©Mark Ollig
“Get Premier Kissov on the hotline,”
said US President Merkin Muffley during the 1964 movie, “Dr. Strangelove.”
Muffley is using the direct telephone
hotline connection with the Russian premier in hopes of avoiding nuclear war.
An earlier scene in the movie mentions
the infamous “red phone.”
The US president’s hotline telephone
was specifically highlighted during scenes in the 1964 movie, “Fail Safe.”
Although the movie was filmed in black-and-white, I assume the hotline phone was
red.
Come to think of it, the 1960s
television series, “Batman,” featured a red Bat Phone with a direct hotline to
Commissioner Gordon’s office.
And so, the hotline became thought of
as a red telephone sitting on the desks of the US president and Russian Soviet
leader. An immediate connection between the two occurred whenever the handset
of either phone was lifted.
Well, that’s not quite how it worked.
The hotline was not a red telephone,
but a teletype printer. There was one inside the US Pentagon, and one inside
Russia’s Kremlin.
Due to the lengthy amount of time
required to send, receive, and decipher messages with the Russian premier
during the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, both countries came very close
to having a nuclear confrontation, which would have resulted in massive
devastation and an enormous loss of life.
There were plenty of atomic missiles
around during October 1962; the US nuclear warhead total was 3,500, while the
Russian stockpile had about 580.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed,
and the Cuban Missile Crisis ended without nuclear missiles being used.
Talks then began in earnest about
implementing a direct communication link; a hotline between the two
superpowers. This hotline would be used to reduce the risk of nuclear war
because of delayed communications.
June 20, 1963, the US and Russia signed
the “Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Regarding the Establishment of a Direct
Communications Link.”
The memorandum understanding became
known as the hotline agreement.
“For use in time of emergency, the
Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR] have agreed to establish as soon as
technically feasible a direct communications link between the two Governments,”
the memorandum began.
Ensuring the continued operation of the
communications link and rapid delivery of any messages received over it would
be the responsibility of each government.
Some of the technical specifics of the
1963 hotline agreement included:
• Telegraph-teleprinter equipment used
for exchanging communications.
• One uninterrupted duplex wire
telegraph circuit route connecting Washington to Moscow via
London-Copenhagen-Stockholm-Helsinki for message transmissions.
• One full-time duplex radiotelegraph
circuit routed from Washington to Tangier to Moscow, which shall be used for
service communications and for coordination of operations.
Some of the equipment installed inside
the Pentagon for the Washington hotline was provided by the Russian company,
Avtomatika Concern. This equipment was tested and approved by US specialists.
American communications equipment was
also installed inside the Kremlin for the Moscow end of the hotline.
If a US president wanted to quickly
contact the Soviet premier/leader, they would call the Pentagon (by phone) with
the message to be sent over the hotline to Moscow.
Both the US and Russia encrypted text
messages using an ETCRRM (Electronic Teleprinter Cryptographic Regenerative
Repeater Mixer) cipher machine built in Norway.
The physical path used for a hotline
between the US and Russia was the TAT-1 (Transatlantic No. 1) submarine copper
coaxial cable system. TAT-1 consisted of two individually amplified cables; one
for transmitting and one for receiving.
The two cables, totaling 4,000 miles,
were placed 3.7 miles beneath the Atlantic Ocean. TAT-1 became operational
Sept. 25, 1956.
In the event the physical cable between
the two countries was disrupted, the dedicated radio circuit between Washington
and Moscow using a radio relay station in the city of Tangier, located in
northwestern Morocco, would be used for message exchanges.
Aug. 30, 1963, the first test message
was sent over the hotline from Washington to Moscow: “The quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy dog’s back 1234567890.”
Rumor has it the Russians responded
with “What does it mean when your people say the quick brown fox jumped over
the lazy dog?
The hotline was first used by President
Lyndon Johnson in 1967, to inform Russia of the US Naval fleet movements in the
Mediterranean region during the Middle East Six-Day War.
President Richard Nixon used the
hotline in 1971 and 1973.
The hotline agreement was updated in
1971, to provide the addition of two satellite circuits, which became
fully-operational in 1978, the same year the TAT-1 cable was retired. The
physical path of the hotline was transferred to a transatlantic fiber optic
cable.
By 1980, Norway’s ETCRRM cipher
machines were replaced by the Siemens M-190.
In 1986, high-speed facsimile (fax)
telecopy machines were added to the “hotline.” They could be used to send typed
messages, maps, charts, and drawings.
Since 2008, a dedicated computer
network links Washington and Moscow for sending and receiving email, and
instant messaging chat.
Oct. 31, 2016, President Obama used the
hotline’s secure satellite connection to send a message to Russian President
Vladimir Putin about his concerns with computer cyber hackers disrupting the
upcoming US election.
“This age of fast-moving events
requires quick, dependable communication in time of emergency,” President John
F. Kennedy said June 20, 1963. He added, the hotline agreement was a “first
step to help reduce the risk of war occurring by accident or miscalculation.”
The Memorandum of Understanding has
been active for 56 years and, so far, there has been no nuclear exchange
between the US and Russia.
It seems having a hotline keeps things
from boiling over.
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| The "Bat Phone" |
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| Red Phone in the Jimmy carter libray |
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| "Fail Safe" |