Bumpity bump bump...any thoughts on the scenario?
One tangential side effect: Lee Harvey Oswald's mom and brother lived in Fort Worth in 1961. Assuming they were among the victims, he probably won't settle in Dallas if/when he returns to the U.S.A.
It won't be long before President Kennedy hears about it. What sort of contact will he have with the Soviet leadership? Will any of the Air Force generals be willing to tell him that it's possible for a device to have accidentally detonated? Will the generals even believe that it's possible?
Nobody in the Government was stupid enough to start WW III over an accident cause by a plane crash. Most assuredly not JFK who was the only one who could have started this revenge scenario.But it will provide the perfect opurtunity to make the soviets the scapegoat. Nobody in the military or in the goverment would like to admit that it was their mistake, and some would likely want to start WW3 rather than admit their mistake.
I assume CalBear is right.
Even if it went off, wouldn't the cooler heads in office prevail?
After all, not a single Russian ICBM or bomber has been spotted.
When would the American government know it was an American bomb?
Would they know within a day?
I'm assuming there are slight differences in material and amount of radiation between Soviet and American bombs which could be tested?
But he could be lied to too. Or the population manipulated into thinking it was the soviets. Also I consider this scenario to be verry unlikly both the accident and the reaction I propose.
They wouldnt need a bomber to deliver the bomb could of been shipped in with a few neutral country's as the go between. The usa wouldnt want to say it was one of their bombs and anyone that saw it dropped would be dead so they could say anything they wanted.
The best demonstration of the impossibility of this scenario is that it never happened. In fifty years of bombs being flown and trucked and carted about on planes, ships, subs, trucks, railway cars, and god knows what else IT NEVER HAPPENED. It didn't happen to the super cautious Brits, the slightly less cautious French, the overly cocky Americans, the often indifferent Soviets, any of the "new" nuclear powers (not even North Korea, who couldn't even get their TOWER SHOT to detonate), despite enough Broken Arrow accidents to give you nightmares for ten lifetimes.
While I don't see a nuke going off accidentally from a fall, there remains the, admittedly minute, possibiltiy of impact-induced mechanical compression triggering a chain reaction without the detonators being involved at all.
Where do you drop a 100MT bomb?!?!?!?!? That like crushing a cockroach with a semi truck!