Fail-Safe

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Warren?

You'll wake yourself up.

I'll get you breakfast.

No time.

The meeting starts at 10:00.

Don't worry about it.

They always have coffee there.

You're flying down?

I'll check out one of the trainers.

Then I can get back when I want.

What are you doing today?

Shopping.

Have to get clothes

for the boys.

They grow so fast.

Need any money?

I cashed a check.

I had the dream again.

Always ends at the same place.

I guess that's just as well.

Sometime I'm going to see

that matador, find out who he is.

When I do, that's the end of me.

Don't talk like that.

It's only a dream.

Maybe I ought to resign.

What good would that do?

I'm sure it would make the dream

go away. They're connected.

Katie,

the dream and what I'm doing...

Sometimes I feel the only way

I can make it disappear is to resign.

But you can't resign.

You can't give up your whole life.

You're my life too.

You and the boys.

Maybe I have to choose.

Or maybe it's too late.

Warren, don't go.

Skip the meeting.

Tell them my wife insists

I go shopping?

I'll skip the shopping.

We could have lunch together.

We haven't done that in months.

A little French restaurant

with wine.

This meeting is special.

The secretary will be there.

They're even holding it in the war room

to show how up-to-date we are.

You could do with a day off.

In the middle of the week?

That's immoral.

We can go out for dinner.

I'll be back by then.

If I can get a sitter.

You got me.

You can get anything.

What would I do without you?

You wouldn't do very well.

There's no chance of that,

is there?

None at all.

First you said 100 million dead.

Now you say 60 million.

I say 60 million is perhaps

the highest price...

we should be prepared

to pay in a war.

What's the difference between

60 million dead and a hundred million?

- Forty million.

- Some difference.

Are you saying saving 40 million lives

is of no importance?

You miss the point, Professor.

Saving those 60 million lives

is what's important.

Face facts, Mr. Foster.

We're talking about war.

Every war, including thermonuclear war,

must have a winner and a loser.

Which would you rather be?

In a nuclear war, everyone loses.

War isn't what it used to be.

It's still the resolution

of economic and political conflict.

What kind of resolution

with 100 million dead?

- It doesn't have to be 100 million.

- Even 60!

The same

as a thousand years ago, sir...

when you also had wars

that wiped out whole peoples.

The point is still who wins and who

loses, the survival of a culture.

A culture?

With most of its people dead...

the rest dying,

the food poisoned...

the air unfit to breathe.

- You call that a culture?

- Yes, I do.

I am not a poet.

I'm a political scientist...

who would rather have an American

culture survive than a Russian one.

But what would it really be like?

Who would survive?

It's an interesting question.

I would predict...

convicts and file clerks.

The worst convicts, those deep down

in solitary confinement...

and the most ordinary

file clerks...

probably for large

insurance companies...

because they would be

in fireproofed rooms...

protected by tons of the best insulator

in the world:
Paper.

Then imagine what will happen.

The small group of vicious criminals

will fight the army of file clerks...

for the remaining means of life.

The convicts

will know violence...

but the file clerks

will know organization.

Who do you think will win?

It's all hypothesis, of course,

but fun to play around with.

Time to go home. I didn't mean

to hold forth so long.

I don't usually come to a supper party

and talk through to breakfast.

Nonsense. We were fascinated. I hope

we didn't keep you from your work.

Not at all. I've got

a 10:
00 meeting at the Pentagon.

Plenty of time

to get home and change.

You must come again,

Professor Groeteschele, with your wife.

I'd be delighted.

I'm Ilsa Wolfe.

We were introduced before dinner.

I'd like you to take me home.

You'll have to give me directions.

Just stay on this road.

You could joke about the convicts

and file clerks...

because you know

there won't be any survivors.

Not many.

None at all.

That's the beauty of it.

I've heard nuclear war called

a lot of things, but never beautiful.

People are afraid to call it that,

but that's what they feel.

The beauty of death?

Don't patronize me.

What else but that

are you selling, Professor?

We all know we're going to die...

but you make a marvelous game out of it

that includes the whole world.

- You make it seem possible.

- It is possible, even probable.

You make death an entertainment...

something that can be played

in a living room.

As good a place as any.

There's an even better place.

Turn in there.

This where you live?

Don't joke.

Why not?

I am the joker.

I make death into a game for people

like you to get excited about.

I watched you tonight.

You'd love making it possible.

You'd love pressing that button.

What a thrill that would be.

Knowing you have to die...

to have the power

to take everyone else with you...

the mob of them with their plans,

their little hopes...

born to be murdered

and turning away from it...

closing their eyes to it.

You could be the one

to make it true, do it to them.

But you're afraid...

so you look for the thrill

someplace else.

And who better

than a man who isn't afraid?

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