The United States-Soviet Union Hot Line
During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, messages between Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev and President John F. Kennedy were delayed in delivery due to the existing communication structure between the two nations. Official diplomatic channels slowed transmission, translation, and delivery. The Americans needed nearly twelve hours to translate Kruschev’s first offer to resolve the crisis and during the delay it was superseded by another message from the Soviets, hardening their stance. When the crisis was resolved both leaders felt that a more direct communication link would have led to a quicker resolution, or perhaps averted the crisis in the first place.
The ensuing so-called hotline – sometimes called the red phone – was never a telephone at all, nor was it on the President’s desk. The first hotline was located in the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon, and was a teletype system, later converted to fax machines. Manned by teams of enlisted and commissioned officers, the link was tested on an hourly basis by transmitting excerpts from literature. The Soviets did likewise from their end. After a message was received and translated in the Pentagon both the original and the translation was sent to the White House Situation Room.
The ability to communicate official documents and authorized actions directly was opposed strenuously by the Republican Party, which made it an issue during the Presidential election campaign of 1964. The Republicans condemned the action as a concession to the Soviets, as well as a path by which further concessions could be made to the Soviets without congressional approval or intercession. They also condemned the hotline as being a direct contact with an enemy by the President, who lacked such communications capability with any American allies. The Republicans entered their objections in the party platform at the 1964 National Convention.
The first iteration of the hotline ran on telegraph cables routed through London, Scandinavia, and Moscow. A second line ran from Washington to Tangier, Morocco, before being routed to the Soviet Union. In the 1980s the system was upgraded to fax machines, connected via satellite transmissions, and the original teletype system was disconnected once the new system had demonstrated its reliability. Each upgrade was agreed to after diplomatic negotiations, and used both Soviet and American satellites. Agreements over what the system would be used for were also negotiated and signed by both parties.
The hotline was used for the first time other than testing when President Kennedy was assassinated, and was used several times since. The first official use of the system initiated by the Soviets occurred during the Six Day War in 1967. The Soviets later requested that routine messages not be sent on the system. It was also disrupted frequently during its teletype days, with the cable in Scandinavia being plowed up by farmers on at least two occasions. In another a bulldozer unearthed and cut the cable in Denmark. In 2007, the hotline became an email and chat based system, using commercially available software.