Moscow–Washington hotline
The Moscow–Washington hotline (formally known in the United States as the Washington–Moscow Direct Communications Link; ) is a system that allows direct communication between the leaders of the United States and the Russian Federation (formerly the Soviet Union). This hotline was established in 1963 and links the Pentagon with the Kremlin (historically, with Soviet Communist Party leadership across the square from the Kremlin itself). Although in popular culture it is known as the "red telephone", the hotline was never a telephone line, and no red phones were used. The first implementation used Teletype equipment, and shifted  to fax machines in 1986. Since 2008, the Moscow–Washington hotline has been a secure computer link over which messages are exchanged by a secure form of email. Origins. Background. Several people came up with the idea for a hotline. They included Harvard professor Thomas Schelling, who had worked on nuclear war policy for the Defense Department previously. Schelling credited the pop fiction novel "Red Alert" (the basis of the film "Dr. Strangelove") with making governments more aware of the benefit of direct communication between the superpowers. In addition, Parade magazine editor Jess Gorkin personally badgered 1960 presidential candidates John  F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and buttonholed the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev during a U.S. visit to adopt the idea. During this period Gerard C. Smith, as head of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, proposed direct communication links between Moscow and Washington. Objections from others in the State Department, the U.S. military, and the Kremlin delayed introduction. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis made the hotline a priority. During the standoff, official diplomatic messages typically took six hours to deliver; unofficial channels, such as via television network correspondents, had to be used too as they were quicker. During the crisis , the United States took nearly twelve hours to receive and decode Nikita Khrushchev's 3,000-word-initial settlement message – a dangerously long time. By the time Washington had drafted a reply, a tougher message from Moscow had been received, demanding that U.S. missiles be removed from Turkey. White House advisers thought faster communications could have averted the crisis, and resolved it quickly. The two countries signed the Hot Line Agreement in June 1963 – the first time they formally took action to cut the risk of starting a nuclear war unintentionally. Agreement. The "hotline", as it would come to be known , was established after the signing of a "Memorandum of Understanding Regarding the Establishment of a Direct Communications Line" on June 20, 1963, in Geneva, Switzerland, by representatives of the Soviet Union and the United States. Technical details: United States. At the Pentagon, the hotline system is located at the National Military Command Center . Each MOLINK (Moscow Link) team historically worked an eight-hour shift: a non-commissioned officer looked after the equipment, and a commissioned officer who was fluent in Russian and well-briefed on world affairs was translator. Messages received in Washington automatically carry the U.S. government's highest  security classification, " Eyes Only - The President". The hotline was tested hourly. U.S. test messages have included excerpts of William Shakespeare , Mark Twain , encyclopedia s, and a first-aid manual ; Soviet tests included passages from the works of Anton Chekhov . MOLINK staffers take special care not to include innuendo or literary imagery that could be misinterpreted, such as passages from " Winnie the Pooh ", given that a bear is considered Russian Bear|the national symbol of Russia . The Soviets also asked, during the Carter administration , that Washington not send routine communications through the hotline. On New Year's Eve and on August 30 , the hotline's anniversary, greetings replace the test messages. Upon receipt of the message at the NMCC, the message is translated into English, and both the original Russian and the translated English texts are transmitted to the White House Situation Room . However, if the message were to indicate "an imminent disaster, such as an accidental nuclear strike", the MOLINK team would telephone the gist of the message to the Situation Room duty officer who would brief the president before a formal translation was complete. Political criticism. The Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party criticized the hotline in its 1964 national platform ; it said the Kennedy administration had "sought accommodations with Communism without adequate safeguards and compensating gains for freedom. It has alienated proven allies by opening a 'hot line' first with a sworn enemy rather than with a proven friend, and in general pursued a risky path such as it began at Munich Agreement|Munich a quarter century ago." Technology. |thumb|ITT Intelex Teletype L015, as displayed in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum . File:T63-SU12-TP NCM.jpg|thumb|An East German Siemens T63-SU12 teleprinter from the hotline, as displayed in the National Cryptologic Museum of the NSA. The black box behind  the teleprinter is an ETCRRM II encryption machine. |thumb|In Finland there are still several signs marking the cable's location. This one is in Forssa . The text reads "Post and telegraph department". The cable was also used for the ordinary national telephone service. The Moscow–Washington hotline was intended for text only; speech might be misinterpreted. Leaders wrote in their native language and messages were translated at the receiving end. Teletype. The first generation of the hotline used two full-time Duplex (telecommunications)|duplex telegraph circuits. The primary circuit was routed from Washington, D.C. via London , Copenhagen , Stockholm and Helsinki to  Moscow . TAT-1 , the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable carried messages from Washington to London. A secondary radio line for back-up and service messages linked Washington and Moscow via Tangier . This network was originally built by Harris Corporation . In July 1963 the United States sent four sets of teleprinters with the Latin alphabet to Moscow for the terminal there. A month later the Soviet equipment, four sets of East Germany|East German teleprinter s with the Cyrillic alphabet made by Siemens , arrived in Washington. The hotline started operations on August 30, 1963. Encryption. A Norwegian-built device called Electronic Teleprinter Cryptographic  Regenerative Repeater Mixer II (ETCRRM II) encrypted the teletype messages. This used the unbreakable one-time pad cryptosystem. Each country delivered keying tapes used to encode its messages via its embassy abroad. An advantage of the one-time pad was that neither country had to reveal more sensitive encryption methods to the other. Satellite. In September 1971, Moscow and Washington decided to upgrade the system. The countries also agreed for the first time when the line should be used. Specifically, they agreed to notify each other immediately in the event of an accidental, unauthorized or unexplained incident involving a nuclear  weapon that could increase the risk of nuclear war. Two new satellite communication lines supplemented the terrestrial circuits using two U.S. Intelsat satellites, and two Soviet Molniya (satellite)|Molniya II satellites. This arrangement lasted from 1971 to 1978; it made the radio link via Tangier redundant. Facsimile. In May 1983, President Ronald Reagan|Reagan proposed to upgrade the hotline by the addition of high-speed fax|facsimile capability. The Soviet Union and the United States agreed formally to do this on July 17, 1984. According to the agreement, upgrades were to take place through use of Intelsat satellites and modems, facsimile machines, and  computers. The facsimile terminals were operational by 1986. The teletype circuits were cut in 1988 after several years of testing and use proved the fax links to be reliable. The Soviets transferred the hotline link to the newer, geostationary Gorizont -class satellites of the Stationar system. Email. In 2007, the Moscow–Washington hotline was upgraded; a dedicated computer network links Moscow and Washington. The new system started operations on January 1, 2008. It continues to use the two satellite links but a Optical fiber|fiber optic cable replaced the old back-up cable. Commercial software is used for both chat and  email: chat to coordinate operations, and email for actual messages. Transmission is nearly instantaneous. Usage. The first message transmitted over the hotline was on August 30, 1963. Washington sent Moscow the text: " The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog|THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG'S BACK 1234567890". The message was sent in all capital letters, since the equipment did not support lowercase. The primary link was accidentally cut several times, for example near Copenhagen by a Danish bulldozer operator, and by a Finland|Finnish farmer who ploughed it up once. Regular testing of both the primary  and backup links took place daily. During the even hours, the US sent test messages to the Soviet Union. In the odd hours, the Soviet Union sent test messages to the US. The first official use of the hotline by the United States was when John F. Kennedy was Assassination of John F. Kennedy|assassinated on 22 November 1963. The first official use by the Soviet Union was on 5 June 1967 during the outbreak of the Six-Day War . The Moscow–Washington hotline was also used during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War ; during the Yom Kippur War (1973 Arab–Israeli  War), when there was a United States nuclear alert; in 1974, when Turkish invasion of Cyprus|Turkey invaded Cyprus ; in 1979, when the Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan , and several times during the Reagan Administration , with the Soviets querying about 1982 Lebanon War|events in Lebanon and the United States commenting on Martial law in Poland|the situation in Poland . On October 31, 2016, the Moscow–Washington hotline was used to reinforce Barack Obama's September warning that the U.S. would consider any interference on 2016 United States elections|Election Day a grave matter. Other hotlines with Moscow. Another hotline for record communications  between Washington and Moscow is part of the American Nuclear Risk Reduction Center and the Russian National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center , which was initiated by Ronald Reagan in 1988. This was done in the aftermath of the Chernobyl Disaster . In 2012, it was announced that a proposal was being negotiated with Moscow to add Cyberwarfare|cyber warfare to the topics to be discussed on the hotline. Since 2007 there has been a hotline between Beijing and Washington and also Beijing and Moscow. In popular culture. File:Jimmy Carter Library and Museum 99.JPG|thumb|A non-dial "Red Phone" which is on display in  the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum. This telephone is actually a prop, erroneously representing the hotline between Washington and Moscow. In numerous television series, movies, video games and other places, the hotline between Washington and Moscow is represented by a red phone, although the real hotline never was a telephone line. A hotline telephone was depicted in the film " Fail Safe (1964 film)|Fail-Safe " as the "Red 1 / Ultimate 1 Touch phone", and also in Stanley Kubrick's film " Dr. Strangelove ", both from 1964 and both loosely based on Peter George (author)|Peter George 's Cold War thriller novel " Red Alert  (novel)|Red Alert " from 1958. A more realistic depiction of the Hotline was Tom Clancy 's novel " The Sum of All Fears " from 1991 and The Sum of All Fears (film)|its 2002 film adaptation , in which a text-based computer communications system was depicted, resembling the actual Hotline equipment from the 1980s and 1990s. In the 1990 HBO film " By Dawn's Early Light ", the White House Situation Room equipment that receives the (translated) hotline message, apparently relayed by the Pentagon- National Military Command Center|NMCC MOLINK team, is depicted as a teleprinter (and not as a fax machine, the technology already  in use at the NMCC itself by that year). A telephone is used in the intro cinematic of the video game " Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 ". The call is placed by the US president to the Kremlin in the wake of a global Soviet invasion. Political advertising. The "red phone" was the centerpiece of television commercial s used in the Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1984|1984 Democratic primary and 1984 United States presidential election|1984 presidential election and the Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008|2008 Democratic primary elections . In 1984, an advertisement made by Bob Beckel and Roy Spence  on behalf of candidate Walter Mondale suggested that "The most awesome, powerful responsibility in the world lies in the hand that picks up this phone." The advertisement was intended to raise questions about candidate Gary Hart 's readiness for the presidency. The red phone was also featured prominently in an advertisement from that year targeting President Ronald Reagan 's Strategic Defense Initiative . In the second ad, the ringing phone goes unanswered while the narrator says, "there will be no time to wake a president – computers will take control." Roy Spence revived the "red phone" idea in 2008 in an advertisement  for candidate Hillary Clinton . External links. Category:Communication circuits Category:Foreign relations of the Soviet Union Category:History of the foreign relations of the United States Category:Soviet Union–United States relations Category:Cold War history of the United States Category:Cold War history of the Soviet Union Category:1963 in politics Category:Russia–United States relations Category:Telecommunications-related introductions in 1963 Category:Communications in the Soviet Union Category:Cold War terminology Category:Military communications of the United States Category:Military communications of Russia Category:1963 establishments in Washington, D.C. Category:1963 establishments in Russia Category:Hotline between countries Category:Presidency of  John F. Kennedy