For my
friends and foes, I have a disclaimer about this set of postings. I am squarely
in the middle politically, religiously, and socially. I have no axes to grind.
However, I do heartily believe in the truth or my version of it based on
research for as objective a point of view as is possible. The facts are the facts
in this work you are about to read, but the opinions are mine. In short, I
believe the Able-archer-83 saga was a harbinger of things to come, and we
ignore the lesson as it may apply to the current escalation of belligerence
occurring between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran at our
peril. I pray for the leaders involved that no one inadvertently pulls the
atomic trigger.
The Grandees of the Soviet Union—driven by the paranoid
delusions of the KGB—were convinced that NATO and the Americans would have to
strike a telling blow in 1983. They knew that the downing of the Korean
airliner—KAL-007—was the result of pilot error on the part of both pilots: the
Korean plane did stray into Soviet airspace, but quite innocently. The Soviet
pilot reacted reflexively to the incursion and shot it down rather than to use
rational judgment. The Soviet Union was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt
that a retaliatory attack was eminent.
The British,—however—had an edge that allowed them to
make rational judgments. They had a long-term ideological double agent within
the London rezidentura, Oleg Gordievsky, who had risen to the top ranks of the
KGB in England. His information had been 100% reliable in the past. He reported
to his British handlers that Moscow Center had sent its residencies a flash
telegram on November 8 reporting a massively increased alert status on American
bases and frantically asking for further information regarding an American
first strike. That information was incorrect; Gordievsky and his British
handlers knew it was wrong; but the top Soviets, including the KGB did not want
to hear otherwise. They were as slavish to their paranoid communist ideology as
the Iranian leaders are to their intense religious beliefs.
Gordievsky and a few other senior KGB leaders tried to
talk reason to their leaders but were reprimanded for giving their opinion
instead of simply reporting the facts. The facts told the top Russian leaders
that an attack was imminent, and that was that. In the current era, the “facts”
tell the Ayatollahs that a nuclear attack by America is looming.
Able Archer-83 exercises were scheduled to begin on
November 7, 1983 and to be conducted in much the same way as in the many
previous years of the exercises. NATO, SHAPE [Supreme Headquarters Allied
Powers Europe], and the U.S. military knew that the purpose of the exercise in
1893 was to simulate a period of conflict escalation, culminating in the U.S.
military attaining a simulated DEFCON 1 coordinated nuclear attack. It was to last
five days. Despite Gordievsky’s intel, they could not fully appreciate the
mindset of the Russians and that Able Archer-83 would bring the world to the
brink—the closest it had ever been to nuclear holocaust.
The Soviet Union believed that its only chance of
surviving the coming NATO strike was to preempt it. So, the U.S.S.R. readied
its massive nuclear arsenal. The CIA reported activity in the Soviet Baltic
Military Districts and in its satellite, Czechoslovakia. Further the CIA’s
information determined that nuclear-capable aircraft in Poland and East Germany
were placed on full alert status, including the nuclear strike forces. The DCIA
and top ranking agents strongly suspected that Soviet ICBM silos—which were
easily readied and difficult for the United States to detect—were also prepared
for a launch.
The Soviets’ conclusions were entirely wrong,
but the reasoning behind those conclusions were based on objective analysis of
the information available to them from its spies. The stage was rapidly being
set for the nuclear holocaust that the entire world had been fearing since the
Cold War began.
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