[NOISE] Good thing they dumped the EBS

["Patrick J. Murray" <pjmurray@ma.ultranet.com>]

>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Approved-By:  Aaron L Dickey <aaron@RIVER.ORG>
>Date:         Thu, 10 Apr 1997 22:30:42 -0700
>Reply-To: "ABC's World News Now Discussion List" <WNN@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM>
>Sender: "ABC's World News Now Discussion List" <WNN@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM>
>From: Aaron L Dickey <aaron@river.org>
>Subject:      [NOISE] Good thing they dumped the EBS
>To: WNN@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM
>
>[This is totally ancient, but way too much fun to pass up. --Aaron]
>
>                    'NUCLEAR ALERT' PROVES FALSE
>                       by Paul L. Montgomery
>                   New York Times, Feb. 21, 1971
>
>A "human error" yesterday put Americans on an emergency alert of the type
>that would be used in a nuclear attack.
>
>It was 40 minutes before the error was cleared up at the National
>Emergency Warning Center at Cheyenne Mountain, Colo.
>
>An employe at the center, in a confusion over punched tapes that are
>prepared in advance, put on the wire to the country's radio and television
>stations at 9:33 A. M. a message saying that the President had declared a
>national emergency and that normal broadcasting was to cease
>"immediately."
>
>The message contained the code word "hatefulness," which was to be used
>only in the event of a real alert.
>
>In the subsequent turmoil, a number of stations around the country went
>off the air after telling listeners of the "emergency."  Others quickly
>checked and found that the transmission was an error and continued normal
>broadcasting.
>
>"I saw the authenticated message and thought, 'My God!  It's Dec. 7 all
>over again!'" said Chuck Kelly of WWCM in Brazil, Ind., who took his
>station off the air for 22 minutes.
>
>The National Emergency Warning Center frantically tried to cancel the
>message several times, but it was not until 10:13 A. M. that it found the
>proper code word--"impish"--to indicate that the cancellation was
>authentic.
>
>The false alert did not affect any of the country's military arms because
>the error originated with the office charged with informing civilians of
>impending disaster.  However, Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird ordered
>an immediate investigation.
>
>Louis I. Smoyer, chief of the warning center, said that the error occurred
>when a civilian operator at the center put on the wire a tape for a real
>alert instead of a test tape.
>
>The operator, W. S. Eberhardt, who has worked 15 years at the center, said
>afterward:  "I can't imagine how the hell I did it."
>
>Because the false alert looked exactly like the real one, and because many
>broadcasting stations did not follow the procedures called for in a real
>emergency, the incident raised questions about the effectiveness of the
>civilian warning system.
>
>A spokesman for the Office of Civil Defense in Washington, asked if the
>system would work in a real emergency as it did yesterday, replied,
>"That's one of the things I've always wondered about."
>
>The warning center is part of the nuclear alert complex in the base of
>Cheyenne Mountain, 10 miles south of Colorado Springs.  The center,
>protected by thick concrete and mounted on springs to allay nuclear shock,
>is operated by the Office of Civil Defense.  Communications in the center
>are staffed by civilian employes of the Army Strategic Communications
>Command.
>
>In an actual nuclear alert, the warning of impending attack would come
>from the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) in the mountain, which
>operates the radar warning systems ringing the United^?  States and
>Canada.
>
>The warning would then be transmitted to the American and Canadian Joint
>Chiefs of Staff to the Governments of the two countries, to the Polaris
>missile fleet, to the Strategic Air Command, and to the National Emergency
>Warning Center, which is the link with the civilian population.
>
>Under Civil Defense strategy, the radio and television stations are the
>primary means of warning civilians that an attack is impending.
>
>The warning center is directly connected into the Associated Press and
>United Press International radio news wires, which go to the country's
>stations.  The circuit is tested at least twice a week, and there is an
>elaborate system of codes so that what happened yesterday supposedly could
>not happen.
>
>Every three months, each radio station is sent a list of the code words
>for each day that must be included in a message from the warning center if
>an actual alert is in progress.  There are also coded words to be used in
>unscheduled tests; the word for this month is "elated" and the word for
>last month was "undressed."
>
>For authentic messages, there are two code words--one to begin a message
>announcing an alert and another to end it.  The pair for Feb.  20 was
>"hatefulness-impish."  Others from the last few weeks include
>"lindberg-measure," "puttyroot-barbizon," "wingfooted-grahamflour"  and
>"manhole-sergeant."
>
>There are two tests of the wire scheduled each week--at 9:30 A. M.
>Saturday and 8:30 P. M. Sunday.  These messages are preceded by the words
>"Testing Emergency Action Notification System" and are followed by a
>message announcing the test.
>
>To keep the stations on their toes, other unscheduled tests are also sent
>using the test code word--"elated" this month--instead of the authentic
>one.
>
>Apparently, the messages for both tests and real alerts are prepared in
>advance at the warning center on punched tapes--paper strips with
>perforations that reproduce message on teletype machines connected to a
>transmitter.  What happened yesterday was that the operator sent the tape
>prepared for a real alert instead of the test.
>
>On receipt of a real alert, stations are supposed to announce immediately
>that the President has directed an "emergency action notification" and to
>go off the air unless they are "key" stations.  These stations, one in
>each area, are supposed to keep broadcasting news bulletins, emergency
>instructions and the like.
>
>What happened yesterday was mostly confusion.  Many stations apparently
>did not know the procedure, others listened to see if competitors had gone
>off the air, some used independent means of checking the authenticity of
>the alert and some, realizing that a test was scheduled for 9:30, ignored
>the warning.
>
>"I thought I was going to have a heart attack trying to open that damn
>envelope [containing the code words]," said David Skinner, news director
>of WEVA in Emporia, Va.  "I haven't felt that way since John Kennedy was
>killed."
>
>"This made us just angry as hell," said a spokesman for KIXL in Dallas,
>which did not go off the air. "You can't play around with things like
>this.  If we had gone on the air and broadcast the alert as being from the
>President of the United States, some old people would have checked in
>right then."
>
>At least two stations in New York--SYSL [sic] in Buffalo and WBNR in
>Newburgh--went off the air.  Most, including the network stations,
>continued normal broadcasting after checking the alert.  WQXR here did not
>receive the alert because the paper in its teletype machine was jammed.
>
>Larry Best of KXEL in Waterloo, Iowa, gave this account:
>
>"I knew it [the test] was coming across.  But I didn't pay much attention
>to it until I went to rip it off the wire.  Then I noticed the message
>authenticator.  It was the right one, all right.  It kind of shook us up a
>little.
>
>"We immediately left the air and went into the instructions for emergency
>programming and played the tape we have of it.  Immediately, in seconds,
>all three telephones in the office were jangling like mad."
>
>The Office of Civil Defense said it had no estimate of how many of the
>nation's 5,000 radio and 800 television stations had responded to the
>alert.
>
>For those listening to stations that did respond to the "national
>emergency," its seemed that the moment of ultimate dread had arrived.
>
>"I was absolutely terrified," said Mrs. Peter Ori of Chicago.  "It was so
>authentic.  I just knew we were at war and the President would come on and
>say what had happened."
>
>In Melbourne, Fla., a woman was driving when she heard the alert.  She
>pulled her car to the side of the road.  "I didn't do anything,"  the
>woman said.  "I just sat there being scared."
>
>Many stations and civil defense offices were overloaded with telephone
>inquires from anxious callers.  Col. Gordon Ockenden, command director of
>NORAD for the day, said he had had many calls from generals in Washington
>asking about the alert.
>
>A back-up part of the warning system--a direct link from "key"  stations
>through their networks to the White House Communications Center--came into
>play during the crisis.  Stations using the link were told, "Nothing has
>come from the President."  This is how many network stations were saved
>from responding to the "emergency."
>
>Kenneth Miller, chief of he emergency communications division of the
>Federal Communications Commission, said it was optional for stations to
>shut down without White House confirmation through the key stations.
>
>Apparently, soon after the alert was sent out, the National Warning^?
>Center realized the error.  A message was sent saying "This is the
>National Warning Center--Cancel EAN (Emergency Action Notification)  tape
>sent at 9:33 EST." However, since the message did not have a code word,
>stations should have ignored it.
>
>At 9:59, the center tried again with "Message authenticator:
>Hatefulness/Hatefulness--Cancel message sent at 9:33 EST."  However, since
>hatefulness was the code word to initiate the alert, not end it, stations
>should have ignored that message, too.
>
>At 10:13, the center at last found the right formula:  "Message
>authenticator:  Impish/Impish--Cancel message sent at 9:33 EST."
>
>When the crisis was over, the Pentagon released this statement:
>
>"The Office of Civil Defense is currently investigating the circumstances
>surrounding the transmittal of the erroneous message.  The National
>Emergency Warning System is located within the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain
>complex but is not a NORAD function.  It is operated by the U. S. Army's
>Strategic Communications Command.  this is a civil defense action and not
>a military one."
>
>Mr. Smoyer, the chief of the warning center, who was besieged with calls
>at the center, later reflected on the day.
>
>"We just didn't see that an erroneous message could be transmitted,"^?  he
>said.  "It damn sure won't happen again.  I've got to have time to sit up
>here and figure out how to make this thing fail safe."
>
>MESSAGE AUTHENTICATOR:  HATEFULNESS/HATEFULNESS
>THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ACTION NOTIFICATION (EAN) DIRECTED BY THE PRESIDENT.
>NORMAL BROADCASTING WILL CEASE IMMEDIATELY.  ALL STATIONS WILL BROADCAST
>EAN MESSAGE ONE PRECEDED BY THE ATTENTION SIGNAL, PER FCC RULES.  ONLY
>STATIONS HOLDING NDEA MAY STAY ON AIR IN ACCORD WITH THEIR STATE EBS PLAN.
>
>[Caption:  The original message, as transmitted by national warning
>center in Colorado.]
>

__________________________________________________________________
Patrick Murray
pjmuray@ma.ultranet.com
http://www.ma.ultranet.com/~pjmurray/
508-384-1359
WBZ Radio and Television / New England Cable News / Kid Company Inc.
******************************************************************
"From National Public Radio in Washington D.C.,
This is Weekend Edition, I'm Patrick Murray."

Well heck, I can dream, can't I?
__________________________________________________________________

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