Quote:
Originally Posted by MRM
Things like this happen, even to us, but there's always a long chain of failure involved. The most remarkable was the bear that climbed a fence around a military installation in northern Minnesota and almost started WW3. My understanding is that the only reason we didn't launch was that some officer in the chain of command broke protocol and shut it down, simply on the common sense observation that nothing happening at the time seemed consistent with a full nuclear launch, and shut it down while he sought outside confirmation.
https://www.military.com/off-duty/how-one-black-bear-almost-set-off-world-war-iii-during-cold-war.html |
As an Air Force brat growing up during the Cuban Missile crisis we came within a frog hair of WW3. One of my friend's dad was a B-52 pilot. I heard him (the dad) say his most terrifying moment in his life was sitting at the end of the runway, with nukes on board, all engines running ready to take off, and the orders to stand down came through channels. He was thinking the entire time how he might help end civilization, but he was sure planning on making Russia pay for anything they did. It was many years later that he spoke of it. At the time, I am sure it was classified.
The good news for the world, JFK was the president and that one man made the perfect decisions and ignored his generals.