Lights, camera, action!
Convinced that the "commies" are sapping and contaminating "our precious bodily fluids," the deranged Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper decides to unilaterally start a nuclear WWIII.
How?
He orders the fleet of B-52 bombers at his command to drop their H-bombs on the U.S.S.R, much to the horror of his second-in-command Group Captain Lionel Mandrake.
In the White House War Room, President Merkin Muffley doesn't take this news too well. He drills his advisors, including Gen. Buck Turgidson and former Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove on ways to stop the bombers from dropping their payload, but nothing can be done without the recall code…and Ripper's the only one who knows it.
Welp.
While the powers-that-be try to solve the problem, Major T.J. "King" Kong and his faithful B-52 crew, having received their orders from Ripper, make their way to their target in the Soviet Union.
Ripper and his men, along with a reluctant Mandrake, fight off an attack on their base by the U.S. military who are trying to capture Ripper and get the recall code. Pres. Merkin tries to appease the Soviets via their ambassador and even helps the Soviet Premier Kissov shoot down some of the incoming American B-52s. The worst news of all comes when the Premier reveals that the U.S.S.R. has built a Doomsday Machine that will automatically launch a nuclear attack that will obliterate all life on Earth if a nuclear bomb ever detonates on Soviet soil. Meanwhile, despite being hit by Soviet missiles, Maj. Kong and crew keep their bomber in the air and speed toward their target, keeping low to avoid being detected by radar.
When Ripper's base is finally overrun, he shoots himself to avoid being tortured for the recall code, but this doesn't stop Mandrake from piecing it together based on some of Ripper's paranoid scribblings. Pres. Muffley and everybody in the War Room celebrate after issuing the recall code. The remaining B-52's have all turned around.
Everything's gonna be just peachy.
Well, that's what they think until Premier Kissov reports that there is one bomber unaccounted for. On Kong's B-52, the bomb doors jam, but Kong heroically opens them by hand and rides the bomb down towards its target. Dr. Strangelove theorizes about life for the remnants of humanity at the bottom of mineshafts as mushroom clouds cover the earth.