I arrived at my base in Germany about 3 weeks after Able Archer 83. By that time the US had realized that the Soviets had had a knee-jerk reaction to the exerci

I arrived at my base in Germany about 3 weeks after Able Archer 83. By that time the US had realized that the Soviets had had a knee-jerk reaction to the exercise and we were gently winding things down. We still had armored vehicles covering the gates for a few days though. What I have heard is that the Soviets reacted as badly as they did because the exercise replicated what they would have done: Mobilize troops and hold an exercise in a neighboring country, have senior political leadership go into bunkers and be involved in war decisions. Broadcast distracting information while you then attack. (Recent events in Ukraine should make this sound familiar.) Afterwards, the US never used actual leaders in an exercise like this ever again. We made sure that senior leaders were visible somewhere in public, and used stand-ins to role-play National Command Authority (President, Chairman of the Joint-Chiefs, Speaker of the House, etc.) I didn't tell my mom about this until the other year. No reason to worry her.