Fail Safe Quotes

Taglines It will have you sitting on the brink of eternity!

Defense Secretary Swenson The President says he may have to order our fighters to shoot down Group Six. He wants our opinion.

Prof. Groeteschele I oppose it, sir, on the grounds that it's premature. Our planes have not yet reached Soviet territory, they're still hundreds of miles away.

Brig. Gen. Black We've got to do it, and fast! Right now before it's too late!

Gen. Stark It might be too late anyway. Those fighters swung away from the bombers when they got the all-clear signal, they've been flying in opposite directions.

U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Mr. President!

The President Yes, Jay?

U.S. Ambassador to Moscow I can hear the sound of explosions from the northeast! The sky is very bright, all lit up-

The President Put me through to General Black.

General Black Yes, Mr. President?

The President Blackie...

General Black Yes, Mr. President?

The President Moscow's been destroyed. Drop your bombs according to plan.

General Black Yes, sir.

Ilsa Woolfe You could joke about the convicts and file clerks because you know there won't be any survivors, will there?

Prof. Groeteschele Not many.

Ilsa Woolfe None. None at all. That's the beauty of it.

Prof. Groeteschele I've heard nuclear war called a lotta things, Miss Woolfe. Never beautiful.

Ilsa Woolfe People are afraid to call it that, but that's what they feel.

Prof. Groeteschele The beauty of death?

Ilsa Woolfe Don't patronize me. What else but that are you selling, Professor? And we all know we're going to die, but you make a game out of it, a marvelous game that includes the whole world. You make it seem possible.

Prof. Groeteschele It is possible. Even probable.

Ilsa Woolfe You make death and entertainment something that can be played in a living room.

Prof. Groeteschele As good a place as any.

Ilsa Woolfe No. No, there's an even better place. Turn in there.

Prof. Groeteschele This where you live?

Ilsa Woolfe Don't joke.

Prof. Groeteschele : Why not? I'm a joker. I make death into a game for people like you to get excited about. I watched you tonight. You'd love making it possible, wouldn't you? You'd love pressing that button. What a thrill that would be, knowing you have to die to have the power to take everyone else with you. The mob of them with their plans, their little hopes, born to be murdered. Turning away from it, closing their eyes to it, and you could be the one to make it true. Do it to them. But you're afraid, so you look for the thrill someplace else. And who better than a man who isn't afraid? I'm not your kind.

Taglines The screen zeros in on the most suspenseful adventure drama of our age!

Taglines Fail Safe Will Have You Sitting on the Brink of Eternity!

General Bogan Mr. Knapp here knows as much about electronic gear as anyone. He'd like to say something.

Gordon Knapp The more complex an electronic system gets, the more accident prone it is. Sooner or later it breaks down.

Secretary Swenson What breaks down?

Gordon Knapp A transistor blows... a condenser burns out... sometimes they just get tired--like people.

Professor Groeteschele Mr. Knapp overlooks one factor, the machines are supervised by humans. Even if the machine fails a human can always correct the mistake.

Gordon Knapp I wish you were right. The fact is, the machines work so fast... they are so intricate... the mistakes they make are so subtle... that very often a human being just can't know whether a machine is lying or telling the truth.

The President How did you get to be a translator, Buck? You don't seem the academic type.

Buck I guess I have a talent for languages, sir. I hear a language once I pick it right up. I don't even know how. They found out about it in the Army.

The President You sound sorry they did.

Buck No, sir. It's a very interesting job. That is, most of the time.

The President Well, you did a good job today, Buck.

Buck Thank you, sir. All I did was repeat what he said.

The President You didn't freeze up. Another man might have.

Buck You're the one who didn't, sir.

The President I wonder what it's like outside? Looked like rain before.

Buck The radio said it would clear by the afternoon.

Billy Flynn Ploesti. That was the rough one. We lost half our group.

Col. Grady Regensburg was the worst one for us.

Billy Flynn I never flew the B-17. Only 24s.

Col. Grady Good airplane, the 24. Least you knew you were flying the airplane, not the other way around, like today's things.

Billy Flynn Eh, you still have to fly the Vindicator, Grady.

Col. Grady We're the last of the lot, Flynn. Don't kid yourself about that. The next airplanes, they won't need men.

Billy Flynn You'll be too old, anyway.

Col. Grady After us, the machines. We're halfway there already. Look at those kids. Remember the crews you had on the 24s? Jews, Italians, all kinds. You could tell them apart. They were all people. These kids. You open them up, you find they run on transistors.

Billy Flynn Nah, they're good kids, I tell you.

Col. Grady Sure, you know they're at their jobs, but you don't know them. How can you? Get a different crew every time we go up.

Billy Flynn That's policy, Grady. Eliminates the personal factor. Everything's more complicated now. Reaction time's faster. You can't depend on people the same way.

Col. Grady Who do you depend on?

Officer Alright, gentleman. The sky awaits.

Col. Grady You know something, Billy? I like the personal factor.

Female Party Guest Two hours ago, you said a hundred million dead. Now you say sixty million.

Prof. Groeteschele I say sixty million is perhaps the highest price we should be prepared to pay in a war.

Mr. Foster And what's the difference between sixty million dead and a hundred million?

Prof. Groeteschele forty million.

Mr. Foster Some difference!

Prof. Groeteschele Are you prepared to say the saving of forty million lives is of no importance?

Mr. Foster You miss the point, Professor! The saving of those sixty million lives is what's important!

Prof. Groeteschele Face facts, Mr. Foster. We're talking about war. I say every war, including thermonuclear war, must have a winner and a loser. Which would you rather be?

Mr. Foster In a nuclear war, everyone loses! War isn't what it used to be.

Prof. Groeteschele It's the resolution of economic and political conflict.

Mr. Foster But what kind of resolution with a hundred million dead?!

Prof. Groeteschele It doesn't have to be a hundred million.

Mr. Foster Even sixty!

Prof. Groeteschele The same as a thousand years ago, sir. We also had wars that wiped out whole peoples. The point is still who wins and who loses, the survival of a culture.

Mr. Foster A culture?! With most of its people dead?! The rest dying, the food poisoned! The air unfit to breathe! You call that a culture?!

Prof. Groeteschele Yes, I do, Mr. Foster. I am not a poet. I am a political scientist, who would rather have an American culture survive than a Russian one.

Female Party Guest But what would it be like? I mean, really like?! Who would survive?

Prof. Groeteschele Who would survive? That's an interesting question. I would predict... convicts and file clerks. The worst convicts. Those deep down in solitary confinement. And the most ordinary file clerks. Probably for large insurance companies, because they would be in fire-proof rooms, protected by tons of the best insulator in the world: paper. And imagine what will happen. The small group of vicious criminals will fight the army of file clerks for the remaining means of life. The convicts will know violence, but the file clerks will know organization. Who do think'll win? It's all hypotheses of course, but fun to play around with.

Col. Grady There must be some mistake. Check Omaha.

Airman Thomas Can't get through, Colonel. Interference.

Col. Grady What do you mean you can't get through? What kind of interference?

Airman Thomas I don't know, Sir, it's a kind I've never heard before.

Col. Grady Well try another band! Try all of them!

Airman Thomas Can't get through, Colonel!

Airman Sullivan They must be trying to keep us from getting our Go signal.

Airman Thomas Well they're too late for that.

Marshall Nevsky General Bogan, can you explain this maneuver? One of your planes has just appeared again.

Gen. Bogan It's standard procedure, Marshal Nevsky. That's our number six plane, the decoy plane. It's trying to draw your fighters away from our other plane carrying the bombs. It carries only defensive equipment. You don't have to worry about it.

Marshall Nevsky Thank you. We shall try for a kill in any case.

Gen. Bogan You'll scatter your forces. You don't have time for that. I tell you, it doesn't carry any bombs. You don't have to worry about it! You're letting our other plane get through! I told you!

Voice on the other end of the Russian hotline There has been a... Marshal Nevsky has collapsed. It appears... Well, I don't know. General Koniev is now in command.

The President Bogan, what's happened?

Gen. Bogan Marshal Nevsky sent his fighters after a plane that carried no bombs. That means our number one plane will almost certainly get through. The marshal realized that. It was too much for him.

Defense Secretary Swenson General Stark, are there any papers or documents in New York which are absolutely essential to the running of the United States? General Stark?

Gen. Stark No sir. There are important documents, but none of them absolutely essential.

Admiral Wilcox Will there be any warning given? A lot of lives could be saved if people had a few minutes.

Defense Secretary Swenson On this short notice, an alert to a big city would do more harm than good. It only produces panic.

Admiral Wilcox What about this?

Gen. Stark Maybe... maybe he doesn't know his wife is there.

Defense Secretary Swenson He knows.

Prof. Groeteschele Gentlemen, we are wasting time. I've been making a few rough calculations based on the effect of two twenty megaton bombs dropped on New York City in the middle of a normal workday. I estimate the immediate dead at about three million. I include in that figure those buried beneath the collapsed buildings. It would make no difference, Admiral Wilcox, whether they reached a shelter or not. They would die just the same. Add another million or two who will die within about five weeks. Now our immediate problem will be the joint one of fire control and excavation. Excavation not of the dead, the effort would be wasted there. But even though there are no irreplaceable government documents in the city, many of our largest corporations keep their records there. It will be necessary to... rescue as many of those records as we can. Our economy depends on this. Our economy depends on this. And the Lord said, gentlemen, "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.

Prof. Groeteschele Excuse me. Every minute we wait works against us. Now, Mr. Secretary, now is when we must send in a first strike.

Gen. Stark We don't go in for sneak attacks. We had that done to us at Pearl Harbor.

Prof. Groeteschele And the Japanese were right to do it. From their point of view, we were their mortal enemy. As long as we existed, we were a deadly threat to them. Their only mistake was that they failed to finish us at the start, and they paid for that mistake at Hiroshima.

Gen. Stark You're talking about a different kind of war.

Prof. Groeteschele Exactly. This time, *we* can finish what *we* start. And if we act now, right now, our casualties will be minimal.

Brig. Gen. Black You know what you're saying?

Prof. Groeteschele Do you believe that Communism is not our mortal enemy?

Brig. Gen. Black You're justifying murder.

Prof. Groeteschele Yes, to keep from being murdered!

Brig. Gen. Black In the name of what? To preserve what? Even if we do survive, what are we? Better than what we say they are? What gives us the right to live, then? What makes us worth surviving, Groeteschele? That we are ruthless enough to strike first?

Prof. Groeteschele Yes! Those who can survive are the only ones worth surviving.

Brig. Gen. Black Fighting for your life isn't the same as murder.

Prof. Groeteschele Where do you draw the line once you know what the enemy is? How long would the Nazis have kept it up, General, if every Jew they came after had met them with a gun in his hand? But I learned from them, General Black. Oh, I learned.

Brig. Gen. Black You learned too well, Professor. You learned so well that now there's no difference between you and what you want to kill.

Gen. Bogan Sergeant Collins! On the double!

Gen. Bogan You're backup man on fire control, aren't you?

TSgt. Collins Yes sir.

Gen. Bogan Do our Vindicator missiles have both infrared and radar-seeking capacity?

TSgt. Collins Yes sir.

Gen. Bogan Loud and clear! They've got to know we're on the level!

TSgt. Collins It has both capacities, sir!

Marshall Nevsky Can the radar-seeking mechanism be overloaded by increasing the strength of the signal?

Gen. Bogan Tell him!

TSgt. Collins Yes, sir. It can be overloaded, by increasing the power output and sliding through radar frequencies as fast as possible, what happens is the firing mechanism reads the higher amperage as proximity to the target, and detonates the warhead.

Marshall Nevsky Thank you General Bogan, we will get back to you.

Gen. Bogan That's all, Sergeant.

Congressman Raskob What does it mean?

Gordon Knapp We've told them how to blow up our air-to-air missiles, and with them our planes.

Gen. Stark They're good men, we've seen to that. If their orders are attack, the only way you're going to stop them is to shoot them down.

Brig. Gen. Black We've got no alternative! This minute the Russians are watching their boards, trying to figure out what we're up to. If we can't convince them it's an accident we're trying to correct by any means, we're going to have something on our hands that nobody bargained for, and only a lunatic wants!

Prof. Groeteschele In my opinion they will take no action at all.

Gen. Stark They're not going to just sit there, Professor

Prof. Groeteschele I think if our bombers get through the Russians will surrender.

Gen. Bogan Who's this professor, Mr. Secretary? What's he doing there?

Defense Secretary Swenson Professor Groeteschele is a civilian advisor to the Pentagon, General. Will you explain your statement, Professor?

Prof. Groeteschele The Russian aim is to dominate the world. They think that Communism must succeed eventually if the Soviet Union is left reasonably intact. They know that a war would leave the Soviet Union utterly destroyed. Therefore, they would surrender.

Gen. Stark But suppose they feel they can knock us off first?

Prof. Groeteschele They know we might have a doomsday system, missiles that would go into action days, even weeks after a war is over and destroy an enemy even after that enemy has already destroyed us.

Brig. Gen. Black Maybe they'll think that even capitalists aren't that insane, to want to kill after they themselves have been killed.

Prof. Groeteschele These are Marxist fanatics, not normal people. They do not reason they way you reason, General Black. They're not motivated by human emotions such as rage and pity. They are calculating machines. They will look at the balance sheet, and they will see they cannot win.

Defense Secretary Swenson Then you suggest doing what?

Prof. Groeteschele Nothing.

Defense Secretary Swenson Nothing?

Prof. Groeteschele The Russians will surrender, and the threat of Communism will be over, forever.

Gen. Bogan That's a lot of hogwash. Don't kid yourself, there'll be Russian generals who will react just as I would - the best defense is a good offense. They see trouble coming up, take my word for it, they'll attack, and they won't give a damn what Marx said.

Prof. Groeteschele Mr. Secretary, I am convinced that the moment the Russians know bombs will fall on Moscow, they will surrender. They know that whatever they do then, they cannot escape destruction. Don't you see, sir, this our chance. We never would have made the first move deliberately, but Group 6 has made it for us, by accident. We must take advantage of it - history demands it. We must advise the President not to recall those planes.