Just finished watching the documentary Command & Control about the 1980 Titan II missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas; hair-raising, to say the least, both in its depiction of the accident and its description of the many flaws (still) surrounding U.S. nukes. One part in particular, however, grabbed me as an AH writer: At the time of the accident, the Dem. state convention in Arkansas (attended by then-Gov. Bill Clinton and none other than VP Mondale) was taking place in Little Rock--well within the range of being outright destroyed or critically irradiated, if the nuke had gone off. In addition, the doc describes how the blast might have mimicked that of the Castle Bravo H-bomb test, which was three times more powerful than expected--and, based on the subsequent fallout plume (5,000 sq mi), would, if detonated in D.C., have killed most or all people between that city and NYC and affected the Eastern Seaboard as far north as Boston.
So, the question(s): If the Damascus accident had gone nuclear, what are the immediate and long-term effects? Mondale, Clinton, Sen. David Pryor (who was also at the convention, as he describes in his parts of the doc) are more than likely killed, so what does that (along with the blast itself, obviously) do to the 1980 elections? If a Castle Bravo-type fallout plume occurs (allowances made for it being a land detonation, rather than at sea, which greatly magnified the radioactivity), how much of the South and the country as a whole might be affected? What might this do to the Cold War in general, strategic arms talks, and the anti-nuclear movement?
So, the question(s): If the Damascus accident had gone nuclear, what are the immediate and long-term effects? Mondale, Clinton, Sen. David Pryor (who was also at the convention, as he describes in his parts of the doc) are more than likely killed, so what does that (along with the blast itself, obviously) do to the 1980 elections? If a Castle Bravo-type fallout plume occurs (allowances made for it being a land detonation, rather than at sea, which greatly magnified the radioactivity), how much of the South and the country as a whole might be affected? What might this do to the Cold War in general, strategic arms talks, and the anti-nuclear movement?
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