militarism after the Cuban Missile Crisis almost caused a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States in 1962. The scholars Harold R. Troper and Michael J. Strada described The Bedford Incident as one of a series of films in the 1960s that were "full frontal assaults on military values". The Canadian historian Sean Maloney praised the book The Bedford Incident for its level of realism, calling it "a microhistorical study of the Cold War itself", and "the best literary depiction of the Cold War". Maloney noted that, to enter the northern Atlantic Ocean from their bases on the Arctic Ocean in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, Soviet submarines had to cross what was called the "Greenland-Iceland-UK gap", making patrolling the gap a key concern for the U.S. Navy in the Cold War. When Munceford arrives on the Bedford, the ship's executive officer (the number two man), Commander Allison, tells him that the ship operates "under virtually wartime conditions", a point further elaborated on by Captain Finlander, who says: "We are hunters—stalking kind of hunters—who track a foe who is also silently listening to us". On average, one Soviet nuclear ballistic submarine carried 12-16 Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) armed with hydrogen bombs, each of which was capable of destroying an entire city. From Finlander's viewpoint, it was essential to know the location of the Soviet submarine because, if World War III should break out, he would have, at most, a matter of minutes to sink the submarine before it fired its ICBMs and took out 12-16 American cities. Maloney noted that, in the film version of The Bedford Incident, Finlander is portrayed as far more deranged than in the novel, saying that Finlander's obsession with hunting Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic in the novel is "completely understandable and possibly even legitimate". He argued that, should World War III ever occur, it was crucial to have as much intelligence as possible about the opponent in order to strike as hard as possible via nuclear strikes and deny the opponent the ability to strike with their nuclear weapons. The fact that submarines are very difficult to find in the vastness of the ocean has imposed an almost unbearable psychological strain on Finlander. When Munceford presses for more information about what is going on and if anybody gets hurt, Finlander says: "Fear hurts. Unrelenting tension becomes a physical pain. Uncertainty and frustration