Unlock a nuclear missile? Just dial 00000000.

The Moscow times reports that Bruce Blair, president of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information has disclosed yet another revelation that makes us wonder how we lived past that era.

Blair, who was a Minuteman nuclear missile launch officer in the 1970s, regularly ran through simulations in which he and his colleagues launched up to 50 missiles at the Soviet Union.

It appears that within the precise set of miliatry protocols required in launching a Minuteman, one of which was the safety locks, a reform instituted by Robert McNamara (the former U.S. defense secretary of Vietnam War fame). These were intended to be crucial in preventing accidental nuclear war by requiring that a secret unlock code be entered.

However, Blair divulges,

the U.S. Strategic Air Command was worried that a bunch of sissy safety features might slow things down. It ordered all locks set to 00000000 -- and in launch checklists, reminded all launch officers like Blair to keep the codes there. "So the 'secret unlock code' during the height of the nuclear crises of the Cold War," Blair says, "remained constant at 00000000."

Got missile? Now you know just what digits to hit.