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The Able Archer War Scare Declassified (1983)
- chris_wot 11y agoYou think that's scary? Have a read of Dead Hand. http://www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-deadhand/ http://www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-deadhand/
- paulajohnson 11y agoAlso see "Next Stop Execution" by Oleg Gordievsky, who was a KGB colonel secretly working for the UK at this time. The Soviet leadership was certain that the West was planning a pre-emptive nuclear strike and put pressure on the KGB via Project Ryan to find out all it could. Of course this pressure meant that some KGB front-line people started inventing stuff because that was clearly a way to promotion. So project Ryan appeared to confirm the worst suspicions of the Soviet leadership. And then NATO starts deploying in exactly the way you would expect if the strike were imminent...
- arethuza 11y agoNovember '83 - my first term at University in the centre of Edinburgh. A Soviet first strike would probably have been around 3am Washington time - 8am UK time. I know to within a few metres where I would have been - at least it would have been quick - unlike my parents and other family members 20 odd miles downwind from a couple of RAF bases.