Liz Saville Roberts: “the letter got lost in the mail. It never made it to President Yeltsin. It never made it to the radar crews in Russia.…”

“the letter got lost in the mail. It never made it to President Yeltsin. It never made it to the radar crews in Russia. As a result, within minutes, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was brought a black nuclear command suitcase and for several minutes, wild confusion reigned in Russia, as Russia's command and control system was operating in a combat mode. The letter was from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, and it was routine. It informed the Russians and other surrounding countries that a joint United States and Norwegian research rocket would be launched to study the northern lights. As I say, it was a foulup, a bureaucratic foulup, and it prompted a hair-trigger war scare, a nuclear war scare, only 3 years ago. Mr. President, I rise today to focus on this incident, because I believe it is the kind of discussion that we should carefully consider as we move to the debate on NATO and NATO expansion and the kind of debate that has not received much, if any, public attention.”