Something has gone wrong. A group of American bombers armed with nuclear weapons is streaking past the fail-safe point, beyond recall, and no one knows why. Their destination: Moscow.
In a bomb shelter beneath the White House, the calm young president turns to his Russian translator and says, "I think we are ready to talk to Premier Kruschchev." Not far away, in the War Room at the Pentagon, the secretary of defense and his aides watch with growing anxiety as the luminous blips crawl across a huge screen map. High over the Bering Strait in a large Vindicator bomber, a colonel stares in disbelief at the attack code number on his fail-safe box and wonders if it could possibly be a mistake.
First published in 1962, when America was still reeling from the Cuban missile crisis, Eugene Burdick's novel "Fail-Safe", both a thriller and a nightmare, reflects the apocalyptic attitude that pervaded society during the height of the Cold War, when disaster could have struck at any moment. It was made into a movie in 1964.
Read the book or watch the movie if you are looking for answers why America won't go to war with Russia over Ukraine.
