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Monologues (The War Horse Sessions): One Step From Nuclear War, and I Didn’t Even Know It

Ed Meagher brings us back to a January day in the Philippines, one week before he was deployed to Vietnam.

Words: Laicie Heeley
Date:

One night In 1968, Ed Meagher was finishing his last shift at Clark Airways, which included authenticating and repeating messages for the nuclear-armed B-52 fleet in Southeast Asia. 

Then his phone lines started dinging, with signal after signal — and he couldn’t figure out why none were a match. 

A standard broadcast station where Sky King messages would be broadcast from. (Photo courtesy of the author.)

This monologue is the second in our series with The War Horse. 

Resources

We Were at DefCon 2 — One Step From Nuclear War — and I Was Checking My Work, Ed Meagher, The War Horse, 2024 

Image: Crewmen of USS Pueblo debark from US Air Force VC-137C “Stratoliner” cargo transport after a flight from the Republic of Korea to the US Naval Air Station, Miramar. Official US Navy Photograph by PH1 Robert A. Woods, courtesy of the National Archives.

Author bio

Laicie Heeley

Editor in Chief

Laicie Heeley is the founding CEO of Inkstick Media, where she serves as Editor in Chief of the foreign policy magazine Inkstick and Executive Producer and Host of the PRX- and Inkstick-produced podcast, Things That Go Boom. Heeley’s reporting has appeared on public radio stations across America and the BBC, where she’s explored global security issues including domestic terrorism, disinformation, nuclear weapons, and climate change. Prior to launching Inkstick, Heeley was a Fellow with the Stimson Center’s Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense program and Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Her publications include work on sanctions, diplomacy, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, along with the first full accounting of US counterterrorism spending after 9/11.

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