Fail-Safe

Fail-Safe is a novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, published in 1962 around the same time as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The popular and critically acclaimed novel was first adapted into a 1964 film of the same name directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, and Walter Matthau. In 2000, the novel was adapted again for a televised play, broadcast live in black and white on CBS. All three works have the same theme — acc... More

Fail-Safe is a novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, published in 1962 around the same time as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The popular and critically acclaimed novel was first adapted into a 1964 film of the same name directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, and Walter Matthau. In 2000, the novel was adapted again for a televised play, broadcast live in black and white on CBS. All three works have the same theme — accidental nuclear war — with the same plot. The title refers to what could be called an "engineer's commandment": "fail safe", meaning to take account of the ways things can go wrong—fail—and ensure as far as possible that the machine, process, etc. will not make things worse in that event. The title's irony is that, in this case, it is assumed failure is caused by enemy attack, and that the "safe" response is to follow the last authenticated orders at all costs. An unknown aircraft approaches North America from Europe. American bombers of the...

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