DEAD HAND: The Soviet Doomsday Machine that’s still in place.

But, in proper Strangelovian irony, they kept it secret, but that’s because the U.S. wasn’t the target they were trying to deter: “By guaranteeing that Moscow could hit back, Perimeter was actually designed to keep an overeager Soviet military or civilian leader from launching prematurely during a crisis. The point, Zheleznyakov says, was ‘to cool down all these hotheads and extremists. No matter what was going to happen, there still would be revenge. Those who attack us will be punished.'”