Rocket Museum in Arizona: "Welcome to the Third World War"

There is this red tin can, a few steps down the stairs from the entrance, attached to a metal partition. She looks inconspicuous. But at the very latest here, the moment of truth would have come, says Tom McDonnell.

Anyone who had made it this far, past all the above-ground security precautions, who would have lifted the telephone receiver on the wall, would have had to read his access code - valid only for this one time - from a small piece of paper and speak into the receiver. Then, and this is important, he should have lit the note and thrown it into the tin.

Then and only then would the door open in front of him. Which was also good - after all, on the other side was a 30-meter high "Titan II" continental ballistic missile, with a warhead hundreds of times more powerful than the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Where "stood" is not true.

Because the rocket is still in their underground silo, except that the fuel and especially the warhead were removed after US President Ronald Reagan had the system put out of service in the early 1980s. Otherwise, everything is still like the Cold War: At the Titan Missile Museum, 40 miles south of Tucson, Arizona, visitors can approach one of the most powerful weapons humans have ever built - and McDonnell is one of the tour guides of the day.

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Before he leads his group of visitors underground, to the control room and later to the silo with the rocket, he makes one thing clear: "There is no big red button here." Even if the US President had said otherwise, when he boasted to the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with the size of his "red buttons". But that was nonsense, the rocket would start today with keys.

"I have to stop now," McDonnell admonishes himself. Not because secrets are revealed here, no. It's about avoiding possible quarrels with visitors: "I can not become political."

Smoking next to the rocket

Then he guides his visitors underground. First it goes through an inconspicuous Blechpforte, later - behind the red tin vessel - through two huge concrete doors, which are each three tons heavy, but yet so easy to move that even a primary schoolchild of the group has no problems.

Finally, McDonnell leads the group into the control room of the underground rocket silo and reports how unrestrained the four soldiers smoked on their 24-hour shifts, right next to a rocket ready to launch anytime. Describes that the military were allowed to travel here only in pairs ( "No Lone Zone" ). Explains the clocks, one of which indicates local time - for lunch, as McDonnell says - and the other the globally binding " Zulu Time " for the US military.

He shows the computer fed with punched plastic Mylar punched for target input and says that the bunker crew had not even known in a case, where she had actually fired her deadly bullet: "The goals were then secret, and they are still today always secret. "

The serious case in the game

And then McDonnell plays with his guests through the emergency. Makes ringing announcements over a speaker, comparing verification codes locked in a safe here. Then the two keys are used, so tiny that they would be considered too small even for a bicycle lock. At the same time they have to be turned by two people - and then held for five seconds.

This ensures that the lights on the control panel light up gradually. And then there would be the moment when the rocket would ignite and shake the silo. The moment when a violence is unleashed that could not be stopped anymore. "Welcome to World War III," says McDonnell dryly. "In 34 minutes 'Target 2' would cease to exist."

In 1963, the US government put the "Titan II" into service, as the ultimate means of deterrence in the Cold War: At a speed of 25,700 km / h, it was able to fly more than 10,000 kilometers. Above all, she was able to transport a nine-megaton warhead. And she was up and running extremely fast, less than a minute after the order was issued.

No turning back

The US, as McDonnell says on several occasions on his tour, defended itself with their nuclear weapons, never attacked first. Therefore, there was no device to destroy once in-flight missiles. The president would only have given the order to launch the case if the country had been attacked.

A total of 54 missiles were stationed in subterranean silos spread across the country. They should have even survived a direct Soviet nuclear attack. Eighteen of the weapons were bunkered at Little Rock (US state of Arkansas), at Wichita (US state of Kansas) - and just around Tucson. Of all these locations, only the one where the Titan Missile Museum is located is left.

For the first time, visitors can see the rocket through a pane of glass, about halfway up the silo. The dull silver shiny thing that stands right in front of you is, of course, so big that it can not be completely captured. More impressive is the view at the very end of the tour, if you can look into the rocket silo from above.

The 760-ton concrete lid, which would have been driven back within 20 seconds in the event of a launch, is permanently half open. The view of the rocket down there is fascinating - but above all, it is disturbing. How had Tom McDonnell expressed it just at the first look at the " doomsday machine" ? "Nobody would have won, but life on this planet would have been changed forever." Or extinguished.