AllMovie

The Fifth Missile is a 1986 television movie starring Robert Conrad, Sam Waterston and David Soul about an American ballistic missile submarine, based on the novel The Gold Crew by Frank M. Robinson and Thomas N. Scortia. With the exception of Cmdr. Van Meer, the ship's crew goes slowly insane due to exposure to paint chemicals onboard and believes a missile test exercise is, in fact, nuclear war. It explores the inability of U.S. command structures to control and prevent rogue submarine officers from launching ballistic missiles.