In 2015 the Intelligence Community declassified The 1983 Soviet “War Scare” — the definitive report by the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board on how and why the USSR nearly launched a preemptive nuclear strike during the NATO theater nuclear exercise ABLE ARCHER-83, held in November 1983.
For months prior to ABLE ARCHER-83, Moscow warned vociferously that deploying U.S. missiles to European NATO would result in World War III.
Washington dismissed Soviet threats as “bluster” to frighten NATO into non-deployment of these first theater nuclear missiles with range to reach Moscow. After all, Soviet SS-20 missiles posed a far greater threat to NATO.
And ABLE ARCHER-83 was routine. The only thing new was the exercise would include the new nuclear missiles.
We did not know it then, but subsequent analysis proved Moscow misconstrued ABLE ARCHER-83 as cover for a surprise nuclear attack. The USSR prepared a surprise of their own — a preemptive nuclear strike, which they very nearly launched, and almost certainly would have done so if the exercise continued another 24 hours.
