The 2,200-man Navy task force that carried out the Great H-Bomb Hunt near the Spanish coastal town of Palo-mares more than earned its headlines. But the men who conducted an equally productive part of the search were an unheralded group of scientists and technicians in far-off New Mexico.
Soon after the January 17 collision between a nuke-carrying B-52 and its KC-135 tanker over Spain, a desperate Defense Department turned for help to the Sandia Laboratory in Albuquerque, which conducts bomb-electronics research for the AEC. Sandia scientists promptly requested all available accident data from the task force. With other experts, they...