THIS IS NOT A TEST

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 People my age, that grew up during the Cold War, remember these words being broadcast every Saturday morning for years like clockwork on television and radio. An obnoxious sounding alert signal would sound in order to get your attention and a mans voice would say, " This station is conducting a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test. Then you would breathe a sigh of relief and go about your business or wait for the Saturday morning cartoons to come back on. Did you know that on Saturday morning February 20, 1971 a civilian employee working for the Department of Civil Defense deep inside Cheyenne Mountain Colorado accidentally put out the wrong tape? Instead of the test tape he put out a real war warning and it took 40 minutes before anyone could stop it. 

 The teletyped message from N.O.R.A.D., or North American Air Defense Command, read “Message authenticator: hatefulness, hatefulness". “This is an emergency action notification (EAN) directed by the President. Normal broadcasting will cease immediately.” Television and radio stations reacted all over the nation creating a panic. Some stations reacted exactly how they were supposed to. Other stations didn't react until the incident had been cancelled. The rest went off the air but were afraid to broadcast the warning. Listeners were freaking out and bombarding stations with panicked calls wanting to know what was happening. Others gathered around their TV's and radios fearing the worst. Civilian and military officials called the Pentagon demanding to know what was going on. After 6 failed attempts at shutting the message off one Civil Defense official found the right code word. The word was “impish”. This was the first major test and failure of the EBS or Emergency Broadcast System. The American people were finally breathing a little easier. Fear soon turned into anger though and the the EBS went through some needed reforms and has upgraded in the years since. 

  On February 20, 1971 I was stationed at Erhac near Malatya Turkey. This was a remote assignment and I was oblivious to what had happened in the United States regarding the false war warning. We were on the nuclear front lines keeping an eye on Russia just a few hundred miles to the east and all was quiet on the eastern front. On May 31, 1971 my year in Turkey would be over. I had orders for N.O.R.A.D. in Colorado Springs Colorado. Not until I arrived at N.O.R.A.D., in the latter part of June 1971, did I learn about this incident. My Flight Chief, who was training me at the time, pointed to this tiny room where a man was sitting at a desk with his back to us. He told me about the false attack warning and said that guy was responsible for it. The man would always be facing a plate glass window that had a view of N.O.R.A.D.'s command post. As many times as I passed that room over the remaining months I was in the Air Force I never saw the mans face, only his back. N.O.R.A.D. was the best job I ever had. I would learn a great deal about the strengths and weaknesses of our nuclear deterrence. I became a Christian while stationed in Colorado and knowing some of the things I know I am convinced it is only by the grace of God, and his holding back the winds of war, that we haven't destroyed each other in a nuclear holocaust. 

Command Post



I am checking the line badge of our barber for the AAFES newsletter

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