Details remain cloaked in secrecy, but HUSTLER has obtained absolute confirmation of just such a near-catastrophe-an authentic first-person account of exactly how, when and where it happened. Clair Tomlinson, the author of this article, was not only a witness, but also a protagonist in this incredible true-life drama. It took place one night in the spring of 1964, when he was serving as Air Force Crewman First Class with the 571st Strategic Missile Squadron at one of the 18 top-secret Titan sites near Tucson, Arizona.
Haunted ever since by deeply disturbing memories of that fateful night, Tomlinson drifted from job to job, lost his wife, home and savings-and decided only after years of soul-searching to break security by telling this harrowing true tale for the first time exclusively in these pages.
It was 3 am. We were on Alert at one of the Titan II missile sites scattered out in the desert around Tucson, Arizona. Down on Level 2 of the Launch Control Center we were baby-sitting “the Bomb”-a ten-megaton thermonuclear warhead mounted on top of a ten-story-tall ICBM.Each four-man crew pulled two of three 24-hour Alerts a week. They were dull, boring, giant pains in the sass during which we were responsible for two things: We had to keep the tons of electronics and on-site machinery in perfect working order, and we had to be prepared to launch the missile if so ordered. Thank god, we had never received that order, for it would mean that America had gone to war-almost certainly for the last time.
I was monitoring the missile-support systems-guidance, fuel, electronics, air conditioning, hydraulics, pneumatics, fire and toxic vapor-indicators, all displayed on dozens of panel lights and dials mounted over the Control Console.
Level 2 was called the “No Lone Zone” because it was the brain of the weapons system and the location of the Launch Button. For that reason no one could ever be left alone there at any time. This was to make it impossible for any one person to launch the missile on is own without official military authorization.
As usual, the air conditioning was not working; so I was sitting there in my underwear, sweating profusely, bleary-eyed after 18 mind-numbing hours of watching the dials and listening to the electronic drone of the control-center support gear and the missile-guidance computer. The Commander and Sergeant, a Ballistic Missile Analyst Technician, were upstairs on the well-deserved sleep shift. The Deputy Commander sat slumped forward in the Command Chair, sound asleep with his head on his hands at the Control Console, his Launch Key on a chain around his neck. Looking some what ridiculous with a pistol strapped on over his boxer shorts, he was completely exhausted from the wear and tear of Alert after Alert with never enough time to rest in between.
The Deputy was breaking the “No Sleeping on Level 2 Rule,” but that’s the first part of my confession: Nuclear missile crews break the rules. They do it all the time. We all slept on level 2. We did it every chance we got-while the missile stood ready in its underground cement silo, 275 feet away from two sets of 7000-pound steel blast doors.
i was just about to drifting off the sleep myself when the weird, high-pitched warble of the Emergency War Order signal began sounding its shrill warning. I bolted up out of my chair, cursing the damn thing for waking me up. The signal always meant a Practice Launch message, designed to test us on our reaction time and performance efficiency.
Then came a hollow voice over my earphones: “Mole hole, Mole Hole. This is Mother SAC [Strategic Air Command], Mother SAC with a Blue Dash 1. I repeat, Mole Hole, Mole Hole. This is mother SAC with a Blue Dash 1. Blue Dash 1. I repeat Blue Dash 1...”
Blue Dash 1 was no practice code. It wasn’t one of the endless exercises Base Command was always throwing at missile crews in the middle of the fucking night to keep us on our toes. A Blue Dash 1 was a real Emergency war Order! The only time they had ever sent a Blue Dash 1 before, as far as I knew, was on a standby basis the year before, when President Kennedy was assassinated.
I yelled at the Deputy Commander, who was raising his head up off the Launch Console, eyes wide from the rude awakening of the screeching warning signal. “Wake up! We’ve got a Blue Dash 1 coming in!”
He blinked his eyes, reaching for the top-secret code book. “Roger, I hear it. I wasn’t asleep. I was just resting my eyes. Wait a minute, did you say a Blue Dash 1?”
“Yeah!” I Shouted.
He grabbed his headset and put it on. We both picked up our grease pencils and began copying: “MESSAGE IS...ALPHAS... FOXTROT... CHARLIE... ZULU... TANGO... VICTOR... KILO... LIMA... BRAVO... HOTEL. ALL CREWS ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF MESSAGE ON MY COUNT OF 3. 1...2...3.”
I reached up and pressed the transparent plastic Acknowledge Button that sent an instant signal back to SAC Headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. After decoding and authenticating, the Deputy and I exchanged code books to cross-check each other. We had been through the procedure a thousand times. Find the Blue Dash key-code word identification, turn to the page indicated in the code book, read down the list of numbers and then turn to that page for the message. To our horror, there was no mistake.
“Jesus H. Christ!” I muttered, my head beginning to pound. “This is a Defcon II!” That meant we were just one step away from launching the missile!
I stared at the Deputy in disbelief. he stared back. Then with trembling hands he took a deep breath and said very quietly. “I’m officially informing you that I’m going to Launch Checklist...now! Prepare to follow along.”
Because we had been told over and over that the Titan II was a “deterrent” weapon system, we believed that no authentic Launch Standby Order would ever be sent to the missile sites except in the even of the Real Thing. In other words, no duty crew could ever receive, decode, and authenticate a Launch Standby Order unless a nuclear attack had already been initiated against the United States.
With his finger following along each word in the Checklist, the deputy began to read aloud from the Emergency War Order liek at rained robot: “Step 1. Sound the klaxon and topside siren.” His fingers automatically lifted from the Checklist to the klaxon button on the Launch Control and pushed it. “Klaxon activated,” he said as the overhead warning began blasting out, piercing my one ear that wasn’t covered by a headset.
“Check!” I said loudly, doing what I’d been trained to do over and over in Practice Launch. As the Deputy read, I followed each word in the Checklist and watched every move he made to make sure there wasn’t a single mistake. Never were we to deviate one iota from the sacred Checklist.
His finger went back to the Checklist: “Step 2,” he continued resolutely. “Clear all personnel topside from the missile site.” The Deputy’s voice cracked as he announced over the PA syte, “Attention, all personnel topside; attention all personnel topside, this is Control Center. Evacuate the site immediately to a radius of ten miles. I repeat, evacuate the site immediately to a radius of ten miles.”
“Check,” I responded, feeling foolish. Since the site was miles out in the Arizona desert at a supposedly classified location, nobody was topside except some roadrunners and coyotes. But regulations were regulations
The Deputy then switched back to our intercom headsets and put his finger on the Checklist again. “Step 3,” he announced. “Assemble crew to Launch Control Stations.”
“Check,” I said in a shaky voice as the Deputy switched the sounds system back to the loudspeakers.
“EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY-Commander, Level 2 IMMEDIATELY! I repeat, Level 2 IMMEDIATELY!”
The gravity of what was taking place was beginning to sink in. I had been through the endless calls to arms many times before in practice drills, in crew-evaluation checks, in operation-readiness inspections by the gods of Strategic Air Command. But they were always dry runs. We never really believed it was anything but a game. Nobody in his right mind would ever launch one of those ten story fuckers-yet it looked as if that was what was actually about to happen. The nightmare that haunted all of us seemed to be coming true.
I heard the pounding of the Commander’s feet as he came bounding down the stairs two at at time. Al he wore were his BVDs, his Launch Key (on a chain around his neck.), his gun belt and his holster, which carried a .38 special. Like the dedicated soldier he was, he headed right for his Command Chair to assume full charge of the situation. “What’s going on?!” he was shouting over the klaxon. “What the hell happened?”
The Deputy was standing at the Launch Control Console with his finger on the next step of the Checklist. “We got a real Blue Dash 1, and we are on Step 4 of the checklist.” he yelled.
“Shut that s.o.b. off!” shouted the Commander. Siting down in his chair, he reached up, put on his headset and turned the klaxon off himself. The noise level dropped to the normal drone, but silence only intensified the tension.
Standing at my duty station in front of the console, I watched as the Deputy gratefully turned command over to the groggy Commander and sat down in his own chair. W were now all at our Launch Crew positions, except for the Sergeant, who still hadn’t come down from upstairs.
Without waiting another moment, the Commander began to issue orders over the headsets. “Crew... check in... Commander here,” he saidExpose by Clair Tomlinson
“Deputy here “ the Deputy Commander replied.
“Missile Facilities Technician here,” I replied.
The Commander then informed us officially that we had just received a valid Blue Dash 1 and we’re at Step 4 on the Checklist, at which point he said he was taking over. “Deputy, follow me along on the Checklist. MFT, you monitor.”
“Roger, Commander.” we answered.
“Step 4. Break seal on Launch Enable Button,” the Commander said. As I watched him reach into his console drawer for wire cutters to cut the Launch Seal, I saw the madness in his eyes and realized, We’re going through with this! We’re unlocking Pandora’s box!
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