Its code name was Perimeter; it was known informally by a Russian phrase that translates as “Dead Hand.” Low-level officers in deep underground centers well away from Moscow would receive by a variety of channels several forms of evidence—seismic, electronic, infrared, radioactivity—that Moscow had suffered a nuclear explosion, along with breakage in all forms of communication to and from Moscow. In that event, they were authorized to send off ICBMs that would beep a Go signal to any ICBM sites they passed over. The Soviet rockets would not merely communicate an authorization to launch to
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