WEBVTT - 2. Will the Real Evil Empire Please Stand Up? 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:07.640 You know what's unsettling thinking about how easy it would 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:10.120 be to push the nuclear button, you know, the one, 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:13.240 the big red button. Nukes go flying and millions of 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:18.080 people instantaneously evaporate. You know you shouldn't, but you still 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:24.079 kind of want to push it. It's right there, that button. Button. 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.280 Pushing it gets so much easier to talk of how 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.200 many tens of millions of deaths are acceptable when one 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:32.120 is removed from it. 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.080 This guy gets it, the idea that a simple flinch 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.760 of a presidential finger could cause so much destruction. It 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:45.440 feels too easy, too clean. Okay, there's not really a 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.120 big red button. That's a myth. The truth is the 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:50.720 nuclear war plans live in a briefcase that follows the 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.400 US president wherever they go. The codes are always on hand, 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.040 written on a small card in the president's pocket, like 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:59.600 your gym membership card. You've always got it on you 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.680 and you never use it. But it's still relatively easy, 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.640 because the process of launching a nuclear weapon is still 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:10.959 a million miles removed from the real cost millions of 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:15.360 human lives. In the nineteen eighties, people were pondering this problem, 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:17.679 how to make the weight of pushing that button just 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.360 a little bit heavier. People like Roger Fisher. 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.760 Roger Fisher, who is a law professor at Harvard I 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.880 can't remember which, had a fantasy about how one could 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:29.960 overcome this button pushing distance. 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.120 Fisher was a professor at Harvard, not Yale, but anyway, 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:37.960 he proposed an idea. What if he said, the nuclear 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.720 codes weren't in a briefcase. What if the codes were 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:44.040 actually in a little capsule, and that capsule was buried 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.040 in the chest of a volunteer, let's call him Fred. 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.960 Instead of carrying around the briefcase with the codes inside, 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:53.880 imagine Fred carrying around a big, heavy butcher knife. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:56.720 And if the President needed the codes, he would have 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.320 to retrieve them from the volunteer and would hand the 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:01.240 President tonight Fred. 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.360 I'm sorry, buddy, but I gotta heck your chest open. 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.200 Fred's freaking out. The Commander in Chief is forced to 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.240 then physically butcher good old Fred with his own hands 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:13.360 in order to then kill millions. 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.200 When he told this to his friends in the Pentagon, 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:23.120 they were aghast. Blood on the White House carpet. They 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:24.440 said he might never push the. 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:30.000 Button precisely, much to his dismay. Roger Fisher's fantasy was 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.360 just that earth destroying power still rests in a briefcase 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.200 that follows the president wherever they go. To me. It 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.359 makes the prospect of launching a nuclear weapon a terrifying 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:44.160 psychological dilemma. What will it really take to push a 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.839 man so far that he'd press that button, that he'd 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:53.120 prompt the end of the world. I've had helms and 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.240 This is Snafu, a podcast about history's greatest screw ups. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:59.919 In season one, we're telling the story of Avil Archer eighth, 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.640 the nineteen eighty three NATO military exercise that became a 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:09.000 snafu so gigantic, so absurd, so terrifying that it almost 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:34.680 led to a real nuclear war. In order to trace 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.000 what happened during Able Archer eighty three, we need to 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.240 get to know the players at the heart of this story. 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.200 This episode will follow the two powerful men behind the 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:48.120 proverbial big red buttons, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.640 General Secretary Uri and drop Off. There are two men 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:55.480 with political savvy, plenty of bravado, and an aptitude for 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.440 mind games. The question is would they push each other 0:03:59.520 --> 0:03:59.920 to far? 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:04.720 How do you do? 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:05.360 Everybody? 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.760 Hey, there I'd like to introduce myself, please do. My 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.920 name is Ronald Reagan. This was it where it all began. 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:15.840 It's the late thirties and a young Ronald Reagan introduces 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.920 himself to moviegoers in the trailer for his first film, 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:23.240 Love Is on the Air. Even from the beginning, he 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.640 had that incredible knack for making you feel like he 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.160 was talking right to you through the camera. 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:30.320 A few months ago, I was a sports announcer on 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:31.280 a radio station in Des. 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:35.120 Moines, Iowa. Back before he was charming political audiences with 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:37.839 his good looks and brilliant smile. Ronald Reagan was a 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:42.440 radio sports announcer in Iowa. Legend has it sometimes Reagan 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.520 would lose the feed of the game while he was 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.000 live on air, so he would just make up amazing 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.880 plays until the feed came back. But his descriptions were 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.920 so vivid audiences didn't really care whether they were hearing 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.560 about a real game or not. But Reagan knew his 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:00.080 face was too pretty for radio. He wanted Hollywood. In 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.000 nineteen thirty seven, he got the break he was looking for. 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:06.800 One day, I ran into one of these movie talent scots. 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:08.719 I think I caught him off guard. Because the next 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:10.320 thing I knew, I was taking a screen test for 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:11.560 Warner Brothers in Hollywood. 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.880 His career didn't exactly take off like a rocket, but 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.120 he was working, got some good roles in smaller films. 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:23.360 He even got to play a guy whose legs were 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.240 amputated by an angry small town doctor. Good stuff. After 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.400 a few years, it seemed like Reagan was finally headed 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.800 for the A List, until a World war inconveniently disrupted 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:35.359 his path. 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:44.480 Some bust some nineteen forty one, a date which will 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:46.320 live in infamy. 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.320 The World War two draft called up young, able bodied 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.960 American men, including the famous ones. Even Jimmy Stewart went 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.520 off to fly bombers in the war. But Ronald Well, 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.680 he left Hollywood to go nowhere. Yeah, no, he didn't 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.440 actually leave Hollywood at all. Instead of fighting the war 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.320 on the front line, he filmed propaganda and training videos 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.279 for the army at a movie studio in Culver City, California. 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:11.960 To be fair, the four or five and the ten 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.040 intersection is the closest I've ever seen to a war zone. 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:16.040 But I digress. 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:20.159 So he serves out his time. The war ends, and 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:26.000 he is very disappointed that the fighting has non fixed 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:27.440 the world. 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.200 This is journalist Seth Rosenfeld. He says that at this 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.440 point in time, Reagan's life wasn't going so well. His 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.960 relationship was falling apart, his career was faltering, and he 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.080 was looking for a new sense of purpose. 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:44.320 One night, there's a knock on his door, his home 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:49.920 nineteen forty six, and two FBI agents are standing there 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.400 and they say they have some information that he might 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:53.160 be interested in. 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.279 They came one of some findings from me on people 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:57.880 that I had dealt with and so forth. 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.360 By this time, Reagan was a vice president of the 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.440 Screen Actors Guild, and the FBI came knocking, Hey, Ronald, 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:05.839 we could use your help. 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.320 This is about spies of savagers. We're sure. As a 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.520 former military man, you know all about that. 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.240 Calling Reagan a military man was a bit much. It's 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.120 like calling doctor Pepper a member of the medical establishment. 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.360 But you know, I mean, come on, they were buttering 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:24.640 him up. The FBI thought Hollywood communists were brainwashing the 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:29.400 American public by sneaking pro communist propaganda into movies. At first, 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.120 Reagan said no thanks, He wasn't interested in what he 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.960 called red baiting. But then the FBI said. 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:36.840 We think you're going to want to hear what some 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:38.600 of these people are saying about you. 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:43.880 Basically, the Communis are talking about you behind your back. 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:45.560 Well, that got his attention. 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:48.480 And there right on his doorstep, Reagan got his shot 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.280 at patriotic glory. The FBI offered him a chance to 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.840 enlist in the world's next great conflict, the war against 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:55.720 the Communists. 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.480 After that meeting, he agreed to become an FBI and former. 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:05.800 He did provide information about colleagues and people who he 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:08.800 suspected were Unamerican in some way. 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.440 As it happens, the FBI's communist plot story was a 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:16.560 bit exaggerated. 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.240 There's really no evidence that anything like that ever happened. 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.480 Sure, there were people in Hollywood who called themselves communists, 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.720 and it's not at all surprising that some of their 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.920 politics zeeped into their work. But these weren't national traders 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:36.160 in contact with Soviet agents. There was no coordinated plot. 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:38.880 But that wasn't Reagan's takeaway. 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:43.280 I never got over realizing that I could recognize the signs. 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.400 Reagan wasn't just convinced that communists were his enemies. He 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.240 started to believe that every one of his enemies were Communists. 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:51.440 If someone was against him, it was a sign they 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.440 were a pinko for sure. And here's where things get 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:55.720 a little weirder. 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.480 Not only was Reagan reporting on somebody who he suspected 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.720 somehow might be a communist or a Communist sympathizer, but 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:05.880 he was also reporting on people he didn't like. 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:08.960 Get in an argument with Ron at a meeting, snub 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.400 and at a party, maybe write a bad review for 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:17.079 his chimpanzee movie. You just got yourself blacklisted. It wasn't 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:20.760 just Reagan. Everyone was ratting each other out. There were hearings, 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:24.160 public shamings. People were prevented from ever working in Hollywood again. 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:26.520 Some even ended up serving time in prison. 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:32.000 It did give me a real understanding of the communist menace. 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:35.840 If you asked Reagan, he was fighting the good fight. 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.800 He was an American hero. Fast forward to the mid fifties, 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.559 Reagan's acting career was sputtering a little, which meant maybe 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.319 it was time for a career change, perhaps a leap 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:49.360 from the silver screen to the political podium. Reagan versus 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.880 the Communists coming soon to a political stage near you. 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.600 I'll thank you very much. 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:04.200 A group of prominent party members came to me before 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.880 the nineteen sixty six governorace in California and claimed that 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:10.679 I was the only one who could bring the party 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:13.120 together and win the election. 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:20.400 California millionaires, we're looking for a new candidate, and they 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.720 didn't have an obvious one. But they saw him, and 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.000 they saw how he appealed to audiences. 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.080 This is Frankie Fitzgerald. She literally wrote the book on 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:31.120 Reagan and nukes. 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.640 They knew they didn't have to worry too much about 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:37.280 what he actually thought about because he was a good actor. 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:39.800 He would just he would do what people wanted him 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:40.079 to do. 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:43.560 But they kept after Still. Pretty soon Nancy and I 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.240 couldn't sleep. We thought, well, what if they're right, then 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.200 we live with ourselves if we keep saying no. 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.800 Pretty soon, the Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan was the governor 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.559 of California, with his sight set on the White House. 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:00.440 The distinguished guest here and you ladies in gentlemen who 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.760 I know are looking for a cause around which to 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:08.199 rally and which I believe we can give them. 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:12.000 Running for president in nineteen eighty, Reagan gave Americans causes 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.880 to rally around, all right, and In so doing, he 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.880 permanently altered the character of the Republican Party. 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:22.200 He didn't have much a support at that point nationally, 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.679 but he went for the South, and the South had 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:29.000 just turned Republican. 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:36.080 His opponent was Jimmy Carter, the incumbent Democrat, who was 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.000 really more of a centriest. So in order to capture votes, 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:43.400 Reagan needed to move to the right, far to the right. 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.400 His main thing was Reaganomics, tax cuts, bounced budget, trickle 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.240 down economics, all that, and in order to sell the policy, 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:52.960 he needed a villain, and you could be pretty sure 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:54.240 it wouldn't be Wall Street. 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.160 In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record. 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:02.840 She used eighty names, thirty addresses, fifteen telephone numbers to 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:07.360 collect food Stamps, social Security, veterans, benefits for four non 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:11.400 existent deceased veterans' husbands, as well as welfare. 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:13.040 Her tax free cash. 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.880 Income alone has been running one hundred and fifty thousand 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:16.600 dollars a year. 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.680 Now, this little anecdote, while tethered to an actual person, 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:24.720 is deeply embellished, and worse, Reagan is using it to 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:29.400 sell a larger myth that is complete horseshit that welfare 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.920 queens were running rampant in US society. It was racist, 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.000 and this myth has never really gone away. It's a 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.439 nasty old political trick, scaring the voters straight into the 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.400 voting booth. And when it came to the Cold War, 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.440 Ronald Reagan saw an opportunity for a new villain, one 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.440 he knew very well, the Communists. 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:52.960 So that was when Reagan began to move to the 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.240 right on national security issues. 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.719 Reagan did take a very strong life line on building 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:03.360 up US defenses. 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:05.600 That's nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis. 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.160 Reagan was hawkish in a way that alarmed not just 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.679 Democrats but many mainline Republicans. 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.400 Reagan was hawkish, but he didn't actually want to fight 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.000 a nuclear war. In the same breath that he spoke 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.000 about building more weapons, he always talked about how awful 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.400 a nuclear war would be. He said he dreamed of 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:27.640 a day with no nuclear weapons. A bit confusing, I know, 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.280 but the idea was this, in order to maintain mad 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:34.080 mutually assured destruction, the US needed to match the Soviet's 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:37.199 nuclear strength. That would be the only way to keep 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.120 us all safe. And that's what's known as peace through strength. 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:46.720 Reagan really painted himself as a person who was going 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:48.480 to be strong and who was going to stand up 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.959 to the Soviet Union in a way that Jimmy Carter 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:51.679 did not. 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:54.800 In reality, Jimmy Carter was not at all soft on 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.120 the Soviets. I mean, this is the president who pulled 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.280 the US out of the Moscow Olympics. He wouldn't even 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.920 share the beauty of rhythmic gymnastics with the Soviets. But 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.280 the truth didn't really matter. Reagan had a political story 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:11.200 to sell. The evil communists, You're threatening the American way 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:14.360 of life, and we're too weak to stop them. Hey, 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:14.920 vote for me. 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:19.240 Somewhere along the ways, a fantasy got mixed up with reality. 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.240 That is to say, if you're an actor, it does 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:23.240 to some degree. 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:27.200 Oouch, Frankie, that hurts, But I guess it's fair. I 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:29.880 still think The Hangover is a documentary, and do not 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:31.280 try to convince me otherwise. 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.000 Well, the time has come. 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:40.640 Ronald Wilson Reagan of California, a sports announcer. 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:40.960 Of film actor. 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.880 We have projected Ronald Reagan the winner. You hear the 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.120 subtle incredulity in his voice. How about a little less 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:49.359 subtle incredulity. 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:53.400 Who's President of the United States in nineteen eighty five, 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:54.880 Ronald Reagan. 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:56.920 Ronald Reagan, the actor. 0:14:57.240 --> 0:14:59.920 Suffice to say, Doc wasn't the only person who was 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.160 surprised over Moscow. The Soviets were trying to get a 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.360 read on this new Hollywood president, but they also had 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.080 their hands full with a leadership shakeup of their own. 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:25.040 Good evening. Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Communist Party leader and president, 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.000 died yesterday morning of a heart attack, but the news was. 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.640 Not in The Soviet Union. Nineteen eighty two ended with 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:34.680 the bang of a coffin. Lid Reshnev was dead and 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.560 his successor emerged from the shadows. 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.880 Yuri Andropov, former chief of the KGB or secret police, 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.000 was named chairman of the funeral committee, possibly a sign 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:46.760 that he could succeed as party leader. 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.480 When Leonid Brezhnev died at the end of nineteen eighty two, 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.920 Yuri and Dropoff, former head of the KGB, stepped up 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.920 to become the leader of the Soviet Union. Yeah, the 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.600 head of the KGB took over that KGB mm hmm 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:05.840 Russian secret beliefs Political assassinations midnight arrests, domestic surveillance, ring 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.280 a bell. So believe me when I say the news 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.800 of and Dropoff's appointment sent a chill up every spine 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:16.080 in Washington. Suddenly everyone was scrambling to learn something, anything, 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.000 about their new adversary. But the stories that were emerging 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:22.520 about and drop Off, they were all over the fucking place. 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.720 Some said he spent his youth as a boatman or 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.840 a film projectionist. Others say Stalin almost killed him in 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.920 the Soviet Purge, or that he was the mastermind behind 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:34.520 the Berlin Wall, or that he plotted the death of 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.680 the Pope. It was difficult to get a sense of him, 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.920 to figure out what was true biography and what was lore. 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.000 What people were left with were mostly just photographs. His 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.640 icy white hair was always combed back just so, the 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:51.760 thick black rim of his glasses kind of merging with 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:57.400 his wily eyebrows. His face always entirely expressionless, not giving 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.800 a damn thing away about what he's thinking. So, when 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:02.800 it comes down to it, as you might expect from 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:10.520 mkagb Man, Urian Dropov was a total mystery. 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.840 Urian Dropov is I think one of the most interesting 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:15.400 Soviet leaders. 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.280 This is Simon Miles, a Cold War historian. 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:23.600 So and Dropov was definitely a man of the system. 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:28.320 As we say, he started his career in the party 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:31.320 and he finished his career in the party. 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.200 It was actually more complicated than it sounds, because throughout 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:37.159 the middle of the twentieth century the party was constantly 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:41.080 shape shifting, as were its rules, norms, and expectations. So 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:43.280 to remain in the party's good graces for so many 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:45.440 years was a feat all its own. 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:49.119 He's a remarkable man. I read his speeches very carefully. 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:54.160 He managed always to be a centrist, whatever it meant 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.280 to be a centrist at that particular moment. A great 0:17:57.359 --> 0:17:58.679 master of political maneuver. 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.560 And Dropoff rose through the ranks of Soviet politics, slowly 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.439 gaining more and more power and eventually demonstrating a particular 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:08.520 talent for brutal policing. 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.639 You became head of the KGB in nineteen sixty seven. 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.240 This is historian Douglas Salvag who specializes in the history 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.600 of Soviet secret police and propaganda. 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:24.479 Once Andropov took over the KGB, he began to issue 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:28.560 new regulations, push for new laws, new ways to prosecute 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:32.040 people for anti Soviet agitation or propaganda. 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.200 As head of the KGB, it was like in drop 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:41.360 Off became a twisted Soviet Santa. Through his staggering surveillance network. 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.040 He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake. 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:46.440 He knows if you've been bad or good. So, holy shit, 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.399 you better be good. This was a naughty list you 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:50.720 did not want to be on. 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:55.560 He actually created a new division within the KGB responsible 0:18:55.840 --> 0:19:01.359 practically just for suppressing internal dissent. I was especially dealing 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.880 with intellectuals or people who had contacts to Western journalists 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:05.480 of the West. 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.880 One story goes that when he was hiring someone new 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.520 for his KGB office, he didn't bother to interview anyone. 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.520 One candidate said, let me tell you about myself, to 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.720 which and drop Off replied, my dear boy, what makes 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.800 you think I don't already know everything about you? Yeah, 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:25.919 the British accent's mine. I was taking creative license. I 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.359 just thought it sounded more kind of like a movie villain, 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.000 because that's kind of what he is, right, I mean, 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.560 this dude was freaking scary. All you had to do 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:36.640 was sing the wrong protest song and you'd get scooped 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:38.720 up by and drop Offs trash collectors. 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:45.160 He is having Soviet dissidents sent to statemental facilities. 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:49.800 Of course, if you're diagnosed with there's this special diagnosis 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.440 sluggish schizophrenia, it's very is even harder to get out 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:55.680 of a mental hospital than to get out of prison. 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.440 He was a perpetrator of some really horrible. 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:05.359 Things, and yet in nineteen eighty two, as he stepped 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.600 into the role of Soviet leader, rumors began floating around 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.639 about and drop Off that he loved Western art, literature, 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.119 folk music, a real renaissance man. 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.159 So at the same time as he's sending these people 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:24.240 to statemental facilities, he's happily sitting around a fireside in 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.480 the Caucasus Mountains with the head of the local Communist party, 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:32.359 singing their songs and playing them on a guitar and 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.280 roasting sausages on sticks and things like that. 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.320 There seems to be some controversy about Andropoff. There's a 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:44.280 suggestion that some of his political aids leaked through the 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.640 Western press what some are calling disinformation about his being 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.480 a closet liberal. A man who likes Western art is 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:53.280 a very urbane intellectual. What is your review of him. 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:55.480 Part of it is the complexity of the man himself. 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:59.639 I think complexity that's the best they could do on 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.840 Goods back in nineteen eighty two, throw their hands up 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.600 in the air and just kind of shrug goes the show. 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:07.640 When it comes to and drop Off, everything you learn 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.320 about him should have an asterisk and a little footnote 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:12.320 that says maybe. 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:14.359 And drop Off is ultimately a mystery in this because 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:16.359 he turns out to be an old sick man dying. 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:18.480 Oh yeah, one more thing you should know about Uri 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.359 and drop Off. When he became the leader of the 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:24.119 Soviet Union, he was practically on his deathbed from kidney failure. 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:26.440 Keep in mind, if you complained about the Soviet Union 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:28.240 too much, he'd probably have you and your family murdered. 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:30.840 But yes, he'd kill you then sing songs at your 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:34.880 funeral permission. Did not feel bad for him. So here's 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.439 where we are. In one corner, we've got Ronald Reagan, 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:40.840 newly elected American cowboy who does not keep his distaste 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.119 for the Communists on the down low, campaigned on the 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.240 promise of building more weapons. And in the other corner, 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:49.520 Yuri and drop Off, who nobody really knows anything about 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.720 except for the fact that he likes to squash dissidence 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:56.399 and he's dying of kidney failure. I'd buy a ticket 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:59.880 to this fight. That's right ed. The atmosphere is elect 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.720 We've been waiting nearly forty years to see these two 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.119 sluggers enter the ring. Who's gonna land the first punch? Well, 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:08.439 that's anyone's guess. One thing we should probably get out 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.840 of the way. This nuclear missile standoff is basically just 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:17.520 a big dick measuring contest. I'm not being crass. This 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.480 is an idea straight out of academia. A young professor 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:23.440 named Carol Kohane wrote about it in the early eighties. 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.840 She said that US defense intellectuals, the guys who literally 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:29.800 shape our nuclear policy, talked about nuclear war in a 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:35.800 way that was overtly erotic. Nations without nukes were called virgins. 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:39.760 They talked about the creamy foam of mushroom clouds. Nuclear 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:43.960