"Gentleman, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!" - Muffley's most famous line.
Merkin Muffley is the president of the United States in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. He is concerned with making sure that the Soviet Union don't use the Doomsday Device.
Biography[]
In the War Room at the Pentagon during the Cold War, General Buck Turgidson briefs President Merkin Muffley and other officers about how "Plan R" enables a senior officer to launch a retaliatory nuclear attack on the Soviets if all superiors have been killed in a first strike on the United States. It would take two days to try every CRM code combination to issue a recall order, so Muffley orders the U.S. Army to storm the base and arrest General Ripper. Turgidson, noting the slim odds of recalling the planes in time, then proposes that Muffley not only let the attack continue but send reinforcements. According to an unofficial study, this would result in "modest and acceptable civilian casualties" from the "badly damaged and uncoordinated" Soviet military that would remain after the initial attack. Muffley refuses this plan and instead brings Soviet ambassador Alexei de Sadeski into the War Room to telephone Soviet Premier Dimitri Kissov on the "hotline". Muffley warns the Premier of the impending attack and offers to reveal the targets, flight plans and defensive systems of the bombers so that the Soviets can protect themselves.
After a heated discussion with the Premier, the ambassador informs President Muffley that the Soviet Union created a doomsday machine as a nuclear deterrent; it consists of many buried bombs jacketed with "cobalt–thorium G", which are set to detonate automatically should any nuclear attack strike the country. The resulting nuclear fallout would then engulf the planet for 93 years, rendering the Earth's surface uninhabitable. The device cannot be deactivated, as it is programmed to explode if any such attempt is made. The President's wheelchair-using scientific advisor, former German Nazi Dr. Strangelove, points out that such a doomsday machine would only be an effective deterrent if everyone knew about it; Alexei replies that the Soviet Premier had planned to reveal its existence to the world the following week at the Party Congress.
After Major Kong dies, Dr. Strangelove recommends that the President gather several hundred thousand people to live in deep underground mines where the radiation will not penetrate. He suggests a 10:1 female-to-male ratio for a breeding program to repopulate the Earth once the radiation has subsided, a plan which gathers enthusiastic support from the all-male command staff. Worried that the Soviets will do the same, Turgidson warns about a "mineshaft gap" while Alexei secretly photographs the War Room. Dr. Strangelove declares he has a plan, then suddenly rises from his wheelchair and exclaims, "Mein Führer, I can walk!" before the world ends.
Behind the Scenes[]
The President was portrayed by Peter Sellers, who also plays Dr. Strangelove and Lionel Mandrake. Sellers had previously played Clare Quilty in Kubrick's Lolita.