Instead of New York, why didn't they sacrifice Washington DC? Moscow is the capital city that has been nuked so it only makes sense to sacrifice Washington DC, the capital city of the United States.
shareNew York is the largest city in US as Moscow is to USSR, so both the American and Russian leaders probably felt it was more fair penance that way. The President was trying to make the casualty ratio more fair.
shareIt was clearly chosen because the President's own family was there. He wanted them dead too so that no one could accuse him of sacrificing just random people.
shareLol I don't think the President will kill his own family for that motive. He chose New York to be fair, since Moscow was Russia's largest.
shareIn that case, he would have told them to leave, he knew they were there.
shareI thought he didn't tell them cause they wouldn't have been able to get out in time. He thought of the idea to bomb New York like 30 minutes before he had too, in order to avoid a war.
share**SPOILER ALERT*** President F'd up. It was too simple to choose NY because his family was there. As was revealed by Matthau's character, the heart of the economy was in NY and bombing it probably killed the USA vs. the 'tit for tat' scenario of trading one city for another. Like Hitchcock says, "It's just a movie" and as in all movies, the story has to have dramatic elements (even far fetched and constructed) to make it interesting but since we are free to discuss and draw conclusions, I say the president acted in the interest of Communism by destroying the USA in the attempt to rectify the situation. Bleeding heart movie for sure. Funny how in the war room, the colonel was accused of treason by the general while the colonel disobeyed the orders to give up MILITARY secrets - even if the orders were given by the President. Ironically, the colonel was the only one who was acting in a non-treasonous manner....despite the fallout (nuclear war) that they were trying to avoid. As I stated earlier, the president sacrificed the whole country by hitting NY so it would be like he avoided annihliation but welcomed subjugation of the US. (People would riot that the president killed 5Million so there would be anarchy, the economy would be destroyed, war hawks would try to sieze the gov. and attack the Soviets anyway, so war would be inevitable)
The alternative? Matthau's solution...not advocating that either but which way would be better? What if the premier didn't retaliate? Would the warhawks on his side cool it? Probably not.
Great movie though. It was entirely gripping.
If you see the disclaimer at the very end when the movie ends & the screen goes black the Dept. of Defense basically tells all of us Americans that this COULD NEVER HAPPEN!!
- I'm curious and don't know but maybe the U.S.govt. asked the movie makers not to make it Washington D.C.? Maybe they thought it might make people paranoid al la Orson Welles radio broadcast of 'War of The Worlds'? Just a thought. Anyone out there read anything on the making of Fail-Safe?
You're damned if you do and damned if you don't ~ Bart Simpson
If the Soviet Premier didn't retaliate in some manner, he wouldn't have lived to see the sun rise the next morning.
What if the Premier had made a counteroffer to the President? What if he said, You don't have to nuke New York. Give us a 100 billion dollars in compensation and let us take over all of Western Europe and we'll call it even.
Actually the reason why The President ordered New York be destroyed is because the Russian diplomat was in New York. That was the only way Russia could be more sure that New York was actually nuked because, they could hear the sound of the Russian diplomat's phone melting, during the explosion. That makes more sense to pick New York, doesn't it?
shareI was thinking about that--(I'm in an argument on another thread about the destruction which would be caused by a nuclear bomb going off in NY.)
The Russian Premier did have time to move the principles of his gov't out of Moscow, whereas if the U.S. president had hit Washington they wouldn't have. Since New York is about as important to the U.S. as Moscow is to Russia, at least economically, it seems that they are roughly equal there.
To RynoII-
You're kidding, right? You mean there are no Soviet diplomats in Washington, DC? What about the Russian Embassy in DC- wouldn't their phone melt if Henry Fonda ordered Gen. Black to nuke the capital?
Washington has a much smaller population. Also there's a lot of important things in and around DC, documents for running the country, the Pentagon, ect.
Although destroying NY seems like way over compensation for Moscow, It'd be catastrophic.
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