European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 17, 1980, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Computer glitch or doomsday by Joseph Albright Cox new service afew minutes before Midnight on june 2,the five members of the strategic air com Mand s Delta team descended into the under ground command Post at Omaha. Neb., carry ing their lunch in Brown bags ready Tor another eight hour wait to see if the computers would say the soviet Union Hud started world War Iii. Their Mission is to make certain that United slats nuclear forces arc nol destroyed in a Pearl Harbor like missile attack. And they must make certain of this in a Way that will not accidentally dispatch an american War head toward Russia. Delta learn was about to be thrown up against different kind of threat this one from an. Errant computer at a different underground command postal the North american at defense command s Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado. Their performance was More successful and maybe just As heroic As that of the similarly named army Delta team which led the aborted . Commando raid to res Cue american hostages in  Security reasons Sac has not identified the five air Force officers and enlisted men who along Wil counterparts at Norad and in Washington kept the false computer Alert from triggering a . Nuclear response. But Sac did allow a Cox newspapers reporter to spend about an hour in the command Post at Omaha watching an emergency action team at  interviews Wilh Sac command and control officials and other sources in Washington one impression emerged quite clearly this Lime at least the United Stales was not As one headline writer put it one moment from nuclear  course Delia learn did l know that when the first warning came in from Norad Between i and 2 . On june 3.the team s warning system controller a Captain or a major received that staggering message on one of the two video screens of his computer terminal. The terminal looks like u Small piano Organ with two computer keyboards instead of musical keys. Although Sac won t discuss the warning message sources elsewhere hate said it reported a Large soviet missile attack with scores of warheads already lying toward the United slates from Russia  russian submarines off . Coasts. A single one megaton warhead detonated in the a Rover a metropolitan area would kill one million people and wound two million others not counting additional the casualties from radiation according to a spokesman for the . Defense nuclear  in the first few moments. Delta team had to Deal Wilh a situation that might be either a computer glitch or an attack capable of killing so million  warning system controller nicknamed the Wise had Only to turn to his right to inform the key senior Sac duty officer in the command Post known As the Sac senior controller lie sits Al a desk resembling a Telephone operator s work  doubt the senior controller and the 10 or so others in the command Posl Crew already knew Sorn Lhing Wasp. As soon As Norad transmits an Alert message the Wise s terminal starts  immediately the Wise lapped a command on one of his two keyboards to display the All important decision matrix from the memory of a Sac  matrix whose details Are classified is a checklist telling the senior controller precisely what he can do on his own and what actions certain higher officials such As the four Star general in charge of Sac can Lake on their  senior controller is always a full colonel whose personal life has been checked by air Force Security agents to make sure he is stable and  to  any time five colonels serve on a rotating basis As senior controllers each heading one of the alphabetically designated Sac emergency action teams. All his subordinates on the team Are checked with equal rigor under the so called personnel reliability program As arc the six others who serve in supporting jobs in the command Post on any shift. During the three minute 11-second Alert these Nior controller look Al least three actions. He called his Superior a brigadier general. He called Gen. Richard Ellis the commander of Sac. Most important he used his red Telephone to order All Sac. Bombers and missile units to a slightly higher state of  red Telephone is Sac s primary alerting system for the Crews of . Minus can and Titan missiles and for inc b-52 and tb-111 nuclear bombers it s hot to All units of  said maj. Jim Plait a briefing  use it the senior controller touches a red Bullon on his a Ilch Board which Ali vacs a warbling  the Tennis court sized command Post. Immediately a red whirling Light like that on a police car casts Erie arcs across the six huge display boards that cover the front Wall of inc command  reach All Sac command posts simultaneously inc senior controller uses a Call signal sky Bird. That Means the message applies to every unit. In the june 3 Alert the senior controller possibly after checking with higher officers in Sac took a least three precautionary Steps. He ordered All 153 . Missile launch Crews at their Remote Sites in the Wester United states to stay by their consoles for further instructions. If some of were Reading or making lunch the order from Sac brought them to attention but did not change the condition of their missiles. As for the nuclear bombers at sacs 20 bomber bases around the country the Sac controller took two Quick Steps. He roasted the Crews out of their Alert shelters and ordered them to their Battle stations inside the , in a step that required a separate decision by the Sac senior controller he ordered pilots to fire up the sometimes Balky engines of the bombers but not to begin taxiing. Under Sac s Long standing and laboriously con slur Clad procedures the controller did not simply pick up the red phone and Start  is up to the Man sitting Al a desk on his right known As the emergency action officer controller to prepare on exact written message that includes every Ting the senior controller wants to say. The emergency action officer controller a major must always be checked by a senior non commissioned officer known As the emergency to lion no controller to make sure the message a act rattly transcribed. It is a fair presumption that the two men draft is message in code but Sac officials say that this i Fonna Tion is classified. Once these two have drafted the message the to not controller checks it and then one of the three Readi Lover the red phone while a second looks Over his shoulder to make sure the words were read clearly. All this is part of sacs adherence to the nuclear two Man Rule which holds that no one person Cando anything with nuclear weapon. It is 1 de Rimathe of an even More fundamental Rule thai Only the president is allowed to release a nuclear weapon. ,1 actually it takes less time to get a message Onlo the g red phone than it lakes to describe the safeguard proc Durics surrounding it. You can do it Damn quickly but you can do it exactly right said one air Force colonel. Despite widespread myths the hotline from washing-1i ton is not a red Telephone la is yellow on ils dial is the East with that stuff one Wop can kill 500,000  by Richard o. Lyons new York time a new glimpse of secret and experimental activities Al the Central intelligence Agency has disclosed that America s spies sought new methods of espionage using trained seals and otters monitoring the Bio plasma Fields of agents and testing a Poison  also experimented Wilh such off beat weapons As electric stun guns calibrated blackjacks and marshmallow  intelligence Agency s research and development staff was also interested in inc secret life of plants inc sonar of electric fish peace pills and an array of other futuristic schemes that were discarded As impractical or As quackery according to about 3,000 heavily censored pages of study evaluations and Oiler documents relating to Cia activities from 1965 to 1975. The material has been made Public at Agency Headquarters in Langley va., is a result of a free Dom of information request initiated by the Newyork times. Which of the ideas were developed and which were discarded is Uncertain because inc intelligence Agency refused official comment on the documents and Becat censors at the Agency deleted Many details and Ald every proper name and title so that projects emerge Only general terms. Ithe Agency has been stung by earlier disclosures Covert research and development activities that include projects involving the use and misuse of Ltd and oth mind altering drugs As Well As elaborate sexual enter mint schemes. Some of the actions described in the documents iwas investigations into behaviour modification and Mil control grew out of research of the 1950s and which in turn stemmed from continuing soviet inter tit mind control techniques that most Western Kienly consider  efforts were elaborate engineering project tic sought to counter hijackings and terrorism ,1 use of electrified nets and giant pistons that Wottom incorporated in the Pilot s seat a an air plane. The was that when a Hijacker smashed his Way throng cockpit door into the Airliner s flight deck the Pilot c trigger a switch releasing the 25-Pound knocking the Hijacker Back through the door. As an example of the degree of censorship o Umcil said the deleted non Plhal electrified will Tom was forwarded to deleted. Unfortunately Page 14 the stars and stripes