The younger generation on their way to school. At home, the lady of the house will be engaged in her morning chores. As usual. Yes, it will be just another routine. Peaceful, weekday morning. At this aerate alert, it must be a mistake. Someone at civil defense must have pushed the wrong button. But what if it isn't a mistake? What if someone at civil defense pushed the right button? And this is not a practice alert for warning of a real enemy attack. And if it is a real attack, how will the United States cope with it? So it begins thousands of miles to the north. At the dew line, the distant early warning system, a network of radars which stretches some 5,000 miles. From the westward tip of the Aleutian Islands to Alaska, across the continent's northern rim to Greenland and Iceland. Here, high-powered radars probing deep into the skies would be the first to detect unknown aircraft flying above the roof of the world hundreds of miles away over the ice-locked void of the polar region. To the combat operation center of NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command buried deep in the heart of Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs. NORAD's mission is to defend Canada and the United States against aerospace attack. Turning the unknown aircraft would also be relayed to SAAC, the Strategic Air Command, all SAGE, semi-automatic ground environment centers located in the United States and Canada. Each SAGE center will conduct the defense of a sector for which it is responsible. As the unknown force moves south toward the North American continent, it will be kept under constant radar surveillance. Each change of position, altitude and speed will be known instantly in NORAD's combat operation center. When the unknowns enter the NORAD area of responsibility, the Commander-in-Chief NORAD will declare an air defense emergency. And United States and Canadian long-range fighter interceptors will be launched. First, to identify the aircraft and a found hostile to destroy them. With a confirmed hostile, our interceptors will attack. Chief NORAD, an alert air raid warring will be instituted. Now the whole North American Air Defense Command will prepare for a war many of us believe could never happen. Prade would never happen. The marriage conference call is ready. What do you want, please? The White House. By order from the White House, you are authorized to withdraw. With the decision made, the United States will now strike back with a counter-offensive unparalleled in the history of war. Airborne bombers of strategic air command will be ordered to take full reprisal against the enemy's homeland. Others will war off to the attack from sack bases located around the world. Inconvenable ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads will thunder into the sky toward their pre-assigned targets thousands of miles away. Submarines will launch nuclear-tipped Polaris. Despite the devastating destruction, our fighter interceptors will inflict upon the invaders. Some may get through. At this time, the battle staffs of all SAGE centers located in the sectors toward which the remaining enemy planes are moving will prepare to carry out pre-arranged contingency plans. SAGE surveillance teams will pick up the hostile force. The information will be fed into the digital computers. Using all available data, the computers will offer a choice of weapons which will best intercept and destroy the enemy. If a senior director decides to employ boom-mark missiles as the first weapon of intercept boom-marks will erupt from widely dispersed bases. If the boom-marks hit their targets, more supersonic interceptors will be scrambled. As far from their targets as possible, we deploy toward their assigned objectives which could be Washington, D.C., Seattle, New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, or other large heavily populated and industrial cities in the United States. Cities under the protection of the U.S. Army's Nike Hercules defense systems, the inner ring defense of the continental United States. Acquisition radars of Nike Hercules batteries protecting the objective areas will pick up the enemy bombers. Inside the vans, trained eyes will study the radar scopes. As each bomber comes within maximum range of the deadly nuclear capable weapons its doom will be sealed. But the conduct of the defense was factual. I'm Darren McGavin. If North America is never attacked by a hostile force with manned bombers it would, as you have just seen, be subjected to a continuous, intensively devastating attack from as far out as possible with every type of lethal weapon in our air defense arsenal. To say nothing of the terrible destruction our own bombers and ballistic missiles would inflict on the enemy's homeland. And for those bombers which survive and penetrate our outer defenses the ultimate responsibility for their destruction would rest with a radcom the United States Army Air Defense Command. A radcom is both a major combat command of the army and a vitally component part of NORAD's defense in depth. Its mission is to provide combat ready forces for the air defense of critical areas within the continental United States. On duty 24 hours a day more than 20,000 men of the Army Air Defense Command one-third of them National Guardsmen stand ready to defend more than 100 metropolitan cities and industrial complexes. The responsibility is great for training arduous. An a radcom missileman begins his career at the Army Air Defense Center in Fort Bliss, Texas. Here students come to master their own particular jobs in the Army's air defense system. At first they learn that Nike Hercules is a guided missile guided by commands from a ground control center consisting of detection and guidance elements connected by electronic brains that control the sharp wing nuclear capable weapons which can destroy any known aircraft or air supported missile. Training at the Army Air Defense Center is conducted not only for enlisted men but for officers as well. Each officer must know precisely how the entire system works how it locates the enemy, how it fires a missile and how it guides the missile to the target. Enlisted men who are trained as guidance specialists are taught to fix in their minds a clear picture of how invisible electronic impulses guide the missile. They are taught to use the radar eyes which can see and probe great distances into space searching for hostile intruders. Trained as launcher specialists must know how to keep the missile operational ready to fire at all times. The great day finally arrives. The day for which the men have been studying and training. Graduation and assignments to Nike Hercules batteries protecting such great cities as New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and San Francisco where the men will undergo months of intensive unit training. A Nike Hercules battery is in place in two different areas. This is the battery control area. It contains the electronic equipment which detects, tracks and guides the missile to destroy a target. Gated by one to three miles is the launching area. Here are located the facilities and equipment to assemble, store, check out and launch the missiles. The combat capability of a RAGCOM unit is determined by certain indicators such as operational readiness, engagement simulator training and defense combat evaluations. Safety is stressed throughout the training. To prevent accidental firing red flags are attached to parts which make the missile unable to fire. With the red flags removed additional precautionary measures are taken. Special keys are required to unlock the missile's deadly power. But training to fire Nike Hercules is one thing. Firing the lethal weapon is something else. That's why each year units from Nike Hercules batteries all over the world are sent to McGregor Range in New Mexico to conduct short notice annual practice called SNAP. A live firing exercise to test their proficiency and accuracy in target kills. Battle stations, blue status, aggression present, computer present, TPR present, MTR present. Blue status received in the launching area. Launching for throw present. On deck. Remotely controlled target. The searching radar scans the sky for the invisible target. Challenge target. Is it friend or foe? No AFF. Target foe. Disignate. The eye of the tracking radar swings to the target. It will now follow its every movement or will be automatic. Launcher number one ready. Launcher number one. This is how it will be near our great cities and with the army overseas if on some fatal day enemy bombers attack. Each minute detail is complete. Will the safety keys release the ready missile to the radar waiting to guide it in its flight? Now there is just time enough for the final finger exercises. When the warning lights switch to green the missile will be ready to fire. Launching control group ready for action. Acquisition ready for red status. Computer ready for red status. ATR ready for red status. MTR ready for red status. Red status. Selection eight selected. The missile radar turns toward the launching area and locks on the missile the electronic beam which will guide it in its flight. Site two three requires clearance to fire. Surveillance this is the range safety officer. Is the range radar clear? Site two three you have final clearance to fire. The missile armed only with explosives will perform a role which can also speak with the awesome voice of nuclear power. About the fire? Five, four, three, two, one, fire. Thirty seconds to intercept. Twenty seconds to intercept. Two, one. Until now you have seen the vast defense network the United States possesses to guard North America against attack by man bombers. And we shall continue to guard against that threat 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But we face an even more terrible threat. The intercontinental ballistic missile and the submarine launched ballistic missile. As of today the United States has no operational defense against incoming ballistic missiles. However there is a system under advanced development by the Army which is capable of destroying them. It is known as Nike X. Basically this is Nike X. Sists of two radars capable of performing multiple radar functions and two types of guided missiles. These need digital computers and automatic electronic command and control systems. The nerve center of Nike X is MAR which stands for multifunction array radar. MAR can do the job of four radars. Detect, track, discriminate and guide interceptor missiles to the kill. It can scan and re-scan the whole arc of the sky within the fraction of a second. And with the aid of computers make microsecond decisions. Backing up MAR is an MSR missile site radar. Actually a number of MSRs might encircle a city. Largely under orders from MAR they would launch defensive missiles from underground silos and guide them on an intercept course with enemy ballistic missiles. If necessary MSR can operate independently. A third radar now under development will increase the systems range capability considerably. It is Zeus. It is designed to blast enemy nuclear warheads above the fringe of the atmosphere hundreds of miles up and hundreds of miles away from our cities. Backing up Zeus is Sprint. A tactical missile which explodes from its silo like a bullet from a gun reaching a velocity of more than five times the speed of sound. Here is a classic example how Nike X could operate if an aggressor launched a ballistic missile attack against the United States. Traveling at about 18,000 miles an hour each warhead might be camouflaged by miles and miles of decoys furtling ahead, with and behind the real warheads. While still thousands of miles away the missiles would be detected by B-muse the ballistic missile early warning system. Instantly B-muse would flash the warning to NORAD and to MAR indicating the speed, direction and number of attacking missiles. MAR would then detect, track and identify the real warheads from the decoys in microseconds. At the proper moment Zeus would be blasted from its silo. Soon together with MAR, MSR, the missile site radar would guide Zeus to its target to destroy the warheads before they could enter the Earth's atmosphere. If in the course of the attack another warhead might reach the edge of the Earth's atmosphere at a range too close for Zeus to be effective, Sprint would be rammed into the air. Then working with MAR, MSR would guide Sprint to intercept the warhead while it was still many miles in space. When and if Nike X is approved for production the Army Air Defense Command will be sole user of the system in the continental United States. Meanwhile, Nike Hercules is ready for high altitude enemy bombers. Hawke is ready for low altitude targets. And as with the men of a Radcom, the United States Army Air Defense Command they are ready for anything. About to fire? Five, four, three, two, one, fire!