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That Time We Made Backpack Nukes · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always, so
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  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
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  Speaker 1: the myth, the legend, Maxwell Newcar Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Bang, bang. Maxwell's silver new car.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
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  Speaker 3: It's black, but okay.
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  Speaker 1: Well, it's, you know, insert reference here. We'll fix an editing.
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  Speaker 1: Shout out to Sylvia Rosemary. That is the one and
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  Speaker 1: only returned from the grave, Noel Brown.
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  Speaker 2: And what a grave it's been, Ben. Been Ben.
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  Speaker 4: It's been a grave, grave, grave because I was gravely ill.
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  Speaker 4: And y'all were kind enough to help me out and
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  Speaker 4: let me rest up. And as you can still hear
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  Speaker 4: in my voice, I'm sort of on the tail end
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  Speaker 4: of a bit of a bout of plague. But I'm
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  Speaker 4: happy to be back joined with you lovely fellows and
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  Speaker 4: you lovely Ridiculous Historians out there in Ridiculous Historyland.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes. And as you can tell. I've got a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a Batman voice as well, but I think
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  Speaker 1: it suits us, Noel, because you and I are very
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  Speaker 1: out-the-box dudes, as well as Max. They call me Ben Bullen.
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  Speaker 1: This is Ridiculous History. We've been on a bit of
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  Speaker 1: a nuclear weapons kick.
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  Speaker 2: You could say that as a people. As a civilization.
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  Speaker 2: We do live in a society, it turns out. One
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  Speaker 2: run by fear of nukes.
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  Speaker 5: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Now, before you say, sirs, this is a Wendy's, we
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  Speaker 1: want you to know that the entirety of the society
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  Speaker 1: that you referenced, Noel, has been fascinated and terrified of
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  Speaker 1: nuclear technology since World War II. And part of that
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  Speaker 1: is because the same recipe and the same process you
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  Speaker 1: use to make peaceful nuclear energy can make world-ending nuclear weapons.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true. But what if we could like make
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  Speaker 2: them real small? Right.
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  Speaker 4: Wouldn't that be a real game changer for this fear
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  Speaker 4: and paranoia that you're describing?
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  Speaker 1: Dude, yes, because we know that right now, most people
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  Speaker 1: on the planet are aware that nuclear weapons can be bad.
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  Speaker 1: Only a few countries have nuclear weapons and they have
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of kind of window dressing about how they're
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  Speaker 1: going to Use them and never use them. But like
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  Speaker 1: you were saying, in the years and decades right after
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  Speaker 1: the invention of the atomic bomb, people were not so hesitant.
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  Speaker 1: There were really powerful folks who were saying, we should
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  Speaker 1: get weird with it. What else can we do with
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  Speaker 1: this new dangerous toy?
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  Speaker 4: Ben, speaking of getting weird with it, it only just
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  Speaker 4: recently kind of occurred to me that it is bizarre
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  Speaker 4: that Oppenheimer was such a mega, mega, mega blockbuster. I
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  Speaker 4: think it's just a Christopher Nolan effect. And I actually
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  Speaker 4: didn't see the movie.
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  Speaker 2: I heard it was good.
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  Speaker 4: I heard there were parts of it that felt like
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  Speaker 4: it glossed over some of the actual, you know, human
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  Speaker 4: cost in favor of kind of like showing the I
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  Speaker 4: don't know the pathos of the man himself, uh, Robert Oppenheimer,
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  Speaker 4: but I haven't seen it. So I can't comment on
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  Speaker 4: that directly, but I do think that the fact that
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  Speaker 4: a movie about a scientist was the, one of the
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  Speaker 4: biggest movies of all time.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's worth a watch. Uh, if you would
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  Speaker 1: like to, if you would like to check it out,
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  Speaker 1: there's also a great graphic novel or pal, Matt Frederick
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  Speaker 1: hipped me to a while back called Trinity. Check that
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  Speaker 1: out as well. Uh, Folks, behind the scenes, pretty much
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  Speaker 1: every government and cough-cough corporation, cough-cough, was trying to answer questions.
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  Speaker 1: In the wake of the atomic age, they were saying,
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  Speaker 1: what's the biggest bomb we can make? How long does
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  Speaker 1: radiation last? How does fallout travel? How long will stuff
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  Speaker 1: be contaminated? What happens when people who are exposed to
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  Speaker 1: the consequences of a bomb have children? And so quickly,
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  Speaker 1: after the bombings at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, People started asking
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  Speaker 1: exactly what you teased, Noel. They said, not how big
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  Speaker 1: can we make a bomb, how small can we make
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  Speaker 1: a bomb?
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  Speaker 4: Speaking of Fallout, Ben, in the Fallout universe of video
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  Speaker 4: games and now a pretty decent television series, the mini-nuke
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  Speaker 4: is one of the most powerful deployable weapons that you
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  Speaker 4: can get.
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  Speaker 1: Hmm. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And how big is the mini nuke?
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  Speaker 2: It is about the size and look of a propane tank.
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  Speaker 3: So to jump in here real quick, I just want
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  Speaker 3: to reference Fort Hagen, which is a location you have
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  Speaker 3: to go to if you do the Brotherhood of Steel
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  Speaker 3: quest line in Fallout 4, where there's this facility and
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  Speaker 3: on one floor, I forget what they're developing, but it's
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  Speaker 3: super easy. And the other floor, they're trying to develop
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  Speaker 3: a deployment technique for the mini nuke, which is basically
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  Speaker 3: launched with a slingshot. And the problem is they just, uh,
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  Speaker 3: most of the times, and this is a problem you'd
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  Speaker 3: run into in the game, you end up blowing yourself up,
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  Speaker 3: which is kind of the story of a nuke. You
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  Speaker 3: might destroy things, but you yourself.
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  Speaker 4: And therein lies the quandary of how small can we
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  Speaker 4: make it? Like, wow, it'd be dope if we could
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  Speaker 4: have nuclear hand grenades, but she couldn't throw it physically
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  Speaker 4: far enough that you yourself would not be in the
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  Speaker 4: line of, you know, fire explosion.
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  Speaker 2: Horrific, horrific fallout.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the fancy word for that is Pyrrhic victory.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. Foisted on your own petard.
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  Speaker 5: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: You know, a petard is a grenade. I didn't.
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  Speaker 4: I learned that like last year because it's a term
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  Speaker 4: my friend Frank and I use often when we are
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  Speaker 4: playing Mario Kart and we hit ourselves with our own
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  Speaker 4: green shell. We call that getting foisted on our own petard.
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  Speaker 4: And we finally thought to look it up. And a
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  Speaker 4: petard was a French term for one of those long
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  Speaker 4: boy grenades that looks.
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  Speaker 2: Kind of like a stick, you know, you throw. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: You blow yourself up with your own grenade. Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Yes. Again, a Pyrrhic victory. And at the, at this
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  Speaker 1: point in history, The United States and the world overall
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  Speaker 1: was not super concerned with the idea of Pyrrhic victories
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  Speaker 1: or the philosophical quandaries thereof. Instead, they said, look, why
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  Speaker 1: don't we take these big nukes, make something that can
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  Speaker 1: fit in a briefcase? Ooh, what about a backpack?
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  Speaker 4: Ben, so you're saying let's just figure out the consequences later?
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  Speaker 4: This attitude's been around a long time, you're saying?
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  Speaker 1: Very much so. It reminds me of a phrase you
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  Speaker 1: used to say pretty often, Noel, which is, what was it,
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  Speaker 1: move fast and break stuff?
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  Speaker 4: That's the Silicon Valley way that seems to have bled
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  Speaker 4: its way into.
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  Speaker 2: You know, the everyday goings on of the U.S. government
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  Speaker 2: as well. Yes, agreed.
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  Speaker 1: And they were asking, these boffins, they were asking some
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  Speaker 1: of the questions that we've already asked. They said, okay,
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  Speaker 1: how on earth could we miniaturize a nuclear weapon knowing
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  Speaker 1: that it's expensive, the technology is really finicky? How can
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  Speaker 1: we guarantee it works? How can we make it small
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  Speaker 1: enough for a single human person to carry? And how
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  Speaker 1: can we, to the big question here, how can we
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  Speaker 1: make it safe enough for the people carrying it to
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  Speaker 1: stay alive until it's time.
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  Speaker 2: To rock and roll? Right.
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  Speaker 4: And if this concept of making, you know, the world's
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  Speaker 4: most dangerous weapon of mass destruction, little tiny cute guy,
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  Speaker 4: That sounds a little bit how I learned to stop
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  Speaker 4: worrying and love the bomb, strange love level crazy.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it is. It's, again, one of these things where
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  Speaker 2: it's like, well, why not? Why not do that thing?
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  Speaker 2: What if the other guys are doing it? Yeah. Consequences
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  Speaker 2: be damned. Because, I mean, the answer is you can't. Right. Exactly.
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  Speaker 2: You just can't. This idea is foolish by its very nature.
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  Speaker 1: It's definitely... empiric again, because this we also have to remember, folks,
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  Speaker 1: this reasoning is coming about during the Cold War. So
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  Speaker 1: the Soviet bloc and the Western bloc, they're throwing all
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  Speaker 1: kinds of crazy ideas out there. They're like, what if
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  Speaker 1: we bake cats semi-robotic? What if we teach bats?
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  Speaker 2: Cocaine's a hell of a drug, man.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it was. Maybe it was one of those meetings
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  Speaker 1: for us. But we got to remember that stuff was
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  Speaker 1: not sweet. for the U.S. and NATO early on in
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  Speaker 1: the Cold War. Ignore what your history textbooks may have
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  Speaker 1: told you.
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  Speaker 2: It was not a kumbaya off, to say the least.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
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  Speaker 1: Because at the close of World War II, the United
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  Speaker 1: States is in a catbird seat because their industry hasn't
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  Speaker 1: been demolished by the actions of the European theater. But
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  Speaker 1: the West overall is still outmanned, outgunned. I'm not going
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  Speaker 1: to do the Hamilton thing. In comparison to the Soviet bloc.
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  Speaker 1: So what they were thinking, Uncle Sam and his boys
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  Speaker 1: at this time, they were saying, yeah, the Soviets have
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  Speaker 1: more people than us. And yeah, they have more machinery
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  Speaker 1: of war, but we have the bomb. So we have
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  Speaker 1: to let everybody know over the Iron Curtain that we're
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  Speaker 1: totally fine with dropping the nukes. You know what I mean?
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  Speaker 1: We are totally fine.
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  Speaker 2: It's, it's, it's not a bad tactic.
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  Speaker 4: It's a lot of talk, but we did do it once.
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  Speaker 2: So, I mean, who's to say, right? We're crazy.
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  Speaker 1: It's such, yeah, it's like crazy like a fox. It's,
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  Speaker 1: There's a rabidity to it. And so it came to
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  Speaker 1: pass from the 1940s through the 1980s, the U.S. and
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  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union spent so much time and energy and
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  Speaker 1: money and resources figuring out how to use nuclear weapons
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  Speaker 1: because mad was not a thing at this point. Mutually
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  Speaker 1: assured destruction. Everybody who was making decisions assumed that nuclear
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  Speaker 1: weapons were a matter of when rather than a matter
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  Speaker 1: of if. They were like, these bombs are happening. We
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  Speaker 1: got to figure out the best.
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  Speaker 2: Way to drop them.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I personally find it kind of wild that
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  Speaker 4: it's really only happened once or twice.
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  Speaker 2: Three times a lady.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, just given the absolute division of international affairs
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  Speaker 4: that have waxed and waned over the years since World
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  Speaker 4: War II, I mean, I guess if there's ever going
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  Speaker 4: to be a time that it might happen again, I mean,
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  Speaker 4: knock on wood, for God's sake, it's now-ish. But I
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  Speaker 4: am kind of, there is a slight sense of belief
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  Speaker 4: in humanity that it hasn't happened again. And I'm not
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  Speaker 4: even blaming the United States for doing what they did.
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  Speaker 2: It was, would you say it was necessary, Ben?
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  Speaker 1: The bombing of Japan?
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  Speaker 2: Was it the only choice? Was it really the only way?
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  Speaker 2: Or do you think there were other ways?
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  Speaker 1: I believe there were other ways, fundamentally.
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  Speaker 4: And that act, though, the act of doing that is
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  Speaker 4: what led to this whole ability to posture in this way, right?
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  Speaker 1: 100%, yeah. I mean, this also, this posture, to use
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  Speaker 1: your term there, this paints the U.S. into a dangerous corner.
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  Speaker 1: you don't have much flexibility in how you respond to aggression.
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  Speaker 1: So you're saying if communist forces launch a conventional non-nuclear attack,
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  Speaker 1: then you as the West, you have to either purposefully
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  Speaker 1: lose that conflict or you have to go full doomsday
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  Speaker 1: and drop nuclear bombs again. And that would create a
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  Speaker 1: back and forth exchange that's going to kill millions of people.
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  Speaker 1: And You know, a big reason it's going to kill
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  Speaker 1: millions of people is because Uncle Sam only had chunky
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  Speaker 1: nuke boys. They didn't have a mini nuke. They had
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  Speaker 1: just the stuff that would burn cities.
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  Speaker 2: This is a heavy topic, Ben.
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  Speaker 4: We haven't even really gotten into the meat and potatoes
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  Speaker 4: of it yet.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know.
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  Speaker 4: I guess we are just living in a time where
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  Speaker 4: the specter of this– Especially when we're talking about Iran
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  Speaker 4: and they cannot have a nuclear weapon and all of
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  Speaker 4: that stuff. It just feels bigger than it has in
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  Speaker 4: my lifetime.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, Iran's been two weeks away for years, right?
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  Speaker 1: For decades. But the issue is now circumstances have changed
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  Speaker 1: in the United States, right? That's probably where you're getting
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  Speaker 1: that looming storm on the horizon feeling. Because previously, since
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  Speaker 1: World War II, about up to now, the U.S. would
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  Speaker 1: do everything in its power not to deploy a nuke.
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  Speaker 1: And now things are a little bit squirrely, right? People
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  Speaker 1: are feeling froggy. And you can only stay on a
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  Speaker 1: lily pad so long before you hop. So they knew
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  Speaker 1: way back in the Cold War, they knew that because
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  Speaker 1: they were reliant on nuclear weapons— There was no way
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  Speaker 1: not to escalate things. They would be entering a boxing match,
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  Speaker 1: getting jabbed once, and then pulling out a gun and
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  Speaker 1: shooting down not just their opponent, but everybody in the audience.
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  Speaker 1: So they needed something a little more friendly, a little
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  Speaker 1: less world-ending.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, but is that kind of not quite how... I mean,
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  Speaker 4: I guess there's megatons. So you could have like... Could
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  Speaker 4: you have like a.
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  Speaker 2: Could you have a mini-nuke?
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  Speaker 1: Could you have a little fart?
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  Speaker 2: Just a little bit of a poof.
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  Speaker 1: Just a little, just a little, just a piff instead.
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  Speaker 2: Of a pfft. Yeah, maybe.
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  Speaker 4: I do wonder, because I guess, I mean, the nature
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  Speaker 4: of a nuclear reaction and the subsequent explosion and fallout,
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  Speaker 4: it just seems kind of like the nature of the technology. Like,
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  Speaker 4: I'm not sure how you would, like, you know, kind
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  Speaker 4: of trim it down.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, how do we build a gun that doesn't shoot?
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  Speaker 1: The things that they dropped on Japan, Fat Man and
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  Speaker 1: Little Boy, those are the big ones we're talking about,
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  Speaker 1: strategic nuclear weapons. They're meant to be total war doctrine. Cities,
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  Speaker 1: industrial centers, military bases, they're looking for something smaller, what
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  Speaker 1: they call a tactical nuclear weapon. To your point, it
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  Speaker 1: has lower explosive power. You can take infantry. You can
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  Speaker 1: take on-the-ground troops and deploy it on the battlefield. And
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  Speaker 1: I hate to say it because it sounds so soulless,
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  Speaker 1: but really what they were thinking about is also how
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: much money they could save because you don't need aircraft.
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  Speaker 1: You don't need heavy bombers. You know, they're expensive to operate.
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  Speaker 1: It's easy to shoot them from the sky.
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  Speaker 4: Or, you know, really expensive tech like intercontinental ballistic missiles,
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  Speaker 4: which is the method of carrying the nuclear payload.
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  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: You don't have to waste those resources. You can move
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  Speaker 1: the weapons in ways that are a lot more difficult
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  Speaker 1: to detect. So from their perspective, Uncle Sam at this
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  Speaker 1: point is saying, really, we're just making artillery. We're making
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  Speaker 1: artillery plus super artillery, if you will. It'll be powerful
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  Speaker 1: enough to change the course of a battle, but it
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  Speaker 1: won't be destructive enough to plunge us back into another
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  Speaker 1: world war. So they made porta nukes. It's a true story.
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  Speaker 1: It's so ridiculous. They made backpack nukes.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, indeed.
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  Speaker 4: These suitcase or backpack nukes had to, above all else,
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  Speaker 4: be easy to move, as you've been kind of getting at, Ben.
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  Speaker 4: Folks said about trying to make them less than 100
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  Speaker 4: pounds max. In the United States, there were specially trained
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: troops known as green light troops who ran these specific
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  Speaker 4: drills involving jumping out of low-flying planes in order to
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  Speaker 4: practice carrying and handling these new weapons, deploying them safely
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  Speaker 4: to the ground without blowing themselves up in the process.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know why this just reminds me of like
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  Speaker 4: this really tense moments in movies where you see people like,
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: I think it's Lost that I'm thinking of, like slowly
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: moving unstable dynamite because if.
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  Speaker 2: You drop it or something, it'll like. Don't shake it.
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  Speaker 1: Don't shake it.
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  Speaker 2: It's unstable nitro. Exactly.
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: These Cold War soldiers were actually training, just like you said,
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  Speaker 1: all the green light troops were carrying something called the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: B-54 machine. Special Atomic Demolition Munition, or SATOM.
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  Speaker 2: SATOM. Cute.
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  Speaker 1: It was cute. It was also small. It was very kawaii.
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  Speaker 1: It was small enough to fit inside a backpack, depending
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  Speaker 1: on how you define backpack.
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  Speaker 2: I guess I'm picturing proton pack kind of vibes. There
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  Speaker 2: we go. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, that's closer to it, dude, because this will
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  Speaker 1: not fit in your average back-to-school backpack. It's like, well,
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  Speaker 1: we have a quote with the dimensions.
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  Speaker 2: It's a good one.
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  Speaker 4: The B-54 stood 18 inches tall, encased in an aluminum
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  Speaker 4: and fiberglass frame, rounded to a bullet shape on one end,
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  Speaker 4: and had a 12-inch diameter control panel on the other.
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  Speaker 4: According to an Army manual, the weapon's maximum explosive yield
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  Speaker 4: was less than one kiloton. Okay, so the kiloton, Ben,
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  Speaker 4: that's the... Terminology used to measure the explosive radius, I guess.
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  Speaker 1: The blast.
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  Speaker 2: Got it. The explosion. Continuing. That is the equivalent of
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  Speaker 2: a thousand tons of TNT. Yeah, just a thousand tons
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  Speaker 2: of TNT. Between friends. Yeah. What's a thousand tons of
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  Speaker 2: TNT between friends? Again, I'm still failing to see.
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  Speaker 4: How this is like a light kind of version you
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  Speaker 4: know a thousand tons that's like sort of the difference
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  Speaker 4: in a billion and a million you.
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  Speaker 1: Know we were all very excited in the meeting right
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  Speaker 1: really i'm telling you.
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  Speaker 4: You know what maybe they got a hold of some
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: of those nazi speed pills and that's where this.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Maybe that was it yeah because they also said hey
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: guys we're not going full crazy and We don't want
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: anybody to use the bomb unless they're authorized. So we're
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: going to have a little cover plate. It's going to
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: have a little combination lock.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Just stop it.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: And we're going to have a little glow in the
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: dark paint on the lock so that if you're out
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: in the field at night... You can unlock the bomb
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: at night.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: It's like your IndieGlo watch. This is too adorable.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: It's just the worst part about improv. You can't yes and.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: All the time.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: You should really maybe not on this one. Here's what
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: it looked like. Ben, you found the picture. It's got
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: its own little carrying case, little zipper thing. It looks
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: like a thermos or something, man. I mean, I get
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: it's hard to tell the scale. But could you help
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: me with the scale, Ben? I'm looking at it and
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: it does look like it's got a handle. I mean,
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: this would be Again, it's carryable. This is like a
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: very large carry-on bag.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. It's like a duffel bag with a conic
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: top to it. It's got some straps so you can
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: strap it to yourself. At the reverse on the flat side,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it has a long zipper that goes the circumference of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the package. I was remembering, Nolan, the research for this,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: our conversation not too long ago where we talked about
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: how we get stopped at airports when we travel. Because
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: we have suspicious gear, our mics, our recording components, our
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: field gear. It's always a polite conversation, but can you
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: imagine taking this through the TSA?
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: No, I can't, Ben.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: Well, maybe I can, and both of us can a
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: little bit, because a microphone in particular really does look
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: quite bomb-like. It is a metal encasement, you know, full
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: of little small electronic components and wires.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And if you check out the pictures of these
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: various iterations of the backpack nuke, you can also see
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: what we described there, the duffel bag, that's the outer
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: cover for a parachuting kit, right? So if you open that,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: you'll see another version that is a series of nested
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: canisters and we got to go to the third picture here.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: It's awesome this is where you get the scale you you.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Could see it uh you could see it anytime you
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: check for backpack nukes the green light troops had to
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: strap this to themselves they were already wearing parachutes and
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: other gear so they strapped it to their tank.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: It's strapped betwixt their their legs akimbo yeah They are
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: spread eagle flying down out of the clear blue sky
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: with a giant nuclear bomb strapped to their junk.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, and Ben, the more I look at these pictures
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: and read some of these descriptions, the.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: More I mean, it's clear that the mini nuke in
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Fallout was inspired by this.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Awesome. Yeah. No, you know what?
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Now you say it. I agree because these folks had to,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: they were trained to parachute or scuba dive behind enemy
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: lines with their tiny boy nukes. And the idea was
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: you were going to blow up a military base or
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a strategic installation or you're just going to make vast
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: swaths of land uninhabitable.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, scorched earth.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Scorched earth, right.
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: Oh, and really quickly back to the mini-nuke and the
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: fallout thing. It is clearly meant to be satirical. It
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: is a largely– Pyrrhic weapon, to Max's point. You would
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: often blow yourself up when you use this thing. It's
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: very difficult to use effectively.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: And to jump in here, in Fallout 4, there's like,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: I think there's only like one, there's only a few,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: like many, the guns in Fallout you can upgrade in
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: many different ways. The Fat Man, which is the launcher
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: of the mini-nuke, has one where it launches a bunch
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: of mini-nukes and there's virtually no way to safely use
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: it without killing yourself instantly.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, again, Fallout gets it. Fallout understood the assignment. It's
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: good satire.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We also know, going back to this idea of
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Pyrrhic victory, there's a reason we're teasing this, because we
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: found video clips from training exercises. We found evidence from
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: our own government about contingency plans. And this was very much,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: despite the fact that the U.S. had such strong propaganda
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: against suicide bombers like Kamikaze or Divine Wind, pilots in
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: World War II from Japan, they were pretty much planning
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: for the Greenlight Boys to die. They had these, you know,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: fig leaf plans where they're like, here's how you escape
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the scene before the bomb detonates. You have a timer, okay?
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: You have a mechanical timer. You can set it up
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: to 27 hours, which solves our fallout problem. But the
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: issue is the device is are relying on mechanical timers
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: for their detonators, and those are inherently unreliable. So they
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: could go off eight minutes early, they could go off
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: 13 minutes late, you could still be in the blast radius.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: For sure. Do you think that the Greenlight troops understood
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: this risk, or was this something that was maybe sugar-coated
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: to them a little bit by Uncle Sam?
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I would like to think, Noel, that they were telling
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the truth to the troops, as always. it was widely accepted,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: no matter what the official stance was, that these endeavors
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: could turn into suicide missions. And there were even some
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: green light team instructors who would make it more suicidal.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: They would say, look, if you're on my team, you
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: have to stay within visual range of that detonation to
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: make sure it goes off. So that means that if
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: you want to pull off a successful strike, your team
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: has to infiltrate enemy lines, sneak up on the enemy location,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: carrying an untrustworthy nuclear weapon, then set it, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: wait for it to explode, watch it explode, and then
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: somehow get back to friendly lands.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: Well, it's almost an example of keeping up with the
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: Joneses that were the kamikaze pilots.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I guess you're right, yeah. We also know Lest we
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: ridicule Uncle Sam too much, we know that Soviet powers– Yeah,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: he can take it. He can take it.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: He's a big boy.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: We know that Soviet powers were working on the same thing.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: This is weird. I love that you're mentioning keeping up
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: with the Joneses because this is also a golden age
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: of spying. Both the Soviets and the USA were riddled
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: with spies. They already always kind of knew a little
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: bit about what the other guy was up to. So
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: they kept freaking each other out, right? Like, these guys
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: are building a smaller bomb. Well, we're going to strap
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: one to our guys' butts.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, again, even that attitude or that feeling
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: of paranoia continues very strongly to this day. Trump was
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: just asked in an interview if he was worried about
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: China spying on us and China supplying information to Iran
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: about locations and things like that or satellite imagery. And
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: Trump said, you know, I don't really care because we're
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: spying on them, too. You know, and it's just that
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: attitude has just been, you know, going strong since the
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: Cold War.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, also, at least we've got it more out
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: in the open.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: That's true. Right.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. At least we have a president who said, yeah,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: we're doing it, too.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: But yeah, there's not much I can give props to
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: Trump for. But I actually thought that was a rare
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: moment of something resembling interesting diplomacy.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Broken clocks.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Check them twice a day. But the thing is, for
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the backpack nukes, the public on both sides of the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Cold War, they had no idea about this stuff. So
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: much so. that we don't know exactly how miniature they
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: were able to miniaturize things. We don't know what they
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: actually got up to. Is there something that's the size
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: of a 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola? Probably not, hopefully.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Probably not.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: I think there probably are physical limitations, the space that's
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: required to carry out a reaction of this magnitude, right?
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: But we do know there were troubling claims, like the
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Soviet Union fell. In the aftermath, some of the world's
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: smartest experts are still asking what happened to all the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: nukes that the USSR used to possess. There was an
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: interview we saw back in 1997 from a former Soviet
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: general named Alexander I.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Lebed.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: He was talking to 60 Minutes, you remember this, and
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: he said, The Soviet Union created around 250 suitcase-sized portable
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. And he said of those 250, about 100
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: of those bad boys are missing. We don't know where
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: they're at. Just like the airport says, don't touch unfamiliar baggage.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: That's a broken arrow, right?
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: That is a broken arrow.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Who else is going to bring you?
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm just, if everyone's not familiar, that is
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: what the term for a missing nuke is, I believe.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Check out our two-part series on lost broken arrows.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Yep. Yes, please do.
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: Also, check out the pretty terrible 90s espionage film Broken
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Arrow starring John Travolta. You didn't like it? The Travolta Zons.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: I have not seen it since it was in the theaters, Ben.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: I just have a feeling it's not going to hold up.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: But you know what, Ben?
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: I am still kind of on the mend. So after
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: we podcast, I think I'm going to have a little
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: chill movie night. I think I'm going to watch Broken
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: Arrow and I'll report back.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I'd love for you to report back. Also... Just to
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: manage expectations here, Noel, the reason that I enjoy Broken
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Arrow is because I'm a fan of clowns. I support
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the clown, you know, demographic.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Got it. Remember the General's Daughter?
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: That was another one from that era, I believe, also
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: starring Travolta.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: And we have Max popping in. Max, what's on your mind?
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: Just want to drop a reminder that there is a
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Broken Arrow off the coast of Savannah, Georgia.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Savannah, Georgia.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: Not too far from us. So if that thing goes off-
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: it's been a pleasure knowing.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: You guys really has man really has good times yeah
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: it's been pretty great three out of five wow that's.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Soft ben that's a soft review oh.
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: Of course you guys are six out of five numbers
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: should even exist but the thing is with this idea
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: of these broken arrows it could be hogwash right it.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Could be the general is spitting propaganda for some reason
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: or maybe he wasn't read on to the top secret
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: locations of these things but just a few years after
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: that in 1999 the U.S. military research deep breath subcommittee
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: of the house armed services committee investigated the idea that
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: the Soviets at some point hid suitcase-sized nuclear weapons throughout
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: the United States. We haven't found any yet, none that
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: have been publicly confirmed. But, you know, our takeaway here
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: has to be don't pick up random suitcases. Just don't
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: If you see something, say something.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Never leave your luggage unattended.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: And there we have it, folks. A moral, a bit
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: of ridiculous Cold War history and a big tip of
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: the cap to you for tuning in. Big, big thanks
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Big thanks, of course.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: To Noel Brown for recovery.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: I'm getting there, man. Dude, kick-ass work on this research brief.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: Ben, my friend and co-host and fellow Ridiculous Historian OG.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: And a huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland. The Quister, AJ Bahamas, Jacobs,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: The Puzzler.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: And a big, big thanks as well as a tease
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: to our fellow rude dudes at Ridiculous Crime. If you
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: dig us, you'll love them.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Don't believe us?
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Check out next week's. Yeah. Stories, right?
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going to be a fun one. We'll tag
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: team back again. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.