An anecdote concerns a Scottish nationalist communist who wrote Soviet geography textbooks naming Edinburgh as Britain's capital. The error is said to have remained in use into the 1970s. According to the story, later planners inherited the claim, leaving more fixed intercontinental ballistic missiles oriented toward Edinburgh than London. No independent verification is supplied. The anecdote warns how errors can harden into institutional knowledge.
Notable Point · 59:56-1:01:05
How bad geography can persist into strategic targeting
An anecdote about Soviet textbooks naming Edinburgh as Britain's capital traces how an inherited error was said to reach fixed missile targeting.