Four minute warning

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The four minute warning was a public alert system conceived by the British Government during the Cold War. The name derived from the approximate length of time from the point at which a Soviet nuclear missile attack against the United Kingdom could be confirmed and the impact of those missiles on their targets. The population was to be notified by means of air raid sirens, television and radio, and urged to seek cover immediately. In practice the warning was more likely to be under three minutes.

The warning would be initiated by the detection of inbound missiles targeted at the United Kingdom. In the early 1960s this would be provided primarily by the RAF BMEWS station at Fylingdales in North Yorkshire. There, powerful radars would track the inbound missiles and allow confirmation of targets. In later years the first indication of any imminent attack would likely come from infrared detectors aboard the United States Defense Support Program (DSP's) satellites. However, BMEWS would still play an important role in tracking and confirming the destination of any launches.

It was the responsibility of the United Kingdom Regional Air Operations Centre (UK RAOC) to alert the nation to an imminent air attack. Once an alert was initiated the national and local television and radio networks would break into transmissions and broadcast a warning. Simultaneously the national air raid siren system would be brought into service. A system was employed for this whereby a key switch activation alerted 250 national Carrier Control Points or CCPs present in police stations across the country. In turn the CCPs would, via a signal carried along ordinary phone lines, cause 7000 powered sirens to start-up. In rural areas around 11000 hand powered sirens would be operated.

The national warning system saw many changes over the years. During the 1960s and 1970s it, like most civil defence planning in the United Kingdom, fell into diservice. In the late 1970s and early 1980s heightened fears and tensions led to a resumption of contingency planning and the upgrading of many systems. However with the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and early 1990s the national siren system was largely dismantled. The British Government cited the increasing use of double glazed windows, which make sirens harder to hear, and the reduced likelihood of air attack as reasons to eliminate the siren system.

The national siren system had always retained a secondary role of "general warning", particularly for imminent flooding (In some towns, they were also used to summon part time firemen). However a phone based system was found to be generally more appropriate in this scenario and of course cheaper. Additionally the Government retains an ability to break into local and national television and radio for purposes of alerting the general public.

[edit] Cultural impact

The cold war and the fear of nuclear attack permeated pop culture up until the 1990s. Examples include Four Minute Warning as the name of a 1980s hardcore punk band from England, as well as the name of a solo song by Take That singer, Mark Owen, "Four Minutes" by Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd fame) on his 1987 solo album Radio K.A.O.S., and more recently (summer 2006) the name of a new song that Radiohead have been road-testing, along with many others, in preparation for their new album due out in 2007. John Paul Jones has a song entitled 4-Minute Warning on the Brian Eno album Music for Films III.

The adult humour comic Viz had a photo strip called "Four Minutes to fall in love", where a boyfriend and girlfriend cram a whole relationship into the four minutes before a nuclear attack.