WEBVTT - 6. Redacted 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:10.560 It's the middle of Exercise Able Archer when Leonard Perutz 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:13.520 receives an NSA report that Soviet Air Force planes in 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:19.079 East Germany are on high alert, at least one squadron 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.760 is likely loaded with real nuclear warheads, and his boss 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.360 is asking him to make a decision on whether the 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:30.080 US Air Force should escalate in kind. Should we put 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:34.199 our aircraft on alert, should we prepare our nuclear weapons 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:40.360 to escalate or not to escalate? That is the question. 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:47.720 I'm at helms and this is snafu Able Archer eighty three. 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:54.720 General Perutz makes a really critical decision at this time, 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.800 but he's not making this decision based on any knowledge 0:00:58.800 --> 0:00:59.720 about what's happening. 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.600 This is Greg Elder, the chief historian of the DIA, 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.280 the Defense Intelligence Agency. Greg says, at the time that 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.760 Leonard Perudes was facing this critical decision, he didn't know 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:18.280 what was happening, not fully, he didn't know the depths 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.760 of Soviet paranoia that for years, under Operation Ryan, the 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.680 Soviets had been accumulating evidence of an imminent nuclear attack 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.720 on their proverbial tic tac toe board of Doom. 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:32.880 Seems the craziest of satires that you could ever imagine. 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.400 He didn't know the Soviets had intercepted a NATO message 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.960 approving a fictional nuclear strike upon the Soviet Union, who. 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.800 Was requesting use of twenty five nuclear weapons over. 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.680 He didn't know that Ole Gordoyevski had received a telegram 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.600 from Moscow saying that the countdown to a nuclear attack 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:55.080 might have already begun under the guise of able archer 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:56.280 and you it was. 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.680 A dramatic moment, and you Moscow was. 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.280 He didn't know that another secret agent, Rhyner Rupp, was 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:06.800 running to a phone booths to transmit an urgent message 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:10.200 via his super high tech spy calculator that NATO was 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.600 not planning to attack and that the KGB didn't believe him. 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.720 Might well have just been another form of deception. 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.000 And he didn't know that Soviet missile commanders were on alert, 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:24.640 awaiting instructions to launch. 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:27.160 Are these guys about to attack us? 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:29.040 Are they about to launch nuclear weapons? 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:34.680 Leonard Perutz knew none of this? How could he? We 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:38.800 hadn't made the podcast yet. All he knew was that 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:41.400 in East Germany, Soviet planes were on high alert and 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:44.640 at least one squadron likely had real nuclear weapons loaded 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.320 onto their aircrafts, and his boss was asking him a question. 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.280 You know, Lenny, should we heighten our alert level? 0:02:53.760 --> 0:03:01.639 To escalate or not to escalate. If Leonard Berutz does 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.520 nothing and the Soviets carry out a nuclear attack, he 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.839 will have wasted precious minutes, minutes where NATO forces could 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:13.880 have prepared some sort of defense, minutes that could save lives. 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:16.640 But if he recommends to his boss to escalate and 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.600 it turns out the Soviets weren't actually planning a nuclear strike, well, 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.360 the very active escalation could spook them. It could be 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:25.560 seen as an act of aggression. It could cause the 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.440 Soviets to do the very thing he was trying to prevent, 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:34.240 launch a nuclear weapon. Once again, to escalate or not 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:35.520 to escalate. 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:40.520 And so he recommends to his four star commander that 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:41.920 we not escalate. 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:47.280 In kind, he says, let's watch and wait. 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.680 He makes the determination that it's very possible the Soviets 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:56.880 may just be increasing their own alert and readiness level 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:00.520 because of their own concerns about our exercise and so 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:05.960 general perudes. Although making an uninformed decision in this case, 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.800 makes a thoroughly rational and what turned out to be 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:11.240 the correct decision. 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.560 In a tense moment, Leonard Perudes didn't flex one single 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:21.599 military muscle. He didn't kick the tires and light the fires. 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:26.799 He left the fires unlit and the tires unkicked. Instead, 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:29.080 he aired on the side of caution. 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.320 Here is one of those examples where a US military 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:38.320 figure actually took the less hawkish approach, so to speak, 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.120 and that ultimately helps to alleviate the situation. 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.960 So on the night of November ninth, as Soviet leaders 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.279 sat in their bunkers watching to see what the United 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:52.200 States military would do next, they saw nothing. 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.880 So that major indicator that they may have been looking 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.320 for ultimately wasn't there. 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:02.320 The next morning, the sun came up and there were 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:06.440 no mushroom clouds on the horizon, just regular clouds, big 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:07.360 floaty blops. 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.600 And so when able archers over, the Soviets wait a 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:13.560 few days and then essentially stand. 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:23.520 Down, anti climactic much. I know you came for explosions, 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.000 but hey, if there were explosions at this point in 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:28.600 the story, you'd be listening to this podcast from an 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:31.320 underground mole town living in a community that hadn't seen 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:37.960 the sun in forty years. Be grateful. Leonard Brutes fortuitously 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.839 made the decision that brought the Able Archer War scare 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.359 to a close, And the most absolutely insane part of 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.800 it is that he wasn't even aware of what he 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:50.320 was doing. The roots may have single handedly saved all 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:54.080 of humankind, and the dude has no clue exactly how 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.679 important that decision was. He was cool as a cukee. 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.960 His shift ends, he punches out, grabs a pint and 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.760 schnitzel at the pub, just another day at the office. 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:09.920 That decision made is attributed to out of misinformations, even 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:11.760 described as that of ignorance. It was the right call, 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:15.880 thank god, but it was made out of ignorance of 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:17.320 all the other things that were going on. 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.600 We not knowing that there was any major significant issue 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.240 to begin with, go about our daily business, and it 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:31.200 isn't for some time that there's a full appreciation of 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:32.719 how bad things really were. 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.839 It's November fourteenth, nineteen eighty three, three days after the 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.960 end of Able Archer. Reagan is just returning to DC 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.279 from his trip to Japan and Korea. He's exiting a 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:55.960 helicopter and walking towards a podium set up on the 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.080 White House lawn. Nancy is trailing behind him, holding the 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:00.919 hands of two small Korean children. 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:06.800 Nancy was outsight seeing or probably even shopping for souvenirs, 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:12.559 and knowing Nancy as well as I do, I wasn't 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:16.160 surprised when I came home and found that she had 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:18.040 two little Korean friends. 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.040 To be clear, these two children were being brought back 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:23.800 to the United States for medical care, not because Nancy 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:28.360 kidnapped them or something. Anyway, Reagan's in good spirits. He's 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.000 flashing his classic Hollywood smile, cracking jokes in this ten 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:34.840 minute speech. He doesn't mention the Soviet Union, and if 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.760 he has any inkling of what happened during Able Archer 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.080 a few days prior, he doesn't let. 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:44.280 On, God bless you and God bless this wonderful country. 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:49.960 Thank you, you wipe out here. 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:55.040 I translate pretty well, got eight hours sleep on the 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:55.679 boat rally. 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.400 But the truth is, in this very moment, Reagan wouldn't 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:02.760 have known much about Able Archer, even if he was 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.800 totally up to speed. US intelligence didn't know shit at 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:08.760 this point, just that over in East Germany a squadron 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.120 of planes were on high alert and they may have 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:15.880 loaded nuclear warheads. That information made it to Leonard Perut's desk. Sure, 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:18.360 but who knows if it got all the way to Reagan. 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.160 If only we could know what was in his head, 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.520 if only there was some document that was a written 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:33.760 record of his actual thoughts. November eighteenth, nineteen eighty three. 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.960 I feel the Soviets are so defense minded, so paranoid 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.840 about being attacked, that, without being in any way soft 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.800 on them, we ought to tell them no one here 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.560 has any intention of doing anything like that. What the 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:56.000 hi double hockey sticks have they got that anyone would want? Okay, 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.680 putting aside my terrible Reagan impression, he really did write that, 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.640 so something must have prompted him to ruminate on the 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:08.959 Soviet's nuclear paranoia. Nonetheless, that didn't stop what came next. 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.240 George is going on ABC right after its big nuclear 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:19.000 bomb film Sunday Night. We know it's anti nuke propaganda, 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:21.440 but we're going to take it over and say it 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:26.200 shows why we must keep on doing what we're doing. Yep. 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.079 This is when Reagan sent George Schultz on national television 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:33.280 to tell an absolutely terrified American public that our nuclear 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.800 policy was working perfectly. 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.480 The successful policy of the United States. 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:52.480 Yeah, you know what this calls for thanks Day after Lady. 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.200 The thing is, even though Able Archer is over, it 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.600 doesn't mean that we're safe. It doesn't mean the Soviets 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.439 have stopped to being afraid of a surprise nuclear attack. 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.120 Think about it. If there's a guy who keeps saying 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.720 he might literally kick your ass, and then he starts 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.160 pulling his foot back for a literal kick, and you 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.680 think this is it, He's gonna literally kick my ass, 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:14.800 but then it turns out he's just practicing for his 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.760 Rockhets audition. Well that doesn't mean that he won't still 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.400 someday take a leave of absence from the Rockets to 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.880 come back and kick you in the ass. Guys, I 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:30.640 think we have our submission for this year's Perfect Analogy Awards. Anyway, 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:36.040 the point is the Soviets were still on edge. The 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:40.280 day after George Schultz reassured a terrified American public that 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:45.840 the US nuclear policy was definitely, absolutely totally a safe bet, 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.920 the Soviets reached out with an offer. They said, we'll 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.480 destroy half of our intermediate range nuclear missiles, the ones 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:57.360 that could target Europe, if NATO will cancel the euro missiles. 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:02.079 The Reagan administration declined the offer, saying that the conditions 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:06.599 of the agreement were unacceptable, as if rubbing salt in 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:10.600 the wound. Those euro missiles were officially installed in Europe 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:16.800 mere days later in response, and drop off scheduled the 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.360 deployment of new seaborn nuclear missiles pointed at the US 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.360 and additional nukes aimed at Western Europe. 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.360 If the President doesn't even know that there's something going 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.240 on to be concerned about, that, that's a problem, that's 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:35.000 a failure that has to be addressed. 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:40.120 And yet, despite Reagan's televised message saying that the administration's 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:45.200 policy was perfect, absolutely flawless, in the background, they would 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:49.560 begin working on an extremely subtle shift in their Soviet strategy. 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.760 It wouldn't be a policy change per se. They wouldn't 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.600 cancel the euro missiles, they wouldn't stop building SDI, and 0:11:56.600 --> 0:12:01.120 they wouldn't stop being tough, but they'd be less adversarial. 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.440 They'd attempt to let the Soviets know that nobody has 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:06.319 any intention of nuking them. 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:06.840 Hugh. 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:09.640 That charmingly folksy Ivan and Anya speech. 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.560 And as they went their separate ways, maybe Anya would 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:14.320 be saying to Ivan, wasn't she nice? 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:16.000 She also teaches music. 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.240 They might even have decided they were all going to 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:20.040 get together. 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:24.840 For dinner some evening soon, but apparently Reagan didn't feel 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.360 any urgency to display this new softer side. The speech 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:32.840 was originally scheduled for just before Christmas, but Reagan delayed 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:36.640 it for nearly a month because someone very important advised 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:39.560 him to Who was it. Why don't you take a 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:43.400 guess whose advice would President of the United States Ronald 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:47.000 Reagan heed in regards to delaying the Soviet Friendship speech 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:51.320 in the weeks after almost getting nuked. The Joint chiefs 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:55.880 of Staff, Nope, The Secretary General of the UN Nope, 0:12:55.920 --> 0:13:02.200 Mother Teresa. If only it was Nancy. Reagan's astrologer, a 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:10.240 San Francisco woman named Joan Quigley. Anyway, while Reagan was 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:13.400 waiting for Joan Quigley's permission to extend an olive branch 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.880 to the Soviet Union, the US intelligence community got some 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:18.520 unwelcome news. 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.360 I think it was two or three weeks before actual 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.280 other reporting came in that started to peak his concerns. 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.680 Here's John Perutz again talking about his dad, Leonard Perutz. 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.280 According to John, on December second, nineteen eighty three. A 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.440 few weeks after Leonard made the decision to do nothing 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.840 during Able Archer, a new NSA report landed on his desk. 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:46.080 That indicated that their alert level had been much larger 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:47.040 than we had assumed. 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.960 Hey, funny story. Remember that Able Archer exercise that ended 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:56.000 with US fake nuking Thozovits Well, you're totally gonna laugh 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:59.320 at this. I mean, it's so ridiculous. But anyway, it 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:04.040 turns out the Soviets alert during Abel Archer was just 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:08.040 a tad bigger than we thought. It wasn't just a 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.680 few planes in East Germany. It was all the units 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:15.079 of the Soviet fourth Air Army. The alert was ordered 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.400 by the Chief of the Soviet Air Forces, and the 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:21.920 alert quote included preparations for immediate use of nuclear weapons 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:26.920 end quote. All right, I want to explain what this means. 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.160 This is hundreds of airplanes potentially loaded with nukes, not 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:35.120 just a squadron. We're talking potentially the end of the 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:40.520 world number of airplanes. It's a pretty big fucking difference. 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:46.120 Extraordinarily unusual in alarming events. From an intelligien standpoint. 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:50.200 Leonardprutz was, well, let's just say a little shaken by 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:50.840 this news. 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:53.840 Hmmm, wow, that would have been interesting to know at 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:54.200 the time. 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:56.680 Got to hope he wasn't drinking coffee when he read 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:58.920 that report, because he would have had the mother of 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:06.240 all spit takes. He was wondering, why the hell is 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.440 he just finding out about this now? This was information 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:13.040 that he needed weeks ago. He realized he had made 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.680 a decision that could have had catastrophic consequences with only 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.560 a tiny fraction of the picture, and even though it 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:23.400 turned out to be the right decision, he was pissed. 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.480 Leonard Perutz got on a soapbox about abel Archer. He 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:31.760 complained to any of his colleagues who would listen. 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:36.640 He wasn't certain that that the community, the intelligence community, 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:39.000 had looked closely enough to figure out how we could 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:40.840 get better from this scenario. 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.000 But nobody listened to him. They just didn't think it 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.520 was that big of a deal because even with this 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:50.400 new information, US intelligence still didn't know the full picture, 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.520 and they never would have if it wasn't for one 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:54.840 Oleg Gordievski. 0:15:56.520 --> 0:16:00.480 Do you remember meeting the British at any point during 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:02.040 abel Archer exercise? 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:06.320 I think I met them in the end of the 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:10.280 able Archer. Yes, I spoke to the to Joe Scarlets 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.000 about EVERYTHINGE Pichet experienced. 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:18.880 That's Gordievsky. After Able Archer. Sometime in November nineteen eighty three, 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:21.760 he met with his I six handler, a man with 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:26.360 a name right out of a spy novel, John Scarlet. 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:28.200 Britain's an operational officer. 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.000 Wow, Gordy, fast and loose with the compliments. All of 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:35.080 a sudden, he handed Scarlet the urgent flash telegram he 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:36.960 had just received from Moscow. 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:41.800 It said the American exercise may be preparation to a 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:45.680 sudden new play attack. When I told Joe Scarlet for 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.520 him it was important. 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:51.720 Soon word that a nuclear war scare may have just 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.080 unfolded under exercise. Able Archer landed on the desk of 0:16:55.120 --> 0:17:02.040 the Iron Lady herself, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. To her credit, 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.680 when she did hear what Gordievski had told John Scarlett, 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:08.280 she was definitely spooked. Hopefully she wasn't sipping tea at 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.080 the time, or she might have experienced the Queen mother 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:15.800 of all spit takes. See how I made a call back, 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:16.960 but I made a British. 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.760 As it illized that's was a serious so the Russians 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:26.240 are afraid of something. They're afraid of the Strategic Defense Initiative, 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.800 and they're afraid of the ideological speeches by Reagan than shoots. 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.080 In March of nineteen eighty four, Thatcher sent her ambassador 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.800 to Washington to communicate a warning to the US government. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.000 Her message was this, Reagan needs to cool it with 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.960 the nukes. The Soviets nearly started a war because of 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:52.000 this shit. The meeting apparently did not go well. The 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.480 ambassador wouldn't tell the Americans exactly who their secret source was, 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.440 so the Reagan rep said, we're gonna keep doing peace 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.719 through stre thank you very much. But fine, we'll have 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:05.560 the CIA look into your concerns about this silly little 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.200 Able Archer stuff, since you've got you old Nikas in 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:12.720 a twist about it. Now, given everything we know about 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.840 Able Archer, it's pretty damn surprising that when the CIA 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.440 did look into it, they didn't find anything at all. 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:33.080 So here we have all right, So this is implications 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:38.480 of recent Soviet military political activities, and this is the 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.760 first CIA report on what happened during the war Scan 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:43.320 and what happened during Able Archer. 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.280 You remember Nate Jones are Able Archer sleuth. The document 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:51.560 he's holding is called the SNIE, another acronym shocker. It 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:56.400 stands for Special National Intelligence Estimate. It's the CIA's response 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:00.840 to the British request to look into Able Archer. This 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.400 top secret report was written in May of nineteen eighty four. 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.479 It's about six pages long. In the document, the CIA 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.760 analysts list everything unusual they've observed the Soviet Union doing 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.480 over the past six months. They talk about the construction 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.600 of new missile sites, big military exercises, and of course 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.640 the fact that during Exercise Able Archer, the Soviets escalated 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:27.680 their nuclear readiness. But despite listing all of these concerning things. 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:32.040 Overall, our conclusion is that it wasn't very dangerous and 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:33.320 it was not a very big deal. 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.600 Hmm. You may be wondering, like me and anybody else 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:42.400 with the brain cell, how exactly is this not a 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.920 big deal? Did you watch the day after? I bet 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.320 when you're reduced to a cloud of dust drifting over 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.600 a radioactive wasteland, then you'd call it a big deal. 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.440 There's only one paragraph that details the Soviet military reaction, 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.760 specifically to Able Archer, about those planes in East Germany 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.879 and Poland going on high alert. So how did the 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:06.840 CIA explain it. 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.800 The theory is that the Soviets are doing a massive 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.920 propaganda campaign to trick the West into thinking that they're 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.600 very scared of a preemptive nuclear strike, but that they 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:19.520 weren't really scared. 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:22.200 Ah. 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.320 Yes, of course, more mind games and the age of 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:27.960 nuclear weapons love that for us. 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.879 The thinking goes that this campaign was to make the 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:36.359 West stop deploying the new missiles to Europe. Is the 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:40.920 reason for the campaign. That's what some people believed. 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:43.439 You can tell what Nate makes of this theory, but 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.359 it wasn't altogether implausible. The idea was if the Soviet 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.320 leaders were very public about their fear of nuclear war 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:54.200 with the United States, then American and European citizens would 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.720 freak out. They would call on NATO to take the 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.840 Persian two and Cruise missiles out of Europe, and that 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:05.200 would be a win for the Soviets, some successful mind fuckery. 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:09.760 The SNIE report is confident in this propaganda theory. They 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:13.320 don't waiver. They even say, and I quote, we cannot 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:15.639 at this point conduct a detailed examination of how the 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.879 Soviets perceived recent NATO military activities. But even so, we 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:23.080 are confident the Soviets do not fear a military clash 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:23.880 with the United. 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:28.520 States, so I think they might be writing to a conclusion. 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:32.200 So the conclusion is that there's no real danger. Reagan's 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.760 policy is working, putting more nuclear weapons into Europe is 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:40.119 a good idea, and the Soviet reaction to able Archer 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:44.040 and the broader war scare can't be real. So therefore 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:45.760 it's just propaganda. 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.000 Now this report, it's talking about what the CIA has 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:55.119 seen the Soviet military do. It doesn't cite Gordievski's account 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.800 of the KGB flash telegram that he says he received, 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:02.120 and apparently that's because the CIA doesn't know exactly who 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:07.280 Gordievski is. Six can't just say, yeah, we got a 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:09.920 guy on the inside. His name is Oleg. He wears 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:13.080 a fake go tee and a wig, because there was 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:17.040 always the chance that Oleg's double agent super secret status 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:20.280 could get back to Russia if the CIA had a 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:28.359 mole oo foreshadowing. So the CIA doesn't consider Gordievsky's story 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:32.600 when they write the SNIE. Maybe they thought the source 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:35.200 was a plant. Maybe they thought he was just another 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:38.720 victim of the Soviet leader's propaganda or and this is 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:41.480 the explanation that involves the least amount of tinker tailor 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.480 shadow game hall of Mirror thinking maybe they knew that 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:52.040 his story made them look really, really bad. And I 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:55.080 only say that because of what happens next. After the 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:57.439 CIA writes this report, they need to share it with 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:01.040 their NATO allies since they all participated Enable Archer together. 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.399 Nate found this version of the report filed in the 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:10.080 State Department archives. So there are two versions of this. 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:13.160 There's the version the CIA initially put out, and then 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:17.320 I foia the State Department and got its version, and 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:19.280 its version is pretty interesting. 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:22.560 Nate knew there was a small chance that the State 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:26.679 Department's version of this document would be slightly different. Maybe 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:30.480 there'd be fewer redactions, or maybe there'd be some other 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:38.040 able Archer clue. When Nate received the State Department's version 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:41.639 of the SNIE, he ripped the envelope open. He quickly 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:45.040 scanned through the document and was shocked not at what 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:48.360 he found but what he didn't find. 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:51.440 But in this version that they shared with their allies, 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:53.879 they cut out all mention of able Archer and so 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:57.200 if you compare it too, you see where the CIA 0:23:57.320 --> 0:23:59.880 version talks about Able Archer. The version of the State 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:04.399 Department shared with the British and NATO allies just cutting 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:06.679 out and deleting the most dangerous part of the war, 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:07.600 scare Able Archer. 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:12.160 The side by side comparison is pretty wild. Word for word, 0:24:12.200 --> 0:24:15.640 the entire document is exactly the same until you get 0:24:15.640 --> 0:24:19.320 to the paragraph about Able Archer in the State Department version. 0:24:19.680 --> 0:24:22.919 It's just gone erased. 0:24:22.880 --> 0:24:25.200 It Actually, it comes across as kind of absurd. 0:24:26.160 --> 0:24:28.600 Absurd is a good word here. Let's break this down. 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:31.639 The British asked the CIA to check out Able Archer. 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:35.520 The CIA finds evidence of a Soviet military reaction to 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:39.040 Able Archer, but decides not to share it, going as 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:42.040 far as scrubbing all mention of Able Archer in the 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:45.520 report they give back to the British. That's not just absurd, 0:24:45.880 --> 0:24:50.720 that's weird. And the obvious question becomes, why did they 0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:51.200 do that? 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:54.719 Well, I think to control the narrative, so to speak. 0:24:54.800 --> 0:24:57.920 I think every author had their own point of view 0:24:57.920 --> 0:24:59.639 that they wanted to convey, and they probably thought it 0:24:59.640 --> 0:25:02.080 was true, and they took the facts that they had 0:25:02.119 --> 0:25:06.440 from their intelligence and twisted the conclusions about the facts 0:25:06.480 --> 0:25:08.240 to advocate what they wanted. 0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:21.800