Fail Safe

¡Olé!

¡Olé!

Warren?

You'll wake yourself up.

Mmm. Get your breakfast.

No time. The meeting starts at 10:00.

Don't worry about it. They always have coffee there.

You're going to fly down?

I'll check out one of the trainers. That way, I can get back when I want.

What are you up to today?

Shopping. Got to get clothes for the boys.

They grow so fast.

Need any money? I cashed a check.

I had the dream again.

Always ends at the same place. I guess that's just as well.

Sometime I'm going to see that matador, find out who he is.

And when I do, that's it. That's the end of me.

Don't talk like that. Now, it's only a dream.

Maybe I ought to resign.

What good would that do?

It'd make the dream go away. I'm sure of that. They're connected.

Katie, the dream and...

what I'm doing.

Sometimes I feel the only way I can make it disappear

is to give it all up, to resign.

But you can't resign. You can't give up your whole life.

You're my life too.

You and the boys.

Maybe I have to choose.

Or maybe it's too late.

Oh, Warren, don't go. Skip the meeting.

Tell them my wife insists I go shopping with her.

I'll skip the shopping.

We can have lunch together. We haven't done that in months.

A little French restaurant with wine.

This one's special. The new secretary's going to be there.

They're even holding it in the war room to show how up-to-date we are.

You could do with a day off.

In the middle of the week? That's immoral.

We can go out for dinner. I'll be back by then.

If I can get a sitter.

You got me, you can get anything.

I don't know what I'd do without you.

You wouldn't do very well.

There's no chance of that, is there?

None at all.

Two hours ago, you said 100 million dead.

Now you say 60 million.

I say 60 million is perhaps the highest price

we should be prepared to pay in a war.

Well, what's the difference between 60 million dead and 100 million?

- Forty million. - Some difference.

Are you prepared to say the saving of 40 million lives is of no importance?

You miss the point, Professor.

The saving of those 60 million lives is what's important.

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?

In a nuclear war, everyone loses.

War isn't what it used to be.

It's still the resolution of economic and political conflict.

Well, what kind of resolution with 100 million dead?

- It doesn't have to be 100 million. - Even 60.

The same as a thousand years ago, sir,

when you also had wars that wiped out whole peoples.

The point is still who wins and who loses — the survival of a culture.

A culture?

With most of its people dead, the rest dying,

the food poisoned, the air unfit to breathe...

You call that a culture?

Yes, I do, Mr. Foster.

I am not a poet.

I'm a political scientist who would rather have an American culture survive

than a Russian one.

But what would it be like? I mean, really like.

Who would survive?

Who would survive?

That's an interesting question.

I would predict...

convicts and file clerks.

And 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 fireproofed 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 you think will win?

It's all hypothesis, of course, but fun to play around with.

And time to go home. I didn't mean to hold court so long.

I don't usually come to a supper party and talk right through to breakfast.

Nonsense, Professor. We were fascinated. Hope we didn't keep you from your work.

Not at all. I've got a ten o'clock meeting at the Pentagon.

Plenty of time to get home and change.

You must come again, Professor Groeteschele,

with your wife this time.

I'd be delighted.

Thanks again.

I'm Ilsa Wolfe. We were introduced before dinner.

I'd like you to take me home.

You'll have to give me directions.

Just stay on this road.

You could joke about the convicts and file clerks

because you know there won't be any survivors, will there?

Not many.

None. None at all.

That's the beauty of it.

I've heard nuclear war called a lot of things, Miss Wolfe —

never beautiful.

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

The beauty of death?

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.

It is possible. Even probable.

You make death an entertainment...

something that can be played in a living room.

As good a place as any.

No. No, there's an even better place.

Turn in there.

This where you live?

Don't joke.

Why not? I'm the 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 and 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.

- Airman. - Sir?

General Bogan should be on his way in. Tell him I checked out the new computer.

I'll be back on duty before he leaves to check it out again with him.

- Yes, sir. - I'll be in my quarters if he wants me.

- Yes, sir. Oh, sir. - Yes?

There's a telephone message for you.

They want you to call right back. Said it was urgent.

Line, please.

Hello.

Yes, I got the message. Why do you think I'm calling?

Well, where did he get the money?

No, no, no. I'll come myself.

I'm going into town, Airman.

That's the address.

I'll be there about half an hour, then I'm coming back to the base.

Yes, sir.

Better button up before the general gets here.

Yes, sir.

General Bogan's office. Airman Slote.

No, sir, General, he's just left.

Damn it, I need him. Where did he sign out to?

Conklin, you know where that is?

Yes, sir. It's on the way to the base.

Well, get on over there.

I'll pick him up myself, Airman. Thank you.

This is the house, General.

You sure this is it? You sure there's not another street by this name?

Oh, no, sir. I've lived in Omaha all my life.

I know this city like the back of my hand.

Don't bother getting out.

...spending the money I send you on this!

Give me that!

Raise your hand against my mother once more —

Just a drop. Who the hell are you?

Yeah?

I'm General Bogan. I'm looking for Colonel Cascio.

- He gave this address. - Oh, sure, now, General.

- Let the gentleman in, Luke. - Honored to have you.

Son always speaks well of you.

Sorry to bother you, Colonel.

We have some unexpected VIPs we have to show around.

Yes, sir. I'll be right along.

Why don't you come in, General?

Thank you, I...

I just take a drop now and then.

The boy here, he gets a little excited, and...

I'm ready, sir.

Damned snot-nosed kid.

It's that Congressman Raskob,

the one who's been nosing around the bases.

Washington wants us to put his mind at ease.

He's on one of those committees.

Yes, sir.

Gordon Knapp will also be there

to look over some of that equipment his company makes.

He'll be on our side.

Anyone looks cross-eyed at his stuff, he goes up like a rocket.

Yes, sir.