http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in... With great reluctance, Eisenhower agreed
to let American officers use their nuclear
weapons, in an emergency, if there were no
time or no means to contact the President.
Air Force pilots were allowed to fire their
nuclear anti-aircraft rockets to shoot down
Soviet bombers heading toward the United
States. And about half a dozen high-level
American commanders were allowed to use far
more powerful nuclear weapons, without
contacting the White House first, when
their forces were under attack and “the
urgency of time and circumstances clearly
does not permit a specific decision by the
President, or other person empowered to act
in his stead.”
Unbeknownst to both Kubrick and George, a
top official at the Department of Defense
had already sent a copy of “Red Alert” to
every member of the Pentagon’s Scientific
Advisory Committee for Ballistic Missiles.
At the Pentagon, the book was taken
seriously as a cautionary tale about what
might go wrong.
A decade after the release of “Strangelove,”
the Soviet Union began work on the
Perimeter system - a network of sensors and
computers that could allow junior military
officials to launch missiles without
oversight from the Soviet leadership.
Perhaps nobody at the Kremlin had seen the
film. Completed in 1985, the system was
known as the Dead Hand. Once it was
activated, Perimeter would order the launch
of long-range missiles at the United States
if it detected nuclear detonations on
Soviet soil and Soviet leaders couldn’t be
reached.
I believe that's check and mate, old chap?