Thursday, June 21, 2007

I just called to say ...

It seems quite easy these days to pick up the phone and call someone - but have you ever wondered about the "Hot Line" (not sure of its official title but it's usually depicted in movies with a red telephone*) between the Kremlin and the White House? When/why was it instituted between two countries who were locked in a '"Cold War". Did it really help communications between the leaders of the two countries? And if it had been in place before 1963, would the Cuban Missile Crisis - after which the hot line was instituted - have been averted? Of course, the "hot line" wasn't a telephone until the 1970's. Before that it was a teletypewriter - and messages still had to be translated, typed, transmitted - and then undone at the other end.
* The US referred to it as the "hot line", the Russians referred to it as the "red telephone".

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