Cover-up over nuclear bomb drama at US base is revealed
                  By Andrew Gilligan and Rob Evans
 BRITAIN came close to disaster in an atomic bomb accident covered up
 for the past 37 years, The Telegraph has learned. (London, UK)
 Secret telegrams obtained under the United States' Freedom of Infor-
 mation Act describe a "serious incident" at the main US nuclear wea-
 pons base in Britain, RAF Lakenheath, in Suffolk, when a warplane
 loaded with a bomb caught fire. The blaze, which started on the run-
 way, was put out but not before the plane had been severely damaged
 and the bomb "scorched and blistered".
 According to the telegram, the bomb remained "intact" and monitoring
 after the incident "showed no radiation in the area".
 The blistering of the bomb indicated that the casing was beginning to
 yield under the intense heat, fed by the fuel from the plane. If the
 casing had opened Britain could have experienced a Chernobyl-style
 release of radiation which, in the worst outcome, would have contam-
 inated the surrounding countryside for several hundred years.
 Particles of highly-radioactive plutonium could also have been dis-
 persed by the wind, making parts of the immediate area uninhabitable.
 A nuclear detonation would have been less likely, experts said last
 night, but it was not entirely impossible. The incident, on January
 16, 1961, was described as "very alarming" by Cyril Brown, the local
 councillor for the area adjoining the base, who has been pressing
 for investigations into possible contamination from the airfield.
 He said: "There is a mind-set of cover-up around the base. We have
 no way of knowing what has gone on - something like that could have
 happened last week and we would never know. People should be asking
 questions about this place but I don't know if they would want to
 hear the answers."
 The telegrams, between the US embassy in London and the State Depart-
 ment in Washington, were sent in 1996 after The Telegraph revealed
 details of an apparent nuclear accident at another British US airbase,
 Greenham Common. Two British scientists at the Aldermaston nuclear
 research laboratories had found radiation around the base which, they
 concluded, could only have been caused by a nuclear accident there.
 The embassy was flooded with media and public inquiries after the
 story broke and the ambassador, William Crowe, asked Washington for
 details of the incidents so that he could respond.
 According to the telegrams, the "guidance" to press and public should
 be that the US had "no evidence that there has ever been a nuclear
 weapon accident or incident involving US forces or weapons in the UK
 which has resulted in a release of radioactivity to the environment".
 The State Department also prepared a more detailed statement about
 Greenham Common - and nuclear incidents in Britain generally - for
 release to the British press. But the Americans were prevented from
 releasing it by the British Ministry of Defence.
 The contents of the State Department statement have been deleted from
 the copies of the telegrams released to The Telegraph, leaving, per-
 haps by oversight, only details of the Lakenheath incident.
 This fire is not included in a supposedly comprehensive register of
 nuclear accidents and incidents released by the Pentagon in 1981.
 Last week, the Pentagon referred inquiries about the incident to the
 local Lakenheath base spokesman, who was unavailable for comment.
 The 1961 incident was five years after an even more serious accident
 at Lakenheath, in which a B-47 bomber went out of control, ploughing
 into a bomb dump containing three nuclear weapons, tearing it apart,
 exploding and showering burning fuel over all three bombs. A cable
 reporting the incident said that it was a "miracle" that one bomb
 with "exposed detonators" did not explode.
 Base commanders ordered fire crews to ignore the burning bomber and
 its four dying crewmen and douse the flames engulfing the nuclear
 weapons instead.
 Although members of the base staff reportedly fled the area in panic,
 nearby villagers were not warned of the danger.
 The accident was kept secret until 1979 when it was finally revealed
 by an American newspaper which quoted a retired US air force general
 as saying it was "possible that a part of eastern England would have
 become a desert".
 3 July 1997: US reveals two nuclear accidents in Britain
 27 October 1996: US withdraws N-bombs
 14 August 1996: RAF dropped unarmed nuclear bomb on base
 Hysteria 37 years later? Jim
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