What was the Red Phone ?
The Red Phone , also know as the Red Telephone , the Moscow - Washington hotline and the Hot Line , is a " confidence construction measure" and communication system designed to lessen tensions and preclude inadvertent nuclear war by providing direct contact between the drawing card of the United States and Russia . It links the White House ( via the National Military Command Center ) with the Kremlin .
When and why was it institute ?
The leaders of the Soviet Union first pop the question a guard to prevent accidental warfare in 1954 . In 1958 , they take an invitation from the US to take part in a Conference of Experts on Surprise Attack in Geneva , Switzerland ; no firm plans were made , but inquiry began on both end on the technical aspects of a precaution system . In 1961 , President Kennedy address the U.N. General Assembly and proposed a " Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World . “ The program included measures to prevent miscommunication between the US and USSR , include " forward-looking notification of military trend and maneuvers" and the creation of " an outside commission to take " ˜failure of communicating . ‘“
A year later , the Cuban Missile Crisis , a confrontation over the comportment of Soviet missile in Cuba brought the world to the brink of nuclear war . While that ’s chilling in and of itself , the way the two atomic superpowers communicated with each other during the crisis is downright terrifying . It take the US almost 12 hours to receive and decode a 3,000 word wire from the Soviets , and by the metre the Americans drafted a reply , the Soviets had already sent another message . Meanwhile , the Soviet ambassador to Washington had have a cycle messenger plunk up his messages take them to a Western Union place in orderliness to pass on with Moscow . Hindsight being 20 - 20 , after the crisis was resolved , both the US and USSR realized the situation could have been resolved faster with a modern , efficient communication system . On June 20 , 1963 , spokesman from both countries signed the " Memorandum of Understanding Regarding the Establishment of a Direct Communications Line" in Geneva .
So how does it work ?
Contrary to its delineation in pop culture , the arrangement is more than a duo of cerise telephones . In fact , the system of rules did n’t involve an actual telephone until the seventies . The memorandum that established the system stipulate " one full - time duplex wire telegraph circuit,“ since it was thought that that text would bring down the chance of poor displacement , give each side clock time to think the other ’s message before replying and forestall a mortal ’s feeling of vocalization from being misapprehend . The telegraphy circuit was routed Washington - London - Copenhagen - Stockholm - Helsinki - Moscow , and a 2nd link , routed Washington - Tangier - Moscow , was used a back up .
indistinguishable teletype terminals were go under up in Washington and Moscow , staffed by teams of communication experts and interpreters . The Moscow pole , knight the Red Phone by the Soviets , was order in a cellular phone under the Kremlin , and the Washington end was localize in the Pentagon at the National Military Command Center . The memoranda also stipulated that each area offer the other with the necessary equipment for the terminals loose of charge .
In 1971 , the system was elevate . A phone argumentation was installed and the lowly telegraph line was eliminated . The independent telegraph short letter was then complemented by two artificial satellite communicating lines , imprint by two US Intelsat orbiter and two Soviet Molniya II satellite .
The system was upgraded again in 1986 . The Soviets replaced their satellites with modern stationary Gorizont - socio-economic class satellites , and high - upper facsimile transmission capacity was add together . This allowed the quick interchange of expectant amounts of information , include images and documents , along with voice and teletype subject matter .
When the hot line is used on the American end , a subject matter from the president is place from the White House to the command nub via coded earpiece , electronic transmission or messenger . The officeholder in charge of the center contacts the White House to control the content . Once the substance is verified , it is encode and sent to Moscow ( in the other eld , the teleprinters were only able to broadcast material at the staggering pace of 66 words per minute ) . Messages from Washington are transmitted in English and messages from Moscow transmitted in Russian , using Cyrillic characters , with translation being deal on the receiving end .
Has it ever been used ?
There have been several instance where the hotline has been used that the public is aware of , and probably many more that we do n’t know about yet . Moscow used the system for the very first time on June 5 , 1967 , during the Six Day War . President Lyndon Johnson said in his memoirs that he remembered answering the phone in his bedroom and get a line defense repository Robert McNamara say , " Mr. President , the hot line is up . “ Just a few hours earlier , state of war had broken out between Israel and its Arab neighbour , and the Soviets wanted to know if the United States had take part in Israel ’s surprise onslaught on Egypt . Over the next several days , the two position used the hot line to post as many as 20 content , mostly to inform each other of the intentions and maneuvers of their navy fleet , which were in airless propinquity in the Mediterranean .
Richard Nixon also used the hot line when tensions were trip between India and Pakistan in 1971 , and again two years subsequently during another Middle East engagement . Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan both used the hot line to flex their muscles ; Carter contacted Moscow to resist the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 , and Reagan is aver to have threatened the Soviets over their collar of a US journalist on espionage charges .
Most recently , the system has been used during the post - war occupation of Iraq to admit for discussion of peace - keeping and rebuilding efforts .
While its official purpose might be few and far in - between , the red-hot line functions 24/7 and is tested hourly , with the Pentagon send a message every even hour , and Moscow sending a response every odd minute . Since something must be pronounce in the message , operators on both sides have made a game of quiz each other ’s translation skills . The U.S. manipulator are tender of charge recipes for chili and magazine articles , while the Russians respond with excerpts from Dostoyevsky novels .
