On Sept. 20, the people learned of the newly declassified document, “Goldsboro revisited or: How I Learned to Mistrust the H-Bomb,” and the cover-up that prevented the general public from accessing vital information about the activities of the government. The document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request by journalist Eric Schlosser. The document outlined an incident in 1961 in which a military aircraft accidentally released two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs during a tailspin over Goldsboro, N.C.
The only thing that prevented a tragedy was one low-voltage switch that blocked detonation. Had one of the bombs detonated, it would have created a blast over 250 times more powerful than the bomb that wiped out Hiroshima in 1945 and could have deposited fallout as far north as New York City. It would have had enough power to destroy much of the East Coast, cost millions of lives, and caused unimaginable long-term damage to the region and the country.
Although there were suspicions about the incident, the U.S. government adamantly denied it for years, insisting that their nuclear weapons programs did not pose a threat to people in the U.S. The release of this document serves as yet another confirmation that the capitalist rulers of the U.S. will stop at nothing to protect their interests, and they will continue to risk the lives of the people to carry out imperialist wars and agendas.
The release of this information comes on the coat-tails of the U.S. mishap in the Great Barrier Reef, where aircraft dropped four unarmed bombs prior to landing a plane that was low on fuel. The dangerous games that U.S. forces are playing with nuclear weapons are a direct threat to peoples’ lives.
While the nuclear programs in the U.S. remain active and, clearly, pose an enormous threat to human life in this country and around the world, the U.S. has refused to rid itself of nuclear weapons as called for in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which it signed in 1968. As U.S. imperialism continues to destroy lives across the globe, its nuclear policies threaten the lives of civilians at home as well.
It was not safety measures that saved millions of lives in North Carolina when the bombs fell in 1961, it was chance.
