Operation Able Archer
Sometime around November 1983, NATO conducted a primarily paper only exercise code named Able Archer. During this time, the U.S. came dangerously close to being hit by USSR nuclear weapons, at least twice.
This exercise is (or, was) documented in detail in an online video dubbed 1983: The Brink of Armageddon. Only a few pieces of communications equipment were ever deployed during the whole of the exercise, as communications (an annual, routine procedural exercise) was the chief concern of NATO at that time. Knowing that the Russians would be and in fact were closely monitoring and listening in, as they always did whenever NATO conducted such joint mock operations, they made it as realistic as they possibly could. Unbeknown to NATO officials, however, the Russians were in a dangerously different frame of mind on this occasion. Out of kelter with normal protocol, a nervous Soviet Kremlin led by KGB Chief Andropov watched as usual, only this time weighing, regarding and taking every word they heard seriously—always waiting anxiously in virtual hope that German spy Rainer Rupp, code name Topaz would bring them word of an imminent nuke attack. In keeping with Soviet doctrine and determination never to be the first to shoot, in response to even the slightest fear realized, the USSR had prepared on the other hand, and were well able to return the favor. Throughout the innocence of an otherwise fictitious event, the Kremlin kept a trembling finger poised over the button that could unleash an all-out counteroffensive that would have obliterated the United States (CIA operatives were quite able to keep tabs on much of Russia’s activities and equipment positions and such but were hopelessly unaware of and therefore unable to gauge fully the extent of the Soviet mental state, or, the depth of their paranoia). Thus, when the allies concluded the exercise with a celebration to mark its success, they did so unwittingly on a Russian holiday. Big mistake! What they did not know was that all the while, the Soviets—during those cold war years—had prepared and nervously guarded an actual retaliatory barrage of over three hundred missiles. Some of these were squadrons of MIRVs, each having 10 individual warheads, each warhead targeted on a particular American city (although the Russian mole had reported to the Soviets that no such attack was forthcoming by NATO; the exercise called for deployment and launch of a mock 350 missiles). The Kremlin mindset stipulated that if the U.S. were going to assault them militarily with nukes, it would likely be on the eve of some holiday, when people were relaxed, out celebrating. 11/03/83 was the eve of Revolution Day in Russia, hence they anxiously anticipated a U.S. attack. Herein lay the root of Soviet paranoia. The missiles targeting us are said to have been “…very, very precise”, each having the power and explosive force of 150 of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima. “The devastation,” per Soviet analysis from officials interviewed after the 1991 Soviet collapse, “would have been total”. This, according to the report, was the second time or one of several Russian misinterpretations and/or equipment malfunctions during the exercise that brought the world to the “…verge of Armageddon”.
