It was a direct line of communication between the US government and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Ironically, it was not a telephone (it was a teletype, a kind of electromechanical typewriter connected to a telephone line), and it was not red (the nickname was given by the media). The idea of a means of communication between the White House, in washington dcand the Kremlin, in Moscow, emerged after the Cuban Missile Crisis. This military stalemate, in October 1962, almost provoked a nuclear war – in part, due to the lack of rapid dialogue between the two governments. agreed on june 1963 (50 years ago), the phone was rolled out in August of the same year. Over time, it was replaced by more modern technologies such as satellite transmissions.
Consultancy Pedro Paulo Furnari, professor at the Department of History at Unicamp
Photograph AP Photo