Able Archer 83: The Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War

by Nate Jones (Editor), Thomas S. Blanton (Foreword by)

Overview

In November 1983, Soviet nuclear forces went on high alert. After months nervously watching increasingly assertive NATO military posturing, Soviet intelligence agencies in Western Europe received flash telegrams reporting alarming activity on U.S. bases. In response, the Soviets began planning for a countdown to a nuclear first strike by NATO on Eastern Europe. And then Able Archer 83, a vast NATO war game exercise that modeled a Soviet attack on NATO allies, ended.

What the West didn't know at the time was that the Soviets thought Operation Able Archer 83 was real and were actively preparing for a surprise missile attack from NATO. This close scrape with Armageddon was largely unknown until last October when the U.S. government released a ninety-four-page presidential analysis of Able Archer that the National Security Archive had spent over a decade trying to declassify. Able Archer 83 is based upon more than a thousand pages of declassified documents that archive staffer Nate Jones has pried loose from several U.S. government agencies and British archives, as well as from formerly classified Soviet Politburo and KGB files, vividly recreating the atmosphere that nearly unleashed nuclear war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620972618
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	11/01/2016
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	676,744
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Nate Jones is the director of the Freedom of Information Act Project for the National Security Archive. He is also editor of the National Security Archive's blog, Unredacted. He lives in Washington, D.C. Thomas S. Blanton is the director of the National Security Archive at George Washington Universityin Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Foreword Tom Blanton ix

Introduction: "Two Spiders in a Bottle." 1

Part I "Standing Tail," the "Mirror-Image," and Operation RYaN 5

Part II "Thoroughly White Hot," Able Archer 83, and the Crux of the War Scare 25

Part III Aftermath, "One Misstep Could Trigger a Great War" 39

Conclusion: "Way Is the World So Dangerous?" 54

Acknowledgments and Notes on Sources 61

Document 1 President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board Report, "The Soviet 'War Scare,'" February 15, 1990, Top Secret, Umbra Gamma Wnintel Noforn Nocontract Orcon 67

Document 2 CIA Studies in Intelligence Article by Benjamin Fischer, "The 1983 War Scare in U.S.-Soviet Relations," Undated (Circa 1996), Secret 179

Document 3 KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov to General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, "Report on the Work of the KGB in 1981," May 10, 1982 195

Document 4 Central Intelligence Agency Biographical Profile of Yuriy Vladimirovich Andropov, January 11, 1983, Classification Redacted 199

Document 5 Memorandum of Conversation Between General Secretary Yuri Andropov and Averell Harriman, CPSU Central Committee Headquarters, Moscow, 3:00 p.m. June 2, 1983 203

Document 6 U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command Daily INTSUM, November 10, 1983, Secret 219

Document 7 Air "Force Seventh Air Division, Ramstein Air Base, "Exercise Able Archer 83, SAC ADVON, After Action Report," December 1, 1983, Secret NOFORN 221

Document 8 Memorandum for National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane from Soviet Expert Jack Matlock, "Subject: American Academic on Soviet Policy," December 13, 1983, Confidential with Attached EXDIS Cable from the American Embassy in Moscow 241

Document 9 UK Ministry of Defence, "Soviet Union Concern About a Surprise Nuclear Attack," May 9, 1983 251

Document 10 Central Intelligence Agency, Special National Intelligence Estimate, "Implications of Recent Soviet Military-Political Activities," May 18, 1984, Top Secret 259

Document 11 Central Intelligence Agency Memorandum for the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from CIA Director William Casey, "U.S./Soviet Tension," June 19, 1984, Secret 273

Document 12 Small Group Meeting of November 19, 1983, 7:30 a.m., The Secretary's Dining Room, Department of State, Secret/Sensitive 283

Document 13 Reagan's Handwritten Addition of Ivan and Anya to His January 16, 1984, Speech on United States-Soviet Relations 289

Notes 303

Index 327

Editorial Reviews

05/22/2017
Jones, director of the Freedom of Information Act Project for the National Security Archive, adopts an academic approach in recounting the unnerving story of how a routine 1983 NATO exercise convinced some Soviet leaders that war was imminent. The Cold War’s delicate nuclear standoff seemed in peril after President Reagan took office in 1981. Reagan’s pugnacious rhetoric and military buildup placed the U.S.S.R. in a “hyper-defensive” state. The Soviets reacted badly when NATO launched Able Archer 83, a training exercise that included such elements as long radio silences, cryptic announcements, loading of warheads, and a countdown through all DEFCON phases. Soviet leaders worried that this was a deceptive prelude to war; their forces went on alert, preparing to respond and maybe preempt a strike. Nothing happened, mostly thanks to a few individuals on both sides who kept their fingers off the trigger. Jones delivers a solid, if relatively brief, summary of events before presenting more than 200 pages of facsimiles of original documents that give diligent readers an impression of how contemporaries reacted to the situation. The primary sources make for predictably turgid reading, but this is still an unsettling reminder of how a simple misstep can negate all safeguards against nuclear war. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Able Archer 83:
"Twenty-one years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, a NATO exercise, Able Archer 83, came terrifyingly close to precipitating an accidental nuclear war. Nate Jones's brilliantly researched and gripping history of government miscalculations and misjudgments on both sides of the iron curtain during this war game, poses the 21st century's most serious existential question: How many nuclear bullets can humanity dodge? Read it and reckon! I don't think you will like the answer."
—Martin J. Sherwin, UniversityProfessor of History at George Mason Universityand author of A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and Its Legacies

"Able Archer 83 is an invaluable resource on one of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War. The book contains an unmatched collection of previously secret documents about the War Scare of 1983 and the Able Archer exercise at the center of it. If you want to learn from history, this is the place to start."
—David E. Hoffman, author of The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy

"Able Archer 83 brings us back to a moment when we all came close to becoming cinders or radioactive corpses. It's an important contribution to our understanding of how the Cold War played out, and how erroneous assumptions routinely become institutionalized policy, which then becomes almost irresistible."
—Glenn L. Carle, a former CIA officer and author of The Interrogator

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