Stanislav Petrov, figured this had to be a false alarm and decided-on his own initiative-not to notify his superiors. (The chief air defense officer on duty, Lt. That same month, Soviet early-warning radars sounded the alarm for what seemed to be an attack by U.S. spy plane, as it accidentally crossed into Soviet airspace, killing all 269 passengers onboard, including a U.S.
would launch a nuclear first strike, then shoot down missiles that Moscow would launch in retaliation.) In September, Soviet air defense crews shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, mistaking it for a U.S.
In March, President Ronald Reagan gave an address to the National Association of Evangelists, referring to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” Two weeks later, he delivered his prime-time “Star Wars” speech, calling on scientists to invent a space-based device that could shoot down Soviet missiles as they headed toward the United States-which the Soviets interpreted as a first strike-weapon. 1983 was a particularly frazzled year of the Cold War. The context of the war scare is worth noting. (The private National Security Archive, which obtained the report in a Freedom of Information Act request, has published the report here.) Perroots’ after-action report, written in 1989 upon his retirement from the Air Force, was later declassified by the State Department but is still considered Top Secret by the CIA. Much of the board’s study has since been declassified. “At least some Soviet forces,” the report added, “were preparing to preempt or counterattack” what they saw as an imminent first strike. In a 94-page report stamped Top Secret and six other still higher classification labels, its authors concluded: “There is little doubt in our minds that the Soviets were genuinely worried by Able Archer” and feared that NATO was about to launch an attack “under cover” of the exercise. However, six years later, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board-a panel of experts with insiders’ experience and outsiders’ disinterest-disputed this judgment.
The following May, in a Special National Intelligence Estimate on the subject, the CIA concluded “strongly” that-both in response to Able Archer and as a general proposition-“Soviet actions are not inspired by, and Soviet leaders do not perceive, a genuine danger of imminent conflict or confrontation with the United States.” crews returned to their bases in response, the Soviets relaxed. In any case, Able Archer ended after its five-day run U.S. Top CIA officials were skeptical, dismissing the Soviets’ “war scare” as “propaganda” designed to inflame anti-American sentiments in Western Europe. and its Western allies would follow if a war against the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact escalated from a conventional battle to nuclear war. 7 throand was designed to test the procedures that the U.S. The earlier NATO game, the one that nearly set off a real war, was larger, more elaborate, and more provocative than usual. and Allied countries-B-52s, electronic-warfare and fighters for defense and offensive penetration.” NATO’s current exercises were planned and publicly announced well before the invasion of Ukraine, and are set in and around Belgium, far away from the Russian border, to avoid misunderstanding. Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, who was President Obama’s ambassador to NATO, describes them as “pretty full-blown” rehearsals, “involving nuclear-capable aircraft from the U.S. Such exercises routinely take place around this time of year, and have for many decades. They are certainly aware that, nearly 40 years ago, another nuclear exercise, held against a backdrop of great tension, very nearly triggered World War III.
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