The 3 a.m. call and the 1979 NORAD Alert

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Reddit Comments

I'm guessing a Univac system of some flavor.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/HugeRaspberry 📅︎︎ Feb 11 2022 🗫︎ replies

I don't recognize it, but in general it might be a vector/graphical terminal from someone like Tektronix or Hewlett-Packard

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/vintagecomputernerd 📅︎︎ Feb 11 2022 🗫︎ replies

Nice try Skynet! We’re not telling you sh*t!

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/VapidHornswaggler 📅︎︎ Feb 11 2022 🗫︎ replies

I feel like one of the cool things about old computers like this today is that it wouldn't surprise me if NORAD's system has only been updated a handful of times since this video. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/APoliteFuccboi 📅︎︎ Feb 11 2022 🗫︎ replies

To be clear, the unit I'm asking about is not the one in the thumbnail, but the one with a schematic displayed at 6:01 in the video. Thanks!

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/VoxTonsori 📅︎︎ Feb 12 2022 🗫︎ replies
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Hi, I’m the History Guy. I  have a degree in history,   and I love history. And if you love  history too, this is the channel for you. You might not think about November 9th, 1979 as  being one of the most important dates in history,   and yet it honestly might have been. It  might have been one of the most important   dates in world history. It might even have  been the end of history. And what happened,   and what didn't happen, and the reason  you probably never heard about it all   tell us something about the era. It is  history that deserves to be remembered. The idea that a nation can develop such a massive  military potential that it makes war unthinkable,   the thing we today know is mutually assured  destruction, goes farther back than you might   think. In fact, both Richard Gatling,  who in 1862 invented the Gatling gun,   and Alfred Nobel who invented dynamite in 1867,  suggested that their weapons were so destructive   that they might make war futile. The concept of  using a nuclear bomb to deter someone else's use   of a nuclear bomb goes back to very earliest  development of such weapons. In March of 1942,   scientists living in England, Otto Frisch  and Rudolf Peierls published an extraordinary   memorandum that was the first technical exposition  of a practical nuclear weapon. In short,   their analysis of the critical mass needed  to sustain a nuclear chain reaction was much   smaller than had been previously theorized, small  enough to incorporate into a practical bomb. In   addition to the scientific calculations,  Frisch and Peierls talked about such a   bombs strategic potential. Arguing that,  “If Germany were to develop such a weapon,   the most effective reply would be a counter  threat, with a similar bomb.” The Frisch Peierls   memorandum was considered to be a prime  motivation behind the Manhattan Project,   and both Frisch and Peierls would later be part  of the team that produced the first atomic bombs. After the Second World War, a new competition  between the United States and its allies,   and the Soviet Union and its satellites began.  The date of the official start of what came to be   called the Cold War is often seen as March 12th,  1947. The date that US President Harry S Truman   made a speech to the US Congress, enunciating the  Truman Doctrine, an American foreign policy whose   stated purpose was to counter Soviet geopolitical  expansion, arguing that it was a threat to the   national security of the United States. There  is no specific date assigned to represent   the start of the nuclear arms race between the  United States, and the Soviet Union that was a   centerpiece of the Cold War, although August 29th,  1949, the day of the Soviet Union first tested a   nuclear bomb, might be as good a day as any.  The RDS-1, otherwise known as First Lightning,   had a yield of 22 kilotons of TNT, and surprised  the West coming nearly four years earlier than   the US had expected the Soviets would be able to  develop a nuclear bomb. By the mid-1950s, both   countries had develop much larger thermonuclear  bombs, as well as heavy bombers such as the   Convair B-36 and the Tupolev Tu-95, that were  capable of delivering these bombs well into each   other's territory. During the 1960's, not only  did strategic bombers improve, but both the US   and the Soviet Union developed submarine-launched  ballistic missiles, and intercontinental ballistic   missiles, to deliver their ever more potent  nuclear weapons. These delivery systems, strategic   bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and  submarine-launched ballistic missiles became what   was called the Nuclear Triad, and were part of  a philosophy of Assured Destruction, described   by US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in  1967. In brief, McNamara argued that, “To deter   nuclear war, a threat of assured destruction was  necessary.” “This required not only a nuclear   capacity, but so much nuclear capacity that even  if an enemy were to use their nuclear weapons   in a hypothetical first strike, the ability to  respond would remain. So that the destruction of   that enemy would still be assured.” “The purpose  of having a three branch nuclear capability is   to significantly reduce the possibility that an  enemy could destroy all of the nation's nuclear   forces in a first-strike attack. This in turn,  ensures a credible threat of a second strike.” New technologies, and uncertainty over each  other's capabilities continue to drive the arms   race, as leaders on both sides worried about  hypothetical missile gaps, or bomber gaps. It   was the financial demands of the arms race, and  the concepts of massive retaliation, and assured   destruction that led President Dwight Eisenhower,  in 1955, to change US military strategy,   in what became known as, The New Look. A policy  which emphasized reliance on strategic nuclear   weapons to deter potential threats, thus allowing  the nation to reduce the size of the conventional   Army, and Navy. As part of The New Look, the  role of the United States Strategic Air Command,   or SAC, tasked with the air defense of the  continental United States, was amended. Under   The New Look, the major purpose of air defense  was not to shoot down enemy bombers, it was to   allow SAC bombers to get into the air, and not  be destroyed on the ground, to allow for massive   retaliation. But survivability required more than  planes and missiles. To truly allow survivability,   you have to have sufficient warning that an attack  was coming. Thus, in 1957, the US and Canada   formed a joint military group called the North  American Air Defense Command, or NORAD, whose   primary purpose was to provide an early warning  and defense for SACs retaliatory forces. And NORAD   needed a hardened facility designed to protect its  operations from Soviet attack. In May of 1961, the   US started to excavate underneath a nine thousand  five hundred and seventy foot Colorado Mountain   to create the facility known as the Cheyenne  Mountain complex. The complex became operational   in 1967 for a total cost of one hundred forty  two point four million dollars, and monitored the   airspace of Canada and the United States through  a worldwide early warning system for missiles,   space systems, and foreign aircraft. The five acre  facility is built under 2,000 feet of granite,   and houses fifteen three-story buildings hidden  behind 25 ton blast doors and mounted on giant   springs to keep them from shifting in the  event of a nuclear blast. The bunker is built   to deflect a 30 Megaton nuclear explosion  as close as two kilometers. At its height,   the tunnels of the Cheyenne Mountain complex  hosted nearly 2,000 personnel. During the 1970s,   NORAD's early warning systems at the Cheyenne  Mountain complex were not fully automated. In   1972 Cheyenne Mountain began to integrate  those systems with what was called the   Cheyenne Mountain Complex Improvements Program  427-M, which became operational in 1979. 427-M   was a consolidated program for command center,  ballistic missile, and space functions. Developed   using new software technology, and designed for  computers with large processing capacity it was   intended to give greater reliability  and quicker early warning capability. And it was there in the early morning of November  9th 1979, in the world's most advanced bunker,   using the brand-new and robust early warning  system, that the unthinkable happened. Decades   of strategy around massive retaliation  and mutual assured destruction collapsed,   as the screens at the NORAD command center showed  indisputably that America's worst nightmare had   occurred. The Soviet Union had launched an  all-out nuclear attack on the United States,   designed to destroy our command  functions, and our nuclear weapons. This was no drill. The Pentagon's National  Military Command Center, and the alternate   National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie,  Maryland, all showed the same thing. The Soviets   had launched more than 200 submarine-launched  ballistic missiles. Following standard procedures,   the launch control centers for America's 550  Minutemen 3, and 450 Minutemen 2 missiles,   missiles whose combined warheads represented  approximately 55,000 times the explosive power   of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, were  given a preliminary warning to prepare for a   counter-attack. The crews of the SAC ready  alert bombers, and tankers were moved to   their aircraft. Emerging from the readiness  crew buildings, commonly called Mole Holes,   to man their B-52 bombers, each armed with up  to 20 nuclear tipped AGM 69 short-range attack   missiles, and start their engines. The entire  continental air defense interceptor force,   fighter aircraft tasked to defend the United  States, was put on alert. And at least 10   F-106 Delta Dart fighter interceptors were  launched to protect US airspace. Finally,   the president's Doomsday Plane, the national  emergency airborne command post was launched,   although without the President or Secretary of  Defense on board. US National Security Adviser   Zbigniew Brzezinski later recalled the event.  He was awakened at 3:00 a.m. by a call from his   military assistant, Major General William Odom who  informed him that 250 Soviet ballistic missiles   were headed to the United States. Brzezinski  knew that the president's decision time to   order retaliation was just three to seven minutes.  They were still waiting for satellite confirmation   of the launch, and Brzezinski did not want to  call the President until that confirmation,   but asked to confirm that SAC was launching its  planes! A moment later, Odom called back to inform   him that the command center was reporting that  the Soviets had now launched over 2,200 missiles,   an all-out nuclear attack! As Brzezinski prepared  to call the president he made a silent decision   of his own, he chose not to wake his wife. If  the world was going to end in half an hour,   he would let her go quietly in her sleep. Moments  before he picked up the phone to call President   Jimmy Carter, and recommend massive retaliation,  Odom called a third time. Raw data from the early   warning satellites and ground-based radar were  seeing nothing. It was, apparently, a false alarm. Later it was determined that software simulating  a Soviet nuclear attack intended to test the new   427-M system had inexplicably been transferred  into the regular warning display. As all command   centers were linked, they all showed the same  thing. The air force insisted that there was   never any real risk, and that all the actions  taken were, “Merely precautionary.” Secretary of   Defense Harold Brown cited, “The human element is  preventing the risk of any irretrievable actions.”   Brown also said that, “We must be prepared for the  possibility that another, unrelated malfunction,   may someday generate another false alert.”  A note that proved true, as there were three   more false alerts in 1980, all attributed to a  flaw in a 46 cent computer chip. A senior State   Department official at the time warned Secretary  of State Cyrus Vance “That false reports of this   kind are not a rare occurrence.” We may have  been lucky in the timing and that US-Soviet   relations were relatively calm in 1979, a year  which saw the signing of the second of the US   Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties, giving  more reason to question the validity of the alert.   But they deteriorated quickly, partly because  of a diplomatic exchange based on the reports   in the 1979 alert, and even more so as the Soviet  Union invaded Afghanistan in 1980. As relations   deteriorated, the risk of miscalculation  due to false alarms became even more real. While flaws were recognized in the 427-M system  from the start, it took nearly a decade to   replace the system. And much has happened in the  time since, the Soviet Union is gone, as is the   Strategic Air Command which was reorganized out  of existence. And Cheyenne Mountain complex is no   longer the headquarters for NORAD, the complex  today hosts about 1/10 as many employees as it   did in its height in 1979. The risk today of a  nuclear war starting because of a false alarm   is uncertain, but still real. In the end, decades  of false alarms in both the United States and the   Soviet Union have never resulted in what Harold  Brown called, “Irretrievable actions.” The event   in 1979 was little and inaccurately reported at  the time, and the vast majority of the world's   billions of people slept through the night not  knowing that anything extraordinary at all had   happened in the early morning of November 9th.  Whether this is just a memory of the tensions of   the past, or a warning of the risks of the future,  it is history that deserves to be remembered. I'm the History Guy. I hope you enjoyed this  edition of my series, five minutes of history,   short snippets of forgotten history five to ten  minutes long. And if you did enjoy it, please go   ahead and click that thumbs up button which is  there on your left. If you have any questions,   or comments, feel free to write those in the  comments section, I'll be happy to respond. And   if you'd like five minutes more forgotten  history, all you need to do is subscribe.
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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Views: 1,479,549
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: history, the history guy, cold war, us history, NORAD, cheyenne mountain, colorado, history guy
Id: YCQITNbw7tc
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 11min 28sec (688 seconds)
Published: Thu Apr 05 2018
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