How Stanley Kubrick's film "Dr. Strangelove" exposed dangers inherent
in nuclear command-and-control systems
Almost Everything in "Dr. Strangelove" Was True
This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of Stanley Kubrick's black
comedy about nuclear weapons, "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to
Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." Released on January 29, 1964, the
film caused a good deal of controversy. Its plot suggested that a
mentally deranged American general could order a nuclear attack on the
Soviet Union, without consulting the President. One reviewer described
the film as "dangerous ... an evil thing about an evil thing." Another
compared it to Soviet propaganda. Although "Strangelove" was clearly a
farce, with the comedian Peter Sellers playing three roles, it was
criticized for being implausible.
An expert at the Institute for Strategic Studies called the events in
the film "impossible on a dozen counts." A former Deputy Secretary of
Defense dismissed the idea that someone could authorize the use of a
nuclear weapon without the President's approval: "Nothing, in fact,
could be further from the truth." (See a compendium of clips from the
film.)
When "Fail-Safe"--a Hollywood thriller with a similar plot, directed
by Sidney Lumet--opened, later that year, it was criticized in much
the same way. "The incidents in 'Fail-Safe' are deliberate lies!"
General Curtis LeMay, the Air Force chief of staff, said. "Nothing
like that could happen." The first casualty of every war is the
truth--and the Cold War was no exception to that dictum.
Half a century after Kubrick's mad general, Jack D. Ripper, launched a
nuclear strike on the Soviets to defend the purity of "our precious
bodily fluids" from Communist subversion, we now know that American
officers did indeed have the ability to start a Third World War on
their own. And despite the introduction of rigorous safeguards in the
years since then, the risk of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear
detonation hasn't been completely eliminated.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true
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