RED ALERT: HOTLINE NEVER WAS A TELEPHONE

JFK+50:  Volume 6, No. 2054

HOTLINE NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back." No, that's not the sentence JFK practiced typing in the Oval Office, but it is the first test message sent over the HOTLINE from the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia to the Kremlin in Moscow.  That message was transmitted fifty-three years ago today, August 30, 1963.

In June 1963, the hot line agreement had been signed by representatives of the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  The agreement came in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 when the world came close to nuclear war.   The White House issued a statement saying the hotline would "help reduce the risk of war occurring by accident or miscalculation."  The sentence transmitted included the numbers 1234567890.

The idea for the hotline came from Harvard professor Thomas Schelling who credited the novel Red Alert* with making governments more aware of direct communication in the nuclear age.  The hotline was advocated by Jess Gorkin, editor of Parade Magazine and Gerald C. Smith of the US State Department.

Ironically, the Republican Party platform of 1964 was highly critical of the hotline.  One of the planks states that the Kennedy administration...

"has alienated proven allies by opening a 'hotline' first with a sworn enemy rather than with a proven friend," and compared the concept to appeasement at Munich.

Bryan Bender, writing for Politico.com, tells us that the hotline "was never a telephone line and no red phones were used."  It was originally a teletype device, but in 1986 became a secure fax machine.  Then in 2008, the hotline became a secure computer link in which communication was done by email.

Mr. Bender says that the hotline is still tested but "seldom used."  In fact, after the Russians invaded the Crimea there has been little communication of any kind between the United States and Russia.

*Red Alert, a novel written by Peter George in 1958, was originally published in the UK as "Two Hours to Doom."  It became the inspiration for the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove.

SOURCE

"The hotline to Moscow goes cold," by Bryan Bender, October 2, 2015, www.politico.com/

T63-SU12-TPNCM

National Security Administration

Photo by Austin Mills (2005)

Rotatebot (talk/contribs)

www.wikipedia.org/

DR. STRANGELOVE PREMIER

COLD WAR CLASSIC, DR. STRANGELOVE, PREMIERED 50 YEARS AGO TODAY

George C. Scott 

as General Merkin Muffley

Columbia Pictures (1964)

London (JFK+50) Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a British-American black comedy film, premiered 50 years ago today, January 29, 1964.

The film, based on the 1958 novel Red Alert by Peter George, is a satire of the Cold War and fear of the threat the use of nuclear weapons by the superpowers.

The primary focus of Dr. Strangelove is the paranoia wrought by the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) where the main deterrent of a nuclear war was the realization that both superpowers, as well as the planet, could be destroyed by a war involving the use of nuclear weapons.

The film portrays an air force general who has inadvertently ordered a first strike on the USSR without authorization from the President of the United States and the efforts of the Commander-in-chief and his advisers, along with a Royal Air Force officer, to recall the bombers.

Doctor Strangelove was directed, produced and co-written by Stanley Kubrick.  It starred Peter Sellers, who played 3 roles in the movie, and George C. Scott who portrayed General Buck Turgidson.

George C. Scott 

as General Buck Turgidson

Columbia Pictures (1964)

One of Sellers' roles was Lionel Mandrake, the RAF officer.  Mr. Sellers had served in the RAF where he was known for his imitations of his superior officers.

Peter Sellers as Captain Mandrake

Columbia Pictures (1964)

He also played Dr. Strangelove, a former Nazi and nuclear war expert who is confined to a wheelchair.  This character is based on Operation Paperclip which involved the recruitment by the United States of Nazi scientists at the end of World War II.

The first test screening of the movie was scheduled for November 22, 1963, but because of JFK's assassination, the release would not come until late January 1964.

A line in the film spoken by actor Slim Pickens, "a fellow could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff," was changed to Vegas because of the tragedy in Texas.

Among the most humorous lines of satire in the film comes when an argument between two officials becomes physical.  President Muffley, played by George C. Scott, shouts...

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here...this is a war room!"

The War Room

Dr. Strangelove

Columbia Pictures (1964)