A matter that has become topical again in recent weeks…

A short history of the so-called “hot line”, a communications system that linked the leaders of the erstwhile USSR and the US, set up in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, to reduce the possibility of an “accidental” nuclear war between the two superpowers.

The hot line came into being one year after the Cuban Missile Crisis. That confrontation, over the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, brought the world to the brink of nuclear conflict. After diplomacy and cooler heads prevailed, both sides were shaken by the realization of how close they had come to annihilation - and at how primitive their direct communication methods had been. For example, during the tensest moments of the crisis, Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to Washington, was forced to rely on a bicycle courier to pick up his urgent messages to Moscow and pedal them over to the local Western Union office.