WI: The B-52 Crash At Goldsboro Detonates It's 2 Nuclear Bombs

What if the 1961 Goldsboro B-52 Crash had the 2 nuclear bombs it was carrying detonate? How many would die? How would US and world governments react? How would it effect the Cuban missile crisis and the whole cold war? How would nuclear power be viewed today? And generally would super powers still have nuclear weapons today?

Also, a Vsauce video mentioning it: Here

EDIT: Also, could it have been mistaken for a Soviet nuclear attack and start WWIII?
 
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Is that the crash where one of the bombs had almost all of its arming switches go off? Or is that another one i'm thinking of?

Edit: Yep that's the one.
 
What if the 1961 Goldsboro B-52 Crash had the 2 nuclear bombs it was carrying detonate? How many would die?

Thousands easily. Perhaps hundreds of thousands from fallout and related problems.

How would US and world governments react?

The US would be humiliated on top of (partially) irradiated. The Soviets would have had a field day with the news. America's allies would look nervously at those missile bases and patrolling bombers. The image of the US being the competent leader of the free world would take a major hit.

How would it effect the Cuban missile crisis and the whole cold war?

In my opinion, hard to say. The US may be more cautious, and perhaps traumatized, by what happened. The allies host to US nukes, as I said above, may be even more wary of hosting such devices on their soil. The Soviets may be emboldened by such a display of bad luck as an act of incompetence, or they may quietly double check their own supply. I could see the Missile Crisis still occurring per OTL, however.

How would nuclear power be viewed today?

Even more skeptically and cynically than it is in our world. It may also be severely curtailed to non-existent in America.

And generally would super powers still have nuclear weapons today?

Absolutely. America will have several other "broken arrows," and will require nuclear weapons to achieve parity and deterrence with the Soviets. The Soviets will see nukes as the same means to challenge the West. A freak accident wiping part of North Carolina away will do little to change that.

EDIT: Also, could it have been mistaken for a Soviet nuclear attack and start WWIII?

Highly doubtful. We would have been able to piece together the trajectory and a missing plane, and any first Soviet strike would be much larger, against other targets, and coming from another direction.
 
Nuclear weapons are almost impossible to explode accidentally, without knowing the failure that resulted in the first bomb arming, I would have to guess that the second bomb isn't going to explode at all. Still, even a single two megaton bomb could have disastrous consequences if the arm/safe switch failed.
 
USSManhattan, thanks for that, but I'm a little skeptic on the very little chance of it being mistaken for a Soviet nuclear attack.
 
It's not happening. Any Soviet attack would be coming in force, not one dropped on North Carolina. We would also see the attack coming. And if it were one bomber on a suicide mission, it'd be headed for Washington or a major city.

While there may be a moment where suspicion leans towards a Soviet attack, the evidence will not lean that way, especially once it's realized we lost contact with the bomber in that area seconds earlier, which did not report anything out of the ordinary in terms of Soviet planes.
 

Sir Chaos

Banned
It's not happening. Any Soviet attack would be coming in force, not one dropped on North Carolina. We would also see the attack coming. And if it were one bomber on a suicide mission, it'd be headed for Washington or a major city.

Exactly.

A single bomb will be seen as an attack only if it goes off in a significant place - DC, Manhattan (i.e. Wall Street), or in "Sum of All Fears" (movie version) style in whatever place the President happens to be at.

Besides that, MAYBE if it goes off at an SAC air base where nuclear-armed bombers are stationed.
 

Driftless

Donor
What if the 1961 Goldsboro B-52 Crash had the 2 nuclear bombs it was carrying detonate? How many would die?

Originally posted by: USS Manhattan
Thousands easily. Perhaps hundreds of thousands from fallout and related problems.

That would be the primary impact certainly. Irradiated soil, water, & biological matter blown into the atmosphere to come down somewhere else - down wind would be a secondary and a long ongoing impact.

North Carolina is a very productive agricultural state, so the secondary impact on it's farm-related economy for years afterwards would be disasterous.

Also, North Carolina was then, a very dominant producer of US tobacco. What impact would idea of nuked tobacco have on consumption post-disaster?
June 1, 1961
The presidents of the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the National Tuberculosis Association, and the American Public Health Association submit a joint letter to President Kennedy, pointing out the increasing evidence of the health hazards of smoking and urging the President to establish a commission. The result will be the landmark 1964 Surgeon General's report.
 
Okay, USSManhattan, I agree with you. But Driftless, I don't think anyone would give damn about the tobacco industry in North Carolina being nuked, because they'd all be thinking: "My god, North Carolina's been nuked!"
 
For institutional memory:
WI: Goldsboro bomb's 4th safety mechanism had failed (January 2014),
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=304895&highlight=Goldsboro
US H-bombs itself (October 2013),
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=293395&highlight=Goldsboro
WI: Nuclear explosion over North Carolina (Septermber 2013),
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=291927&highlight=Goldsboro
AH: The Goldsboro Atom Bomb Detonates (September 2013),
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=291963&highlight=Goldsboro
WI: US Response to an Accidental Nuclear Detonation (June 2013),
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=283042&highlight=Goldsboro
And the thread that post was in:
WI: North Carolina Gets Nuked Gass3268
 

Driftless

Donor
Okay, USSManhattan, I agree with you. But Driftless, I don't think anyone would give damn about the tobacco industry in North Carolina being nuked, because they'd all be thinking: "My god, North Carolina's been nuked!"

My point was that the population of North Carolina would be seriously screwed the day of the event AND for decades afterwards on several levels. As I wrote: Primary - the immediate casualties, Secondary: fallout damage lingering for long time - decades - including devastation to their considerable agricultural base.

However, In 1961, there would have been considerable upset about the damage to the tobacco business. It was big business then and still viewed then more positively than the brewing or casino business is today. At that point it was still just before the tremendous impact of the 1964 Surgeon General's report that finally put a harpoon into the business. Due to it's relative importance, the feds may have even more heavily subsidized tobacco coming out of a nuclear event, and given Big Tobacco some ill-deserved sympathy for years after. They were pretty good at both marketing and denial.

*Edit* I have NO love or admiration for Big Tobacco. But they would have milked this type of disaster for every penny they could extract.
 
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The wind that night was blowing straight out into the Atlantic, so the fallout would have minimal impact on the rest of the state or the country.

Note that if such an accident had occurred a week earlier, on Inauguration day, the winds were blowing straight towards Washington D.C. ...
 
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Driftless

Donor
The wind that night was blowing straight out into the Atlantic, so the fallout would have minimal impact on the rest of the state or the country.
...

Yes & no... If the prevailing winds carry the fallout offshore, it's mostly coming down into the Gulf Stream which more or less flows northeast, and up the US coast and across the Atlantic. Anybody along that flow is going to have some level of negative impact.
 
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