Steve was determined not to make too big a splash in 1970. The future wasn't perfect, but he didn't want to be responsible for making it worse. His conviction lasted just over one year, which meant that Bucky won the bet.
On October 31, 1971, someone threw a candle through the neighbor's window. It seemed like such a waste. The other kids just threw rocks.
The neighbor in question was Mr. Schlesinger, the head of the Atomic Energy Commission. He was the power behind the upcoming Cannikin Nuclear Test in Amchitka, but Steve was pretty the only reason someone threw a Cannikin Yankee Candle through his window was because he was handing out candy corn.
Everyone knew you were supposed to hand out individually wrapped candy so everyone would know you hadn't put razor blades in it. (Steve would have gladly taken a Snickers bar with razor blades in it over candy corn.)
The Schlesingers were flying out to Amchitka, Alaska on November 6, 1971. The Governor of Alaska said that if Mr. Schlesinger felt it to be safe, he should take his family there. So he was.
Cannikin was an underground nuclear test. It was the third nuclear test at Amchitka. They had set off the first bomb to see if they could tell the difference between normal earthquakes and ones caused by Russian nukes. They had set off the second bomb to see if they could set off an even bigger bomb. This was that bomb.
The government said it was okay to explode the bomb, because it was clean, but experts were still worried about repercussions like earthquakes and tsunamis. ("We're American," Mr. Schlesinger had said. "We call them tidal waves.")
Peggy had seen the damage done by the nuclear bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now the government wanted to test bombs with six-hundred-times that explosive power.
Steve had read about the Cannikin Nuclear Tests when he was trying to catch up on missed history. The bombs had been tested, and done minimal damage. Those bombs had only been four-hundred-times the explosive power of Little Boy and Fat Man.
During the second test, the cliff sides fell into sea and the ocean boiled into foam. It created a new lake that was over a mile wide, killed birds, and split the skulls of thousands of sea otters. Steve kept telling Bucky that the otters were in a better place, until Bucky finally snapped and said, "Well, yeah, Steve. It's not Alaska."
There was another reason they wanted to prevent the nuclear testing at Amchitka. There had been an earthquake on the island in 1964 that set off tidal waves which reached Japan.
("By the time they got there, the waves were about six inches high. My dick's bigger than that," Mr. Schlesinger had said. "Besides, we don't even let the Japs have nuclear weapons.")
"Well," said Bucky. "At least World War Three will be short."
"Imagine being the person who started a war over… over a misunderstanding," said Steve, after they finished listening to that tape.
"I think that's how all wars start."
"But it didn't happen in your future," said Peggy.
"But this future isn't my future," said Steve, who had tried to explain time travel to them but was somewhat hindered by the fact that he didn't understand it himself, "And in my future, Howard Stark grew a conscience and tried to shut down the Atomic Energy Commission. With Stark annoying Schlesinger into action, who knows what he might do?"
On the tape, Mr. Schlesinger said, "You know tidal waves are an unlikely scenario. What's much more likely is the possibility small fissures that will release radioactive material over a long period of time, but it's okay. That's easy to cover up."
Before the test could take place, a chartered boat arrived in Amchitka. A Naval vessel attempted to stop the Don't Make a Wave Committee, but thanks to the tactical planning of the protesters, they were able to avoid the military altogether. The news coverage drummed up by their protests successfully prevented the test.
The mission was called Greenpeace, the same name eventually given to the organization borne of it. Steve Barnes and James Rogers were founding members. Peggy was too busy making sure Mr. Schlesinger got filed. They had more than enough on tape.
Mission #2: Nixon.
