DBWI: What If Boston Lives, 1974

According to the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) in late 1974, President Gerald R. Ford was warned that the FBI received a communication from an extortionist wanting $200,000. It was claimed that a nuclear weapon had been placed somewhere in Boston, so a team of experts rushed in with scientists from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Unfortunately their radiation detection gear arrived at a different airport; federal officials then rented a fleet of vans to carry concealed radiation detectors around the city, but forgot to bring the tools they needed to install the equipment. As one of the researchers commented, "if they were counting on us to save the good folk of Boston...well it was bye-bye Boston."

As we all know, on May 1, 1974 the nuclear weapon went off, signalling the first major nuclear incident since the U.S. dropped the nuclear bomb on Nagasaki in 1945, and the first recorded incidence of nuclear terrorism. How would history have been different had the bomb never detonated or had been a hoax?


(OOC: For those people who think this is an ASB event, please check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Emergency_Support_Team )
 
This link justifies nothing about any kind of loose nuclear weapon, indeed, it claims this incident is a hoax. That someone demands $200,000 is a trivial sum over a city, which should be further evidence that this is really, really stupid.

This is ASB.
 
This link justifies nothing about any kind of loose nuclear weapon, indeed, it claims this incident is a hoax. That someone demands $200,000 is a trivial sum over a city, which should be further evidence that this is really, really stupid.

This is ASB.

Well, yeah, the "demands" were but a shallow gambit. They intended to let off that SADM all along....

Who'd have expected rouge elements of our own military to try and set off a nuke exchange?

Edit: OOC: that's the first low ASB thought I had. Doesn't mean it's not ASB ...
 
Well, yeah, the "demands" were but a shallow gambit. They intended to let off that SADM all along....

Who'd have expected rouge elements of our own military to try and set off a nuke exchange?

Edit: OOC: that's the first low ASB thought I had. Doesn't mean it's not ASB ...
Would the paranoia and national mistrust that was pervasive in the films and media of the 1970s and 1980s have been so prevalent without the actions of the soldiers who detonated the weapon? For many, the 1970s was forever linked to the Watergate Scandal, the Vietnam War, the Boston Disaster, and the Iran Hostage Crisis. All of these events served to drain American morale for years to come....
 
Look, this whole scenario is ASB, so I'll explain what would happen.

Nuke in Boston
US Nukes Russian City in response, perhaps Kharkov.
Soviet Nuclear response escalates conflict
Both sides launch everything

Given US confidence in its OWN nuclear arsenal and that no nuclear weapons have EVER gone missing, and that the accusation that the US army would somehow decide to threaten to murder hundreds of thousands of its own people and would be appeased by $200,000 it blatantly and clearly ASB.

And really, concerns over American Society? In light of the fact that a nuclear attack of this nature will likely result in a nuclear holocaust? And there are concerns over the IRAN HOSTAGE CRISIS? This thread does not deserve to get taken seriously.

In conclusion: This is extremely stupid and ASB. I request that a Moderator move this out of a serious history forum
 
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