An aside: both the US and the Soviets were, for most of the cold war, quite uncertain of their ability to predict or detect whether the other side was planning an attack. So whenever they recruited an agent on the other side they gave them a signal to use 1/ https://twitter.com/RidT/status/1362238328331001857

... if an attack was imminent. These were frighteningly low bandwidth. For example Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU officer secretly working for the west, was told to call a particular phone number, let it ring twice, and hang up. That's it. Then what do we do? 2/

(Someone used Penkovsky's signal a few months after he was arrested by the KGB. It's a good thing that didn't start WW III).

The soviets had a slightly higher bandwidth signal for their agents. They were to call a particular number in the Bronx ... 3/

... and ask to order a certain number of "books" corresponding to the number of days before an attack. Then the person to answered the phone would go near the Soviet UN Mission in Manhattan and use a special radio to rely the signal. ... 4/

So while that was a bit less likely to be triggered accidentally, but still left out a LOT of detail. Fortunately, as far as we know that was never actually triggered 5/

(Source for that last one is "Cassidy's Run" by David Wise).

Anyway, I'm glad we made it. So far, at least. 6/6

Wait, I misremembered about the Soviet signal. It *was* actually triggered at least once - deliberately - at the direction of the FBI by a double agent. They wanted to see what would happen. Fortunately, it wasn't WW III.

I take the fact that the Soviets didn't over react to that signal and the US's similar ignoring of the Penkovsky signal as an indication that neither side was looking all that aggressively for an excuse to end the world