How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Quote #1
VOICEOVER: For more than a year, ominous rumors have been privately circulating among high-level western leaders, that the Soviet Union had been at work on what was darkly hinted to be the ultimate weapon; a doomsday device.
Tensions between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were threatening to explode at any moment, and rumors like this were flying around all the time. The scariest thing is that a nuclear conflagration was a very real possibility. No, actually the scariest thing was that in 1985, the Soviets completed a system known as the "Dead Hand" that would automatically launch ICBMs at the U.S. if it detected a nuclear detonation on Soviet soil. Doomsday indeed.
Quote #2
VOICEOVER: In order to guard against surprise nuclear attack, America's Strategic Air Command maintains a large force of B-52 bombers airborne 24 hours a day.
This isn't some kind of Hollywood fantasy. At any moment, the U.S. was ready to annihilate the U.S.S.R. and vice versa.
Quote #3
KONG: Well boys, I reckon this is it: nuclear combat, toe to toe with the Russkies.
During the Cold War, America followed the policy of "mutually assured destruction" or MAD. The idea was that as long as American nuclear capability matched the Soviet's, nobody would ever use their bombs. Why? Because if one side attacked, the other would be assured of massive destruction as well. Fortunately for the planet, this standoff held, but it wasn't a lock (See Cuban Missile Crisis).