Christopher, Anderson acknowledges that he embellished history for the purposes of telling his story in the back of the book. The "research failures" in history at least were done on purpose. I can't profess to say that the physics is though
Those aren't what I'm referring to. I'm referring to subtler things, like assuming that Fidel Castro's revolution was driven by a passionate devotion to Communism. That's erroneous. Castro started out as a nationalist revolutionary, fighting to liberate the Cuban people from the dictator Batista. At the time of Enemies and Allies
, in 1957, Castro was seen as a pro-democratic freedom fighter, and actually spoke out against Communism and dictatorships. It wasn't until he actually took over in 1959 that Castro began showing dictatorial leanings himself and earned America's enmity, and it wasn't until 1961 that he declared himself a Communist, mainly because it was politically expedient to side with America's rivals in order to get their backing against America. So that was a massive anachronism.
In that and other things, Anderson simply went with generally accepted myths about history rather than actually doing the research. Another example is the assumption that the "Roswell crash" was famous as far back as 1957. Actually it was a minor event that was largely forgotten until a UFO researcher dug it up in the late '70s. The Roswell mythology is mostly a creation of the '80s and '90s.
And then there's the bit where a damaged nuclear reactor explodes rather than simply melting down. That's where the physics failed. It's a complete impossibility, and it's an irresponsible misconception to propagate.