Mr. Davidoff and the other "Cuban missile crisis"

The most heinous aspect of secrets, in our opinion, is that they steal your future by withholding information to base choices on. But at least, we can give you back a tiny bit of your past.

Let me show you my missile silo, the gray haired German said with a big smile. He reached into a cabinet and brought out a cigar box. He opened it, took out a cigar, closed the box and put it back. It's not a hide-a-key, another smile.

NATO nicknamed the issue the Davidoff effect, after Davidoff cigars. Some insiders joked it was the second Cuban missile crisis. Kept secret, and eventually closed, it is another episode of why did we never think of that, gosh, we need to keep this hushed up.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was feared for its many thousand battle tanks and armored vehicles, outnumbering those of NATO by a huge margin. NATO came up with various missile systems, some mounted on vehicles, others as portable configurations, as formidable weapons against tanks.

A missile was guided toward the target by following the infra-red radiation visible in the sight as a dot at the rear of the missile. The operator keeps the aiming mark of the launcher sight on the target and the Semi Automatic Command to Line of Sight (SACLOS) guidance system does the rest.

In other words, the soldier looks into a sight and simply keeps it trained on the red dot.

This was fine for over ten years until someone asked: what if there is another red dot nearby and the electronics locks on to it? Infra red radiation is heat, create enough heat, and your swanky missile veers off toward a two dollar road flare?

In the technical lingo of military experts at the time, the question was put as: If the enemy lights up a Davidoff, won't the missile go for that instead of the armored vehicle?

Minor panic ensued, tests were conducted, reports stamped very secret. The issue was deemed real enough to warrant a re-design. It was not deemed world changing because the Soviet leadership was unlikely to buy enough Davidoffs for their enslaved masses. Don't tell your population or the press, we do not want to be ridiculed by cartoonists drawing an invading army of Davidoff smoking Soviets.

Not long after that, a modified guiding light, usually a flash or strobe type device was put into missiles, the guidance electronics was taught to latch onto that and ignore cigars, and the West was safe once more.

We can now give a nod to Mr. Davidoff for establishing a brand so perfect, it lent itself to illustrating a difficult problem in a single word. What he would have thought about it?

But, hey, you can still ask Dolly Parton what she thinks of a certain type of tank turret having been nicknamed a Dolly Parton turret.

Inquiries by historians are welcome. Encrypted emails only, please.