Sterling Hayden plays General Jack D. Ripper in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.
Ripper is the commander of Burpelson Air Force Base who launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union without authorization. He believes fluoridation is part of a communist conspiracy to contaminate Americans and undermine their bodily fluids.
The character’s name is a pun on Jack the Ripper, and his paranoid monologues give the film some of its darkest comic moments. Hayden’s performance presents Ripper as both militarily authoritative and increasingly detached from reality.
The film was released in 1964 and was adapted from Peter George’s novel Red Alert. Sterling Hayden is sometimes confused with George C. Scott, who plays General Buck Turgidson, another prominent military officer in the film.