An intercontinental ballistic missile, launched from the far side of the globe, would take about 30 minutes to reach a target in the continental United States. For anyone in the upper reaches of the United States government, those 30 minutes would constitute an extraordinarily compressed drama, a theater of duty and improvisation or, alternatively, paralysis and panic, with the highest imaginable stakes.
Perfect cinematic material, in other words — except that 30 minutes isn’t close to the running time of a normal motion picture. In classics such as Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe, the nuclear weapons are delivered by strategic bombers, so the drama (or black comedy) in the White House Situation Room and elsewhere fills a normal Hollywood running time. The ICBM, it turns out, is the enemy not just of humanity but also of screenwriters looking for a nuclear-themed hit.
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