The film is set late in the Cold War period, opening on a U.S. Air Force ICBM launch control center where its crew receives orders to launch nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union; when the crew commander (played by John Spencer) fails to launch their missiles, this is revealed to be part of a larger psychological experiment by the military, testing whether U.S. missile crews would do the same in the event of a real nuclear attack. It is mentioned that twenty-two percent of crews tested failed to launch their missiles, prompting NORAD to install an automated computer system, the "War Operation Plan Response" or WOPR, to oversee launching of U.S. nuclear missiles.