text: The President contacts Alice, and Looking Glass agrees to recall the bombers but lacks the authority to call off the submarine attack. Two US Navy fighters intercept Polar Bear 1 over the Pacific Ocean to shoot it down, but when their aircraft carrier is sunk, they call off their attack and instead wish Polar Bear 1 good luck. The President finally connects with Condor. Fearing he is an impersonator, Condor orders the Nightwatch staff to contact the submarines and transmit launch orders. Alice and the Looking Glass staff decide to ram their plane into Nightwatch before Condor can send out launch orders, and the Nightwatch pilots sacrifice themselves by turning their aircraft into the path of Looking Glass. The President successfully issues a stand-down message to American forces as Cassidy and Moreau fly towards Hawaii, uncertain of whether their fuel will last long enough to reach the island, but relieved that the world has a future now.
  Cast
  Powers Boothe as Major Cassidy, USAF – pilot of the B-52 bomber "Polar Bear 1"
  Rebecca De Mornay as Captain Moreau, USAF – copilot of "Polar Bear 1"
  James Earl Jones as USAF general Charlie in command of the EC-135 "Looking Glass" – callsign "Alice"
  Martin Landau as President of the United States
  Darren McGavin as US Secretary of the Interior on the Boeing E-4 NEACP aircraft – callsign "Condor"
  Rip Torn as Colonel Fargo, USA – Army military advisor in the E-4
  Jeffrey DeMunn as USN admiral aboard the E-4 – callsign "Harpoon"
  Peter MacNicol as LCDR Tom Sedgwick, USN – President's Emergency War Orders officer
  Nicolas Coster as General Clay Renning, USAF, at SAC headquarters – callsign "Icarus"
  Ken Jenkins as a USAF Colonel Sam aboard Looking Glass
  Richard Speight Jr. as a USAF guard
  Production
  Principal photography took place from August 7 to late September 1989. The use of military hardware such as the B-52 bomber and Boeing E-4 enabled a realistic account of the Strategic Air Command in action.
  Differences from the source material