Nuking North Carolina

[Jan Klimkowski]

In that it was only three days after JFK began as President I tend to believe he had no clue about this near- fatal event.

Dawn

Dawn - actually, I would assume that JFK did know.

Eric Schlosser, who conducted the original research, states in the Democracy Now piece above: "I interviewed former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara who had just literally entered the administration, and was terrified when he was told the news of this accident when it occurred."

If McNamara knew....

I agree Jan, within a few days, if not the same day McNamara knew, JFK knew...and both would have almost shit in their pants over this. This might well have been one of the important 'lessons' JFK learned 'the hard way', that eventually set him on a path diametrically opposed to those that either killed him or had wished him dead. This may well have been his first 'wake up call'....of the many to follow, we have long known about...and I'll bet others we do not know about.

Peter - agreed.

Indeed, as we learn more of this event, suppressed for over half a century, we may find that it had a signficant impact on JFK's spiritual evolution.

Suddenly, as POTUS, JFK would know things that the population of America would never be told.

It is hard to imagine an event more perfect for shattering the consensus Cold War mentality and exposing the MADness of the Pentagon's nuclear warfare strategy.

I call

Rosebud

[Charles Drago]

Thanks to Jan for pointing me to this thread.

All interested parties should be aware of a possible motive for leaking/publishing the original Guardian story: promotion of the new Man from U.N.C.L.E. film, with a plot that reportedly revolves around "lost" nukes and WMD proliferation.

Even if such is the case, of course, the event itself is a matter of record.

As for the near disaster's psychological and spiritual impacts on JFK, we can but speculate, albeit in an informed and open-minded fashion. (By the way, the "when" of JFK's awareness is beside the point, so let's not get sidetracked on that question.)

I laugh out loud at those who maintain that the president's intellectual growth and spiritual evolution had reached their collective end point long before he held public office -- that the mind and spirit of John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been in some sort of lock box for decades.

Such a point of view insults and demeans the man.

Where is wisdom or courage to be found in the person of an ideologue?

What worth is to be found in an unexamined life?

Name just one hero who emerged from his or her quest unchanged by it.

My informed speculation is that this event, along with the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Missile Crisis, the death of his two-day-old son*, and other events to which we are not privy had profound and lasting intellectual and impacts on JFK in his totality.
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*George Michael Evica and I had many discussions centering on evident-to-the-public changes in JFK's behavior -- toward his wife and others -- in the wake of the passing of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Charles - a profound and necessarily speculative post.

Thank you.

We shall see what others do with this the revelation of this incident. I write this with a certain trepidation.

[Charles Drago]

Charles - a profound and necessarily speculative post.

Thank you.

We shall see what others do with this the revelation of this incident. I write this with a certain trepidation.

As well you should.

[Jim Hackett II]

I don't expect many more.

Paloma Spain '66. N.C. 61, British Columbia B=36 in the 50s, Savannah 58.
But the missile thing in Arkansas was hushed up real quick, that I do recall.
It had to be bad to shut down the story so completely
given the county sheriff's live comments that evening before the shut up commandment was handed down to the "free press".
Nuke accidents are not so rare as the DOD want us to think.

If you want to be frightened look into the U.S.S.R. nuke weapons and materials after the fall of Stalin's Empire.

[Magda Hassan]

Thanks to Jan for pointing me to this thread.

All interested parties should be aware of a possible motive for leaking/publishing the original Guardian story: promotion of the new Man from U.N.C.L.E. film, with a plot that reportedly revolves around "lost" nukes and WMD proliferation.

Even if such is the case, of course, the event itself is a matter of record.