The key moment in the plot of Dr.Strangelove comes as the lunatic Wing Commander named Jack Ripper was trying to start World War III. The civilian authority of President Merkin Muffley is trying to thwart his renegade order to the airplanes under his command to attack the Soviet Union with nuclear bombs. One of three characters played by Peter Sellers, an RAF officer named Mandrake, tries to talk some sense into him, in hopes of getting him to recall the planes before Armageddon.