The Dead Hand of The Cold War

It was established in the early 1980s as Perimeter but came to be known mainly as “Dead Hand”.  Perimeter was established by the Soviet Union after Ronald Reagan became president because with the new administration came more nuclear bombs and a promise that America would no longer retreat.  In 1981, Eugene Rostow even said that the U.S. might just be crazy enough to use their nuclear weapons because Japan “not only survived but flourished” after their bombing in 1945 and when speaking of the casulties that could happen in a nuclear war he reminded people that even if 100 million people died, “that is not the whole of the population.”  Relations in Washington toward the Soviets got even colder as Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin lost his reserved parking spot at the State Department, U.S. troops invaded Grenada and U.S. Naval exercises moved even closer to Soviet waters.  Moscow became convinced that not only was the U.S. willing to fight a nuclear war, they were williing to start a nuclear war.

The final straw was when Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed Star Wars by its critics, and while Reagan described it as a series of lasers and shields to protect America from Soviet warheads, Russia considered it the Death Star.  Russia began to work on a system of retaliation in the event a nuclear holocaust rendered Moscow crippled and unable to fight back.  This system was Perimeter.  Perimeter ensured the ability to fight back by lying semi-dormant until being activated by a high-ranking official when it would then monitor a network of seismic, radiation and air pressure sensors for signs of nuclear explosions.  Before just automatically retaliating, the system would first check to determine a nuclear bomb hit Soviet soil; it would then check communications with the people in charge, if so then after a certain amount of time, the machine would determine that the Soviet officials were still alive and shut down.  But if Perimeter determined that the General Staff were dead then the machine would assume the apocalypse had arrived and transfer power to whoever was manning the system in a secret bunker deep underground.  It would then be up to that person to figure out what to do:  wait and see what happens or press the button.

Like a lot Russia during the Cold War, it is unknown where Perimeter is located or if it is even located in one place or spread out through Russia.  It has been suggested that a bulk of the system is located in the underground military facility in Mount Yamantaw and Russian newspapers in 1996 did confirm that Yamantaw was part of the Dead Hand system.  Former Pennsylvania Congressman Curt Weldon, on a trip to Moscow, asked the deputy interior minister about Mount Yamantaw.  He claimed to know nothing about it but sent an aide to go check.  The aide came back about twenty minutes later, visibly shaken.  “They couldn’t say anything about it,” the aide revealed.  Another site that is considered part of Dead Hand is the location of UVB-76.  UVB-76 is a number station outside of Moscow that since at least 1982 has been transmitting a repeatitive buzzing tone.  Only three times has “The Buzzer” stopped to read off a list of names and numbers before going back to the tone.  Sometimes voices can be heard behind the buzzing but they are not able to be deciphered and the purpose of UVB-76 is unknown.

But what is known is that Dead Hand is constantly being upgraded, still an active part of Russia’s military strategy.  If the apocalypse does arrive for Russia will the person manning the bunker press the button, turn the key, flip the switch or do what needs to be done?  Will they hold off and wait and see what happens or will they see the death and destruction of their home land and immediately want to retaliate and punish those who killed their loved ones?