The origins of the Cold War term “hot line” and the mythical “red phones”…

Many books and websites note that the famed “hot line” communication link between the Pentagon and the Kremlin was established on August 30, 1963.

Press reports about this new tool, intended to provide a possible way to avoid a nuclear war between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), soon cemented the term hot line into our language.

It also added a new plot device and the image of the red phones into movies and TV shows.

Two of my favorite examples were in movies released not long after the new link was established: Fail-Safe (1964) and Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

The term hot line (sometimes given as the single word hotline) had actually been used previously in other contexts, but not in the sense of the international hot line established in 1963.

That use is generally credited to Jess Gorkin (1936-1985).

Gorkin was the respected and influential editor of Parade Magazine, the widely-circulated Sunday newspaper insert. 

In the March 20, 1960 issue of Parade, Gorkin published an open letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Soviet Union’s Premier Nikita Khrushchev, titled “RE: ACCIDENTAL WAR.”

In it, he urged them to consider: “the establishment of a direct telephone line between you...to prevent the possibility of an accidental war.”

He ended his letter with the rhetorical question: “Must a world be lost for want of a telephone call?”

Gorkin didn’t use the term hot line in that open letter, but he did use it in a subsequent series editorials in Parade in 1960, promoting the idea to presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

According to language maven William Safire’s great Political Dictionary, Gorkin’s editorial in the October 30, 1960 issue of Parade mentioned an internal “hot line” that the US Strategic Air Command (SAC) maintained for emergency communications.

Gorkin suggested that SAC’s “red telephone” system was a model for the communication link he believed the US and USSR should establish.

After Kennedy was elected President, Gorkin ran more editorials pushing the hot line idea.

And, after the US and USSR came to the brink of nuclear Armageddon in October 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy and Khrushchev decided it was indeed a pretty good idea.

On April 23, 1963, Kennedy sent a personal letter of thanks to Gorkin for promoting the concept, calling it “an excellent example of the most constructive aspects of our free press.” 

Gorkin proudly published the letter in Parade.

On June 20, 1963, in Geneva, President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev signed an agreement to create the crisis communication system Gorkin had suggested. The Washington-Kremlin hot line officially went live on August 30, 1963.

However, despite what we’ve seen in movies and TV shows, there never were red phones in the offices of the President of the United States and the Premier of Russia.

The hot line was actually a secure teletype connection between the offices of the Pentagon and the Kremlin. No phones, red or otherwise, were involved.

Sorry, movie fans.

As I was researching this post, I noticed there’s a fairly recent book titled Hotline that gives the term a whole new meaning. It’s a racy novel described with this memorable blurb: “A sex worker and a trust fund brat…It’s like Romeo and Juliet, but with less stabbing and slightly fewer dick jokes.” I haven’t read it, but if you do, let me know how it is.

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“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

In 1950, Bette Davis was a highly-regarded actress. But she was starting to be viewed as an “aging” actress and her career seemed to be fading.

That year, the multitalented writer, producer and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz gave Bette a plum role in a film that helped revive her popularity with critics and audiences.

Ironically, Bette’s character in this movie, Margo Channing, is a highly-regarded but aging actress whose career is fading.

The film is All About Eve, an Academy Award-winning drama that premiered in New York City on October 13, 1950.

Mankiewicz himself wrote the screenplay. He based it on a short story by Mary Orr about a scheming young actress named Eve, who cozies up to an older actress, then tries to steal her roles and her husband.

Most true fans of classic movies knew the famous line that Davis, as Margo, delivers in the film.

It comes during a scene in which Margo throws a birthday party for her director and companion, Bill Sampson, played by Gary Merrill (who became Bette’s real life husband that same year).

When she notices him being a bit too attentive to the aspiring young actress Eve Harrington (played by Anne Baxter), Margo becomes jealous, starts downing drinks and acting snappish.

Her friend Karen (Celeste Holm) notices and says to her: “We’ve seen you like this before. Is it over, or is it just beginning?"

Margo quaffs another drink, walks over to a staircase, looks down with a devilish smile and responds with the now legendary movie quote:

“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Of course, since the year was 1950, she was alluding to buckling up during a bumpy flight on an airplane. Cars didn’t have seatbelts back then.

All About Eve was a major hit that rejuvenated Bette’s career, earned her an Oscar nomination and a Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival.

It’s also notable for a brief appearance by a young Marilyn Monroe during the party scene. It was one of her early roles and she didn’t get much screen time, but her beauty and sexy charisma are apparent.

Here are some of the other famous quotes and phrases linked to October 13: 

• “You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh...” - The famous song “As Time Goes By,” written by American songwriter Herman Hupfeld, was made famous by the movie Casablanca (1943). But it was originally written for the Broadway musical Everybody’s Welcome, which opened at the Shubert Theater in New York City on October 13, 1931.

• “Fail-Safe.” - The title of a book by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler that debuted in serialized form in the October 13, 1962 issue of The Saturday Evening Post magazine. It was soon published as a book that became a bestseller, burning the scary Cold War term “fail-safe” into America’s consciousness and language.

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