- Back at the base, Mandrake enters Ripper's office with his radio.
- The Group Captain points out to the General that a civilian radio station wouldn't be casually playing music if Russia had started a nuclear war.
- Mandrake thinks that this Plan R order must've been some kind of test from the powers-that-be.
- This is a relief because the bombers are only 20 minutes away from Russian airspace. Mandrake says it would cause "a bit of a stink" if those bombs were actually dropped.
- He again points out that the civilian radio stations are just playing music—no air raid warnings, etc. Isn't that a bit strange if the Russians had really attacked?
- Ripper doesn't want to hear it.
- When Ripper refuses to issue the recall code, Mandrake realizes that the General ordered Plan R all on his own.
- Mandrake tries to recall the bombers, but he doesn't know the recall code and Ripper has locked him in the room. That's a shame.
- The General tells Mandrake to chill out and points out that soon the President will have to commit to nuclear war even if he doesn't want to.
- Ripper now delivers his famous justification for inciting nuclear war: the Communists have been sapping and impurifying our "precious bodily fluids."
- War is too important to be left to politicians, he thinks.