Believing that Commie-instigated water fluoridation has made him impotent, Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) launches a big SAC attack against the Soviet Union. Pretty soon President Muffley (Peter Sellers) is sitting around the war table with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a gaggle of gimcrack generals lead by "Buck" Turgidson (George C. Scott), fielding doomsday scenarios. Desperate, the prez turns to ex-Nazi physicist Dr. Strangelove (Sellers, again) who calculates that the gene pool can survive such a theoretical annihilation. Cold War camp, Dr. Strangelove's look, tightly designed sets illuminated with expressive pools of light, creates a militarized zone of otherworldliness, reifying the alienation of the high command. Kubrick's brilliant farce rejects our fear of a doomsday device-mechanical insurance that the bombs will be deployed-and instead views human snafus as the more probable terror. Adding satirist Terry Southern (Candy, The Loved One) to script deployment insured that the impact would be hilariously devastating. Whether it's Turgidson pridefully advocating restrained nuclear war, or Herr Doctor speculating about underground stud farms, the real threat orbits around a nucleus of unstable personalities. Dr. Strangelove asks, "Where are the safeguards against the militarized ego?"