In the darkest days of the Cold War, as the world trembled on the brink of nuclear conflict, one thing above all stood in the way of catastrophe: the secret eight-digit access number required to launch the US's arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Without that vital obstacle, anybody - a crazed military commander, or a terrorist - might have been able to spark a conflict that would have killed millions.
For the sake of our sanity, then, perhaps it is best that we have had to wait until now to discover that for many years, according to an expert closely involved in the process, the eight digits in question were 00000000.
"The codes were the only real mechanical or technical impediment to the crews launching missiles," said Bruce Blair, who worked as a launch officer in a nuclear missile silo in Montana. "And they were all set to zero. The safeguard was non-functional."
Mr Blair, now president of the Centre for Defence Information, a Washington think tank, said he recently revealed the information to Robert McNamara, secretary of defence during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He said Mr McNamara responded he was shocked and outraged, and asked: "Who the hell authorised that?"
The codes were set to zero because they were so deeply disliked by the military, Mr Blair argues in a document from the centre. He says Mr McNamara "basically forced" the system on senior commanders, who were far more concerned with eliminating anything that might slow down their otherwise lightning-fast response to a Soviet attack.
Mr Blair and one other colleague were in a position to fire up to 50 Minuteman missiles at the Soviet Union.
Steven Bellovin, a researcher for AT&T who has studied launch codes, said he was puzzled by Mr Blair's revelations, and suggested he was confusing two sets of codes, one to detonate the nuclear bomb and one to launch the missile containing the bomb.
the guardian
Without that vital obstacle, anybody - a crazed military commander, or a terrorist - might have been able to spark a conflict that would have killed millions.
For the sake of our sanity, then, perhaps it is best that we have had to wait until now to discover that for many years, according to an expert closely involved in the process, the eight digits in question were 00000000.
"The codes were the only real mechanical or technical impediment to the crews launching missiles," said Bruce Blair, who worked as a launch officer in a nuclear missile silo in Montana. "And they were all set to zero. The safeguard was non-functional."
Mr Blair, now president of the Centre for Defence Information, a Washington think tank, said he recently revealed the information to Robert McNamara, secretary of defence during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He said Mr McNamara responded he was shocked and outraged, and asked: "Who the hell authorised that?"
The codes were set to zero because they were so deeply disliked by the military, Mr Blair argues in a document from the centre. He says Mr McNamara "basically forced" the system on senior commanders, who were far more concerned with eliminating anything that might slow down their otherwise lightning-fast response to a Soviet attack.
Mr Blair and one other colleague were in a position to fire up to 50 Minuteman missiles at the Soviet Union.
Steven Bellovin, a researcher for AT&T who has studied launch codes, said he was puzzled by Mr Blair's revelations, and suggested he was confusing two sets of codes, one to detonate the nuclear bomb and one to launch the missile containing the bomb.
the guardian
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