A nuclear reactor was melting down. Jimmy Carter came to the rescue.

[Uncle Joe]

As a 28-year-old Navy lieutenant, Carter was one of the few people on the planet authorized to go inside a damaged nuclear reactor

Lt. Jimmy Carter, center top, in the main control room of submarine USS K-1 in 1952. (U.S. Navy)

The world was in the grip of the Cold War in 1952 when a nuclear reactor began melting down.

That reactor, located at Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, had suffered an explosion on Dec. 12. Radioactive material had escaped into the atmosphere, and millions of gallons of radioactive water flooded into the reactor’s basement. Thankfully, no one was injured, but the Canadians needed help to disassemble the reactor’s damaged core.

The United States sent 28-year-old Jimmy Carter.

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Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter on their wedding day in 1946. (The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum)

In one minute and 29 seconds, Carter had absorbed the maximum amount of radiation a human can withstand in a year.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/02/20/jimmy-carter-nuclear-reactor-navy/