1983 THE WORLD AT THE BRINK
1983 was a
supremely dangerous year – even more dangerous than 1962, the year
of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the US, President Reagan massively
increased defence spending, described the Soviet Union as an 'evil
empire' and announced his 'Star Wars' programme, calling for a
shield in space to defend the US from incoming
missiles.
Yuri Andropov, the paranoid
Soviet leader, saw all this as signs of American
aggression and convinced himself that the US really meant
to attack the Soviet Union. He put the KGB on alert to look for
signs of an imminent nuclear attack. When a Soviet fighter jet shot
down Korean Air Lines flight KAL 007 after straying off course over
a sensitive Soviet military area, President Reagan described it as
a ‘terrorist act’ and ‘a crime against humanity’. The temperature
was rising fast.
Then at the
height of the tension, NATO began a war game called Able Archer 83.
This brought the world to the brink of nuclear
Armageddon.
This is an extraordinary and
largely unknown Cold War story of spies and double agents, of
missiles being readied, of intelligence failures, misunderstandings
and the panic of world leaders. With access to hundreds of
extraordinary new documents just released in the US, Taylor Downing
is able to tell for the first time the gripping but true story of
how near the world came to the brink of nuclear war in
1983. And when President Reagan realised the extent of the
Soviet war scare, it had a profound effect upon him and,
remarkably, hastened the end of the Cold War.
1983: The World at the
Brink is a real-life thriller.