This quote just sounds odd. Anyone know anything about that situation? Weird way to treat pilots. I am assuming they had a full fuel load. The quote makes it sound like they had less than a full tank deliberately.
The guy says "Fighters*" so in 1962 that meant probably F-104 Starfighters, F105 Thunderchiefs or some shiny new F-4s. Ramstein is 702 miles dead straight line distance from the Ukrainian border, so figure with some evasive, and going inside the Soviet Union they had 800 miles to go, at least. Wiki tells me the
Ferry
range for those planes is 1600, 1900 and 1450 miles respectively. That's one way, slick, with no weapons and tanks. Give them a bomb, and a flight profile that was more speed than efficacy and it was probably everything they could do to just get there.
Think of it like Doolittle's Raid. Drop bomb, aim for somewhere friendly, and cross fingers.
* I don't know why they wouldn't have used some of SAC's bombers for this mission, they had the range in the 60's, and were presumably on Ramstein. Perhaps the senator is misremembering, or the bombers were elsewhere.