THEVNMTEHOUSE NGTON June 5 1980 MEMORANDUM FOR THE DEFENSE Attached is a copy of the fact sheet concerning the June 3 missile warning incident which the President saw this morning The President has asked that you receive a copy with his two questions Zbigniew Brzezinski Attachment Review June 5 1986 DECLASSHHED I 11 2006 'te House Idelmes Septe be ' m1NARAch o Dmnj a f LW- wl w - W -4 June Taso FACT SHEET - j_ - in During the morning of 3 June a missile warning incident occurred which caused certain precautionary measures_to be taken within our strategic forces in accordance _with standard procedures The purpose of this fact sheet is to provide information concerning this incident and to outline_corrective steps which have been and will be taken Technical problems in the computer system that provides information to the National Command System caused erroneous data to be generated which in turn- provided indications in the National Military Command Center NMCC and at the Strategic Air Command SAC Headquarters of a missile attack against the United States However key missile warning sensor systems which are connected directly ail-f 9 45 163 7 7 Cr to the NMCC to the SAC Command Center and to the North American Air Defense Command NORAD gave no indication of hostile missile activity and therefbre strong indications of the spurious nature of the data were available Throughout the incident the data at NORAD headquarters reflected that all sensor systems were functioning properly and that no missile launches had been detected by these sensors - The first threat indication was received by SAC directly from the NORAD Computer The indication was a missile warning display of two Sea Launched Ballistic Missile SLBM trajectories indicating the possibility of the missiles being targeted against the United States Within a short time this display had increased to a large number of SLBM trajectories The SAC Senior Controller acting in accordance with standard procedures initiated an alarm which caused all SAC alert bomber tanker and postattack command and control crews to_move to alert aircraft start engines and await further instructions Commander in Chief SAC subsequently directed that the SAC crews shut down engines but remain in their aircraft 1 The National Emergency Airborne Command Post NEACP at Andrews AFB received the initial notification of a possible threat of large numbers of and automatically initiated actions preparatory to emergency launch By_the time the NEACP had taxied into position for takeoff the SLBM threat no longer appeared on the display consoles in the NMCC and the senior watch officer directed the NEACP to hold in place The Pacific Command Airborne Command Post however did launch in response to the indications This inCident may appear similar to the false indiCation Of a miSSile attack g which occurred on November 9 1979 However that event was caused by an inadvertent injection of a test scenario into the NORAD computer system Extensive corrective actions have been taken to prevent a similar incident and all testing and corrective work is being transferred to a separate computer system The cause of the events on 3 June is as yet undetermined All possibilities are being pursued A long term effort will be initiated to determine and correct basic problems within the entire system Until this review is completed the NMCC SAC and NORAD Command Centers will be on a special watch condition known as Voice Tell which insures that a special secure telephone connection is in effect to provide a parallel line of communications This will permit information to be passed immediately from one center to the other overriding_if necessary any false computer driven indications of an attack Throughout the event on 3 June the conmand center personnel at all locations performed well and in accordance with established directives I - f I DECLASSHHED z g 3 a Jspmeouaka-asea was $012- Strife - a This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu