Originally Posted by
BEagle
Former US president Richard Nixon ordered a worldwide secret nuclear alert in October 1969, calling his wartime tactic a "madman strategy" aimed at scaring the Soviets into forcing concessions from North Vietnam.
It didn't work.
SALT talks started in November 1969.
So you see, the US had barking mad idiots at the helm even then!
A book that I have, SIOP, described the procedure in the event of there being a nuclear alert. All new Presidents read it and signed to say that they had read but for the first time one (Clinton or Carter) said they have should a dummy run. On the alert the first available helicopter was sent to the White House to collect POTUS but was nearly shot down by the Marines who had not been warned.
I was in the Netherlands on a student exchange in 1968, our accommodation was on the bypass and I was awoken in the middle of the night by military convoys going past,