its scope it was a Marvel of its time and it was part of that system that purports to have prevented nuclear Armageddon via Mutual deterrence but like every great project it had implications far beyond its intent and it transformed the north of Canada both physically and culturally and it might have offered lessons that will be useful in the future as the world faces new challenges it is history that deserves to be [Music] remembered the technology derived from the economic competition of the Cold War is really quite amazing from occupied stations 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle to placing a human on the moon the era really did drive the boundaries of technology and Humanity but not every experiment was a success and sometimes those victims of the war that was not a war are too easily forgotten the 28 men who died in the collapse of Texas Tower 4 on January 15th 1961 deserve to be remembered after 1953 the air defense strategy of the United States was driven by a military policy of the Eisenhower Administration called the new look this attempt to balance Cold War military commitments with the nation's Financial resour sources changed the focus of air defense from attempting to protect the nation from Attack to providing enough warning to preserve our nuclear attack capability counting on the doctrine of massive retaliation to deter any attack this was grounded in the reality of the nuclear age the former strategy of planning to intercept bombers became essentially futile as even if we could effectively destroy 99% of an incoming attack the power of hydrogen bombs meant that an attack would still be devastating the goal then was to provide our Strategic Air Command with enough warning to allow us to preserve our strategic bombers for a retaliatory strike there was therefore a focus on creating a comprehensive early warning strategy with significant focus on filling gaps in radar coverage that might be exploited in an incoming attack on the United States over the course of the 1950s the US and Canada jointly worked on a series of land-based installations that would eventually create a multi-layered system of the pin Tree Line the mid candada line and the distant early warning line the development of these systems required massive effort and each is an engineering Marvel in itself but the lines still included numerous gaps that were expected to be filled via a number of different systems one of the most extraordinary of those ideas was proposed in a report by mit's Lincoln laboratory in 1952 the report considered the possibility of extending radar coverage by building Platforms in the Atlantic using offshore drilling technology They concluded that a set of such platforms equipped with Radars could extend coverage several hundred miles offshore giving half an hour additional warning of a bombing attack in January of 1954 funding for five Towers was approved with the goal of providing an interlocking early warning perimeter stretching from Nova Scotia to New Jersey because the platforms would resemble the offshore oil platforms that could be seen in the Gulf of Mexico they were called Texas towers this was quite an engineering challenge these towers would be substantially larger and placed in substantially deeper water than any oil platform that was operating in that day and they would be placed in the storm swept North Atlantic originally five Towers were planned but only three were completed Towers 2 3 and four the towers had to be sizable to fit the radar equipment the platform was a triangle approximately 200 ft per side and included more than 6,000 tons of steel and they would be anchored deep tower 4 was sitting approximately 185 ft of water deep sea oil platforms go much deeper than that today but in 1954 most oil platforms operated in 20 to 40 ft of water they worked a difficult balance trying to present minimum resistance to waves yet able to withstand hurricane for storms because of their size and the rough Seas where they were to be located they could not be constructed on site instead they were jackup rigs their watertight floating holes were built in shipyards and towed to their location where the legs were lowered and the platform raised to its regular height of 83 ft above mean Lo tide using hydraulic jacks this created the historical novelty of being the first Air Force stations to be christened and launched from a shipyard Towers 2 and three were built at the Four River Shipyard in Quincy Massachusetts they raised a slight difficulty as the platform had to fit through the gap on the raised Four River Bridge where clearance was less than 2 and 1/2 ft on either side of the platform once constructed each Tower included a large search radar and two large height finder Radars each enclosed in a neoprene radome to protect them from the weather and three antenna for communications the first completed was Texas Tower 2 about 100 m east of Cape Cod Massachusetts in December of 1955 Tower 3 50 Mi southeast of Nantucket Massachusetts became operational in November of 1956 the final tower Tower 4 placed 65 miles Southwest of Long Island New York became operational in 1958 of course the Russians were highly interested in the towers it was not uncommon to see periscopes from Russian submarines Russian trollers purportedly Merchant vessels but probably spy vessels spent so much time circling the towers that one of the Airmen said that at night there were so many lights you thought you were at Coney Island rumors spread that the Russians were sneaking onto the platforms at night the towers were essentially self-contained floating bases Texas towers contained bunk rooms recreational facilities a library and a dining hall but life of the 60 to 100 Crews stationed aboard the platforms was not easy it would have been easy enough in isolated and cramped quarters to get what they call Tower fever the work could be difficult Supply could only be transferred when the currents cooperated meaning that Airmen would be manhandling heavy deck Cargo in the middle of the night something Sailors would usually avoid but the stations were also seemingly always rocked with noise not just from station operations but from the sound transferred up the legs that were anchored to the ocean bottom they mounted the world's loudest fog horns which on a foggy day would blow every 29 seconds in the North Atlantic fog was common the Tower 2 fog horn once had to be used for 3 weeks straight Cruz rote rotated in every 4 weeks found that when they got home they couldn't sleep without noise as a sign of the quality of life of the towers Air Force personnel referred to them as the iron bastards but perhaps the worst of all was the constant motion that was caused by the waves Tower two was said to have a sort of jogging motion Tower three was a twister Tower four in the deepest water was the worst of all bobbing and weaving so much that the crews referred to Tower 4 is old shaky and that was warning sign for troubled Tower 4 in June of 1947 as Tower 4 was being towed two structural supports were torn off and lost in rough Seas after the tower was placed the Air Force decided to install the radar before the supports were fixed that affected the stability of the Station Tower 4 was in by far the deepest water over 180 ft more than three times the 56 ft of the water in which Tower 2 was anchored there was no precedent at the time for anchoring a platform so deep then in September of 1960 Tower 4 was battered by the 50ft waves and 132 M Winds of hurricane Donna a hurricane so powerful that it killed 364 people and caused $900 million in damage the tower sustained enough damage that it was reduced to a skeleton crew of 14 Air Force personnel and 14 contractors until repairs could be made they tried to stabilize the tower by filling the legs with sand and concrete the tower couldn't be abandoned for fear the Russians might capture its sensitive radar equipment in January of 1961 a strong winter storm with wind speeds up to 80 mph and waves up to 40 ft tall battered the already damaged Texas Tower 4 on January 14th 1961 US Coast Guard Lieutenant Paul yast recalled I remember going to sleep that night with the wind just howling and telling my wife I hope we don't get a call tonight but he and the crew of the 125 ft active class US Coast Guard Patrol boat agasse did get a call an emergency call to try to rescue the 24 men aboard Texas Tower 4 the Coast Guard has been raced through the Gale on the on the 15th their motto simper parabus always ready the winds were too high to attempt a rescue by helicopter at 6 p.m. the Agy was still more than 2 hours out when the tower radioed we are breaking up they were still an hour away at approximately 7:30 p.m. when Tower 4 disappeared from radar the platform had disintegrated and collapsed into the sea all 28 of the Personnel on the tower died only two of the bodies were recovered it was eventually revealed that the Air Force had already decided to decommission the program before the collapse of tower 4 the Advent of nuclear missiles which moved much faster than bombers meant that the towers went from adding about an extra half hour of early warning to just 60 seconds that Revelation made the death aboard Texas Tower 4 seem all the more futile the Air Force did add emergency escape launches to Towers 2 and three so the crews could get off quickly but by 1963 those two towers were also decommissioned Tower 3 was salvaged but Tower two was unsalvageable and was demolished on site after a review board determined that the collapse of Texas Tower 4 was due to human error a colonel who was the acting commander of the Boston air defense sector was charged with involuntary manslaughter and two other officers were charged with dereliction of Duty the colonel was acquitted in a court Marshal and the charges against the other officers were dropped in 2003 a study of the collapse of Texas Tower 4 did fall organizational failings but essentially determined that we lacked the technology the time to predict the dynamic effects of the tower's design the study concluded that using modern technology we could have saved Texas Tower 4 the families of the victims of the collapse of Texas Tower 4 formed the Texas Tower Association and for many years sought official recognition of their family's Sacrifice from government that recognition finally came in February of 2011 when President Obama sent a letter to the asso Association Donald Abbott who was the son of Dave Abbott a welder who died in the collapse was quoted in the New York Times after receiving the president's letter there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about my father we were Pals in 1947 a remote part of Southern California that was referred to Simply as the hill became a surprising and largely forgotten front line in the Cold War and while it played a surprising role in some of the most momentous events of the era it also caused some surprising and largely forgotten casualties in that war the history of the Santa Susanna field laboratory is history that deserves to be remembered founded in 1928 aircraft manufacturer North American Aviation produced important aircraft designs during the second world war including the T6 the most widely used trainer aircraft in history with nearly 177,000 produced the twin engine B25 Mitchell bomber used in James D's famous raid on Tokyo in February of 1942 and the legendary P-51 Mustang generally regarded as one of the best fighter aircraft of the second world war after the war NAA continued to design military aircraft including the f86 saber still the most produced Western jet fighter aircraft in history but North American diversified in the postwar era where there was far less demand for military aircraft but new technologies were transforming the Aerospace industry one of those new technologies was rocket engines North American had started experimenting with rocket engines in 1946 testing them in the parking lot of their Los Angeles facility and protecting the cars by parking a bulldozer in front of the engine the US Department of Defense contracted North American to study the V2 rocket that had been developed by Germany during the war the goal was to adapt the V2 design to us manufacturing standards using ideas derived from the V2 design North Americans started to design a much larger engine originally to power the sm64 Navajo a proposed supersonic inter InterContinental cruise missile given the size of the project the parking lot would no longer suffice in 1947 NAA leased acreage in the Santa Susanna mountains near kenoga Park California the area was considered a good place to test rocket engines the site which early employees dubbed the hill had good geology for Rocket test stands with isolated Peaks and Rocky bowls that acted as a natural buffer for the blast and sound while it was still able to Leverage The robust Southern California Aerospace industry at the time it was significantly more remote than other North American Aviation facilities and Rocket technology was not the only technology that was interesting North American Aviation following the development of the atomic bomb the United States government and the people had become fascinated with the potential for nuclear power in 1948 North American Aviation created an internal division to manage its government and Commercial nuclear research they built a small 5w reactor in their facility in the town of Downey California southeast of Los Angeles that in 1952 became the first nuclear reactor to operate in the state of California in 1955 that reactor was moved to the NAA land in the Santa Susanna mountains where a new area under the supervision of the US Atomic energy commission house facilities for testing nuclear reactors and nuclear support operations in 1955 North American Aviation spun off its rocket development as a new division called Rocket dine and its nuclear technology and reactor development as a division called atomics International both of these were headquartered in the Los Angeles suburb of Koga Park by the late 1950s the mountain side known as the Santa Susanna field laboratory had developed into four major test areas with 18 large static rocket engine test stands five component test Laboratories an advanced propulsion test facility and the area for nuclear facilities overseen by the atomic energy commission the entire Santa Susanna field laboratory eventually encompassed 2558 Acres including buffer zones in the North and South the facility tested rocket engines for the Army the Air Force for and by 1960 for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration the test stands some of the first of their kind in North America could test everything from Individual rocket components to full engines more than 30,000 rocket engine tests were conducted at ssfl Nasa argues that the contribution of the field laboratory to the development of the nation's space flight program cannot be overstated the test stands were used in the development of virtually every major rocket system used by the United States including the atlas Thor Delta and Saturn rocket families the Rockets tested were critical parts of us ballistic missile systems but also man space missions including the Rockets used for the Mercury and Apollo programs the satellites that allow many of the modern conveniences of our age including the global positioning system were launched on systems tested at ssfl in addition Santa Susanna's component and System test laboratory successfully tested and qualified maneuvering control systems for the Gemini and Apollo missions the lunar Ascent engine for the lunar Excursion module and other reaction control systems for programs such as the Mariner and Viking programs the test stands were also used to test the space shuttle main engine or ssme used in sets of three the ssme launching a space shuttle can produce a maximum thrust of a whopping 37 million horsepower and the reusable ssme described as the world's most reliable and highly tested large rocket engine ever built powered the program that flew 135 missions and was critical to construction of the International Space Station the repair of the Hubble Space telescope conducted hundreds of experiments launched important communication satellites and launched the mellin Galileo and ulyses interplanetary missions meanwhile the 209 acre section of the field lab called area 4 was dedicated to nuclear research including the development and testing of experimental nuclear reactors over the course of four decades area 4 would become home to 10 reactors a plutonium fuel fabrication facility a uranium fuel facility and a hot lab for remotely cutting up dangerous radioactive material the reactors included uded the pioneering Sodium Reactor experiment a reactor which in 1957 became the first nuclear reactor in the United States to produce electric power for commercial power grid by powering the nearby city of Mo park operations at area 4 helped to develop components and designs for nuclear power generation but while the Cold War contributions of the Santa Susanna field laboratory are largely forgotten the site has become increasingly better known especially in Southern California for another reason the site was chosen for its remote location allowing scientist to test the boundaries of dangerous Technologies with less risk to human populations but Southern California continued to grow including around the on Roll site today more than a half million people live within 10 miles of ssfl that is a problem for a site that tested dangerous Technologies and utilized toxic chemicals the site developed during the Cold War when the Technologies were seen as important to National Security that led to an environment where safety environmental protocols were placed behind the need for Speedy development and in fact when many protocols had not even been established for example solvents containing volatile organic compounds were used to clean rocket engines and toxic chemicals were allowed to seep into the groundwater chemicals were improperly disposed of former employees and Department of energy investigations found that toxic and radioactive chemicals were sometimes burned in open pits allowing toxic substances to be released into the air reportedly employees would dispose of drums of toxic chemicals by shooting them with a rifle until they exploded allowing the toxins to blow wherever the wind chose but perhaps the worst environmental disaster at the site occurred in July of 1959 the Sodium Reactor experiment was just that an experiment the conditions had been untried and limits were only theoretical in the course of operation the chemical lubricant leaked into the liquid sodium cooling system the chemical broke down into organic compounds that then partially blocked the cooling system as it ran across the fuel rods technicians were aware of anomalous readings but continued to operate the system while seeking Solutions eventually technicians shut the reactor down to determine the problem and discovered that 13 of 4 three reactor fuel elements had had partially melted down that event has since become a matter of dispute while documents released at the time suggested that the radiation release was negligible whistleblower sins have alleged that significant amounts of radioactive material was released and that the accident was covered up some analysts believe that the amount of radioactive material released was actually much more than the 1979 3M island incident because despite the fact that the 3-m island reactor was much larger the Sodium Reactor experiment had no concrete containment Dome these analyses suggest that the worst nuclear disaster in US history was covered up at the time and the public only became aware after documents were discovered nearly 20 years later in the wake of three-mile Island astoundingly the little known accident was only one of at least four accidents involving experimental nuclear reactors at ssfl nuclear research at the Santa Susan field laboratory concluded in 1988 and the last rocket test was in 2006 the changing needs of the space program have rendered the site unnecessary and most of the site is scheduled for environmental remediation with much of it planned to be turned into Parkland the rocket dine and atomics international divisions of North America and were sold to the Boeing corporation in 1996 and while they had been resold since Boeing retained ownership of the Santa Susanna field laboratory and thus the cleanup is the responsibility of the Boeing Corporation along with the US Department of energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and that has been a subject of intense litigation and disagreement experts hired by Boeing dispute the claim that the 1959 reactor accident released substantial radiation claiming only that a small amount of material was released that was well within federal guidelines a 2004 class action lawsuit that alleged damages due to that leak was settled out of court and to this day the true extent of that 1959 nuclear accident is unknown in 2006 a study by independent scientist determined that at least several hundred diagnosed cases of cancer are directly attributable to pollution at the Santa Susanna field laboratory and the number might actually be higher as other studies suggest that people that live within 2 miles of the facility are much more likely to be diagnosed with certain Cancers and that suggests that we are still seeing casualties in this largely forgotten Battlefield of the Cold War October of 1962 is considered by many to have been the single most dangerous point in the Cold War the dangerous game of brinksmanship that was played between the United States and the Soviet Union came to be called the Cuban Missile Crisis widely considered to be the closest that the world ever came to nuclear Armageddon the Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most reported on and has become one of the most studied events of the 20th century studied so much in fact that it is largely overshadowed other events of the time at the time that the world was worrying about allout war between the United States and the Soviet Union the world almost missed that the world needed to be worrying about an all that war between the United States and red China the other October crisis deserves to be remembered the US faced complex relations in the mountainous Himalayan region following the second world war the Indian independence Act of 1947 had created two states from British India the dominions of India and Pakistan the division was largely driven by the Pakistan movement which officially began with a resolution passed by the all India Muslim movement in 1940 calling for self-determination in the parts of India including Muslim majorities creating an East and West Pakistan two Muslim enclaves more than 1,000 miles apart included in the mix were relations with the United States in general American planers saw alignment with India to be more diplomatically valuable than alignment with Pakistan but India under its leader jaral neru preferred a policy of neutrality became a leader in the non-aligned movement seeking to remain independent of Cold War rivalries Pakistan was was even more complex with a relatively capitalist and pro-american party dominant in the west and a relatively socialist and pro-soviet party ascended in the East still Pakistan largely sought alignment with the United States as the Soviet Union sought to lie with the more socialist ideals of India by 1962 the two Nations developed a close military relationship so much so that Pakistan under the dictatorship of iub Khan was allowing the US to use Pakistani territory for covert operations when the United States U2 spy plane was shot down of the Soviet Union in July of 1960 a seminal event in the Cold War the plane had taken off from West Pakistan after the shootdown the US had suspended spy plane flights over the Soviet Union but bases in Pakistan were still being used for You2 missions over China China was its own challenge while the Chinese Communist Party had essentially won the Chinese Civil War and driven the forces of the Republic of China to retreat to Taiwan in 1949 the US still refused to officially recognize the CCP relations where universally hostile between the two who fought each other directly in the 1950 to 1953 Korean War the two had come to the brink of War again during the 1954 55 first Taiwan straight crisis a conflict in which US Joint Chiefs of Staff had recommended the use of nuclear weapons against mainland China reportedly only opposition from NATO and a warning by Winston Churchill prevented the nuclear attack the US was seeking a partner to counter China in Asia hoping to resist what it saw as a policy of Chinese expansion this further complicated relations with Pakistan and India as India was seen as more effective counterbalance to China Not only was India larger but India had a large and disputed border with China which presented a threat that the US could leverage to move India away from its policy of neutrality into the American sphere but the US had its military ties with Pakistan and those ties included another covert operation in 1951 China had annexed Tibet but Tibet had retained a strong Independence Movement which included armed resistance and eventually the United States the website history.net explains a widespread popular Revolt finally broke out in February 1956 after the Chinese bombed ancient monasteries at chatrang and litang killing thousands of monks and civilians Mass there for protection given the growing military might of tibet's occupiers the meagerly equipped resistants knew they were going to need outside support consequently the Dal Lama's elder brother who had already been approached by the CIA contacted the Americans while the actual us commitment to Tibetan Independence was questionable in supporting the Tibetan resistance the United States saw an opportunity to resist communist expansion to tie up CCP resources and to damage China's reputation worldwide starting in 1957 the US exfiltrated trained and then parachuted guerillas into Tibet to fight Chinese military forces as well as dropping supplies and weapons into the country while the trending was largely done covertly in Colorado much of the operation including the airdrops was run from a covert base in in East Pakistan the operation had quizzically increased tension between China and India by 1958 the Chinese become aware that the US is training and infiltrating Tibetan gorillas and launched a formal protest to India the protest suggested that China assumed that us operation was being supported by India and no such protest was made to Pakistan the growing Rebellion supported by the CIA resulted in increased repression by China in 1959 a rumor that China planned to kidnap that doy Lama the spiritual leader of Tibet resulted in a popular Uprising as China increased military operations and sheld the Dal Lama's residence the Dal Lama escaped the country assisted by CIA trained Tibetans entering India which offered him Sanctuary the situation further inflamed Ceno Indian relations while the Rebellion continued China's Crackdown became more violent a 1998 edition of The Washington Post summarized report by the international Commission of jurists regarding what they described as the biological and cultural genocide inflicted upon the Tibetan people by Ma's armies after the Flight of the Daly Lama ma crushed tobet with a Vengeance institutions of government and education were systematically destroyed the Buddhist religion was labeled a disease to be eradicated nearly 1.2 million out of about 6 million died through armed conflict and famine large numbers of Tibetan children were forcibly taken from their families and sent to Chinese orphanages for re-education but in the United States the crisis was seen as an opportunity both to silly China's reputation and to drive Edge between India and China by 1961 the CIA operation had become a fulcrum in the contest between India and Pakistan for us Aid the Kennedy administration had taken the lead in authorizing an aid package with NATO allies in Japan intended to boost Indian growth as a counterbalance to Chinese influence in his 2015 book JFK's forgotten crisis former CIA analyst Bruth Redale noted iub Khan had suspended the Tibetan operation in 1961 the Pakistani president was upset by Kennedy's decision to provide more than a billion dollars in economic aid to India Pakistan believed it should be America's Preferred Ally in South Asia not India and shutting down the CIA base for air drops to debat was a quiet way to Signal displeasure at Washington without causing a public breakdown in the us Pakistan relationship the CIA became concerned that Pakistan would be willing to turn to China for Aid in their ongoing border dispute with India Kennedy convinced iub Khan to relent but in exchange promised that the US would not sell arms to India even if they were attacked by China without first Consulting Pakistan by the summer of 1962 the crisis in tbat and deteriorating relations with India over disputed borders resulted in repeated military incidents between India and Chinese troops at border outposts in July Indian troops were given discretion to fire on Chinese forces if threatened India although greatly outmatched by Red China was emboldened by support from the Soviet Union which in August had provided them with advanced mig21 jet fighters to counter Us sales of F14 aircraft to Pakistan and would presumably back them in case of War as well as what they saw as an opportunity to gain sympathy in the United States the situation was a powder cake that threatened not just war between China and India but also to draw an involvement of the United States the Soviet Union and Pakistan while many factors were involved the instability that the CIA continued to F in Tibet was undoubtedly one of the factors motivating Chinese aggression but the world's eyes were mostly elsewhere namely the Caribbean there are many reasons that Nikita KF decided to gamble on placing intermediate range missiles in Cuba the missiles greatly increased Soviet nuclear strike capability against the United States as the USSR had few InterContinental missiles at the time kusf saw such a threat as bringing them closer to nuclear parody as us had deployed intermediate range missiles in Italy and turkey the missiles would serve to deter us aggression against Cuba not irrational concern after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion as well cement Soviet Cuban relations and finally kusf gambled that the missiles could be used as a bargaining chip to gain Soviet control over West Berlin which he saw as more strategically important than Cuba the US began to suspect that the Soviets were building missile bases in Cuba in August but confirmation by aerial photography did not occur until October 15th on October 22nd Kennedy spoke to the nation announcing that a naval quarantine and all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated the Cuban Missile Crisis had begun but the crisis was already reverberating in Asia where China saw opportunity a 2008 edition of the Indian Express notes the Chinese had Advanced information about the coming Cuban Missile Crisis M Don used it it to arm twist Nikita cruff to reverse his policy on backing India redell notes the significance of October 16th 1962 on October 16th National Security adviser McGeorge Bundy had opened his daily briefing book in his westwing office to find two urgent memos in the first the state department warned that fighting on the Ceno Indian border had become much more serious than normal and that India might soon need us assistance in the second the CI reported that You2 imagery had confirmed the delivery of offensive intermediate range missiles to Cuba while the US National Security team focused on Cuba the growing crisis in Asia was largely left to the US ambassador to India John Kenneth GTH The War Began on October 20th with large chines attacks in two disputed territories in India's Western and Northeast borders on outnumbered and unprepared Indian troops India was cut almost completely by surprise gallb was in London to give a speech and the eyes of the US administration were on Cuba the war quickly went badly for India who despite their own aggressive forward policy regarding the disputed territory and clear movement of troops by the Chinese did not seem to take the threat of invasion seriously after 4 days of fighting Chinese troops had Advanced some 10 miles before pausing to negotiate diplomatically from from a position of strength it was clear that India was going to need Aid in order to hold back China and gal braith faced two challenges one how to keep India from being overrun by China and two how to keep Pakistan from taking advantage of the Chinese attack iub Khan had of course his own interest in disputed territory in the province of Kashmir and the Chinese attack would have allowed Pakistan an advantage if they chose to press the point from the outset KH was seeking concessions from India in exchange for staying neutral by October 27th the crisis in Cuba was abating well the situation become dire notably when the Soviet naval officers bold stand prevented a submarine from launching a nuclear torpedo the two sides had hammered out an agreement where in the USSR would remove the missiles from Cuba in exchange for the US withdrawing its missiles in turkey and Italy but the situation had grown worse in India on October 28th the day Cru shf officially announced that he was withdrawing Soviet missiles from Cuba nou through gallith made an official request for US military aid the decision was fraught with risk but the US who also requested the assistance of the United Kingdom started flying in tons of weapons and infantry equipment to support Indian troops meanwhile Gall braith working with Walter mccon the US ambassador to Pakistan managed to Strongarm Pakistan into remaining neutral convincing Khan that the US took the Chinese attack so seriously that a move by Pakistan would be seen as a violation of their treaty agreements despite the US promise not to give arms to India with the threat of becoming diplomatically isolated Pakistan deferred diplomacy failed as NE refused to accept Chinese terms and the war resumed in mid November before us and British Aid could have great effect by the 19th the Indian army was in Dire Straits in India at risk of being cut in half on the 19th Neu sent a letter to Kennedy only recently released making the extraordinary quest of American Air Support asking the US Air Force to defend Indian cities from Chinese attack bring the Indian Air Force to attack the Chinese lines of communication in essence India was asking for the US to enter the war a repeat of the war in Korea only a decade later but before the request was fully considered peace arrived as galb put it like a thief in the night on November 20th China having taken the disputed territory and sensing that any further advances would force America's hand and risk direct us intervention announced a unilateral seiz fire it is a little known irony that while the world feared an allout war between the United States and the Soviet Union an allout war between the United States and red China nearly materialized in one sense The Diplomatic accomplishments of the Kennedy administration which managed to contain two simultaneous International crises and prevent War were remarkable Kennedy's show of strength and bold brinksmanship had if not cowed at least constrained both KF and Ma while the Cuban Missile Crisis is generally considered to have been a defining moment of the JFK presidency the Diplomatic maneuvering in the Ceno Indian war is only now starting to be appreciated but the case for American diplomatic Brilliance during the October 1962 crisis can be overstated kusf for example was as constrained by his concern that he was losing control of the situation in Cuba as he was by any action of the Americans while the Chinese certainly noticed American support for India at the time of the ceasefire they had already achieved their military objectives and the coming winter made further military gains unlikely and while iub Khan was certainly swayed by the fear of diplomatic isolation he was also well aware that the Indian army navy and Air Force were still largely focused on Kashmir and of course we were lucky there were many times to bring both crisis when the American positions left the nation and the world vulnerable to potentially disastrous miscalculation and the results were not entirely as the United States had hoped while the US may have forestalled a war between Pakistan and India the Indian defeat in the Ceno Indian War helped to provoke a Pakistani attack in a second Indo Pakistani war in 1965 and despite us Promises at the time the military aid provided to India during the Ceno Indian War played a major role in Pakistan's defeat in that war while the US saw diplomatic opportunity with India due to its support in the end Soviet efforts to negotiate peace after the 1965 war ended up moving India closer to the Soviet Union while the US attempts to improve its position with India move Pakistan towards China China did suffer some loss of reputation in parts of the world because of the war on us efforts to spin them as the aggressor but their unilaterally ending the war from a position of strength allowed them to keep some 13,000 square miles of disputed territory and was actually held up as evidence of restraint used as part of the argument in 1971 to earn both formal recognition by the United States and a permanent seat on the United Nations security Council no matter how you g us diplomacy during the area the world survived a remarkably tense month between mid October and mid November of 1962 a month that was Frau with even more danger than most of us realized sometimes the world didn't end is well as as much as you can hope for I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short Snippets are forgotten history and if you did enjoy feed the algorithm by making a comment or clicking that like button if you have suggestions for future episodes please send those to our suggestions email box check out our web page at the [Music] historyguy on Cameo and check out our merchandise at teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes of Forgotten history all you need to do is [Music] subscribe
