know it was an accident? How could they prove it? Would it make any difference if they could? Even if we believed it to be an accident, should we not retaliate with everything we had?”
Good questions, Black agreed, but no answers were offered. It didn’t seem to be a real discussion about real problems. Black remembered the flurry of excitement a few years before when some scholar had published a paper on the strategy of surrender. The argument had been simple. If either side strikes first, is not surrender the only possible strategy for the other side? What is to be gained by retaliation? There had been a series of Congressional hearings, and then no one heard any more about the strategy of surrender.
Black’s thoughts were interrupted. Groteschele had stopped talking. Everyone was looking at the Big Board.
The large alert signal at the top of the board had flashed on. The board still showed the blips Black had just seen Stark watching. The six blips were six bomber groups in the air almost at their Fail.Safe points. There was also an unidentified blip somewhere between Greenland and Canada. Black noted that the clock above the Big Board showed 10:28. Groteschele paused to look around at the Big Board. He turned back to his audience, saying, “Well, we’re in luck. A nicely arranged alert for our discussion. You can’t count on these for a Pentagon lecture any more. The equipment has become so much more accurate that they only occur about six times a month now.”
Groteschele tried to recapture the attention of his audience by delving into an explanation of the need for maximum reaction times in evaluating an alert. Even though more and more ICBMs were becoming operational every day, he explained, they would not be used immediately in a crisis. They had the defects of their virtues. They were too quick. They allowed too little time for thought and the detection of error. This had led to a return to manned bombers for a first-strike retaliation rather than immediate reliance on the newer long-range rockets. The bombers provided hours of revaluation and analysis, the rockets only thirty minutes. Besides, regardless of the outcome, even if the entire country were devastated the rockets could always be thrown in at the end.
The Big Board was proving more seductive than Groteschele. His voice rose slightly.
“Now if the Soviets really have a high-level satellite which carries a rocket, then we are in danger,” he said and paused, his voice heavy. “Real danger. For then the reaction time would be down to fifty or sixty seconds. Not even enough time to call the President.”
But Groteschele had lost his audience. All eyes remained glued on the Big Board. Soon the foreign unidentified blip would get identified, and fade off the board—a Canadian airliner off course, a heavily compacted flight of birds, and so on. Then the SAC groups would veer off their lines of flight and disappear from the board. Yes, Black could see, it was happening now.
The foreign unidentified blip was fading out. The room, which had grown quietly tense, now relaxed. Cigarettes were lit and pencils returned to doodling exercises as men tried to shed their nervousness in their private ways. Soon a messenger would come in with SPADATS’ explanation of what the blip had been. Then Groteschele could resume, happily monopolizing the attention of his audience again.
One by one, five SAC groups began in turn to veer off. Only one group was left on the board. Then as Black watched unbelievingly it flew past its Fail-Safe point. He glanced at Stark. Stark was erect in his chair. Wilcox was oblivious of what had happened. Most of the other officers had turned back to Groteschele. Stark stared at Black. He raised his eyebrows.
Black looked at Groteschele. What happened to Groteschele came and went so quickly that Black was not certain he had seen correctly: Groteschele’s eyes glittered and he shuddered. To Black it seemed an expression composed of apprehension, excitement, delight, and opportunity. Then it was gone. Grotesehele stood absolutely still, staring at the board. Black realized that only three men in the room fully understood what had just happened.
Then the whole board went black. Apparently the operator did not think the action of Group 6 to be important. Maybe he had just not noticed it. Stark scribbled a note to Black. It said, “Ever see a group go past Fail- Safe before?” Black shook his head. Stark started to get up from his chair. Black knew he was going to check with the tactical officers in another office. Stark froze halfway up.
A phone had rung. It did not ring loud, but it did ring distinctively. A steady persistent unbroken ring. It was the red phone. None of the men in the room had heard it before. Wilcox was not aware of the import of the ring, but he sensed the tension around him. He came to rigid attention. An Army general ran across the room to the red phone. It did not look at all unseemly for a general to be dashing to answer a phone. In fact it seemed to be done in nightmarish slow motion.
The general listened for a moment. He turned back to the room woodenly. Looking at Wilcox he said with excessive clarity: “Mr. Secretary, the President is calling from the White House bomb shelter. He wants to speak to the senior person present. That is you. I am directed to see that the Joint Chiefs and the Secretaries convene here immediately.” He laid the receiver beside the phone and dashed from the room.
Wilcox stumbled around out of his chair and virtually fell toward the phone, stealing a look at the Big Board as he did so.
The Big Board had lit up again. And now it projected just two things; the Fail.Safe point of Group 6 and the blip of Group 6. They were already inches apart. Group 6 was headed toward Russia.
“There is nothing further to report, Mr. President,” General Bogan said. Colonel Cascio was staring straight at the Big Board. “GrOup 6 is about two hundred and sixty miles past Fail-Safe and continuing on what is apparently an attack course.”
“Do you know what happened to them?” the President’s voice asked.
“No, sir, we do not,” General Bogan said. “There is a chance, an outside chance, that they made a navigational error and will swing back.”
“Have they ever made a navigational error that big before?” the President asked crisply.
“No, sir,” General Bogan said. “But when you’re traveling over 1,500 miles an hour, a little error can throw you a long distance off.”
“Let’s rule that one out,” the President said. “Why haven’t you been able to raise them yet by radio?”
“We don’t know for sure, Mr. President,” General Bogan said. “We have tried them on all frequencies and can’t make contact.”
“Why?” the President broke in, his voice impatient.
“First, there might be natural meteorological disturbances, and our weather people say there is a big electrical storm just behind the Vindicators,” General Bogan said. “Secondly, the Russians might be jamming our radio reception—”
“Why the hell would they do that?” the President asked.
“I don’t know,” General Bogan said, paused, and then went on. He spoke slowly, his voice unconvincing. “There is a remote possibility that their Fail-Safe black boxes might be giving them a ‘go’ signal and that Russian jamming is preventing our verbal Positive Control system from operating.”
“Is that possible?” the President said sharply.
General Bogan paused. Then his voice gained confidence. “No, Mr. President, the odds against both systems falling at the same time are so high I think that is impossible,” General Bogan said. He was aware that Colonel Cascio was watching him. He felt an undefined and nagging discomfort. “Almost impossible.”
“All right,” the President said. “Now if we do regain radio contact will they respond to a direct order from me to return?”
“They will answer, sir,” General Bogan said, “providing we can reach them by radio within the next five minutes.” Then he paused. “However, if after that time their black boxes still tell them to ‘go’ they are under orders not to turn back even if someone who sounds like you orders them back. You can see the reason for that. The enemy could easily abort a real attack just by having someone around who could make a good imitation of your voice. Those people in the Vindica. tors have to obey the Fail-Safe mechanism. They can’t rely on voice transmissions.”
Something like a sigh came over the speaker.
“All right, let me sum up,” the President said. “For reasons which are unknown to us Group 6 has flown past its Fail-Safe point and right now seems to be on an attack course toward Russia. We can’t raise them by radio, but there’s an outside chance that we may later. What is their target?”
“Moscow,” General Bogan said bluntly.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” the President said in a low and very slow voice. He said it again, as if to shake off a terrible reality. There was for a fleeting moment something of the acolyte, the altar boy, in his voice. When he
