The Dr Strangelove scenario popped up many times in popular culture. Insane general/pilot/sub captain/ICBM maintenance worker decides to attack the US/USSR, and triggers Doomsday. The Americans feared that their own allies would go berserk using weaponry given to them by the US. At crucial times, Turkish and German pilots sat on the runway with Quick Response Aircraft, watched by no more than a single bored young American sentry.

The Americans also feared the French. Stein, Peter and Feaver, Peter. Assuring Control of Nuclear Weapons. University Press, 1987, has this wonderful passage:

“France’s history has not been characterized by the same orderliness of political succession and civil-military relations as Great Britain’s. Indeed, there have even been moments of instability in the nuclear age. During the revolt of the generals against De Gaulle in 1960, for example, the government ordered the detonation of a nuclear device in Algeria so that it would not fall into the hands of the military.”

The US military was dragged reluctantly to the idea of a failsafe system, asking themselves questions along the way like: “When the President rings up to authorise a nuclear attack, what if it isn’t the President?“. Those who allowed Tom Clancy to construct their imaginations were ultimately vindicated on September 11. By 1976, the US had a system in place, though the navy resisted the full shebang and constructed a less messy version which was not so dependent on communications.

As the BBC describes the system, both sides used “tamper-proof combination locks which could only be released if the correct code was transmitted.” They were called Permissive Action Links, (extensively described here) which meant that every single device had to be individually armed, according to a code sent by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There was more than one lock, and the keys were issued to different people, so no one lunatic or group in a hardened bunker could go for primordial broke.

But we now know the British didn’t hold with all this high-falutin nonsense, and anyway, Squadron Leader Mickey Faff-Snaff at the command of his Vulcan bomber wing was absolutely reliable.

BBC researchers finally tracked down a training copy of the system which was in use until 1998.

‘To arm the weapons you just open a panel held by two captive screws – like a battery cover on a radio – using a thumbnail or a coin.

Inside are the arming switch and a series of dials which you can turn with an Allen key to select high yield or low yield, air burst or groundburst and other parameters.

The Bomb is actually armed by inserting a bicycle lock key into the arming switch and turning it through 90 degrees. There is no code which needs to be entered or dual key system to prevent a rogue individual from arming the Bomb.”

There is even a video to show you how they did it. The single key is one of those round things that go into the really robust horseshoe locks used by bike fanatics like me. Every time I look at mine, I reckon I am more sensible than a large number of really powerful British politicians and soldiers. The Royal Navy responded to a request for a PALS system first made in 1966 with this gem:

‘”It would be invidious to suggest… that Senior Service officers may, in difficult circumstances, act in defiance of their clear orders”.

The American military didn’t like the system much, and set many codes to 00000, though they gradually implemented the system properly in the first decade from 1966. They have been worried by the Pakistanis, who don’t use PALS, but have never brought themselves to share the technology. While they don’t want to conceded secrets, the Pakistanis are reportedly concerned that the mechanisms could use a fail safe device controlled from Washington.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 9:38 pm and is filed under history, world politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.