WEBVTT - RERELEASE: S1E1: Not All Fun and WarGames 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:07.200 Hello again, everybody ed here, and I'm really excited about 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:09.000 what I'm going to share with you today. It's the 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:13.440 first ever episode of the very first season of SNAFU. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:18.200 I will never forget calling up wargames star Matthew Broderick 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:20.680 for that first episode to ask if he had ever 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:24.960 heard of the NATO military exercise Able Archer eighty three, 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:28.160 And now I ask have you ever heard of it? 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:30.840 If you're a new fan of SNAFU and you've never 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.839 listened to our beloved season one, then stick around for 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:39.920 a tale of nuclear dread, traitorous spies, and a wargame 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:44.760 gone horribly wrong. It was the closest we ever actually 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.120 came to a nuclear war since the Cuban missile crisis, 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.120 and it's a story that really echoes in the present moment, 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:55.840 especially with the rising international tensions around who has nuclear 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.640 arms right now and who doesn't. We'll be sharing the 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.960 second episode next week, along with all the episodes on 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:04.280 YouTube for the first time ever, but you can also 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:06.800 go back and listen to the audio on any podcast app. 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.080 Be sure to let us know what you think if 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:11.400 you check it out. I'm always so excited to know 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.720 kind of what the listeners are thinking and feeling about stuff. Now, This, 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.560 of course is our very first season and it's very 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:20.600 near and dear to my heart. I'm insanely proud of it, 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.320 so check it out here. Is not all fun and 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:29.880 war games. Did you ever watch a movie as a 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:36.280 kid and convince yourself that it was real, that its 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:40.640 outlandish premise could possibly come true? I know I did, 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:46.720 and for me, one of those movies was war Games. 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.640 Great to meet you, Great to meet you too. I'm 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:55.760 ed by the way. Yeah, that's Matthew Broadrick. He's a 0:01:55.840 --> 0:02:00.720 national treasure and also the star of Wargames about an 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:05.279 almost accidental nuclear war that I watched maybe one hundred 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:07.960 times as a kid, came out in nineteen eighty three, 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:10.200 and it was Matthew's breakout role. 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:12.440 The fact that I had gotten the lead of a 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:17.520 you know, studio movie was incredible, Yeah, absolutely incredible. 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:20.880 His character was a hacker, a tech genius. 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:26.680 David Lightman was a moister at computer games. 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:30.119 And Matthew was great in it. I mean, obviously right, 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:31.280 he's an incredible actor. 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.120 But wait now do I adjust my volume? Can you 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:35.280 speak you guys? 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:35.560 Yeah? 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.600 Talking talking talking? 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.520 Say gee, I'm nodding because I want to now pretend 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.639 that it's working. Okay, yeah, so it's perfect. 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:48.239 Matthew Broderick is clearly not a tech genius in real life, 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.240 but that's just further proof what a great actor he is. 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.240 So in War Games, teenage hacker David Lightman tries to 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.839 impress a girl at school, Jennifer, played by another eighties icon, 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.320 Ali Sheety. Along the way, he accidentally hacks into a 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.760 supercomputer that the US is using to game out World 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.440 War three scenarios, hence wargames. 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.799 How about global nuclear. 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.639 It gets misinterpreted as a real nuclear attack and almost 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.560 starts World War three launch detection. We have a launch 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:24.440 Detections assign. 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:24.960 This is. 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.200 Terrifying. Yeah, I am not charmed by that. I am 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:35.120 terrified by that. When I was nine years old, wargames 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.080 really captured my imagination in the sense that I became 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:44.960 utterly convinced it was real. I even had a breakdown 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:48.440 at summer camp because of it. All the other kids 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.520 were having a grand old time. Meanwhile, I was just 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.160 terrified that at any moment we'd all die in a 0:03:54.200 --> 0:04:00.000 fiery nuclear armageddon. Yeah, I guess I was a bit 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:01.839 of a wet blanket while everyone else was just trying 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:06.560 to get pumped up for s'mores. So why am I 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:09.960 talking to Matthew Broderick about wargames? After all, it's just 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:14.360 a movie, an outlandish premise, a fantasy. Right, Eventually we 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.840 all grow up and realize that movies aren't real. There 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:28.000 are no accidental nuclear wars. Right. Well, my friends, imagine 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.640 my surprise when I learned that the premise of Wargames 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:38.680 was fucking real. Yeah, it came true only months after 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.760 the movie's release. That's right. As it turns out, in 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:46.800 nineteen eighty three, a real life military exercise, a wargame, 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:52.480 almost started an actual nuclear war, just like wargames. This 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:55.599 exercise that almost ended at all. It goes by the 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:59.680 code name Able Archer eighty three. And that's what this 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:01.480 show oh is about. 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:06.320 Wow, that's an amazing story. 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:10.279 I I'm surprised. I don't know about that, but I 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:11.719 don't think I do know about it. 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:13.880 Too bad they don't give out an OSCAR for best 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:18.000 nuclear war prediction. The Wargames screenwriters would have been a 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:21.960 shoe in. It's like kind of a perfect screenplay. I 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:26.359 don't think they were too far off when I first 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:29.200 heard the story of Abel Archer eighty three. Let's just 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:33.919 say my childhood fears were instantly validated. Thinking back on 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:36.520 that moment at summer camp, paralyzed by the fear that 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.680 the outlandish plot of war games would come true, camp 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.960 counselors hovering around me, trying to console me, saying, come on, dude, 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.920 it's just a movie. Let's go canoeing. Everything's gonna be fine. Well, 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:51.040 looking back, I realize now it was not fine. It 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:55.240 was so incredibly not fine. They were wrong and I 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:57.920 was right. I'd just like to say, on behalf of 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:03.280 nine year old me, I fucking so who? That felt good, 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:08.839 but vindication aside, Learning this story still leaves me a 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:15.240 little unnerved, maybe even alarmed, because if a military exercise 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.640 almost caused a nuclear war in nineteen eighty three and 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:24.720 nobody knew about it, what a complete and utter snaffoo. 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.280 Snaffoo is a military term first used by soldiers in 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.360 World War Two. It's an acronym snaffoo. It stands for 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:39.680 situation normal, all fucked up, meaning this is so fucked up? 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:44.479 But then again, isn't it always? That's what this show 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:48.280 is about. The gas, the disasters history's greatest screw ups. 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.320 This season the story of Able Archer eighty three. It's 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:56.719 the ultimate Cold War mystery, a stew of espionage, paranoia, 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:02.240 shady politics, and dangerous miscalculation. Oh and a lot of 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:06.239 mind games. Put on your hazmat suits, listeners. I'm at Elms, 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:25.360 your host, and this is Snafu Able Archer eighty three. 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.200 It's just this whole game of deception and count deception. 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.240 Who can you trust? He's preparing a sudden. 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.119 I heard a young father saying, I love my little 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:46.240 girls more than anything, and I would rather see my 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:50.400 little girls die now than have them grow up under communism. 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.320 Really, for the first time in my life, I felt 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:55.560 like there could be nuclear warship. 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.200 It wasn't a question of would it happen, It was 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:00.080 a question of when was it going to happen. If 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:02.840 we were preparing to fight barmageddon, if that's. 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.360 What we're told, that's what we believed, we were trained 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:06.760 to fight the end of the world. 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.400 It was a week just like every other week. Abel 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.520 Archer eighty three was not anything out of the ordinary. 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.240 This is Jean Gay. He was a participant in the 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.760 nineteen eighty three Able Archer wargamejan Like a lot of 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:29.760 men who participated in Able Archer that year recall it 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.160 the same way, which is to say, they don't really 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:33.240 recall much at all. 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.760 Nothing to me from that exercise at the time. You know, 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:38.840 jumped out. 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:42.480 That's Colonel Spike Calendar and he says the same thing. Nope, 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.520 nothing of note to these men. That week in early 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.360 November nineteen eighty three was just a week like any 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.559 other week, just another week of standard military exercises, practicing 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:57.240 how to fight the end of the world as one does. 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.440 The whole purpose of Able Archer was the emphasis on 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:04.280 the practice of the nuclear weapons release for caizures. 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.240 Able Archer was a NATO exercise in November of nineteen 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:11.080 eighty three. The Able Archer players sat in a bunker 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.720 in Belgium practicing how if it came to it, they'd 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.880 fight a nuclear war against the Soviet Union. It's like 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.400 a soccer team doing drills, but instead of training for 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:25.000 a game, they're training for armageddon, which, like a soccer game, 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.480 you can't use your hands because they got blown off. 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.240 The whole idea was if you ever had to do it, 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:34.360 you know you didn't want to do it. For the 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:34.920 first time. 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:38.280 When Spike says do it, he's referring to the task 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:42.360 of launching planet destroying weapons. It's an example of how 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:47.000 military professionals are weirdly cavalier when they're talking about their work. 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.600 It's kind of shocking how something so gnarly can sound 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:52.400 so routine. 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.520 How do you look at what the requirements truly are, 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.240 you know, for those weapons systems and the numbers of them. 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:00.560 So it would be a matter of being accounting and 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.439 in some respects if you have a Soviet division, what 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:08.000 is the number of weapons that might be required to 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:11.920 reduce the effectiveness of that division to where it was 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:13.480 no longer military capable? 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:18.640 See what I mean? My point is this, to men 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.880 like Gene and Spike, there was nothing exceptional about gaming 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.320 out of fictional war during Able Larger, it was routine. 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.320 But a few decades later, Gene and Spike would learn 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.960 that Able Archer eighty three was anything but routine. 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:39.320 I was in my own little world. I hate to 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:41.840 use the word oblivious, but I've used that word before. 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.800 It was many years later that I found out about 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:48.080 it that anything other than the exercise took place in 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.080 the real world situation that occurred at during that time. 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:53.320 I was not aware of that until years afterwards. 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:58.040 Yeah, I never heard of anything more about this exercise 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:00.959 until what twenty or twenty five years later. 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:06.520 What Gene and Spike would come to learn is that 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:08.920 while they were sitting in their bunker back in nineteen 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.200 eighty three rehearsing the end of the World missiles to 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:17.520 strike targets and Moscow, the Soviets were listening, and they 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.960 seemed to be convinced it was not a rehearsal at all. 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.800 Soviet missile commanders were placed on high alert. Soviet leaders 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.960 retreated to their bunkers, fingers hovering over the proverbial big 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:35.920 red button, and NATO had no idea. I mean, it 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:37.160 is a miracle. 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:41.920 We did not all die like it's just goofy. 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:44.679 This is Jeffrey Lewis. He's an expert on nuclear history 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.559 and geopolitics, and he finds the whole story of Able Archer, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.440 what he calls the War Scare to be sort of funny. 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.599 Almost all of the war scare is totally self inflicted, 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.000 which makes it like really darkly comic. 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.720 I have to agree, there's an old saying that tragedy 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.520 plus time equals comedy. Well, if that's true, then a 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:06.000 story about a nuclear near miss plus about forty years 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.720 should be fucking hilarious. 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:10.840 Because if you step back, it sounds crazy, right, It 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.320 sounds crazy that we could have had a serious nuclear 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:14.840 crisis that nobody knew about. 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:19.200 Like, that's nuts. It is nuts, Jeffrey, because it's not 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.920 just that able Archer participants like Gene and Spike didn't 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.800 know that a nuclear crisis was unfolding under their noses. 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:31.120 No one knew. Let that sink in for a second. 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:35.160 If it's possible that a nuclear crisis could unfold right 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:39.000 under our noses, that we were in danger without knowing it, 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:44.640 does that mean it's still possible? All right, let's set 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.439 the stage a little bit. It's the nineteen eighties. There 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:51.880 was certainly a general and very pervasive anxiety about nuclear weapons. 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.120 Pretty Much everywhere you looked, you'd find nuclear paranoia. It 0:12:55.160 --> 0:13:01.480 wasn't just wargames, it was all over pop culture. This 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.680 delightful little number is ninety nine Loft Balloons by Nina. 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.640 It's about one hundred red balloons accidentally inciting a nuclear war. 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:12.880 Kind of heavy for a kitchy pop hit. The nineteen 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:18.000 eighty three Bond film had a nuclear plot. Doctor Seuss 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:18.840 was feeling the heat. 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.240 This bomb on the zeokes just as fast as you can. 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:24.280 Even Sting chimed in. 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:26.400 Love that. 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.840 Personally, I love that song, and I just love that 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.040 Sting threw his hat right in the middle of an 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:39.400 international conflict. Anyway, when it comes to examples of nuclear 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.280 anxiety in nineteen eighty three pop culture, there's actually one 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.760 that stands above all the rest. It was just a 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.800 made for TV movie, but it became a cultural event 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.640 and it would actually play a role in our Cold 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:55.400 War mystery. 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.360 It was a movie like no other movie, and it 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.400 had a profound impact on New York that story. 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.560 Next, we'll hear from people who like you watch the 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.840 Ultimate Disaster movie the day after, a movie that would 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.760 scare the living shit out of America. More than seven 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.000 hundred people packed Riverside Church. 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:17.520 Tonight to watch the day after. Many said they came 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.000 here because they were afraid to watch it alone. 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.200 Everyone, and by everyone, I mean ae hundred million people, 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.920 almost half the US population at the time, gathered around 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.120 their TVs on the evening of November twentieth, nineteen eighty three, 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.000 and tuned into ABC to watch. 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.840 It before the movie begins. 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:39.960 I would like to caution parents about the graphic depiction 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:43.360 of nuclear explosions and then devastating effects in a moment. 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.400 One day after that, gather around, kids, Time to fill 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:51.840 your innocent little heads with deep, reverberating drama past the popcorn. 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:56.520 I tried to do my part in making people keenly 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.600 aware of what the real consequences would be. 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.600 This is Ed Hume, he wrote the day after. The 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:05.760 film is set at the border of Kansas and Missouri. 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:09.400 That's where the US nuclear missile silos are. The main 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.840 characters are average townspeople in the American heartland. 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.480 A bunch of people living in the Midwest doing ordinary things. 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:19.760 At first, the whole nuclear war thing isn't really front 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.440 and center. It just kind of lurks in the periphery. 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.520 But even as it creeps in, the characters can't accept 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:26.960 their fate. What was it. 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.600 There's one scene where a woman is so in denial 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.000 that she's running around making beds as they know that 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:35.520 missiles are being launched. 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.360 Don't bother with the bed just now, even we've got 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:39.320 to get down below. 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:41.640 Listen, those missiles are all gone off. 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.640 Oh my gosh, wow, she really wants to make those beds. 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:56.760 And then it happens. 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:06.920 It happens, the heartland is evapor The rest of the 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:11.200 film is stomach churning. To put it lightly, it showed 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.880 what a nuclear war would actually look like, flashes of light, 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:20.800 lives instantaneously incinerated. But the whole explosion part isn't the 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.280 worst of it because you get to see what happens 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:29.040 the day after nuclear fallout, radiation, poisoning, blistering skin and 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:34.320 dying organs, piles of bodies and rubble looting, hoarding, and 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.880 everyday Americans turning on each other. I mean, all jokes aside, 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:39.800 this is grim fucking stuff. 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:45.320 The General Pavla, they were pardon my language, but they 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:46.360 were scared shutless. 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.200 I for one, felt that it was just devastating. Like 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.000 every horror story you've ever read roamed into one story. 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.120 We got a glimpse of what is really a stake 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:58.040 in a nuclear war. 0:16:58.440 --> 0:16:59.280 I just want to go. 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.080 I went to last and not have to live and start. 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:07.560 All over again. Okay, didn't heed the parental advisory. This 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:17.800 is how that clip makes me feel. Okay, So yeah, 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:21.280 in nineteen eighty three, there was a general sense of 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.840 nuclear doom. Hell, it's why I had a mental breakdown 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.040 at summer camp. But we didn't know that there was 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.679 a specific crisis to be afraid of. We didn't know 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.080 that we might have almost had a nuclear war during 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:39.880 NATO's annual able Archer exercise. So then the question becomes why. 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:44.320 Not there is and you probably need it. About now, 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.320 there is some good news. 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.800 This is Ted Copple from Nightline. He's hosting a live 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.359 panel about the day after right after the movie aired. 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:54.719 If you can take a quick look out the window, 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:56.160 it's all still there. 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:03.160 Wow. Deeply reassuring Ted. Anyway, Celebrity scientist Carl Sagan was there, 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.320 telling an already nauseous audience that he thought the film's 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.640 portrayal of nuclear war was actually not as bad as 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.320 it would be if it really happened. H boy Henry 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.199 Kissinger was there too, probably talking about feasting on the 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:20.399 souls of innocent children or something, but before the panel began. 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.800 Joining us live from his home in suburban Washington is 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.040 the Secretary of State mister George Schultz. 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:30.480 Ted Copple brings out US Secretary of State George Schultz, 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.680 President Reagan's right hand man. He was a serious man, 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.920 loyal to the president, famously bragged about enjoying staring contests 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:43.520 with the Soviets, waiting for them to blink, comforting and so. 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.800 Mere minutes after the American public watched this horrifying film, 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.600 hearts still in their stomachs. The man who would be 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.840 standing next to the button pusher in chief answers the 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.800 burning question at the front of every viewer's mind. 0:18:57.440 --> 0:18:59.800 The future as we've just viewed it tonight. Is that 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.080 the future as it will be, or only the future 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:02.680 as it may be? 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:10.879 Neither that is not the future at all. The film 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:15.359 is a vivid and dramatic portrayal of the fact that 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:19.320 nuclear war is simply not acceptable, and that fact and 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.320 the realization of it has been the policy of the 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.960 United States for decades now, the successful policy of the 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:27.800 United States. 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:34.200 If you watch the clip, George Schultz is shifty as hell. 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:36.879 His eyes keep flickering just to the right of the 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.720 camera and then back again, like he's reading Q cards. 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:45.680 He looks scared. Ted Season's journalist that he is smells 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:50.399 a little bullshit, He presses George. 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:52.880 Mister Schultz, that is the answer of a Secretary of State, 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.080 to a reporter. And that's fair enough, because that's what 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:59.160 you and I, respectively are. But what would a George 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:01.160 Schultz who was talking to a member of his family 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.120 say in response to the same question, same answer. 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:05.800 Well, I would give the same answer. 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:08.840 I'll tell you why I think George is nervous. It's 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:12.560 because eleven days before this interview Abel Archer eighty three 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:17.440 could have caused a nuclear war. A man in Schultz's 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.399 position would have known about that, right. Surely he was 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:22.560 shitting his slacks for the past eleven days trying to 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:26.280 figure out how such a colossal fuck up could have happened. 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.600 Now would be a great time to come clean, to say, yeah, 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:33.960 we're gonna shake things up with our nuclear policy, because 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:39.480 the movie's right, this is scary shit. And yet, after 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:43.800 watching the day after George Schultz, Secretary of State assures 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.840 the American public that the administration's status quo is effective 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:53.120 in preventing nuclear war. In eleven days after a nuclear. 0:20:52.720 --> 0:21:05.680 War scare, it's a very different kind of crisis because 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:08.400 it's so clumsy. 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:10.080 Here's Jeffrey Lewis again. 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:13.040 You know this is more like two drunks in a 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:18.320 bar circling one another. And it's not so much that 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:21.719 anybody would deliberately choose to start the war. It's just 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:23.960 that things would spiral out of control. 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.280 The two drunks here are, of course, the United States 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:31.679 and the Soviet Union their drink bombs. And I'm not 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.760 talking Jaeger. Here's the part of the show where I 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:36.800 give you a crash course on the Cold War. Get 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:40.200 out your pencils, kids, Welcome to Arms Race one oh one. 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:46.399 An atom bomb destroys or injures in three ways by blast, heat, 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:47.560 and radioactivity. 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:50.920 The og atomic bomb was invented by the Americans in 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:54.960 the forties, you know, the one Hiroshima, Nagasaki. It only 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:57.680 took the Soviets five years to figure it out for themselves, 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:00.080 and once they had the bomb too, it began and 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.639 a decade's long race for bigger and better death machines. 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:07.240 The fun thing about the Cold War is that there 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:12.840 were a huge variety of nuclear weapons and nuclear yields. 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:15.440 Jeffrey and I have very different definitions of fun. 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:17.760 So pretty soon after the end of World War II, 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:22.359 the United States developed a much more powerful nuclear weapon 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.359 than even the city destroyers that we saw dropped on 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:29.080 Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and these were called thermon nuclear weapons. 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:32.480 This is the early fifties. A thermonuclear weapon uses the 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.960 radiation from the initial blast to ignite an even bigger blast, 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.200 a bomb within a bomb. The result is a warhead 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.000 that's about the same size as the atom bomb, but 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:46.719 way more destructive, like a million tons of explosive power 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:50.760 instead of ten thousand. In other words, it was economical 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.960 a bigger catastrophe for a smaller cost. You can't argue 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:55.919 with savings like that. 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:00.399 Once the United States, followed by other countries, developed their 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:04.119 nuclear weapons, there was no limit to how large a 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:08.080 nuclear weapon one could make. The phrase that came to 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:11.840 be used about the amount of nuclear destructive power was overkill, 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:14.720 because each side was worried that the other side would 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:16.840 strike them first, so they needed to have backups and 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:21.200 redundancy and more than you needed. And so in practice 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:25.480 what that led to was each side having the capacity 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:29.320 to destroy the other many, many times over, to make 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:32.800 the rubble bounce. In one particular phrase. 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:35.840 Back in the sixties, the US had enough nuclear weapons 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:39.639 to destroy the Soviet Union fifty times over, you know, 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:42.800 just in case some little cockroach escaped. The first forty 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:47.080 nine blasts, which set the table quite nicely for this 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:52.200 good evening, my fellow citizens. That's John F. Kennedy back 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:54.720 in nineteen sixty two telling the world in a televised 0:23:54.720 --> 0:23:57.679 speech from the White House that a nuclear crisis was 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:02.159 unfolding in Cuba. US biplanes had discovered that the Soviet 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:05.680 Union was building nuclear missile sites on the Caribbean island nation, 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:08.480 a little too close to the United States for comfort. 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:12.400 The purpose of these bases can be none other than 0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:16.880 to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere. 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:19.919 The US Navy set up a blockade, trying to prevent 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:23.320 any Soviet ships from bringing their nukes anywhere near the island. 0:24:24.000 --> 0:24:27.800 The Soviet ships approached the blockade nuclear weapons in tow. 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:33.240 It was a full fledged nuclear standoff. The news coverage 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:36.119 of the Cuban missile crisis was impossible to ignore. A 0:24:36.240 --> 0:24:41.520 major world event became television drama. For thirteen days, Americans 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:46.680