
The Able Archer War Scare Declassified (1983) - mathgenius
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb533-The-Able-Archer-War-Scare-Declassified-PFIAB-Report-Released/
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paulajohnson
Also 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...

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chris_wot
You 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/)

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arethuza
November '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.

