At dawn on the morning of Jan. 25, 1995, a four-stage Norwegian-U.S. joint research rocket, Black Brant XII, lifted off from an island off Norway's northwest coast. Ninety-three seconds after launch, the fourth stage burned out, hurling the rocket and its payload nearly straight up.
The rocket was designed to study the Northern Lights, but when it rose above the horizon, it turned into another kind of experiment -- a test of the hair-trigger posture that still dominates the control of Russian and United States nuclear weapons.
The rocket was spotted by Russian early-warning radars. The radar operators sent an alert to Moscow. Within minutes, President Boris Yeltsin was brought his black nuclear-command suitcase. For several tense minutes, while Yeltsin spoke with his defense minister by telephone, confusion reigned.
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