The Let's Play Archive

Silent Steel

by Magnetic North

Part 65: Info #44

Fangz posted:

BklynBruzer posted:

They were, but no one actually knew that except for the President.

No, actually just the minuteman ICBMs under the Strategic Air Command were set to all zero. SAC (under mad old Curtis LeMay) did this independently without telling everyone else, even the president, and included it as a checklist item (imagine that: Item #32, ignore whatever the silly voice on the telephone says, the actual code is 0000000). It took a former minuteman officer whistleblowing this practice to get this changed.