The Bedford Incident

The Bedford Incident is a 1965 British-American Cold War film directed by James B. Harris, starring Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier, and produced by Harris and Widmark. The cast also features Eric Portman, James MacArthur, Martin Balsam, and Wally Cox, as well as early appearances by Donald Sutherland and Ed Bishop. James Poe adapted Mark Rascovich's 1963 novel of the same name, which borrowed from the plot of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; at one point in the film, the captain is advised he is "not chasing whales now".

At the time The Bedford Incident was produced, Harris was best known as the producer of three of Stanley Kubrick's films. The two parted ways when Kubrick decided to make Dr. Strangelove as a satirical black comedy, rather than a dramatic thriller, but Harris remained focused on developing a serious nuclear confrontation film, and The Bedford Incident was released less than two years after Dr. Strangelove.

Plot
The United States Navy destroyer USS Bedford, under the strict command of Captain Eric Finlander, is sailing in the Greenland, Iceland, and United Kingdom gap. Aboard are Ben Munceford, a civilian photojournalist; Commodore Wolfgang Schrepke, a Bundesmarine NATO naval advisor; Ensign Ralston, an inexperienced young officer who is constantly criticized by Finlander for small errors; and Lieutenant Commander Chester Potter, the ship's new doctor.

When the Bedford detects a Soviet submarine just off the coast of Greenland, Finlander mercilessly stalks his prey into international waters and plays a waiting game after losing sonar contact in a field of icebergs, knowing the diesel-powered sub will have to surface within 24 hours to replenish its air and recharge its batteries. The crew never complains, but Potter is concerned that maintaining this level of vigilance is dangerous and suggests modifications, all of which Finlander dismisses out of hand.

Munceford is aboard to photograph life on a Navy destroyer, but his real interest is Finlander, who was one of only a few military officials to publicly state that the United States should have used greater force during the Cuban Missile Crisis. When Munceford asks Finlander if this is why, though he gets results, he was recently passed over for promotion to admiral, Finlander becomes hostile and accuses Munceford of misinterpreting the facts. He says he would go "all the way" to save his country, but, after calming down, insists his current action is just a deterrent.

The Soviet submarine is spotted by the Bedford's radar when it finally pokes its snorkel above the surface. It was not seen first by the sonarman because he is having exhaustion-induced delusions. Schrepke reminds Finlander that his orders are just to escort the sub out of Greenland's waters, but Finlander sends a message ordering the sub to fully surface and identify itself. When the order is ignored, Finlander runs over the snorkel. Munceford and Schrepke protest that Finlander is forcing the sub to fight, and Finlander orders Ralston to arm an anti-submarine rocket. He reassures Munceford and Schrepke that he will not fire first, but when he says that "if he fires one, I'll fire one", the fatigued Ralston just hears "fire one" and launches the rocket.

Before it is destroyed, the Soviet submarine launches four nuclear torpedoes. Although Finlander orders evasive maneuvers and countermeasures, the torpedoes continue to home-in on the Bedford. Finlander silently leaves the bridge, followed by Munceford, who frantically pleads for him to do something. The captain looks away sheepishly, and the Bedford and her crew are vaporized in an atomic blast, resulting in a mushroom cloud.

Writing
The story reflects several real Cold War incidents between the NATO and Warsaw Pact navies, including one in 1957 when the USS Gudgeon, a submarine, was caught in Soviet waters and chased out to sea by Soviet warships. Although none of these real-life incidents ended as catastrophically as the Bedford incident, the story illustrated many of the fears of the time.

The screenplay by James Poe follows the novel fairly closely, but Poe wrote a different ending. In the novel, the Soviet submarine does not fire back at the Bedford before being destroyed. The shocked Finlander receives word of his promotion to admiral. Commodore Schrepke, realising the incident will spark World War III, sabotages one of the remaining ASROCs and destroys the ship. Munceford, the sole survivor, is found by Novosibirsk, the submarine's mothership.

Filming
Although some shots in the film were recorded at sea, The Bedford Incident was mostly filmed at Shepperton Studios in the United Kingdom. The "USS Bedford" is a fictitious guided missile destroyer, and the role of Bedford was mostly played by a large model of a Farragut-class destroyer. Interior scenes were filmed in the British Type 15 frigate HMS Troubridge (R00); the Troubridge's novel, forward-sloping bridge windows can be seen in some shots, as can British military equipment, such as a rack of Lee-Enfield rifles. Poitier and Balsam's initial flypast and landing from a Whirlwind helicopter were filmed aboard another Type 15 frigate, HMS Wakeful (1943), whose pennant number of "F159" is clearly visible in the scene. The vessel portraying a Soviet intelligence ship has the name "Novo Sibursk", written on the hull at the bow in the Latin alphabet (rather than the Russian language's Cyrillic alphabet), though "Novosibirsk" would have been a more accurate rendering.

Reception
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that "the whole thing transcends plausibility [...] because of its gross exaggeration of a highly improbable episode. [...] the blame for this climactic blooper must be lodged against James Poe, who wrote the script from a novel by Mark Rascovich."

Actual Cold War incident
In October 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet submarine B-59 was pursued in the Atlantic Ocean by the U.S. Navy. When the Soviet vessel failed to surface, destroyers began dropping training depth charges. Unlike in The Bedford Incident, the Americans were not aware that the B-59 was armed with a T-5 nuclear torpedo. As the B-59 had been out of contact with Moscow for several days and was running too deep to monitor civilian radio broadcasts, the Soviet captain thought World War III might have started and wanted to launch the weapon, but he was overruled by his flotilla commander, Vasili Arkhipov, who was using the sub as his command vessel. After an argument, it was agreed that the submarine would surface and await orders from Moscow. It was not until after the fall of the Soviet Union that the existence of the T-5 torpedo and how close the world came to nuclear conflict became known.