Fail-Safe

by Eugene Burdick

  The President was referring to a secret incident in which a Soviet submarine had ventured inside the three-mile limit off San Francisco eight months previously and had immediately been tracked and sunk by U.S. Navy destroyers and helicopters. Neither Russia nor the United States had ever mentioned the incident in public. -

  The silence which spread through the vacant seconds was ominous; when Khrushchev spoke his words came slowly, each one edged with bitterness. “Are the planes from the Bering Sea being flown by madmen?”

  “We are not sure, Premier Khrushchev,” the President said. “It may have been a mechanical failure. Your radio-jamming devices may have made it impossible for us to establish contact with the planes. Right now they are, apparently, flying on orders which are normally received by mechanical transmissions. But we are not sure. All I can tell you is that it is an accident. This is not an attempt to provoke war, it is not a part of a general attack.”

  “And how is an ignorant Russian like me supposed to know that?” Khrushchev asked. His voice was harsh, but still somehow condescending, rebuking. “How do I know that you do not have hundreds of planes coming in so low that our radar cannot pick them up? How do I know—”

  Again the President nodded at Buck and interrupted Khrushchev.

  “Because, Premier Khrushchev, you have detection devices that give you almost the same information that I have,” the President said. “Also if you will give me the time to explain I hope to prove to you that we regard it as a serious accident, take responsibility for it, and are trying to correct it.”

  The President stopped. The silence drew out, went past what was a polite break in conversation, became a test of will. Buck shifted in his chair. Again he had the sensation of being caught, buglike and about to be squashed, between two powerful forces. It was physically unpleasant.

  “Go on, Mr. President,” Khrushchev said.

  “As your people have told you, there is a flight of high-speed fighters which accompany each group of our bombers as they fly toward the Fail-Safe point,” the President said. “Your detection apparatus will soon tell you that those fighter planes have been flying at full speed, using afterburners, to try’ and overtake

  - and shoot down our bombers. They are doing that at my direct order. Three of them have already run out of fuel and have, presumably, gone into the sea.”

  There was a short silence, but it possessed a new quality. When Khrushchev spoke Buck could tell he was startled.

  “You mean you are ordering American fighter planes to shoot down American bombers?”

  “That is precisely what I mean,” the President said. “I have already given that order. If you have access to a plotting board you should have been able to see the fighters reverse their course and try to overtake the bombers.”

  “Mr. President, I am sitting in front of a plotting board,” Khrushchev said. “My experts have already detected the change in number of your fighters.” He paused. “We wete not sure that they really launched air-to-air missiles at your bombers. We are still not sure that they have run out of fuel. Perhaps they are diving at a low altitude to escape our radar and are flying back to their bases-or into Russia.”

  “Then sir, your radar apparatus is defective,” the President said. “We dearly saw three of the planes shoot their rockets and then fall into the ocean. At 20,000 feet the pilots were automatically ejected and their capsules were clearly visible on our radar.”

  Khrushchev grunted softly. “They were clear on our radar also, Mr. President,” he said. “I really did not doubt that they were making an effort. I wanted only to hear your explanation. I also wanted to know if they had made the pursuit at your specific order.” He paused and when he spoke his voice was oddly neutral. “It is a hard thing to order men to certain death, is it not?”

  “It is,” the President said simply.

  Again there was the sound of background conversation on the Moscow end of the conference line. Buck could pick up only a few of the words. He quickly wrote a sentence on a pad and turned it to the President. It said, “Someone is trying to persuade him that it is a trick, arguing for ‘strike-back in full power’ or something close to that.”

  Suddenly Khrushchev’s voice came distinctly over the line. “Nyet,” he said savagely. “I will make my own decisions.”

  Then his voice went level and was under control.

  “Mr. President, some of my advisers are convinced that this ‘accidental attack’ and your phone call are a ruse,” Khrushchev said. “They want to strike back at once. I have forbidden it. After all, Soviet air space has not yet been invaded. I must tell you, however, that if your fighters are not successful in shooting down your attacking planes we will be forced to shoot down the bombers ourselves. Then we will come to an alert and will prepare our ICBMs and other retaliatory devices. We must do this to make sure that the ‘accidental attack’ is not a mask for something more serious. Your single group of bombers does not disturb me in the least. We can handle them. Your real intention I do not yet know. I will protect myself.”

  “Premier Khrushchev, I understand that you must take these steps. I hope you will be able to shoot them down. But let me urge you to take no steps which are irrevocable. I give you my word that this is a mistake. But you are also aware that if you start to launch missiles I cannot forbid our forces to do the same. If that happens there will be very little left of the world.”

  “I think we will be able to take care of our interests, Mr. President,” Khrushchev said and his voice was tougher.

  “I want to make sure that you understand that this is an accident and to ask you to do nothing which is irrevocable,” the President said evenly.

  “I understand,” Khrushchev said grimly. “Is there anything more you wish to say?”

  “Yes, Premier,” the President said. “I have made arrangements for a second conference line to be established between our tactical Air Force headquarters in Omaha and your counterpart officials in the Soviet Union. If you will give permission, that conference line can be established at once.” The voice hesitated. Buck looked up. The President took a deep breath, like a tired pitcher before he winds up and throws again. “Our people in Omaha will give every assistance to your forces in shooting down our bombers should our fighters fail.”

  Khrushchev was silent for a few seconds. When he spoke, the words snapped out with what Buck considered genuine rage.

  “Mr. President, the forces of the USSR are perfectly capable of defending our country. We do not need or welcome your technical assistance.”

  “The choice is yours,” the President said evenly. Then his voice went low, so low that Buck had to ask him to repeat the words. Looking at the President, he realized that the President was doing this deliberately. “Premier Khrushchev, I must, with regret, tell you that regardless of what you do, two of those six planes will, in all probability, be able to fight through to their target. We have new evasive devices and masking techniques, which I don’t think you know anything about. My experts tell me that two of the planes will probably hit the target.”

  Instantly Khrushchev’s voice changed. “What is their target?”

  “Moscow.”

  The silence that ensued lasted almost twenty seconds. It was broken by Khrushchev.

  “I will call you back, Mr. President, when we have seen how the fighters do. Keep that second conference line you mentioned ready for use.” His voice was opaque, seamless, pitiless, completely unrevealing of emotion. -

  The President put down the phone and looked at Buck. Then he stood up.

  “Let’s go out and look at the board,” he said.

  He led Buck into the next room, where his special assistants were gathered before a miniature version of the Big Board in the War Room at the Pentagon. None of the assistants turned to look at the President. They stood up, but they kept their eyes on the board. They knew he was there to watch the consequences of his own acts.

  In the five minutes that followed not a
word was spoken in the room. Two things happened. The last of the fighter planes shot its rockets in futile pursuit of the Vindicators and went off the screen. The Vindicators came up to and then passed over the light green line which marked the Siberian border of the Soviet Union.

  The President waited another minute. He nodded at Buck and they went back into the smaller office.

  Buck knew what had happened. The technical conditions of war now existed. An invasion had been made.

  Now the world was living on two levels. There was an overt public level and a covert secret leveL On the overt level the world’s business proceeded serenely, innocently, and in its normal fashion: men worked, died, loved, and rested in their accustomed ways. But alongside this normal world, and ignored by it, the covert world went about its huge task of bringing two war plans to readiness. At that moment the covert, counterpoised world of war was in a waidng stage; its war dance had come to a high level of preparation and then stood arrested, held in a miraculous balance, a marvelous intricate suspension brought about by suspicions, intentions, information, and lack of information.

  They waited. They waited in conference rooms, in war rooms, at rocket silos, in combat information centers on aircraft carriers, on submarines lying in muck at the bottom of the ocean, in fighter planes, in ready rooms, at computing consoles. Even men in motion were waiting. Over Russia fighter planes rose in waves, flew toward the edge of Soviet air space… and waited. Rockets came up from deep pits… and waited. Missiles were trained toward the east… and waited. Radar sets were warmed up… and their operators waited. Conventional antiaircraft weapons were readied and manned… and waited. On two continents whole armies of men, fleets of planes, scores of bizarre weapons were brought to a hair trigger of preparation and carefully restrained.

  Everywhere the military muscles and nerves tightened, came to a hard attention. For some it was an ignorant attentiow thousands of men did a task they had practiced hundreds of times before without the slightest notion of whether this performance was urgent or casuaL Most of the men worked with only a tiny fragment of knowledge. But in a few places there were men who could see the full picture of what was happening, or, worse, what might happen. For these men the waiting was exquisitely painful; - the quiet screamed; the peace was agonizing.

  One such place was the War Room at Omaha. Every man and instrument in the War Room was at readiness. The place glowed. The lights from thousands of little dials, the merged loom from scores of scopes, and the light from the big world map on the wall had wiped out the pools of shadow.

  General Bogan sat at the desk directly in front of the map. He was aware of the many men who were sitting quietly, but tensely, at desks or in front of consoles or watching the faces of various machines. Now the entire operation was working at capacity. Every machine whirred, every man was attentive, there was a beautiful symmetry to the operation. Only one thing was different. That was the sure knowledge that this was reality, the end of practice, the ultimate point.

  General Bogan sat quietly at his desk, his eyes watching the motion of various dots across the world map.

  “Let’s get a dose-up on Group 6,” General Bogan said.

  The projection on the map began to change at a dizzy speed, as if a camera were swooping down from some great height. General Bogan marveled at the ingenuity of the machine’s design. Using radar which was housed in one of the satellites launched a few years before, they were able to pick up a radar image of any locality in the world simply by tuning in on different satellites in different locations. This radar picture was then linked to an actual map of the Soviet Union and the progress of runaway Group 6 could be traced.

  Group 6 had spread out before the actual penetration of Soviet Russia. To fly too dose to one another would increase the chance of two planes being destroyed by an enemy missile. Now Group 6 was a few miles inside the Soviet border, which was drawn in a heavy red line on the projection.

  The few men in the War Room who were talking fell silent.

  “Put the Soviet fighter planes on the projection,” General Bogan said.

  A flock of small white blips appeared, all of them meticulously grouped on the Soviet side of the red line.

  “This is Enemy Defense Performance Desk, General Bogan,” a mechanical voice said. The desk was keyed to come on with an interpretation when its information was projected onto the Big Board. “The No. 6 plane, which carries only defensive equipment and devices has moved into the lead. Apparently it has already launched some masking devices for, as you can see, the Soviet fighters are not grouping at the point where Group 6 crossed the border. On their radars the targets probably appear spread over several hundred miles and they are starting to get blips on a good number of objects without being able to determine which are real and which are decoys.”

  “Have they launched missiles of any kind?” General Bogan asked.

  “Not yet,” the Enemy Defense Desk said.

  At that moment the Soviet fighter command ordered its planes into action. Instantly the Big Board began to blossom. Blips raced up the board, homed on decoys, raced relentlessly down their electronic tracks and then detonated themselves in little mushrooming blips which quiddy disappeared.

  “The little dots that appear suddenly and then disappear are missiles,” the Enemy Defense expert said. “The largest blips are fighter-bombers which are probably equipped with their own radar and air-to-air missiles. So far none of the antiaircraft shots have been nuclear. They are the conventional warhead. As you can see, our diversion and evasive devices are working well. The No. 6 plane which is now angling away will probably drop a new set of window.”

  Each of the planes was equipped with radar-jamming and obscuring devices which were called “window” and were advanced developments from the older strips of foil designed to produce false images on enemy radar screens. The Vindicators also carried other decoys, some of which could be launched by small rockets, and antimissile missiles and automatic devices to detect and identify approaching enemy missiles and compute the precise time for firing the antimissile missiles.

  “Right now the Soviet radar is probably picking up some hundreds of blips and they are running each of them down systematically,” the voice went on. “On the scope that you see the decoys had not been projected. Our equipment is programmed to ignore signals from our own window. On the Soviet projection the only thing they are sure of is the location of their own missiles and fighter planes. For the Soviets it is a pretty difficult task, General, trying to follow a couple of hundred blips and vector their own planes in on them over air space of several million cubic miles.”

  General Bogan felt an odd mixture of pride and helplessness. For years every man in the room, every piece of machinery, had worked and drilled and practiced for the first terrible moment of action. Now it had begun. But there was a bewildering difference. When this magnificently balanced mechanism was being perfected, no one had ever contemplated that it would be used to counter some terrible mistake. Even so, General Bogan could not restrain a sense of admiration for the efficiency with which the Vindicator bombers were feinting, fighting back, and pushing on the attack.

  He could not put down a sense of guilt. If the attack had been legitimately ordered the Vindicators would be receiving help. A B-52 especially equipped with jamming equipment and more elaborate decoys than the Vindicators could carry would be accompanying them. Jamming and masking devices located around the borders of the Soviet Union would have gone into action. But these parts of the mechanism had been ordered to stand down. The Vindicators were fighting through entirely on their own. General Bogan also felt a deeper uneasiness. If he were able to give the Soviets the information he had, their chances of shooting down the Vindicators would be greatly increased. But he forced the idea down into some black recess of his mind.

  “How much of their defensive armament have the Vindicators had to fire so far?” General Bogan asked.

  “So far they have been following standa
rd operating procedure with No. 6 plane firing air-to-air missiles at any missile or plane that is dosing a real target,” the mechanical voice said. “No. 6 has run through 55 per cent of her armament. The other planes each have a full load of air-to-air missiles.”

  On, the screen one of the Soviet fighters suddenly altered direction and started to fly directly at the lead plane in the Vindicator formation. The two planes were dosing on one another at a combined speed of over 3,000 miles per hour. General Bogan felt his chest go tight. His viscera warred with his mind. His mind willed that the Soviet fighter would be successfuL His viscera, conditioned by years of training, was knotted in a desperate sympathy with the Vindicator.

  Suddenly the decision was made. A small blip fell away from the No. 6 plane, hung suspended for a moment, and then, like a meteorite trailing a miniature phosphorescent tail, it began to speed toward the Soviet fighter. It was a Bloodhound and General Bogan estimated that its speed was over 1,500 miles an hour. The Soviet fighter suddenly began to zigzag in the air as some mechanism aboard the plane sensed the rush of the missile. Finally, when the Bloodhound was only a few miles from the Soviet bomber, the Soviet fighter itself dropped an air-to-air missile which turned in the direction of the Bloodhound. It was too late. In the next second there was a great mushrooming blotch on the screen. The warhead of the Bloodhound had gone off. The Soviet air-to-air missile and fighter and Bloodhound all disappeared in the blotch. The American bomber veered away from the blotch, which spread out like a green, dangerous fungus growth. Then abruptly it dimmed and the blotch disappeared.

  “Jesus, I’ll bet the crew on that Vindicator got a shaking up,” a voice said in the rear of the room.

  North of the Vindicators another Soviet fighter suddenly altered course and was joined by a second. They both ran down their electronic tracks, stalking the invisible targets. No. 6 plane veered toward them, but at that moment each of the Soviet fighters released two air-to-air missiles. They streaked, amoebalike but at great speed, toward the closest Vindicator. The attacked Vindicator and No. 6 simultaneously loosed a total of six air-to-air missiles toward the two fighters. The four Soviet missiles came at a much slower speed. The Vindicator missiles sped toward the Soviet missiles, wavered a moment, and then went on toward the larger targets.