Operation Chariot (1958)
|
|
Operation Chariot was a 1958 American proposal to construct an artificial harbor at Cape Thompson, Alaska by means of a nuclear explosion. Some serious planning of this scheme was conducted until it was cancelled in 1962 by the Kennedy Administration.
In addition to the objections of the local population, no real use of such a harbor was ever identified. The political implications of detonating a nuclear explosion in Alaska, even though it was some distance from the Bering Straits and the Soviet Union, may also have been a consideration.
See Operation Plowshare.