1
00:00:01,960 --> 00:00:07,040
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,

2
00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:09,560
Speaker 1: Lauren vog Obam here with a classic episode from our

3
00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:13,600
Speaker 1: previous host, Christian Sagar. This one concerns an artifact of

4
00:00:13,600 --> 00:00:16,640
Speaker 1: the Cold War and the nuclear arms race that turns

5
00:00:16,680 --> 00:00:20,280
Speaker 1: out to probably not be an artifact at all, Russia's

6
00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:29,880
Speaker 1: so called dead hand. Hey, they're brain Stuff. I'm Christian Sagar.

7
00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:32,000
Speaker 1: Have you ever had one of those days where you

8
00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:34,919
Speaker 1: think to yourself, that is it. I'm gonna go and

9
00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:38,199
Speaker 1: build a doomsday machine to destroy the world, just like

10
00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:41,840
Speaker 1: all those supervillains in the movies. If so, it turns

11
00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:44,920
Speaker 1: out you're not alone. See sometime during the Cold War,

12
00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:49,120
Speaker 1: the USSR had the same idea. They've built a real

13
00:00:49,240 --> 00:00:53,479
Speaker 1: life doomsday device, something that could destroy most of civilization,

14
00:00:53,640 --> 00:00:56,320
Speaker 1: and the creepiest thing of all is that it might

15
00:00:56,600 --> 00:01:01,160
Speaker 1: still be around today. This all started during the Cold War,

16
00:01:01,240 --> 00:01:04,240
Speaker 1: which took place roughly from the late nineteen forties to

17
00:01:04,319 --> 00:01:08,360
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. Tensions between the US and the Soviet Union,

18
00:01:08,400 --> 00:01:12,640
Speaker 1: the world's greatest superpowers, were high, and each country continually

19
00:01:12,720 --> 00:01:16,000
Speaker 1: provoked the other. In the nineteen eighties, the US elected

20
00:01:16,120 --> 00:01:19,800
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan as president, believing that a show of strength

21
00:01:19,840 --> 00:01:23,800
Speaker 1: would increase Western leverage with the Soviet Union. The Reagan

22
00:01:23,880 --> 00:01:28,760
Speaker 1: administration expanded the US nuclear arsenal and built a space

23
00:01:28,840 --> 00:01:34,520
Speaker 1: based missile shield called the Strategic Defense Initiative, or as

24
00:01:34,520 --> 00:01:38,000
Speaker 1: its critics like to call it, star Wars. This was

25
00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:40,560
Speaker 1: meant to show that the US was not afraid of

26
00:01:40,760 --> 00:01:45,520
Speaker 1: entering a catastrophic nuclear war with Russia, but it worked

27
00:01:45,520 --> 00:01:49,160
Speaker 1: a little too well, because the USSR assumed the US

28
00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:53,279
Speaker 1: was actually planning to begin a nuclear war. With mobile

29
00:01:53,400 --> 00:01:57,360
Speaker 1: nukes in submarines and an orbiting system to deflect Soviet missiles.

30
00:01:57,440 --> 00:02:01,160
Speaker 1: These these are i C b ms or intercontinental ballistic missiles,

31
00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:04,400
Speaker 1: the US would be less likely to take the full

32
00:02:04,440 --> 00:02:08,040
Speaker 1: brunt of a Soviet retaliation. This meant that in a

33
00:02:08,160 --> 00:02:11,120
Speaker 1: matter of as little as ten to fifteen minutes, the

34
00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:15,720
Speaker 1: Soviet Union could be reduced to ashes, radiation, and corpses.

35
00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:20,800
Speaker 1: Moscow's brightest minds flew into overtime. The details are sketchy,

36
00:02:20,880 --> 00:02:25,520
Speaker 1: but historians currently believe they brought their answer online. Around

37
00:02:25,639 --> 00:02:31,560
Speaker 1: n It's called mertva Ruka, or the dead hand, at

38
00:02:31,600 --> 00:02:35,359
Speaker 1: least informally. Dead hand is the pet name for a

39
00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:39,919
Speaker 1: monstrous thing known as Perimeter. Perimeter when it was first built,

40
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,360
Speaker 1: was a network linking all of the Soviet Union's nuclear

41
00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:47,120
Speaker 1: weapons to one machine, and it ensured that the country

42
00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:50,800
Speaker 1: could always respond to any nuclear strike even if the

43
00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:54,800
Speaker 1: Soviet government had just been bombed out of existence. This

44
00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:57,680
Speaker 1: is scary stuff, right. What we know about it today

45
00:02:57,800 --> 00:03:02,600
Speaker 1: is largely based on interviews with former Soviet officials, investigations

46
00:03:02,639 --> 00:03:07,280
Speaker 1: by nuclear experts such as the Brookings Institutions, Bruce G. Blair,

47
00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:13,200
Speaker 1: and cryptic open secret esque statements by Russian officials. Now

48
00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:16,600
Speaker 1: the good news. First, it's not one big red button

49
00:03:16,639 --> 00:03:19,880
Speaker 1: in some bunker somewhere. The local security guard can't have

50
00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:22,520
Speaker 1: a bad day playing angry birds and then just destroy

51
00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:25,880
Speaker 1: the world. Here's here's how we think it works. Perimeter

52
00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:29,280
Speaker 1: spends most of its time in a dormant phase, and

53
00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:32,960
Speaker 1: it's only switched on by officials in a state of emergency.

54
00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:38,240
Speaker 1: Once activated, it stays active for fifteen minutes before automatically

55
00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:42,320
Speaker 1: shutting down. During this time, the system monitors the country

56
00:03:42,520 --> 00:03:47,440
Speaker 1: through various arrays of radiation, seismic, and air pressure sensors.

57
00:03:47,680 --> 00:03:51,200
Speaker 1: According to David Hoffman, author of The Dead Hand, the

58
00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:53,880
Speaker 1: Untold Story of the Cold War Arms race in its

59
00:03:53,960 --> 00:03:58,520
Speaker 1: dangerous legacy. Three officers sit in the remote heart of Perimeter,

60
00:03:58,880 --> 00:04:04,200
Speaker 1: a sphere shape fortified bunker deep underground. The system had

61
00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:07,840
Speaker 1: several stages. Perimeter would monitor the sensors for signs of

62
00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:10,960
Speaker 1: a nuclear attack on Russian soil, and also attempt to

63
00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:14,840
Speaker 1: confirm communication with the national command authority. If there's no

64
00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:18,240
Speaker 1: communication with military command and the sensors indicate there has

65
00:04:18,279 --> 00:04:21,039
Speaker 1: been an attack, then the system grants the ability to

66
00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:25,040
Speaker 1: launch to anyone who happens to be in the room.

67
00:04:25,080 --> 00:04:28,040
Speaker 1: If the people or person in the room do decide

68
00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:32,400
Speaker 1: to proceed, the Perimeter launches four small command missiles that

69
00:04:32,520 --> 00:04:37,240
Speaker 1: fly across the country, activating all available nuclear weapons, including

70
00:04:37,400 --> 00:04:41,000
Speaker 1: those on submarines. There are no public indications that the

71
00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:44,719
Speaker 1: Dead Hand has ever been activated, though it has been

72
00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:50,039
Speaker 1: used extensively in war games. However, there's one big question left.

73
00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:54,279
Speaker 1: Is it still around today? People argue back and forth

74
00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:58,440
Speaker 1: on this one. Many signs seem to indicate yes, or

75
00:04:58,480 --> 00:05:01,320
Speaker 1: at least part of it exists, and if so, it

76
00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:04,640
Speaker 1: may be more dangerous than before due to Russia's loss

77
00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:08,479
Speaker 1: of key early warning satellites. When Blair brought this to

78
00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:13,359
Speaker 1: the attention of the US public in many government officials

79
00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:17,240
Speaker 1: were highly skeptical. Sure, they said it's possible, but who

80
00:05:17,279 --> 00:05:21,279
Speaker 1: would do it? Russian officials never confirmed the existence of

81
00:05:21,320 --> 00:05:24,680
Speaker 1: the perimeter system. What we know comes from interviews with

82
00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:29,640
Speaker 1: former officials and advisers, and Inven, the then commander of

83
00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:34,160
Speaker 1: the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, confirmed at least part of

84
00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:39,320
Speaker 1: its existence, that being the communication system to a Russian newspaper.

85
00:05:40,960 --> 00:05:43,440
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Ben Bolan and produced by

86
00:05:43,480 --> 00:05:46,560
Speaker 1: Tyler Klang. To hear more from Ben about fringe theories

87
00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:50,200
Speaker 1: and very real conspiracies of history and today, check out

88
00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:52,920
Speaker 1: his podcast Stuff They Don't Want You To Know, And

89
00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:54,880
Speaker 1: of course, for more on this and lots of other topics,

90
00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:57,800
Speaker 1: visit how Stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of

91
00:05:57,839 --> 00:06:00,160
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart ray Dio

92
00:06:00,440 --> 00:06:03,040
Speaker 1: is the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

93
00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:14,600
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. H