The Day We Lost the H-Bomb: Cold War, Hot Nukes, and the Worst Nuclear Weapons Disaster in History

Red Moody steered his rubber boat alongside the Macdonough, chuckling to himself as he wondered what the sailors on the destroyer thought of his tiny raft bobbing in the waves. Moody jumped on board, introduced himself to the deck officer, and asked to speak with Admiral Guest. But the ship's executive officer had left word: anybody coming to see the admiral had to go through him first. The deck officer sent a messenger off to find the XO while Moody cooled his heels. After some time the messenger returned, empty-handed.

The deck officer started to send the messenger off in another direction when Moody spoke up. “I've been waiting here for quite a while,” he said. “I'll just go with him.” No, no, no, said the deck officer. Bad idea. You really ought to wait here. But Red Moody was done waiting. “You tell the exec where I am if you find him,” he said and took off with the messenger. A few minutes later, the two men were climbing the ladder by the wardroom — the officers' mess. Moody suspected that Admiral Guest might be inside. He told the messenger to go on ahead. “You go find the XO,” he said. “I'll be in here.”

Moody slipped into the wardroom and saw a clutch of Navy officers, including Admiral Guest, huddled over a secret message from Washington. He moved closer to listen to the discussion. The message listed various pieces of gear that were being sent to aid the search. There was something called OBSS — ocean bottom scanning sonar — a Decca navigation system, and a couple of underwater vehicles. All the gear was familiar to Moody. In fact, it had been destined for a diving mission in the Gulf of Mexico, where one of Moody's teams needed it to recover a Bullpup missile from the Air Force test range off Elgin Air Force Base. But the Navy had diverted the equipment to the more critical mission in Spain. After listening for a few minutes to the officers puzzling over this list of strange machines, Moody realized that they didn't know much.

He piped up. “Excuse me,” he said, “but that equipment was actually slated for one of my operations down in the Gulf of Mexico.” As the group grew silent, Moody explained what each piece of equipment did, how it worked, and what to use it for. He stayed for lunch. Then, around 2 p.m., he asked permission to leave. Permission was granted. Red Moody jumped into his little rubber boat and went away.

The next day, Admiral Guest paid a visit to Camp Wilson. The admiral approached the beach in a small barge, which couldn't land on shore. Moody sent a rubber boat to pick up the admiral and bring him to the beach. Admiral Guest hit the sand and greeted Moody. “Did you get my message?” he asked. “You're now on my staff.” Moody hadn't received any such message but told the admiral he was up for the job. Great, said Admiral Guest. When will you be ready? Now, said Moody.

Admiral Guest looked at the diver, surprised. “What about your gear?” he asked. “I got people can get my gear for me, Admiral. If you want my services, you got it.” Admiral Guest was headed to a briefing with General Wilson and asked Moody to go along. Red dropped everything and joined him. From that day on, Moody remained close to the admiral. “We seemed to have a special affinity for each other, because he knew I was ready to go,” Moody said.

“He also knew I would not BS him. I would tell him the way I thought it was.” Guest needed all the help he could get. He had been thrown into this operation just a few days earlier — yanked from his post in Naples by an early-morning phone call — and was still trying to get the lay of the land. Guest was a no-nonsense man, hardworking, heavy-smoking, and blunt. He demanded full dedication from his staff and had little patience for slackers. A small man, he was known to some as “Little Bulldog,” less for his growl than for his tenacious grip.

Guest came from a long line of military men, most of whom had served in the U.S. Army cavalry.

When Guest received an appointment to the Naval Academy rather than West Point, his father devised a scheme by which the young officer could transfer to the Army after graduation to carry on the family tradition. Guest, who had fallen in love with the Navy, refused his father's offer. The elder Guest, a wealthy man, told his stubborn son that if he stayed in the Navy, he would disinherit him.

Admiral Guest thought it over and refused the offer again. His father stayed true to his word; according to family lore, the two men did not speak again. When Guest's father died, he left his son one dollar.