The year was 1981, and the Cold War was heating up...again.
The Reagan Administration, inaugurated early that year, had abandoned the strategy of detente, of negotiated coexistence with the Soviet Union, in favor of a much more aggressive strategy of overt confrontation, building on the covert actions of the Carter Administration that had so successfully "drawn the Soviets into the Afghan trap." No longer would the US pursue peaceful reconciliation-the President had recently denounced the Soviet Union as an "Evil Empire"-so henceforth, no matter where, the Soviets would find themselves confronted by covert operations or overt military force. This attitude was expressed in another way-psychological operations, or psyops. US bombers flying near their fail-safe points began breaking off and flying straight for Soviet territory, peeling off just before entering Soviet airspace, with the objective being to constantly test the Soviet air-defense network, observe the command structure in operation, and rattle the Soviet command authority. US naval maneuvers covertly approached Soviet naval bases, such as in the April-May '83 Pacific Fleet exercise where 3 US carrier battle groups comprising 40 ships, operating jointly with B-52's under AWACS control, came within 450 miles of a Soviet naval base in Kamchatka. The combination of rhetorical threat, increased military spending, and psyops apparently had the desired effect-the Soviets felt the danger of nuclear annihilation by a US first strike. Therefore, that year, the Soviets launched the largest peacetime intelligence operation in its history-Operation RYAN, the purpose of which was to determine whether the US was planning and preparing a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. From the CIA:
Three categories of targets were identified for priority collection. The first included US and NATO government, military, intelligence, and civil-defense installations that could be penetrated by agents or visually observed by Soviet intelligence officers...The second target category consisted of...consultations among the US and other NATO members. The third included US and NATO civilian and military "communications networks and systems." Rezidenturas were instructed to focus on...operations of US/NATO communications networks and in staffing levels. They also were ordered to obtain information on "the organization, location, and functioning mechanism of all forms of communications which are allocated by the adversary for controlling the process of preparing and waging a nuclear war"--that is, information on command-and-control networks."So, the progression begins. A new US Administration takes office, makes bellicose statements about war and nuclear war, and launches a new round of anti-Soviet propaganda. This is followed by ramped-up military operations by the naval and air forces of the United States, specifically designed to unsettle and scare the Soviet leadership. The Soviets react by treating these as genuine threats-for which they can perhaps be understood, in view of what happened the last time they ignored the signs of impending attack (1941, when the Nazi invasion of the USSR-Operation BARBAROSSA-marched all the way to the gates of Moscow before being blunted by the Russian winter and Zhukov's counterattack). Operation Ryan is launched to determine America's motives, and compiles a checklist of triggers by which to judge whether the US intends to strike.
Events now begin to accelerate.
Shortly after the April-May exercise, where "...the Navy had demonstrated that it could...elude the USSR's large and complex ocean surveillance systems...Defeat Soviet tactical warning systems...[and] penetrate air defense systems.", Reagan announced the inception of SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka Star Wars). This was answered by an angry Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov, who accused the United States of preparing a first-strike attack on the Soviet Union and asserted that President Reagan was
"inventing new plans on how to unleash a nuclear war in the best way, with the hope of winning it."...[SDI], Andropov said,"would open the floodgates of a runaway race of all types of strategic arms, both offensive and defensive. Such is the real significance, the seamy side, so to say, of Washington's "defensive conception." ...The Soviet Union will never be caught defenseless by any threat.... Engaging in this is not just irresponsible, it is insane....Washington's actions are putting the entire world in jeopardy..."Three months later, in this tense atmospere, a Soviet fighter shot down KAL 007, an off-course civilian airliner which had twice violated their airspace, first by flying over Kamchatka, then Sakhalin Island. All 269 aboard were killed, and Reagan had this to say:
"...This was the Soviet Union against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere. It was an act of barbarism, born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations..."As one might expect, Yuri Andropov had a different view:
The sophisticated provocation, organized by the US special services and using a South Korean airplane, is an example of extreme adventurism in policy. We have given the factual aspect of this action a detailed and authentic elucidation. The guilt of its organizers--no matter how they twist and turn or how many false stories they put out--have been proved.The stage is set. Tensions are high. American air and naval forces are constantly probing the Soviet defences. Pershing II missiles have been placed in Europe. The Soviets are feeling the threat. The civilians of KAL 007 are dead. US forces had invaded the island of Grenada, a member of the British Commonwealth, and the resultant spike in communications between Britain and the US concerning this had been noticed by the Soviets...who noted it on their checklist.
The Soviet leadership has expressed regret in connection with the loss of human lives that was the result of this unprecedented act of criminal sabotage. It is on the conscience of those who would like to arrogate to themselves the right to disregard the sovereignty of states and the inviolability of their borders, who conceived of and carried out this provocation, who literally the next day hurried to push through Congress colossal military appropriations and now are rubbing their hands in satisfaction.
All that remained was to fill in the rest of the Operation RYAN checklist...and the US would oblige two months later.
"...on the night of November 8 or 9...KGB Center sent a flash cable to West European residencies advising them, incorrectly, that US forces in Europe had gone on alert and that troops at some bases were being mobilized. The cable speculated that the (nonexistent) alert might have been ordered in response to the then-recent bomb attack on the US Marine barracks in Lebanon, or was related to impending US Army maneuvers, or was the beginning of a countdown to a surprise nuclear attack..."This was the beginning of ABLE ARCHER 83, "a practice drill that took NATO forces through a full-scale simulated release of nuclear weapons." From wiki:
Able Archer 83 was a ten-day NATO Command post exercise starting on November 2, 1983 that spanned Western Europe, centred on SHAPE's Headquarters situated at Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons. The exercise simulated a period of Conflict escalation, culminating in a coordinated nuclear release.[1] It incorporated a new, unique format of coded communication, radio silences, participation by heads of state, and a simulated DEFCON 1 nuclear alert.You have to love that timing. From CNN:
"Able Archer" was designed to test NATO's nuclear-release procedures. It called for temporary radio silence and a shifting of NATO codes and frequencies as the pretend alerts changed from conventional to nuclear...But the Soviets apparently believed that "Able Archer" was merely cover for an imminent NATO attack. U.S. "elint," or electronic intelligence, observed at the time a number of nuclear-capable planes being placed on standby at East German bases. The original plans for "Able Archer" had called for the U.S. president, vice president and Joint Chiefs of Staff to take part. But Robert McFarlane, the U.S. national security adviser, thought the Soviets might consider such activities provocative -- and decided the top officials would not be included in the exercise.After all, we don't want to be provocative when we're practicing for nuclear war, right? From wiki:
"The sudden disappearance of such figures, the disruption of usual schedules and the swift movement of the military high command around Washington were precisely the signs the Soviet intelligence had been told to look for under RYAN...".
The Soviet Union, believing its only chance of surviving a NATO strike was to preempt it, readied its nuclear arsenal. The CIA reported activity in the Baltic Military District, in Czechoslovakia, and it determined that nuclear capable aircraft in Poland and East Germany were placed "on high alert status with readying of nuclear strike forces".[9][32] Former CIA analyst Peter Vincent Pry goes further, saying he suspects that the aircraft were merely the tip of the iceberg. He hypothesizes that — in accordance with Soviet military procedure and history — ICBM silos, easily readied and difficult for the United States to detect, were also prepared for a launch.Was the danger real? From current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, again via wiki:
"Information about the peculiar and remarkably skewed frame of mind of the Soviet leaders during those times that has emerged since the collapse of the Soviet Union makes me think there is a good chance — with all of the other events in 1983 — that they really felt a NATO attack was at least possible and that they took a number of measures to enhance their military readiness short of mobilization...I don't think the Soviets were crying wolf. They may not have believed a NATO attack was imminent in November 1983, but they did seem to believe that the situation was very dangerous. And US intelligence [SNIE 11-9-84 and SNIE 11-10-84] had failed to grasp the true extent of their anxiety.[38]In other words, yes. The danger was real.
Within a few weeks after ...ABLE ARCHER 83, the London CIA station reported...that the Soviets had been alarmed about the real possibility that the United States was preparing a nuclear attack against them. [National Security Adviser Robert] McFarlane...discounted them as Soviet scare tactics...and told Reagan of his view in presenting them to the President. But a more extensive survey...in 1984 by CIA director William Casey...had a more sobering effect. Reagan seemed uncharacteristically grave after reading the report and asked McFarlane, "Do you suppose they really believe that? ...I don't see how they could believe that--but it's something to think about."Reagan would reflect on this period later in his memoirs, again via wiki:
Many people at the top of the Soviet hierarchy were genuinely afraid of America and Americans. Perhaps this shouldn't have surprised me, but it did…The destruction of the world would have to wait for another day.
During my first years in Washington, I think many of us in the administration took it for granted that the Russians, like ourselves, considered it unthinkable that the United States would launch a first strike against them. But the more experience I had with Soviet leaders and other heads of state who knew them, the more I began to realize that many Soviet officials feared us not only as adversaries but as potential aggressors who might hurl nuclear weapons at them in a first strike…
Well, if that was the case, I was even more anxious to get a top Soviet leader in a room alone and try to convince him we had no designs on the Soviet Union and Russians had nothing to fear from us.[45]
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