
Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact - ux-app
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true
======
michaelt
There's a fascinating chapter in 'the strategy of conflict' by Thomas
Schelling [1] about accidental nuclear war.

The theory is once both sides had nuclear submarines, any first launch would
trigger mutually assured destruction - so no rational actor would ever launch
first. And because of that, any threat to launch /intentionally/ sounds like a
bluff.

So if you want to threaten your enemy (for example, to make them withdraw some
missiles from Cuba) you use a randomized threat - the increased probability of
accidental war - which you can demonstrate with lots of near misses.

Just look at a list of nuclear near misses [2] once you know that and you can
see the message being sent to the Russians: Missiles in cuba = Defcon 3 = High
chance of accidental launch = Not in your interests.

In other words, the capacity for accidental launches is a feature, not a bug.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Schelling#The_Strategy_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Schelling#The_Strategy_of_Conflict_.281960.29)
[2] [http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-
weapons/issu...](http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-
weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-caused-nuclear-war.htm)

~~~
digi_owl
And then you had a certain incident after the fall of the wall:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident)

------
coldtea
That all those official denials and assurances at the time were BS and lies,
serves as a good reminder for how to treat similar assurances in the present.

------
cstross
Young folks today just don't believe how downright surreal (and scary) the
cold war was to live through.

Look, just read this wikipedia entry about the British Blue Peacock nuclear
device, and boggle:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock)

Yes. It's a _chicken-heated_ atomic landmine. _Not_ a joke: it was a Real
Thing.

And so was this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29)

The M-29 Davy Crockett tactical nuclear recoilless rifle. (Jeep-mounted, no
PALs, the rocket's flight range was less than its lethal radius of effect: the
crew were supposed to fire it over a hill then dive under their jeep for
cover.)

People not only imagined these things, they built them and deployed them in
the stone-cold expectation of using them in anger.

~~~
bane
I grew up right at the tail-end of it, the 1984 Red Dawn was a perfectly
reasonable scenario. Whenever I think the hysteria was completely insane I
think back to my parents and grandparents and some of the truly bizarre
notions that happened during their youth: duck and cover, public bomb shelter
drills, etc.

People actually paid significant parts of their yearly salary to build, stock
and maintain nuclear bomb shelters in their backyards...in places like Ohio.

Something like this [1] was just seen as mildly eccentric, not something that
would get you institutionalized with severe paranoia.

1 - [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-
news/this-1970s-undergro...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-
news/this-1970s-underground-bomb-shelter-is-impeccably-designed-and-for-
sale-4703792/?no-ist)

People, large numbers of them, _actually_ believed (and it may have been true)
that extinction-level global war was an accidental launch away.

What's even more interesting is the long-term vestiges of these ideas have
hung around, but without nuclear war being on the horizon they've morphed and
latched onto other scenarios: a Republican-Democrat civil war, the Rapture,
Zombie invasion, Disease outbreak, etc. These aren't just old shelters, these
are brand new.

[http://alpinesurvival.com/survival-shelters-for-
sale.html](http://alpinesurvival.com/survival-shelters-for-sale.html)

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/archi...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/architecture/4325649)

Though, I'm always struck with how everybody wants to outfit their end-of-the-
world bunkers with modern living room entertainment centers complete with
cable TV, wi-fi and comfortable home-office.

In any other scenario, somebody who spends millions of dollars to build 7,500
sq ft of underground EMP shielded comfortable living area with hidden and
barricaded entrance, independent filtered air and water and multiple years of
emergency food [2] would be dragged into emergency psychiatric care.

But instead these scenarios are talked about openly on major news networks,
reviewed in popular magazines, and I can buy these supplies commercial and
off-the-shelf -- there's industries that exist to do nothing but feed this
demand!

2 - [http://www.costco.com/32,000-Total-
Servings-4-Person-1-Year-...](http://www.costco.com/32,000-Total-
Servings-4-Person-1-Year-Food-Storage.product.11763436.html)

~~~
jstatus
Fun fact -- the shelters in Montana shown on alpinesurvival.com are from a
new-age survivalist cult
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Universal_and_Triumphant...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Universal_and_Triumphant#Controversy)).
I know this because I grew up in it, and actually lived on the street shown in
the photo. Everybody sunk their life savings into them and racked up the
credit card debt in the late 80s. Yes, connected to the cold war, but for
larger "karmic" reasons of course. You should thank them though, it was only
through their prayers that nuclear war was averted! Needless to say, most
people didn't believe that, and membership collapsed after the Berlin Wall
fell. The shelter at CUT's headquarters reportedly was able to have hundreds
of people live for decades, and was the largest private shelter in the US. A
whole new level of crazy, folks.

~~~
arca_vorago
Was it really that crazy considering all the "we were about to press the
button but didn't" stories that have surfaced about that era since? It was a
very real possibility.

~~~
Dylan16807
>Was it really that crazy

'it' being what? Preparing for fallout is not crazy. Joining a cult is crazy.

------
cpursley
I toured Stalin's secret bunker this summer in Moscow where USSR'S top
generals held up during the entire Cuban Missile Crisis. This bunker was the
control center for the Soviet's nuclear arsenal at the time. According to the
guide, the top leaders debated back and forth whether to preemptively strike
the United States.

The entire thing was surreal - complete with a freighting nuclear attack
simulation (America strikes first, of course) that included clips from Dr.
Strangelove, genuine nuclear launch terminals and original bunker sirens going
off. It was emotionally heavy realizing how close the end actually was.

If you're ever in Moscow, go take the Bunker42 tour:
[http://www.bunker42.com/index.php?lang=en](http://www.bunker42.com/index.php?lang=en)

~~~
arethuza
"the top leaders debated back and forth whether to preemptively strike the
United States"

At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis the strategic balance between the US
and the Soviets was _very_ one sided - the US had the capability to completely
destroy the Soviet Union whereas the Soviets only had a very small number of
functioning strategic weapons systems.

However, the Soviets could have done an _incredible_ amount of damage to
Western Europe with medium range missiles.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" Fifty years ago, the Cuban missile crisis brought the world to the brink of
nuclear disaster. During the standoff, US President John F. Kennedy thought
the chance of escalation to war was "between 1 in 3 and even," and what we
have learned in later decades has done nothing to lengthen those odds. We now
know, for example, that in addition to nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, the
Soviet Union had deployed 100 tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba, and the local
Soviet commander there could have launched these weapons without additional
codes or commands from Moscow. The US air strike and invasion that were
scheduled for the third week of the confrontation would likely have triggered
a nuclear response against American ships and troops, and perhaps even Miami.
The resulting war might have led to the deaths of 100 million Americans and
over 100 million Russians."_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Post-
cris...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Post-
crisis_revelations)

~~~
arethuza
That's the only estimate I've ever seen that says that the damage the Soviets
could have inflicted on the US was anything like as severe as what the US has
planned for the Soviets. Of course, the US could have faced a lot of damage,
but nothing like the complete annihilation that would have been visited on the
Soviets and other socialist countries.

The US consistently over-estimated the strategic threat the Soviets posed to
the US for most of the Cold War - particularly the infamous "Bomber Gap" and
the "Missile Gap":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap)

------
geichel
This is also true for Enemy of the State. Watch it again. Your jaw will hit
the floor:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120660/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120660/)

~~~
rickdale
You are right. I just watched it the other night and I was blown away by the
accuracy at which the movie portrayed surveillance and even wondered if that
movie was giving out more information than what the government wants out
nowadays compared to back then. We were more skeptical that these things
existed back then, but now that we know they do it makes that movie dead on.

~~~
tripzilch
I remember watching this film, just a few years after it came out and
thinking, "All of this is _technically_ possible ... but they probably
wouldn't go that far, or have the infrastructure in place". Now I know better.

I was indeed recently pondering I should watch it again, just to see what my
reaction would be.

~~~
kybernetyk
Heh, I watched it when it came out and thought it was mostly the typical
hollywood computer sci-fi they put into computer films to make it more
exciting for the average viewer. Sadly I was wrong.

------
mstade
I read Rosenbaum's "How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War
III"[1] and it contains a number of pretty sobering details of just how crazy
the cold war was, and how not much has truly improved since. The Soviet's
perimeter system gets a mention, along with a story of how supposedly it set
of a chain of events that very nearly did cause the launch of Soviet nukes,
had it not been for a Soviet commander questioning whether the data received
by the system was in fact accurate.

As well, no mention of Dr. Strangelove, the cold war, or just nukes in general
should go without also mentioning Major Harold Hering[2] who was discharged
from the for asking:

> How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a
> sane president?

Indeed.

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/How-End-Begins-Nuclear-
World/dp/141659...](http://www.amazon.com/How-End-Begins-Nuclear-
World/dp/1416594221/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415467653&sr=1-1&keywords=how+the+end+begins)
[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hering)

------
cmsmith
For those who are still interested after reading the article the information
is taken from the author's book [1], which I just finished and thoroughly
enjoyed/was terrified by.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-
Illu...](http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-
Illusion/dp/0143125788/)

------
acdha
Both my wife and I somehow managed to avoid seeing Dr. Strangelove before this
summer. While watching it, I was repeatedly struck by the same realization as
in the article: for all the reputation as a wild farce, there was a rather
disturbingly small gap between the film and history which has subsequently
been publicly released – and Dr. Strangelove came out decades before we
reached the point of having an astrologist in the loop for international
decisions.

The far more serious story of Stanislav Petrov
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov))
has received a fair of coverage but is still somewhat under-appreciated; it's
now my default cautionary response anytime you read a novel or watch a movie
and say “oh, that'd never happen in real life”.

~~~
haukur
> we reached the point of having an astrologist in the loop for international
> decisions.

I'm a little bit curious, did you mean to say astronomer or does the US
government have an astrologist advisor?

~~~
adrianhoward
Meet Joan Quigley. White House astrologer to the Reagan White House.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Quigley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Quigley)

~~~
pavel_lishin
This makes me realize that there is probably a lot more that I missed in
"Stranger in a Strange Land", just by virtue of my age and not having been
born in the USA.

~~~
dmckeon
"Stranger" was published in 1961, 20 years before Reagan, but still has many
good insights on social and political patterns in the US. For a more dated,
but more detailed and insightful view by a stranger, try:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America)

~~~
pmoriarty
Also see Philip K Dick's books from the 50's and 60's, which include actors as
American Presidents.

------
cperciva
_“This is absolute madness, Ambassador,” President Merkin Muffley says in the
film, after being told about the Soviets’ automated retaliatory system. “Why
should you build such a thing?”_

In the case of the Russian "Dead Hand", one of the stated purposes was to
reduce the potential for nuclear war, by allowing the command-and-control
structure to delay the decision about retaliation until it is clear that a
possible attack is, in fact, a real attack.

If you think "I have 30 seconds to decide whether to launch a retaliatory
strike", you're far more likely to make a bad decision than if you think "I
don't need to do anything, because if the blips on our radar are ICBMs then a
retaliatory strike will happen after I'm dead".

~~~
Ygg2
It's missing the point somewhat. Dead Hand is Russia's nuclear deterrent
against Russia. It would make no sense to broadcast it's existence to US.

Why would Russia need deterrent against Russia? Some people in charge were
wary of America and wanted a preemptive nuclear attack, to thwart chance of
total nuclear annihilation. Dead Hand in theory allows Russia to deliver a
Strike from beyond, thereby removing need for premature nuclear annihilation.

~~~
Spooky23
The other thing to consider that the same capability probably exists in the US
for the same purpose.

Otherwise, those flocks of geese on the DEW line and similar screw-ups would
have brought on nuclear annihilation.

------
filereaper
The character Dr. Strangelove is itself worth an entire movie, he was supposed
to be the combination of the following:

\- Edward Teller (Father of Hydrogen Bomb "the super")

\- John von Neumann (legendary mathematician and computer scientist)

\- Werner von Braun (designer of V2, and later on Saturn V5 for NASA)

the 1900's to 1960's was an amazing time to be in a STEM field, hell being a
Physicist was so freaking cool. Now everything's about Finance and Wall
Street...

~~~
mark_l_watson
My Dad worked with Edward Teller, and Teller was often at our house while I
was growing up. The Peter Sellers character was totally different than Teller
in real life. Teller was a refined gentleman. Peter Seller's character was
funny, and not at all like Teller.

BTW, I think that we are fortunate to have all survived the cold war!

~~~
arethuza
The book "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert
Oppenheimer" doesn't present Teller in a particularly favorable light - he is
presented as being very political, scheming and rather two faced (i.e. being
perfectly civilized directly to Oppenheimer while working closely with those
people who undermine Oppenheimer).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Prometheus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Prometheus)

~~~
pmoriarty
_" Teller was one of the strongest and best-known advocates for investigating
non-military uses of nuclear explosives, which the United States explored
under Operation Plowshare.

One of the most controversial projects he proposed was a plan to use a multi-
megaton hydrogen bomb to dig a deep-water harbor more than a mile long and
half a mile wide to use for shipment of resources from coal and oil fields
through Point Hope, Alaska..._

 _A related experiment which also had Teller 's endorsement was a plan to
extract oil from the tar sands in northern Alberta with nuclear explosions,
titled Project Oilsands."_[1]

Truth is stranger than fiction.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller)

------
arethuza
What about General Power who, while head of SAC, said:

 _Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea
is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and
one Russian left alive, we win!_

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power)

------
EvanAnderson
If this article piqued your interest definitely have a look at "The Dead Hand"
([http://www.amazon.com/The-Dead-Hand-Untold-
Dangerous/dp/0307...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Dead-Hand-Untold-
Dangerous/dp/0307387844)).

~~~
dmpk2k
"The Dead Hand" combined with "Command and Control"
([http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-
Illu...](http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-
Illusion/dp/0143125788/)) makes for very sobering reading. Put the two
together, and it's a genuine miracle that nothing bad happened. Of course,
we're not out of the woods...

Both are excellent books, BTW, so I agree with the parent poster's
recommendation.

~~~
arethuza
Also _" One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink
of Nuclear War"_ \- which is pretty alarming even when we know how it all
worked out:

[http://www.amazon.com/One-Minute-Midnight-Kennedy-
Khrushchev...](http://www.amazon.com/One-Minute-Midnight-Kennedy-
Khrushchev/dp/1400078911)

------
thehistorian
The author completely missed a major point of the movie (along with the people
in this thread), that it was the United States military who was pursuing
research on a 'doomsday device' (computerized nuclear armageddon). The S.A.G.E
radar defense system, adjusting for inflation, is the most expensive computer
system ever assembled. The Q-32 was the crown jewel of the whole operation and
it would also later become the first node in the network that today is
referred to as the internet. SDC is responsible for the firsts computer
implementations of relational database (KWIC), semantic networks, the first
WAN & time-sharing device(Sage & Q-32) and the first complete speech
recognition system (Synthex). They also trained 22,000 of the first 25,000
programmers in the United States. The term hacker was actually coined by
business and military personnel to describe the decline in professional
programming standards that occurred with creation of computer science
department in the 60's and the unskilled students they produced who didn't
properly document their code. Little computer history for all you.

~~~
rattray
... Really?

Can anyone else corroborate any of this? Or cite sources. Certainly
interesting stuff if true.

~~~
arethuza
Worth noting that even with system like SAGE in place "The bomber will always
get through" was probably fairly accurate - in a secret exercise in the early
1960s a small number of UK strategic bombers managed to "bomb" New York,
Washington and Chicago even though the entire air defence system was looking
for them.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Skyshield](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Skyshield)

------
pmoriarty
Anyone who enjoyed Dr. Strangelove would probably enjoy a much lesser known
film along the same lines: Seven Days in May.[1]

It doesn't have Peter Seller's brilliant acting, and it wasn't directed by
Kubrick, and it's not a comedy.. but many of the themes are quite similar and
both were released within days of each other, in Jan and Feb of 1964, a little
over a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis.[2]

According to Wikipedia, _" President John F. Kennedy had read the novel and
believed the scenario as described could actually occur in the United
States."_[3]

[1] -
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058576/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058576/)

[2] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_missile_crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_missile_crisis)

[3] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_in_May](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_in_May)

------
pluma
As a German born in 1985 I find the US far scarier in retrospect than the
Soviet Union. For the Soviets, as for Europeans, it was very obvious that a
nuclear war would in any case result in massive numbers of deaths locally.
Even if they magically weren't hit, attacking Europe would have lethal
consequences.

A lot of the historical "near misses" involved carelessness by the US or the
US-led NATO. Plus the general attitude towards atomic technologies was far
more unquestioningly positive in the US than in Europe.

------
pflanze
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7109345](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7109345)

------
tlubinski
John Oliver: Nuclear Weapons

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-
yF35g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g)

------
lmg643
Kind of a link-bait headline from the New Yorker. "There were glaring
weaknesses in America's nuclear security during the cold war, some of which
were used as the basis for the movie." True. "

Almost everything ... uh ... first thing that came to mind is whether a nuke
was dropped with a soldier riding it like a horse. No? So what else...

This topic was covered earlier and in a more comprehensive manner by Wired
IIRC.

~~~
arethuza
Actually, there was at least one incident that is pretty similar (although not
identical) to that scene:

 _" The task was doomed from the start; later testimony indicated Kulka had no
idea where to find the locking pin in the large and complicated bomb-release
mechanism. After a tense 12 minutes searching for the pin, the bombardier
decided, correctly, that it must be high up in the bomb bay and invisible
because of the curvature of the bomb. A short man, he jumped to pull himself
up to get a look at where he thought the locking pin should be. Unfortunately,
he evidently chose the emergency bomb-release mechanism for his handhold. The
weapon dropped from its shackle and rested momentarily on the closed bomb-bay
doors with Captain Kulka splayed across it in the manner of Slim Pickens in
Dr. Strangelove. Kulka grabbed at a bag that had providentially been stored in
the bomb bay, while the more-than-three-ton bomb broke open the bomb-bay doors
and fell earthward. The bag Kulka was holding came loose, and he found himself
sliding after the bomb without his parachute. He managed to grab something-he
wasn't sure what-and haul himself to safety. Moments later the plane was
rocked by the shock wave of the blast when the bomb hit the ground."_

[http://io9.com/5904633/in-1958-america-accidentally-
dropped-...](http://io9.com/5904633/in-1958-america-accidentally-dropped-a-
nuclear-weapon-on-two-little-girls-playhouse)

NB Of course, only the chemical explosives in the bomb exploded.

