A Chronology of Disaster: The Collapse of Texas Tower 4

On January 15, 1961, Texas Tower 4 collapsed into the sea, claiming 28 lives. As part of the first generation of American nuclear defense infrastructure, the tower housed radar equipment that, in theory, could detect incoming Soviet bombers to provide advanced warning of attack. Its collapse had raised troubling questions about the state of nuclear defense in the United States. A close examination of Texas Tower 4 yields insights into the nature of military decision-making and buck-passing during the Cold War. As the designers of Texas Tower 4 failed to protect their own handlers, how could it be said North American nuclear defense could protect against an attack that so many feared? Further, a study of Texas Tower 4 illustrates how breakdowns in engineering, communication, and management can cascade, making an avoidable disaster seem inevitable. I contend that the collapse of the tower shows that North American nuclear defense was not simply unreliable, it was unsafe, bearing consequences that spanned generations. In presenting the argument, I will draw on archival materials collected across three archives: the Air Force Historical Research Agency in Montgomery, Alabama; the New Jersey Maritime Museum in Beach Haven; and the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. With these sources, I will outline the construction, collapse, and subsequent rescue efforts of Texas Tower 4, as well as attempt to partially reconstruct the everyday life of the crew aboard the tower. I will reappraise Cold War-era nuclear defense infrastructure by measuring the human costs of its image, rhetoric, and artifacts. ---Speaker Bio--- Bree Lohman is a PhD Candidate specializing in the history of technology, environment, and computing in Cold War North America. Her dissertation explores the emergence, maintenance, and decline of the SAGE nuclear defense infrastructure in Canada and the United States. Bree holds an M.A. from Columbia University and an M.Sc. From London School of Economics. She has worked with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (Washington, DC), the Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA), the Living Computers: Museum + Labs (Seattle, WA), and the IEEE History Center (Piscataway, NJ). At U of T, she serves as a Residence Don at Knox College and a Junior Fellow at Massy College.