Diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Washington are high. Both countries are therefore relying on an instrument from the Cold War: the “hot wire”.
Russia fired on Ukraine on Thursday – presumably with a new experimental medium-range missile called Oreshnik. The projectile is in principle capable of delivering nuclear warheads, although that did not happen in this case. A US spokeswoman said the Russians had already informed the USA in advance about the attack and especially that it was not a nuclear weapon.
To this end, Moscow and Washington used “channels to reduce nuclear risks”, i.e. communication channels that are intended to keep the risk of possible nuclear escalations as low as possible, even in the event of serious conflicts. This connection has a long history: its origins lie in the Cold War era.
The USA and the Soviet Union established the so-called “Hot Wire” on August 30, 1963 – shortly after the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the Soviets had stationed medium-range missiles in Cuba and thus in geopolitical proximity to the USA.
During this time, Presidents Kennedy and Khrushchev sometimes waited hours for answers from each other due to connection problems – time that neither actually had as the crisis worsened.
Under the strong influence of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union now had a common goal: to prevent a nuclear war that could possibly be triggered by poor or complete lack of communication.
This succeeded: Despite high diplomatic tensions and mutual armament, the Cold War between the Soviets and the USA never spilled over into a hot or even a nuclear war.
Symbolic of this is the “Red Telephone,” which the Americans literally called the “Hot Line.” It was hardly ever used for talks between Moscow and Washington. In order to avoid misunderstandings, written communication, i.e. teleprinters, was used instead. The lines ran from Moscow through Northern Europe – more precisely: Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen and London – to Washington.
The messages were encrypted using a so-called one-time pad method, which uses an encryption code that is at least as long as the message itself. If used correctly, it is considered impossible to crack. Both the Soviets and the Americans placed maximum value on security, historian Bernd Greiner told Deutsche Welle last year.
By the way, the first message from Washington to Moscow in 1963 was: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 0123456789.” Why exactly this sentence? All letters and numbers from an English teleprinter are included in this message – so the machines could be checked for errors.
After that, the communication channel was officially only used sporadically, including in 1967 during the Six-Day War in the Middle East between Israel and its Arab neighbors Jordan, Syria and Egypt. What exactly is discussed in these phone calls is usually not public.
Nowadays, the “hot line” is no longer a telex or a landline telephone, but consists of a whole series of tap-proof communication channels at various levels. However, it is documented that presidents also use it to speak to one another directly: in 2014, for example, Vladimir Putin called Washington and reached Barack Obama – in Riyadh.
