The First Underwater Nuclear Bomb Tested After World War 2
In this Hot Question, investigative journalist and bestselling author Annie Jacobsen breaks down the Baker atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll, one of the most consequential nuclear experiments in history. On July 25, 1946, the United States detonated an atomic bomb underwater beneath a fleet of its own ships, creating a massive radioactive disaster that changed how the world understood nuclear fallout. The surviving vessels became so contaminated that cleanup efforts were eventually abandoned because sailors were being exposed to lethal levels of radiation.
Annie also shares the extraordinary story of Alfred O’Donnell, the engineer who armed, wired, and fired the Baker bomb and later helped wire 186 nuclear weapons for the U.S. government. His knowledge was considered so sensitive that he reportedly never left the country and remained under government watch for the rest of his life.
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Is America prepared for a biological war? Absolutely not and biological war can never
happen and this is what I would talk about with nuclear war where I would say nuclear war is
insane and every person I ever interviewed told me that. These are people in nuclear command and
control that retired. It's the end game and biological war is the same situation. It is
an end game. COVID needs to be re-examined as a lesson. What can we learn from this?
Let's switch gears here real quick. We got a hot question for you. 100%.
July 25th 1946, Bikini Atoll. Wow. There are only seven atomic bombs on the entire planet
and the U.S. is about to spend one blowing up its own ships underwater to see what happens.
That bomb was called Baker and it became the first time humanity really understood
what fallout was. The ships that survived the blast were so radioactive they had to
abandon the cleanup because it was killing the sailors doing it. Bikini is still uninhabitable
today 80 years later. Can you walk us through Baker because this is the moment we learned a
nuke doesn't just destroy, it poisons everything for generations. Yeah, it's a fascinating moment
in time that's being discussed there and journalist detail just because I have spent my
life interviewing people who have actually been there. Really? It's what gives me a little bit
of an authority and I mean that like as an author. I wasn't there like you were in the
war theater. I never have been but I interviewed. So the man who wired that bomb, who wired the
Baker bomb, he armed, wired, and fired it. His name is Alfred O'Donnell. He's now dead but I
interviewed him for my book Area 51 which was sort of my first foray into nuclear weapons
and O'Donnell was with a small team of engineers called EG&G and so even more interesting is that
O'Donnell walked me through how do you, like I said to him, how do you wire, how do you arm,
wire, wire, arm, and fire a nuclear weapon? To which he said well that's really classified but
I can give you the layman's version of it okay because that by the way is what prohibits
most rogue groups from being able to acquire a nuclear weapon. They don't have the arming and
firing device. That's what's so jealously guarded. It's incredibly complex. Al O'Donnell never left
the country. He never left the country because he would be kidnapped and he had a minder until he
died. Like an FBI minder keeping eyes on him. Kind of always watching us whenever I was interviewing
him. Having lunch with him at the Chinese restaurant. He had a lot of secrets. He wired 186
nuclear weapons for the government in the Marshall Islands and in Nevada and what I learned about
that Baker bomb is that in those days, we've been talking about how science and technology have
advanced, there was no remote wiring system the way there is now. I mean it did exist but it wasn't
ubiquitous right so now you do this and you blow something up at a distance or you do this and you
blow. So they had cables. Have you ever seen that photograph of that? It's like ships in the atoll
and you see this mushroom cloud and coming up out of the water. I have an actual. Oh it's an
incredible photo. We'll put it up on screen. Incredible photo and O'Donnell took me through
how they had to lay cable from the arming facility to the actual bomb. Wow. So how far
were they? They were not far away. This is like in those days where you know they would
set the situation up. They had some remote control right so they would go out on a ship
further out from the atoll maybe 25 miles away but and they would do some remote firing but the
actual device had to be attached to its armed system on shore which is just kind of an
unfathomable detail in today's world. How was he psychologically? How many sailors died?
Well that was the first atomic test after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I mean you know that
was a really pivotal moment in history because there was a kind of decision of like maybe we're
gonna sort of not go nuclear and you know there was lots of debate in the international community
whether it should be monitored and the navy stepped in and was like you know we're in business here
and then the nuclear arms race took off with that baker bomb and there were more than a hundred
atmospheric nuclear tests that happened after that and the size of that test by the way was
tiny compared to what would come later because that was an atomic weapon. There was only atomic
weaponry in those days. It would be and it wouldn't be until the very early 1950s that
the thermonuclear weapon the hydrogen bomb would be invented and the hydrogen bombs are what are
megatons. The atomic weapons were still in the kiloton range. So while that bomb looks huge
you'll see in the photo it's not you know Castle Bravo or Ivy Mike. The megaton weapons that were
going off later. So psychologically how was O'Donnell? I mean you know it took a toll on
those individuals but they also were so conditioned some might say programmed to believe and no I'm
going to say conditioned because Russia was such a threat you know. I mean totalitarian communism
was just a looming threat and everyone that worked within the military industrial complex
in those days knew it was conditioned to be extremely fearful of it and was determined to
beat it and you know people have their opinions now but having interviewed a lot of Cold War
warriors I completely reserve judgment on that and just go with what they would they talk about
about how serious that threat was. Last question. Yeah. Is America prepared for a biological war?
I mean absolutely not absolutely not and biological war can never happen you know it can
never happen. This is what I would talk about with nuclear war where I would say you know nuclear war
is insane and every person I ever interviewed told me that. These are people in nuclear command
and control that retired. You can never have a nuclear war. Civilization it's the end game
and biological war is the same situation. It is an end game. We cannot have one. COVID needs to
be re-examined as a as a lesson. What can we learn from this and what can we never do again with
those same same mistakes and how do we educate people so that they aren't so that they can have
conversations like we're having a little you know erring a little bit on the like oh my god this is
disaster so that you realize how do I participate in the dialogue so that it can never happen you
know it can never happen. No matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan show from if you get
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