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What nuclear crisis threatens the United States in Sidney Lumetās Fail Safe?
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Sidney Lumet
American director Sidney Lumet after receiving an Academy Award for lifetime achievement, 2005.
In the 1964 film Fail Safe, directed by Sidney Lumet, the nuclear crisis is triggered by an accidental order sent to a squadron of United States bombers to attack Moscow during the Cold War. The crisis centers on the military's inability to recall these nuclear-armed aircraft.1
To prevent an all-out nuclear war after one bomber successfully reaches its target, the U.S. president, played by Henry Fonda, makes the harrowing decision to order a retaliatory nuclear strike on New York City to prove to the Soviet Union that the initial attack was a tragic mistake rather than an act of aggression.1