A COLD WAR LINK: THE MOSCOW-WASHINGTON HOTLINE

John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev

The Moscow–Washington hotline, in Russian, Горячая линия Вашингтон -Москва, is a system that allows direct communication between the leaders of the United States and the Russian Federation. This hotline was established in 1963 and links the Pentagon with the Kremlin, historically, with Soviet Communist Party leadership across the square from the Kremlin itself. Although in popular culture known as the red telephone, the hotline was never a telephone line, and no red phones were used. The first implementation used Teletype equipment, and shifted to fax machines in 1986. 

Since 2008, the Moscow–Washington hotline is a secure computer link over which messages are exchanged by email.

More information: US. Department of State

Several people came up with the idea for a hotline. They included Harvard professor Thomas Schelling, who had worked on nuclear war policy for the Defense Department previously. Schelling credited the pop fiction novel Red Alert, the basis of the film Dr. Strangelove, with making governments more aware of the benefit of direct communication between the superpowers. 

The Moscow–Washington hotline

In addition, Parade magazine editor Jess Gorkin personally badgered 1960 presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and buttonholed the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev during a U.S. visit to adopt the idea. 

During this period Gerard C. Smith, as head of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, proposed direct communication links between Moscow and Washington. Objections from others in the State Department, the U.S. military, and the Kremlin delayed introduction.

More information: Crypto Museum

The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis made the hotline a priority. During the standoff, official diplomatic messages typically took six hours to deliver; unofficial channels, such as via television network correspondents, had to be used too as they were quicker.

The Moscow–Washington hotline

During the crisis, the United States took nearly twelve hours to receive and decode Nikita Khrushchev's 3,000-word initial settlement message, a dangerously long time. By the time Washington had drafted a reply, a tougher message from Moscow had been received, demanding that U.S. missiles be removed from Turkey. White House advisers thought faster communications could have averted the crisis, and resolved it quicker. The two countries signed the Hot Line Agreement in June 1963, the first time they formally took action to cut the risk of starting a nuclear war unintentionally.

More information: History.com

The first message transmitted over the hotline was on August 30, 1963. Washington sent Moscow the text: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back 1234567890. This included all the Latin alphabet, as well as all Arabic numerals and the apostrophe, to test that the keyboard and printer were working correctly.

Today's difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal. 

Friedrich Durrenmatt