[sammyg2]

My dad worked on minuteman I and II projects including time in silos. This is what he said re: the codes.

Unless the two operators KNEW the launch codes were set to zero, it didn't really matter what they were set to.

The launch codes would be sent to them and it took two operators to verify the authenticity compared to authenticator codes that were locked in the safes.
That's the only time they'd figure out the numbers were all zeros.
Once verified, it still took two operators with two keys to simultaneously initiate launch.

The real danger here is (if the story is true), the numbers were not random.

If someone KNEW they were all set to zero it would have made it much easier to initiate an unauthorized launch by falsifying a launch order.