# What should the President have done? (Spoliers for Fail Safe) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 10, 2009, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620 "2009-09-10T23:32:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/21 "2009-09-11T19:03:56Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > I don’t understand the idea that the president committing suicide would have been a viable option. The Russians would have responded with “So what? We still lost A FUCKING CITY. You already have a new preisdent.” I suggested it because it’s pretty much the ultimate way for him to express “I fucked up and I’m sorry”. He takes personal responsibility, and shows good faith by accepting the consequences. Essentially, he proves himself to be an honorable man. I don’t know if the Russians would accept that…but he’s got very few options left. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/22 "2009-09-11T19:26:20Z")
I hate how, when you describe this movie to someone who hasn’t seen it, they say “Oh, like Dr. Strangelove?” when Dr Strangelove was meant to be a spoof of Fail Safe, though it ended up coming out before it, I think. The spoof is more popular than the thing it spoofs. Grr. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/23 "2009-09-11T19:40:04Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > I suggested it because it’s pretty much the ultimate way for him to express “I fucked up and I’m sorry”. He takes personal responsibility, and shows good faith by accepting the consequences. Essentially, he proves himself to be an honorable man. I don’t know if the Russians would accept that…but he’s got very few options left. But how is that any good, really? It just looks like him ducking responsibility when it comes down to it, and now you have an unprepared Vice President stepping in. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/24 "2009-09-11T20:12:28Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > But how is that any good, really? It just looks like him ducking responsibility when it comes down to it, and now you have an unprepared Vice President stepping in. It would be a powerful symbolic act. Definitely not something POTUS would do if the attack wasn’t an accident. The people, Russian and American, would see one man pay the price for a tragedy. In my book, that’s better than an all out war. As for the VP, well…he’s the equivalent of a second string quarterback. The starter may go down at any time, and the #2 guy has to be ready to step up to line and call the plays. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/25 "2009-09-11T20:41:29Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > I don’t understand the idea that the president committing suicide would have been a viable option. The Russians would have responded with “So what? We still lost A FUCKING CITY. You already have a new preisdent.” > [@Zsofia](#): > > But how is that any good, really? It just looks like him ducking responsibility when it comes down to it, and now you have an unprepared Vice President stepping in. And that folks, is why nuking an American city was the only way to end the story. Maybe if we were in a culture where ritual suicide is seen as an honorable act the story would’ve ended differently. Our sense of right and wrong includes some sort of restitution to the victim. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/26 "2009-09-11T21:30:25Z")
> [@wierdaaron](#): > > I hate how, when you describe this movie to someone who hasn’t seen it, they say “Oh, like Dr. Strangelove?” when Dr Strangelove was meant to be a spoof of Fail Safe, though it ended up coming out before it, I think. Fail Safe was based on Burdick and Wheeler’s book “Fail Safe”. Dr. Strangelove was based on/was a spoof of Peter George’s “Red Alert”/“Two Hours to Doom”. But the two books were so similar that George sued Burdick and Wheeler for plagiarism, and they settled. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/27 "2009-09-11T21:37:57Z")
He could have invaded Iraq instead. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/28 "2009-09-11T21:53:00Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > He could have invaded Iraq instead. You could have said something relevant to the thread instead. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/29 "2009-09-11T23:54:39Z")
> [@wierdaaron](#): > > The spoof is more popular than the thing it spoofs. Grr. This is not at all uncommon. Just to take one well-known example, a number of the verses in Alice in Wonderland are spoofs of contemporary poetry - almost all of which is long since forgotten. Nowadays we call this the “Weird Al Effect”. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/30 "2009-09-12T01:00:28Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > I felt more sorry for General Black, the bomber pilot ordered to actually drop American nukes on an American city… You know, there are times for disobedience… ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/31 "2009-09-12T01:04:03Z")
This entire scenario also reinforces to me the stupidity of refusing to use reason and empathy to make decisions. You wouldn’t turn back if your president and your wife pleaded with you? Do you think someone had the time to work up a world-class impression of your wife? Do you think that this bomb must be used if you’ve crossed a certain line? Does the military really have this kind of system in place? ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/32 "2009-09-12T05:49:21Z")
> [@wierdaaron](#): > > The fact that his wife was in the town at the time should placate those people, but they’ll probably just say it was the most elaborate cover-up plot to kill his wife ever. My head is exploding imagining what Limbaugh would say if President Clinton had blown up NYC while his wife was there…I’m thinking the phrase “means, motive, opportunity” would get in there somehow… ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/33 "2009-09-12T19:26:32Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > You know, there are times for disobedience… Yeah but in starting this thread I was wondering what was the alternative. Granting that sacrificing an American city in exchange for a Soviet one was the only means of preventing rapid escalation to World War Three _someone_ had to drop the bomb on New York. What made it all the more poignant is that General Black was portrayed as the most humane and honourable of the military leaders, which was why I suppose he was chosen to perform this most inhumane of acts…the President knew that he was capable of carrying it out, to take the burden on himself…notice how he specially tells the rest of his aircrew that he will initiate the release himself so none of the others are directly responsible. > [@Cardinal](#): > > This entire scenario also reinforces to me the stupidity of refusing to use reason and empathy to make decisions. You wouldn’t turn back if your president and your wife pleaded with you? Do you think someone had the time to work up a world-class impression of your wife? Do you think that this bomb must be used if you’ve crossed a certain line? > > Does the military really have this kind of system in place? I wondered about this myself, Colonel Grady (?) obviously accepts that the message from his son is real, so why doesn’t he turn back? Is it just that he’s come so far that its easier to go all the way? Is the mission so burned into his mind that he can’t even concieve of stopping although it would be the rational thing to do so? Is he thinking of his friends and colleagues who have sacrificed themselves to get him to the target? Or has he fractured under the stress and can only do the one thing he’s trained, practiced and sweated for for years? Or, hell, just to see if he can really do it and penetrate the teeth of the Soviet defences for the largest prize of all…Moscow. I found it an interesting and not unlikely scene. I thought the whole movie was full of interesting human touches, like the Soviet Marshal collapsing with a heart-attack when he releases that he has made a mistake in sending his fighters after the wrong target and in so doing doomed millions of people and possibly the world. And a manned supersonic bomber coming in at low-level and popping up over the target in a suicide run would be very _very_ hard to stop as the release of the bombs is the most dangerous part of any mission. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/34 "2009-09-12T23:14:13Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > My head is exploding imagining what Limbaugh would say if President Clinton had blown up NYC while his wife was there.. My head is exploding imagining Bill passing up a golden opp… Bwa. Ha. Ha. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/35 "2009-09-12T23:36:30Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > I found it interesting how they produced such a watchable film with basically no special effects. The moment that sticks in my mind is the American diplomat describing the last-ditch defence of Moscow from the roof of the embassy…made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up so it did…and nothing in the scene but the president, his translator and a phone. S/FX have been in movies since the beginning. But I feel that they’ve been overused since CGI became viable. Take _Tora! Tora! Tora!_ vs. _Pearl Harbor_, for example. The former used real planes (and full-scale models) that looked like real planes on-screen. The latter used CGI and nearly everything about the ‘airplanes’ in that film, aside from the quasi-physical planes themselves, was ‘wrong’. Unfortunately, most people who make movies (and a lot of other people) don’t know about airplanes. So they come up with something that they think looks awesome, and it makes a lot of us cringe. Had they used real aircraft, they would have been forced to make more realistic sequences. To be sure, physical effects often came out badly. _633 Squadron_ used 1/48 scale Mosquitos, and they looked pretty bad. Other films had similarly poor results when using models (especially when water or fire were involved). But what many (certainly not all) older films had was good writing and good acting. If a model effect turned out badly, or if it was decided that the shot could not be made with the available budget and the technology of the time, scenes could rely on the audiences imaginations. Good writing and good acting are what made the scene you describe so great. Or take _12 Angry Men_. Nearly the entire film takes place in one room. (And no names are used; except once, in passing.) _Rope_ had an exterior establishing shot, and the rest of the film took place in an apartment. Maybe it wasn’t Hitchcock’s best effort, and his ‘one take’ experiment may be off-putting to some people; but I found the film engrossing. Would that we had more such writers, actors, and directors today. I think I may pull _Fail Safe_ off the shelf today. It’s been too long since I’ve seen it. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/36 "2009-09-12T23:39:23Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > This entire scenario also reinforces to me the stupidity of refusing to use reason and empathy to make decisions. You wouldn’t turn back if your president and your wife pleaded with you? Do you think someone had the time to work up a world-class impression of your wife? Do you think that this bomb must be used if you’ve crossed a certain line? > > Does the military really have this kind of system in place? The scenario wasn’t so strange then, as it is now. No officer would turn his back if the President ordered him to do anything, but, reading the book and paying close attention to the movie lays out the exact reasons for this: the President at the time had a strong New England accent, easy to imitate. Could YOU, today, tell Obama’s or Bush’s voice on a radio while you were flying a bomber to nuke Moscow with enough certainty to risk the lives of millions if you were incorrect? What if the President had a cold that day? What if YOU did? Also, back then, spies could do all sorts of things. There were more resources and money to fight the other side than there is now. Recall, that in the movie/book General Bogan had a fairly accurate dossier of his counterpart in Russia, with a picture, and all kinds of info. Conjuring up a list of pilots with atomic weapons clearance and knowing which officer was on which plane, or even imitating his wife, wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, in the Cold War age. Or at least in the imaginations extant in the Cold War years. Remember the elaborate charade that the Kennedy administration went through with the Bay of Pigs, the overthrow of Arbenz, and other stuff like it. Dealings, double dealings, (didn’t Churchill have some good quote?) disinformation, etc… Nothing unreasonable about it, back then. Also, IIRC, in the 1st movie, the pilot is asked by copilot if it was really his wife, and the pilot wasn’t sure what was what. BTW, the bomb must be used if you’ve crossed a certain line, and was the whole point of the movie. However, in real life, I have heard that there is no fail safe point, per se. The minor variation is that in the movie, the bombers were to wait for a go order, whereas IRL, the bombers assume an attack mode, and will yield to a stop order, if it comes in time. Very reassuring! ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/37 "2009-09-12T23:44:55Z")
Slight hijack here, since Dr. Strangelove was mentioned. Dr. Strangelove, the movie, was poorly lighted. Was this a play on Fail Safe’s being overly lighted? I love both movies, and I must have read Fail Safe about 150 times in my high school years. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/38 "2009-09-12T23:54:41Z")
Oooops, back to the OP. I think the President should have followed Groteschele’s advice, and finished the job. Nuking NYC wouldn’t have solved the whole Cold War thing, and there may have arisen another US war between the States had one faction nuked NYC. What would Al Franken have said if Bush had nuked NYC? What would Ann Coulter have said had Obama done same? Who would you believe? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/39 "2009-09-13T00:01:49Z")
The President wanted a quickie divorce really badly. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620/40 "2009-09-13T00:43:16Z")
I also think that Dom Deluise did a fantastic job as the part of the backup officer to Fritz Weaver’s character in the original. He seemed like he was really, really in pain while he was being pulled apart by two separate loyalties. I also think that the Clooney version was vastly inferior to the original. Just didn’t seem too realistic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-the-president-have-done-spoliers-for-fail-safe/509620.md?page=3)