In a world increasingly marked by international tension and the fear of nuclear war, the August 30 1963 officially entered the “Red Line” is up and running, a direct channel of communication between the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union, created to prevent the risk of an accidental nuclear conflict during the Cold War.
Although often imagined as a real telephone, the “Red Line” has evolved over time with technological progress, from teleprinters, electromechanical devices for transmitting text messages, to fax machines in 1988, to a complex computer system in 2008.
The line connected the White House directly to the Kremlin and soon became one of the symbols of the era, cited in numerous novels and films, including those of James Bond.
Why the Red Line was created
THEidea of creating the “Red Line” between the United States and the Soviet Union was born after the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. The slowness of traditional diplomatic communications, which took hours to transmit, made it clear that need for a direct and rapid communication channel to avoid potentially disastrous misunderstandings. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, in fact, it took the United States nearly twelve hours to receive and decode a crucial message from Moscow, a dangerous delay that demonstrated the urgency of improving communications. It was then that the leaders of the two nations, the US president John F. Kennedy and the Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev, recognized the need for a faster, more secure channel for communicating in emergency situations.
In June 1963, the two superpowers signed the agreement to build the Red Line, a communications system using submarine cables in the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic, with intermediate stations in London, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki. This system was designed to minimize the risk of interception and ensure that messages could be exchanged in real time, avoiding the long waits typical of traditional diplomacy. The original line, developed by the Harris Corporation, connected two teleprinters, with messages transmitted in English from the United States and in Russian from the Soviet Union, which were then encrypted and sent.
I first test messages included excerpts from the works of Shakespeare and Twain on the part of the United States, while the Soviet Union sent texts by Anton Chekhov. The main link was accidentally interrupted several times, for example by a bulldozer near Copenhagen and by a farmer in Finland. For this reason, signs were installed in the Scandinavian country to mark its passage.
Red Line: How it works and what it's for
USA and USSR they opted for written communication rather than telephone communication for a specific reason: the written word, more reflective, reduced the risk of misunderstandings and misunderstandings than verbal communication, which could easily lead to misunderstandings. This choice may have been influenced by the notorious outbursts of anger of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, such as when in 1960, at the UN, he banged a shoe on the table during a heated debate. Thus, while Khrushchev's shoe became an emblem of the twentieth century, the "Red Line" became a symbol of the need to avoid military escalation unwanted and to promote a more controlled and secure dialogue between the two superpowers.
The 'hotline' was reserved exclusively for emergencies and could not be used for routine communications.
The Red Line during the Cold War
Il first official use of the “Red Line” by the United States It happened on November 22, 1963, following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. TheSoviet Unioninstead, the first used on June 5, 1967, during the outbreak of the Six-Day War between Egypt and Israel. On both occasions, the superpowers exchanged information on military movements to avoid provocations or misunderstandings.
In September 1971, Moscow and Washington decided to update the system with more modern technologies and stipulated that the line should be used immediately in the event of an accidental, unauthorized, or unexplained use of a nuclear weapon. The main telegraph line was supplemented with two satellite communications lines, using the United States' Intelsat and the Soviet Union's Molniya satellites, in an upgrade that lasted from 1971 to 1978.
The “Red Line” was also used during critical events such as the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and several times during the Reagan administration to discuss events in Lebanon and Poland.
In May 1983, President Ronald Reagan proposed upgrading the line with the addition of a high-speed fax machine, a proposal accepted by the Kremlin in July 1984. The fax terminals became operational in 1986, and the teletype circuits were replaced when the Soviets transferred the link to the new Gorizont-class geostationary satellites.
The Red Line Today
In 2007, the “Red Line” was upgraded with a computer network connecting Moscow and Washington, becoming operational on January 1, 2008. This upgrade included two satellite links and a new fiber optic cable, which enabled near-instantaneous transmissions thanks to the speed of light.
On October 31, 2016, the line was used to reinforce Barack Obama's September warning that the United States would treat any interference in the election as a serious matter.
La “Red Line” is still operational and it was used once during the war in Ukraine, activated at the beginning of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. According to a senior US official, Washington used this channel to seek a “descalation”.
