A post-publication note: On December 23, 2015, Stars and Stripes, a newspaper and website focused on US military news, published an article in which several Air Force missileers dispute the unconfirmed account that is the focus of this opinion piece. Their views should be taken seriously; they are substantive and raise significant questions that readers should consider when assessing former Air Force airman John Bordne's claim that he witnessed a near-launch of nuclear missiles on Okinawa during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bordne recently said that he stands by his account.
The Stars and Stripes article, "A nuclear tale: Cold War missileers refute Okinawa near-launch," can be found here.
The National Security Archive at George Washington University has asked the Air Force for historical records on the Okinawa missile units at the center of Bordne's account. It can take years for such requests to be fulfilled, archive senior analyst William Burr has told me. I hope the Air Force will consider expediting Burr's request.
The Bulletin is committed to accuracy and welcomes information on this matter from any source. Those who feel they have relevant information can email me at: [email protected].
---John Mecklin, editor-in-chief
John Bordne, a resident of Blakeslee, Penn., had to keep a personal history to himself for more than five decades. Only recently has the US Air Force given him permission to tell the tale, which, if borne out as true, would constitute a terrifying addition to the lengthy and already frightening list of mistakes and malfunctions that have nearly plunged the world into nuclear war.
The story begins just after midnight, in the wee hours of October 28, 1962, at the very height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then-Air Force airman John Bordne says he began his shift full of apprehension. At the time, in response to the developing crisis over secret Soviet missile deployments in Cuba, all US strategic forces had been raised to Defense Readiness Condition 2, or DEFCON2; that is, they were prepared to move to DEFCON1 status within a matter of minutes. Once at DEFCON1, a missile could be launched within a minute of a crew being instructed to do so.
Bordne was serving at one of four secret missile launch sites on the US-occupied Japanese island of Okinawa. There were two launch control centers at each site; each was manned by seven-member crews. With the support of his crew, each launch officer was responsible for four Mace B cruise missiles mounted with Mark 28 nuclear warheads. The Mark 28 had a yield equivalent to 1.1 megatons of TNT—i.e., each of them was roughly 70 times more powerful than the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bomb. All together, that’s 35.2 megatons of destructive power. With a range of 1,400 miles, the Mace B's on Okinawa could reach the communist capital cities of Hanoi, Beijing, and Pyongyang, as well as the Soviet military facilities at Vladivostok.
Several hours after Bordne's shift began, he says, the commanding major at the Missile Operations Center on Okinawa began a customary, mid-shift radio transmission to the four sites. After the usual time-check and weather update came the usual string of code. Normally the first portion of the string did not match the numbers the crew had. But on this occasion, the alphanumeric code matched, signaling that a special instruction was to follow. Occasionally a match was transmitted for training purposes, but on those occasions the second part of the code would not match. When the missiles' readiness was raised to DEFCON 2, the crews had been informed that there would be no further such tests. So this time, when the first portion of the code matched, Bordne’s crew was instantly alarmed and, indeed, the second part, for the first time ever, also matched.
At this point, the launch officer of Bordne's crew, Capt. William Bassett, had clearance, to open his pouch. If the code in the pouch matched the third part of the code that had been radioed, the captain was instructed to open an envelope in the pouch that contained targeting information and launch keys. Bordne says all the codes matched, authenticating the instruction to launch all the crew’s missiles. Since the mid-shift broadcast was transmitted by radio to all eight crews, Capt. Bassett, as the senior field officer on that shift, began exercising leadership, on the presumption that the other seven crews on Okinawa had received the order as well, Bordne proudly told me during a three-hour interview conducted in May 2015. He also allowed me to read the chapter on this incident in his unpublished memoir, and I have exchanged more than 50 emails with him to make sure I understood his account of the incident.
By Bordne's account, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Air Force crews on Okinawa were ordered to launch 32 missiles, each carrying a large nuclear warhead. Only caution and the common sense and decisive action of the line personnel receiving those orders prevented the launches—and averted the nuclear war that most likely would have ensued.
Kyodo News has reported on this event, but only in regard to Bordne's crew. In my opinion, Bordne's full recollections—as they relate to the other seven crews—need to be made public at this time as well, because they provide more than enough reason for the US government to search for and release in timely fashion all documents relating to events in Okinawa during the Cuban Missile Crisis. If true, Bordne's account would add appreciably to historical understanding, not just of the Cuban crisis, but of the role accident and miscalculation have played and continue to play in the Nuclear Age.
What Bordne contends. Bordne was interviewed extensively last year by Masakatsu Ota, a senior writer with Kyodo News, which describes itself as the leading news agency in Japan and has a worldwide presence, with more than 40 news bureaus outside that country. In a March 2015 article, Ota laid out much of Bordne's account and wrote that "[a]nother former US veteran who served in Okinawa also recently confirmed [Bordne's account] on condition of anonymity." Ota has subsequently declined to identify the unnamed veteran, because of the anonymity he'd been promised.
Ota did not report portions of Bordne's story that are based on telephone exchanges that Bordne says he overheard between his launch officer, Capt. Basset, and the other seven launch officers. Bordne, who was in the Launch Control Center with the captain, was directly privy only to what was said at one end of the line during those conversations—unless the captain directly relayed to Bordne and the other two crew members in the Launch Control Center what another launch officers just said.
With that limitation acknowledged, here is Bordne's account of the ensuing events of that night:
Immediately after opening his pouch and confirming that he had received orders to launch all four nuclear missiles under his command, Capt. Bassett expressed the thought that something was amiss, Bordne told me. Instructions to launch nuclear weapons were supposed to be issued only at the highest state of alert; indeed this was the main difference between DEFCON 2 and DEFCON1. Bordne recalls the captain saying, “We have not received the upgrade to DEFCON1, which is highly irregular, and we need to proceed with caution. This may be the real thing, or it is the biggest screw up we will ever experience in our lifetime.”
While the captain consulted by phone with some of the other launch officers, the crew wondered whether the DEFCON1 order had been jammed by the enemy, while the weather report and coded launch order had somehow managed to get through. And, Bordne recalls, the captain conveyed another concern coming from one of the other launch officers: A pre-emptive attack was already under way, and in the rush to respond, commanders had dispensed with the step to DEFCON1. After some hasty calculations, crew members realized that if Okinawa were the target of a preemptive strike, they ought to have felt the impact already. Every moment that went by without the sounds or tremors of an explosion made this possible explanation seem less likely.
Still, to hedge against this possibility, Capt. Bassett ordered his crew to run a final check on each of the missiles' launch readiness. When the captain read out the target list, to the crew’s surprise, three of the four targets were not in Russia. At this point, Bordne recalls, the inter-site phone rang. It was another launch officer, reporting that his list had two non-Russian targets.Why target non-belligerent countries? It didn’t seem right.
The captain ordered that the bay doors for the non-Russian-targeted missiles remain shut. He then cracked open the door for the Russia-designated missile. In that position, it could readily be tipped open the rest of the way (even manually), or, if there were an explosion outside, the door would be slammed shut by its blast, thereby increasing the chances that the missile could ride out the attack. He got on the radio and advised all other crews to take the same measures, pending “clarification” of the mid-shift broadcast.
Bassett then called the Missile Operations Center and requested, on the pretense that the original transmission had not come through clearly, that the mid-shift report be retransmitted. The hope was that this would help those at the center to notice that the original transmission’s coded instruction had been issued in error and would use the retransmission to rectify matters. To the whole crew’s consternation, after the time-check and weather update, the coded launch instruction was repeated, unaltered. The other seven crews, of course, heard the repetition of the instruction as well.
According to Bordne's account—which, recall, is based on hearing just one side of a phone call—the situation of one launch crew was particularly stark: All its targets were in Russia. Its launch officer, a lieutenant, did not acknowledge the authority of the senior field officer—i.e. Capt. Bassett—to override the now-repeated order of the major. The second launch officer at that site reported to Bassett that the lieutenant had ordered his crew to proceed with the launch of its missiles! Bassett immediately ordered the other launch officer, as Bordne remembers it, “to send two airmen over with weapons and shoot the [lieutenant] if he tries to launch without [either] verbal authorization from the ‘senior officer in the field’ or the upgrade to DEFCON 1 by Missile Operations Center.” About 30 yards of underground tunnel separated the two Launch Control Centers.
At this most stressful moment, Bordne says, it suddenly occurred to him that it was very peculiar such an important instruction would be tacked to the end of a weather report. It also struck him as strange that the major had methodically repeated the coded instruction without the slightest hint of stress in his voice, as if it were little more than a boring nuisance. Other crew members agreed; Bassett immediately resolved to telephone the major and say that he needed one of two things:
- Raise the DEFCON level to 1, or
- Issue a launch stand-down order.
Judging from what Bordne says he heard of the phone conversation, this request got a more stress-filled reaction from the major, who immediately took to the radio and read out a new coded instruction. It was an order to stand down the missiles … and, just like that, the incident was over.
To double-check that disaster had really been averted, Capt. Bassett asked for and received confirmation from the other launch officers that no missiles had been fired.
At the beginning of the crisis, Bordne says, Capt. Bassett had warned his men, “If this is a screw up and we do not launch, we get no recognition, and this never happened.” Now, at the end of it all, he said, “None of us will discuss anything that happened here tonight, and I mean anything. No discussions at the barracks, in a bar, or even here at the launch site. You do not even write home about this. Am I making myself perfectly clear on this subject?”
For more than 50 years, silence was observed.
Why the government should look for and release records. Immediately. Now wheelchair-bound, Bordne has tried, thus far without success, to track down records related to the incident on Okinawa. He contends that an inquest was conducted and each launch officer questioned. A month or so later, Bordne says, they were called upon to participate in the court martial of the major who issued the launch orders. Bordne says Capt. Bassett, in the only breach of his own secrecy command, told his crew that the major was demoted and forced to retire at the minimum service period of 20 years, which he was on the verge of fulfilling anyway. No other actions were taken—not even commendations for the launch officers who had prevented a nuclear war.
Bassett died in May 2011. Bordne has taken to the Internet in an attempt to locate other launch crew members who may be able to help to fill in his recollections. The National Security Archives, a watchdog group based at George Washington University's Gelman Library, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Air Force, seeking records relating to the Okinawa incident, but such requests often do not result in a release of records for years, if ever.
I recognize that Bordne's account is not definitively confirmed. But I find him to have been consistently truthful in the matters I could confirm. An incident of this import, I believe, should not have to rest on the testimony of one man. The Air Force and other government agencies should proactively make any records in their possession relating to this incident available in their entirety—and quickly. The public has long been presented a false picture of the dangers inherent in nuclear weapon deployment.
The entire world has a right to know the entire truth about the nuclear danger it faces.
Editor's note: As this article was being considered for publication, Daniel Ellsberg, who was a Rand consultant to the Defense Department at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, wrote a lengthy email message to the Bulletin, at the request of Tovish. The message asserted, in part: "I feel it's urgent to find out whether Bordne's story and Tovish's tentative conclusions from it are true, given the implications of its truth for present dangers, not only past history. And that can't await the 'normal' current handling of a FOIA request by the National Security Archive, or the Bulletin. A congressional investigation will only take place, it appears, if the Bulletin publishes this very carefully hedged report and its call for the elaborate documentation reported to exist from an official inquest to be released from inexcusably (though very predictably) prolonged classification."
During this same time period, Bruce Blair, a research scholar at Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, also wrote an email message to the Bulletin. This is the entirety of the message: "Aaron Tovish asked me to weigh in with you if I believe his piece should be published in the Bulletin, or for that matter any outlet. I do believe it should be, even though it has not been fully verified at this stage. It strikes me that a first-hand account from a credible source in the launch crew itself goes a long way toward establishing the plausibility of the account. It also strikes me as a plausible sequence of events, based on my knowledge of nuclear command and control procedures during the period (and later). Frankly, it's not surprising to me either that a launch order would be inadvertently transmitted to nuclear launch crews. It's happened a number of times to my knowledge, and probably more times than I know. It happened at the time of the 1967 Middle East war, when a carrier nuclear-aircraft crew was sent an actual attack order instead of an exercise/training nuclear order. It happened in the early 1970s when [the Strategic Air Command, Omaha] retransmitted an exercise ... launch order as an actual real-world launch order. (I can vouch for this one personally since the snafu was briefed to Minuteman launch crews soon thereafter.) In both of these incidents, the code check (sealed authenticators in the first incident,and message format validation in the second) failed, unlike the incident recounted by the launch crew member in Aaron's article. But you get the drift here. It just wasn't that rare for these kinds of snafus to occur. One last item to reinforce the point: The closest the US came to an inadvertent strategic launch decision by the President happened in 1979, when a NORAD early warning training tape depicting a full-scale Soviet strategic strike inadvertently coursed through the actual early warning network. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was called twice in the night and told the US was under attack, and he was just picking up the phone to persuade President Carter that a full-scale response needed to be authorized right away, when a third call told him it was a false alarm.
I understand and appreciate your editorial cautiousness here. But in my view, the weight of evidence and the legacy of serious nuclear mistakes combine to justify publishing this piece. I think they tip the scales. That's my view, for what it's worth."
In an email exchange with the Bulletin in September, Ota, the Kyodo News senior writer, said he has "100 percent confidence" in his story on Bordne's account of events on Okinawa "even though there are still many missing pieces."
居住在美国宾夕法尼亚州布莱克斯利（Blakeslee）的约翰·博德纳（John Bordne），有着一段五十多年来一直不得向他人述说的个人历史。直到最近，美国空军才允许他讲述这段故事。如果属实，他的故事将为一长串已经令人毛骨悚然的错误和故障，再添上恐怖的一笔，而这些错误和故障曾几乎让世界陷入核战争。
这个故事的开端，是1962年10月28日，刚过午夜后的临晨时分，当时正逢古巴导弹危机的风口浪尖。约翰·博德纳那时是一名美国空军士兵。他说，自己上那一班岗的时候，内心充满了忧虑。当时，苏联正在古巴秘密部署导弹，而为了回应那场发展中的危机，所有美国战略力量都已经提升到了2级戒备状态（DEFCON2）；也就是说，他们已经做好准备，只需几分钟时间即可进入1级戒备状态（DEFCON1）。一旦进入1级戒备状态，在对空军班组下令后一分钟之内，导弹即可发射。
博德纳当时服役于由美国占领的日本冲绳岛上四个秘密导弹发射地点之一。每个地点有两个发射控制中心；每个中心都有七人组成的班组驻守。每一名发射官在其班组的支持下，负责4枚装载有“28号”（Mark 28）核弹头的“马斯B”（Mace B）巡航导弹。“28号”的爆炸当量为110万吨TNT，即每颗核弹头的威力都比广岛或长崎原子弹强大约70倍。总共加起来，有3520万吨破坏力。“马斯B”射程为1,400英里，从冲绳岛可以触及河内、北京和平壤这些共产主义国家首都，以及海参崴的苏联军事设施。
博德纳说，他的那一班岗开始几小时之后，冲绳导弹作战中心的少校指挥官对四个地点进行了例行的班岗期中无线电传送。在惯常的对时和天气预报更新之后，照例发来了一串代码。一般情况下，这串代码的第一部分与班组持有的数字不相同。但这一次，数字与字母混合的代码吻合了，意味着接下来会有特殊命令。传送时偶尔会有吻合的情况，是为了培训目的，但在那些情况下，代码的第二部分不会吻合。当导弹戒备级别提升到2级戒备状态时，各班组已经接到通知，不会再有那样的测试。所以，这一次，当代码第一部分吻合的时候，博德纳所在的班组立即警觉起来，而确实，代码第二部分也有史以来第一次吻合了。
此时，博德纳所在班组的发射官威廉·巴塞特（William Bassett）上尉已获许可，可以打开他的袋子。如果袋子里的代码和无线电传送的代码的第三部分吻合，上尉将奉命打开袋子里的一个信封，其中含有发射目标信息和发射钥匙。博德纳说，所有代码均吻合，验证了发射该班组所有导弹的命令。由于班岗期中广播是通过无线电发送给所有八个班组的，因而巴塞特上尉作为那一班岗的高级校官，假设冲绳岛上所有其他七个班组也都已经收到了这个命令，开始进行领导。这是博德纳在2015年5月进行的一场三小时的访谈中自豪地告诉我的。他还允许我读了他未出版的自传中关于这一事件的一章，而我也与他交换了50多封电子邮件，为的是确保我能理解他对这一事件的描述。
根据博德纳的描述，在古巴导弹危机处于风口浪尖的时候，冲绳岛上的空军班组曾接到发射32枚导弹的命令，每一枚导弹均装载一颗大型核弹头。最终全靠那些接到命令的一线人员的谨慎、常识、决断行动，才阻止了发射，避免了原本非常可能发生的一场核战争。
日本共同通信社报道了这一事件，但只是针对博德纳的班组。在我看来，现在应该公布博德纳的完整回忆（与其他七个班组也有联系），因为这将提供充分理由，让美国政府及时搜寻和公布古巴导弹危机期间，在冲绳岛发生的事件的所有相关文件。如果博德纳的叙述属实，将为历史认识增添重要内容，不仅是对于古巴危机，更是让人们认识到意外或误判已经并继续在核时代扮演的角色。
博德纳如是说。去年，来自共同通信社（该社自称是一家日本领先、布局全球的新闻机构，在日本以外有40个新闻站）的资深作者太田昌克（Masakatsu Ota）曾对博德纳进行了大量采访。在2015年3月的一篇文章中，太田记述了博德纳的大部分叙述，并写道“最近，另一位曾服役于冲绳的美国退伍军人也证实了[博德纳的叙述]，条件是匿名。”于是，太田因所做的匿名保证，拒绝透露这位不知姓名的退伍老兵的身份。
太田并没有报道博德纳故事中基于电话对话的那一部分，博德纳称自己听到发射官巴塞特上尉与其他七名发射官的通话。当时，博德纳在发射指挥中心和这位上尉在一起，他只能直接听到通话一方所说的话——除非上尉将另一位发射官所说的话直接转述给了博德纳以及在发射指挥中心的其他两位班组成员。
指出了这一局限之后，以下是博德纳对当晚接下来发生的事情的叙述：
博德纳告诉我，巴塞特上尉打开他的袋子，确认了收到的命令是让他发射全部四枚受他指挥的核导弹，但之后他立即表示认为其中有问题。发射核武器的命令，应该只有在最高警戒状态下才会发出；这也正是2级和1级戒备状态的主要区别。博德纳回忆上尉说道：“我们没有收到命令升级至1级戒备状态，这非常不合规则，我们需要谨慎行事。这可能是真的，要不就是我们这一生最大的乌龙。”
上尉通过电话询问其他一些发射官，班组成员则在想，会不会是1级戒备状态指令被敌人阻止了，而天气预报和发射命令代码则被设法成功传送了。而且，博德纳回忆道，上尉传达了另一名发射官的另一种令人担忧的可能性：先发制人的打击已经开始，而在匆忙回应的过程中，指挥官忽略了1级戒备状态指令。在一阵仓促的计算之后，班组成员意识到，如果冲绳是先发制人打击的目标，那么他们应该已经能感到影响力了。时间一秒一秒过去，却没有出现爆炸的声响和振动，使得这一假设显得越来越不可能。
即便如此，为了预防这种可能性，巴塞特上尉下令他的班组对每枚导弹是否为发射做好准备进行最终的检查。当上尉读出目标名单时，令班组惊讶的是，四个目标中有三个都不在俄罗斯。博德纳回忆道，就在这时，联通各地点之间的电话响了。是另一位发射官打来的，他报告称自己的名单上有两个非俄罗斯目标。为什么目标对准非交战国？感觉不对劲。
上尉下令使目标非俄罗斯的导弹舱门保持关闭。然后，他将目标为俄罗斯的导弹舱门打开了一道口。舱门在那个位置上，可以容易地全部打开（甚至可以手动操作）；如果外部发生爆炸，舱门则会受到震动而被一下子关上，这样可以增加导弹经受攻击而不受损的机率。他用无线电建议所有其他班组都采取相同办法，等待对这一班岗期中广播的“澄清”。
然后，巴塞特打电话给导弹作战中心，以原始传送不够清晰为由，请求再次传送班岗期中报告，希望这样会让中心的人注意到原始传送的命令代码有误，并通过再次传送纠正问题。让整个班组惊恐的是，在对时和天气预报更新之后，重复传送了发射命令代码，没有变化。当然，其他七个班组也都听到了重复的命令。
根据博德纳的叙述（请记住，他的叙述是基于只听到电话一端），一个发射班组的情况尤其紧迫：他们所有的目标都在俄罗斯。他们的发射官是一名中尉，他并不承认高级校官（也就是巴塞特上尉）有权推翻少校重复发出的命令。那一地点的第二发射官向巴塞特报告说，这名中尉已经下令其班组执行导弹发射！根据博德纳的回忆，巴塞特立即下令另一名发射官“派两名空军士兵携带武器过去，如果[中尉]试图发射，[既]不经‘高级校官’的口头授权，也没有导弹作战中心的1级戒备状态升级指令，就射击他。”两个发射控制中心相隔大约30码的地下隧道。
博德纳说，在这个最紧张的关头，他突然觉得，这么重要的命令竟然附加在天气预报后面，实在非常蹊跷。还令他感到奇怪的是，少校很有条理地重复了命令代码，而他的声音里面一点儿也听不出紧张，好像这个命令只不过是令人感到无聊和厌烦。其他班组成员表示同意；巴塞特立即决定打电话给少校，说他需要以下两者之一：
根据博德纳说他听到的电话内容，这一请求得到的回应里充满了少校的紧张，他立即用无线电读出了一份新的命令代码。命令是停止导弹发射……这件事情就这样结束了。
为了再次确认那场灾难确实已经被阻止，巴塞特上尉要求其他发射官确认没有发射任何导弹，并收到了确认。
博德纳说，这场危机一开始时，巴塞特上尉就警告部下们：“如果这是一个乌龙，而我们没有发射，我们不会得到表彰，这件事就当从没发生过。”在一切结束之后，他又说：“我们所有人都不许讨论今晚在这里发生的任何事情，我强调任何事情都不许。不许在军营里、酒吧里谈，在这里发射地点也不许谈。连写信回家时也不许谈。关于此事，我说得够清楚了吧？”
50多年来，沉默一直没有被打破。
为什么政府应该搜寻并公布记录，并且立即这样做。博德纳现在已离不开轮椅，他曾试图追寻冲绳岛事件相关的记录，但到目前为止尚未成功。他主张进行一次调查，并讯问每一位发射官。博德纳说，事发之后一个月左右，他们被要求参加那位下达发射命令的少校的军事法庭审判。博德纳还说，巴塞特上尉唯一一次违反他自己下达的保守秘密命令，是告诉他们的班组成员：那位少校被降级，并被迫在20年最短服役年限之后退休，而这个期限是他当时本来就快要达到的。没有采取其他任何行动——阻止了一场核战争的发射官们，甚至连表扬都没有得到。
巴塞特于2011年5月过世。博德纳开始利用互联网，试图找到发射班组的其他成员，他们或许可以帮助补充他的回忆内容。美国国家安全档案（National Security Archives）是一家位于乔治·华盛顿大学吉尔曼图书馆（Gelman Library）的监督组织，这家组织向美国空军提交了一份《信息自由法案》请求，请求获取冲绳岛事件的相关记录，但此类请求往往要等待数年才能获得记录公布，甚至永远无法获得。
我知道，博德纳的叙述并未经过确凿证实。但就我能够证实的事情而言，我发现他的叙述是前后一致且真实的。我认为，这样具有重要意义的事件，不应该只能以一个人的证言为基础。空军和其他政府机构应该积极将其拥有的任何与此事相关的记录完整公开，并尽快这样做。关于部署核武器的固有危险，一直以来呈现给公众的都是错误观念。
全世界都有权了解我们面临的核危险的全部真相。
编者注：当我们考虑发表这篇文章的时候，古巴导弹危机时作为兰德顾问曾为国防部提供咨询的丹尼尔·艾尔斯伯格（Daniel Ellsberg）应托维什的请求，向《原子能科学家公报》写了一封长篇电子邮件。这封邮件中的一部分是这样写的：“我认为亟待查明博德纳的故事和托维什由此得出的暂时性结论是否属实，因为若其属实，不仅对过去的历史，而且对现今的危险也会产生影响。而这不能等待目前对国家安全档案或《公报》提出的《信息自由法案》请求进行‘正常’处理。看来，只有通过《公报》发表这篇十分细致周全的报道，呼吁公布据称因官方调查而存在的详尽记录，解除不可原谅（但是意料之中）的长期机密状态，国会才会进行调查。”
与此同时，普林斯顿大学科学与全球安全项目研究员布鲁斯·布莱尔（Bruce Blair）也向《公报》写了一封电子邮件。以下是他的邮件全文：“亚伦·托维什请我与你们讨论，表明我是否认为他的文章应该通过《公报》或任何渠道发表。我认为应该发表，虽然这篇文章目前尚未经过完全验证。我的感觉是，这份第一手叙述来自发射班组成员这一可信来源，单凭这点，就很大程度上建立起了这份叙述的合理性。基于我对那个时期（以及之后）的核武器指挥与控制流程的认识，叙述的事件发生顺序也让我觉得是合理的。坦率地说，无意中将发射命令传送给核武器发射班组这样的事情，也并不令我惊讶。据我所知，此类事件发生过若干次，可能实际发生的次数比我所知的更多。在1967年中东战争时发生过，当时一艘航空母舰上的核武器飞机班组本该收到一份核武器演习/训练命令，却收到了一份实际的攻击命令。在1970年代早期也发生过，当时[奥马哈的战略空军指挥部]在再次传送一份演习……发射命令时，错将其传送成实际发射命令了。（对这一情况，我个人可以作证，因为这一严重错误不久后就向义勇兵导弹发射班组通报了。）在这两起事件中，代码检查（第一起事件是密封验证信封，第二起事件是报文格式验证）都失败了，这一点与亚伦文章中发射班组成员叙述的事件不同。但你们应该能够抓住这里的重点。此类严重错误的发生并非罕见。巩固这一观点的最后一件事：1979年，美国从未如此近地因疏忽大意而让总统从作出战略发射决定的边缘擦身而过，当时北美空防司令部的一盘描绘苏联全面战略攻击的预警训练磁带无意中进入了实际的预警网络。国家安全顾问兹比格涅夫·布热津斯基（Zbigniew Brzezinski）晚间接到两次电话，被告知美国正遭受攻击，正当他拿起电话准备说服卡特总统必须立即授权发起全面回应时，第三次电话告诉他这是一次假警报。
我理解和赞赏你们作为编辑对此问题的谨慎态度。但在我看来，证据的重量，加上严重涉核错误的历史，为发表这篇文章提供了充分理由。我认为它们会对你们的决定起到影响作用。这就是我的意见，仅供参考。”
今年九月，共同通信社资深作者太田在与《公报》的一次电子邮件沟通中表示，他对自己关于博德纳叙述冲绳岛事件的报道有“百分之百的信心”，“即使仍有许多缺失的片段”。