The Nuclear Mishap That "Created" CNN

On this episode of Our American Stories, a wrench slipped. A rocket leaked, lost fuel pressure, collapsed, and exploded. A nuclear warhead was launched out of its silo and landed in a ditch—at the intersection of fate and American journalism. Randy Dixon, a young journalist at the time, shares the story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:19):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, the
story of a forgotten nuclear mishap in Arkansas that could
have blown the state off the map. Youre to tell
the story is former newsman Randy Dixon, director of News,
Archives and Media at the Center for Arkansas's Oral and
Visual History at the University of Arkansas. Take it away, Randy.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
It was a normal day. We were in the newsroom.
I worked the night schedule. So we got word that
there was a fuel leak at a silo. And we
would hear about the silos because there were close to
a dozen in Arkansas, and this one was outside of Damascus,

(01:08):
which is near Conway, and it's about a forty five
minute drive from Little Rock. So we heard about this
fuel leak. So a reporter and I hop in the
car and we drive up there and it's the regular military,
have the roadblocks up, the flashing lights, and we get
our video on our pictures and we needed to get

(01:31):
something back for the next morning, and ABC Good Morning
America had called saying they wanted a report, so we
left and we started working on this story for Good
Morning America. Well, it was about two o'clock in the morning.
We're still working on the story, and there were no
cell phones because this was nineteen eighty and we hear

(01:55):
on the two way radio the reporter who had replaced
us was you could tell in the voice he was panicked,
and he said it blew up. And we said repeat
and he said the da da da da blew up.

(02:16):
So we knew that, well, that story we were working
on was no longer valid, and it turned into a
giant story. Well, there was a leak, which is what
we first covered, and they had workmen in there in suits,

(02:37):
and one of the airmen dropped a wrench and it
dropped down the silo and started to bounce off the
sides and it hit the side of the missile and
punctured it, and a spark caused it to blow up,

(03:00):
and it was you know, the doors were closed and
they are designed to take a nuclear blast, but from
the outside this was a This was a huge explosion
on the inside and it just popped the doors off,
sort of like I guess squeezing a bottle and it

(03:20):
pops the top off of it. That's what happened with
the silo. There's missile. There was nothing left of the missile.
It was just that warhead that came flying out. At
the time, we didn't realize exactly how big of a
story because the uh Air Force wouldn't confirm that there

(03:44):
was a nuclear warhead on top of that missile, cause
sometimes there was, sometimes there wasn't. And we also didn't
know that it had been blown out of the silo
and had gone into a ditch on the side of
the highway. And it wasn't until later that we heard

(04:09):
that it happened and we could have been obliterated. That
size warhead would have pretty much destroyed the entire state
and even now to this day, you would not be
because of the radiation. You wouldn't be able to come

(04:32):
anywhere near Arkansas because of that explosion. But what we
found out a week later, I was sitting on the
assignment desk on the weekend and we got a phone
call from a guy who was sounding very nervous, very guarded,

(04:52):
and he was what we call a scanner freak. He
was a guy that would listen to scanners and he
could tune them all in and well. He said that
he had a recording. He had found the Air Force
frequency and had recorded the radio traffic from that night.

(05:13):
So I talked to him and he seemed legitimate. So
I met him in a little diner in a town
called ford Ice, which is in South Arkansas, and he
handed me, never told me his name. It handed me

(05:34):
just an envelope, slid it across the table and high
tailed it out of the diner, and I had a
cassette tape.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Come on, boss, Uh, this is a command one. If
we can't get in touch with the chopper, we want
to move out with these guys. George Conway, that's Roger.
Let me try to get dolphin Charlie one again, bring
a command post, adult Charlie one. UH tell me candyland
right here on the road. It's Rogers. Roger own team commander.

(06:06):
The team UH went to the unit. They now they're
own their way out to give 'em a full report.
Team commander, Command post. What the unit are you talking about? Sir?
Let's don't talk about that. Future traffic, please say, let's
don't talk about that. That's Rogers. I wish I had

(06:31):
uh something secure, but right now, Uh, our people tell
us that a forklift can go in and uh and
do its job and return and without any difficulty. And
that's the EOD people talking and uh, the it's laying
in the ditch. Besides, you know, it's it's not even

(06:52):
up close. It blew it out and it's laying in
the ditch. It's all exposed and U only need.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Is doing it's it itch and the commanding officer says
to cover it up with a tart.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
They've located what they want to locate, and right now
where it's laying out there, we're just concerned about the
airplane flying or were taking pictures. Should we go cover
with a.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Tart that At that point I realized that we could
have all been killed. We played that on the air.
ABC wouldn't run it because they were afraid of the
recording being made of the Air Force, and I believe

(07:38):
there is an FCC law now that does not allow
rebroadcast of certain radio traffic.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
But it was.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
It was a big story for months because there were
investigations and we had to wait three days at the
gate outside. We had someone stationed out there to get
that one shot of the flatbed truck pulling out with
the warhead on top of it, because they were taking
it down to Texas. And that was when CNN first

(08:14):
went on the air and they brought a giant flatbed
with a satellite dish and they were on twenty four
hours a day from there, and that was the birth
of CNN.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
That story and a terrific job on the storytelling, editing,
and production by our own Monty Montgomery, and a special
thanks to Randy Dixon, director of News, Archives and Media
at the Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History at
the University of Arkansas. And by the way, we do
our show in Oxford, Mississippi, and that's home of Ole,

(08:52):
miss So it's a fellow SEC school doing the storytelling
the story of how a nuke almost blew up the
state of Arkansas and started CNN here on our American
story