Burning the Sky: Operation Argus and the Untold Story of the Cold War Nuclear Tests in Outer Space

264 Pages·2018·4.45 MB·English

by  Mark Wolverton

BURNING THE SKY
Operation Argus and the Untold Story of the
Cold War Nuclear Tests in Outer Space
MARK WOLVERTON
with 21 b&w and 9 color images and 5 maps
A
fter the Soviet Union proved to the US that it possessed an operational
intercontinental ballistic missile with the launch of Sputnik in October 1957, the
world watched anxiously as the two superpowers engaged in a game of nuclear
one-upmanship. In the midst of this rising tension, Nicholas Christofilos, an
eccentric Greek-American physicist, brought forth an outlandish, albeit
ingenious, idea to defend the US from a Soviet attack: launching nuclear
warheads to detonate in outer space, creating an artificial radiation belt that
would fry incoming Soviet ICBMs. That idea became Operation Argus, the most
secret and riskiest scientific experiment in history, and classified details of these
nuclear tests have been long obscured.
In Burning the Sky, Mark Wolverton tells the unknown and controversial story
of this scheme to reveal a fascinating narrative that still has powerful resonances
today. He chronicles Christofilos’s unconventional idea from its inception to
execution, when the scientist persuaded the military to carry out the dangerous
test—using the entire Earth’s atmosphere as a laboratory. Combining his
investigation of recently declassified military documents with more than a
decade of experience in researching and writing about the science of the Cold
War, Wolverton examines the scientific, political, and environmental
implications of Argus, as well as that of the atmospheric tests that followed. He
also discusses the roles played by physicist James Van Allen and President
Eisenhower in the scheme, and how the whistleblowing journalists at the New
York Times blew the lid off what was supposed to be America’s ultimate nuclear
secret.
Burning the Sky is an engrossing read that will intrigue any lover of scientific
or military history and will remind readers why Operation Argus remains
frighteningly relevant nearly sixty years later.
ALSO BY MARK WOLVERTON
A Life in Twilight:
The Final Years of J. Robert Oppenheimer
The Depths of Space:
The Story of the Pioneer Planetary Probes
The Science of Superman:
The Official Guide to the Science of
the Last Son of Krypton
Copyright
This edition first published in hardcover in the United States in 2018 by
The Overlook Press, an imprint of ABRAMS
195 Broadway, 9th floor
New York, NY 10007
www.overlookpress.com
Abrams books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for
premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special
editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact
[email protected] or the address above.
Copyright © 2018 by Mark Wolverton All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in
writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief
passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine,
newspaper, or broadcast.
ISBN 978-1-4683-1418-2
The national security complex became, in the Eisenhower years, a fast-growing
apparatus to allow us to do in secret what we could not do in the open.
—DAVID HALBERSTAM, The Fifties There is the sky,
which is all men’s together.
—EURIPIDES
Earth changed in the black sky.
It caught fire.
Part of it seemed to come apart in a million pieces, as if a gigantic jigsaw had
exploded. It burned with an unholy dripping glare for a minute, three times
normal size, then dwindled.
“What was that?” Sam looked at the green fire in the sky.
“Earth,” said Elma, holding her hands together.
“That can’t be Earth, that’s not Earth! No, that ain’t Earth! It can’t be.”
“You mean it couldn’t be Earth,” said Elma, looking at him. “That just isn’t
Earth. No, that’s not Earth; is that what you mean?”
“Not Earth—oh no, It couldn’t be,” he wailed.
He stood there, his hands at his sides, his mouth open, his eyes wide and dull,
not moving.
—RAY BRADBURY, The Martian Chronicles
Contents
ALSO BY MARK WOLVERTON
COPYRIGHT
INTRODUCTION: The Middle of Nowhere
1: The Panic of 1958
2: The Elevator Repairman
3: Lines of Force
4: A Sense of Urgency
5: The Task Force
6: The Farthest Place on Earth
7: Earth in a Shroud
8: The Big Finish
9: The Veil of Secrecy
10: The Cold Glare of Day
11: The Light of Science
12: The Sky is Falling
13: A Pause to Consider
14: Bigger Bangs
15: The Sun at Night
16: The Haunted Island
17: The Fire of Damocles
18: Threats and Legacies
POSTSCRIPT: A Persistent Afterglow
MAPS
NOTES
SELECTED BIBIOGRAPHY
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
TIMELINE OF OUTER SPACE/HIGH ALTITUDE NUCLEAR TESTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Introduction:
The Middle of Nowhere
A
SIDE FROM THE TRISTAN DA CUNHA ARCHIPELAGO, CONSISTING OF THE MAIN
island of Tristan da Cunha, the Nightingale islands, Gough Island, and
Inaccessible Island, most of the various other tiny chunks of rock in the South
Atlantic Ocean are so small and insignificant that no one has ever bothered to
grace them with proper names. Only about three hundred people have ever
resided permanently on Tristan da Cunha at any given time, and most of the
other islands are either wholly uninhabited by humans or populated only
intermittently by small scientific or meteorological crews. The islands have been
a territory of the United Kingdom since the early nineteenth century, and over
the years have sheltered visiting fishermen, whalers, naturalists, fugitives, and
even an occasional prince or other royalty.
On the morning of September 9, 1958, some of Tristan’s inhabitants were out
on the slopes of the island’s long-dead volcano, tending their potato patches.
One of them was G. Francis Harris, who also happened to be the official
administrator of the island, officially appointed by the Foreign Office back in
London. Suddenly, Harris and his fellow islanders glanced up from their
planting, distracted by an unusual phenomenon in those parts: the sound of
airplane engines.
Two planes with US Navy markings swept overhead, low enough that the
pilots could be seen peering curiously below. The friendly islanders tried waving
to them, but the planes responded by abruptly turning back out to sea. “This was
thought odd and most unfriendly,” Harris later recounted, particularly since “the
islanders had not seen an aeroplane for 15 years, apart from a helicopter, and so
they were most surprised.”
Harris instructed the island’s radio operator to try to pick up any unusual
signals that might help to figure out what was going on. He found the airwaves
alive with enigmatic coded transmissions, but attempts to contact the senders
were ignored. “All was in code, but we were able to advise the Royal Navy in
South Africa about unusual activity, and quote to them the call signs of three or
four American destroyers,” Harris said. From his account, the islanders were
rather put out by the experience. It caused “a good deal of consternation,” he
noted. “We were never told why they should have been in our area without
telling us, or why they appeared so unfriendly, or why they did not pay us a
1
social call!” he complained.
Not until almost two years later, in July 1960, would Harris and the other
residents of Tristan da Cunha find out the answers, when New York Times
science reporter Walter Sullivan thought to contact them to ask if they’d
happened to notice anything odd going on back in summer 1958. Barely two
weeks before the decidedly antisocial US Navy airplanes buzzed the ancient
volcanic island, in the depths of a cold and stormy South Atlantic midnight at the
end of August 1958, an atomic bomb had been detonated about sixty miles south
and three hundred miles above Tristan. Over the ensuing fortnight, two more
burst in the night sky, the last only two days before Tristan da Cunha’s aerial
flyby.
The islanders had enjoyed front row seats for what was then the most secret
Cold War operation in the world, a massive undertaking that would later be
revealed to the public as “the greatest scientific experiment of all time.”
And they had slept through the whole thing.
CHAPTER 1
The Panic of 1958
O
N OCTOBER 4, 1957, THE 187-POUND BEACH BALL–SIZED GADGET NAMED Sputnik
was launched from the steppes of Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union, announcing
its presence to the world with a steady radio beeping as it circled the planet
every ninety minutes. Everyone who heard it—or learned about it from the
torrent of hysterical news reports—knew immediately that nothing would ever
be the same.
It wasn’t that the idea of an Earth-orbiting satellite was such a big deal.
Scientists had been talking about it for years, and, in fact, both the United States
and the Soviet Union had announced plans to do just such a thing as part of the
newly begun International Geophysical Year (IGY), a coordinated eighteen-
month program of research and exploration by more than sixty nations,
dedicated to achieving a greater understanding of planet Earth. America had two
separate but equally driven teams working on its satellite program: one called
Vanguard, operated by the Naval Research Laboratory and strictly devoted to the
civilian science ideals of the IGY, and another under the decidedly more martial
auspices of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), led by Major General
John Medaris and expatriate former-Nazi rocketeer Wernher von Braun.
Both groups had been engaging in a spirited competition to earn the official
nod from the White House to launch what was then expected to be humanity’s
first satellite. But interservice rivalry, political maneuvering, and Cold War
concerns had hampered progress. The Army—which had been steadily working
on developing missiles since its postwar experiments with von Braun’s captured
V-2 rockets—had a definite technical lead, but the Vanguard group had a
stronger civilian pedigree, which better meshed with President Eisenhower’s
desire to keep America’s IGY and space research efforts free of any militaristic
bent. For that reason, Vanguard was to be the first to make the attempt.
Everyone liked to believe that the Soviet Union was far behind the United
States in science and technology. Yes, they also had atomic and hydrogen
bombs, but it had taken them years to catch up, and besides, they had cheated,
relying on espionage to steal American secrets. The Soviets boasted about their
prowess and might, but it was all bluster. There was simply no way that such a