Fail-Safe Quotes

“The world is no longer man's theatre. Man has been made into a helpless spectator. The two evil forces he has created- science and the state- have combined into one monstrous body. We're at the mercy of our monster...”
― Eugene Burdick Harvey Wheeler, Fail-Safe

“A showdown meant war. The whole Positive Control system really depended on equipment that could never really be tested until the time came for its first use, and because of this nobody could ever really know in advance whether or not it would work right. The Fail-Safe machines could be truly tested only once: the single time they were used.”
― Eugene Burdick, Fail-Safe

“Do you think that life is the most important thing to a person? You don’t think it for a moment. You know I don’t. I can name a dozen ways of living to which you would prefer death.” She”
― Eugene Burdick, Fail Safe

“Americans had mastered technology and the scientist would continue to be a hero for some time. But the real decisions, the real power would lie with those who understood politics.”
― Eugene Burdick, Fail Safe

“It is ironic, gentlemen, but now, at this moment when we still have time left, the time that is left is empty and without use,”
― Eugene Burdick, Fail-Safe

“Not likely, for American politics ruthlessly screened out the unstable personalities, but a possibility.”
― Eugene Burdick, Fail-Safe

“They were caught in a fantastic web of logic and illogic, fact and emotion. No one seemed completely whole. No one could talk complete sense. And everyone was quite sincere.”
― Eugene Burdick, Fail-Safe

“BE OPENED ONLY AT SPECIFIC ORDERS AND UNDER CURRENT OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS. In the lower right-hand corner were the words DESTROY BEFORE CAPTURE OR ABANDONMENT OF AIRCRAFT.”
― Eugene Burdick, Fail-Safe

“We all know that the big explosion is going to happen. Your concern, the two of you, is to make sure that you die intellectually correct. But my problem is more primitive. I only want to make sure that when it comes and my boys are dying that I am there to ease their last pain with morphine.”
― Eugene Burdick, Fail-Safe

“We have never gone to Condition Red, for that would mean that we actually considered ourselves at war and would launch weapons, all of our weapons, at the enemy.”
― Eugene Burdick, Fail-Safe

“The Fail-Safe point is different for each group,” General Bogan explained. “They also change from day to day. This is a fixed point in the sky where the planes will orbit until they get a positive order to go in. Without it they must return to the United States. This is called Positive Control.”
― Eugene Burdick, Fail-Safe

“It was possible for the President to come down with paranoid schizophrenia, Black thought. Not likely, for American politics ruthlessly screened out the unstable personalities, but a possibility.”
― Eugene Burdick, Fail-Safe