The year of living dangerously: 1983

[Reece]

Certainly an eye opener, amazing how it can boil down to a decision of just one man, and if that person was not of sound mind...

A good read Skybird.

Originally Posted by Reece

amazing how it can boil down to a decision of just one man, and if that person was not of sound mind...

A common misconception....the two man rule goes all the way to the top.

The president, or his legal successor, and the Secratary of Defense or his legal successor must be in agreement to initiate the use of 'special weapons'.

[Reece]

Originally Posted by The Third Man

A common misconception....the two man rule goes all the way to the top.

The president, or his legal successor, and the Secratary of Defense or his legal successor must be in agreement to initiate the use of 'special weapons'.

What about other countries though, China, future DPRK?

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by The Third Man

A common misconception....the two man rule goes all the way to the top.

The president, or his legal successor, and the Secratary of Defense or his legal successor must be in agreement to initiate the use of 'special weapons'.

In the Soviet Union it was a three man rule. At least in the silos, two Rokeshki (SP?) and a Zampolit.

I think at the upper end it requires the President (General Secretary in Soviet days), Defense Minister, and Chief of the General Staff.

Since the OP article only dealt with one country I will only speak to that. And the misconception that only the president can initiate nuclear war. That isn't entirely accurate. That was my point.

Certainly other nations have controls.

[breadcatcher101]

That was a great find, Skybird.

It explains why the airliner was shot down as well as Reagan's trip to CA. I had no idea of our military being in those areas as I am sure many did not.

I have always believed that if war would come between the US and USSR, the day, so to speak, it would be because of some sort of malfunction or of some crazed cowboy's actions.

Both countries know the capabilities of the other and with logic would not launch a strike, known as MAD.

It also shows the importance of having the human element in there as well and to not rely on the machines alone.

Way back there was a movie and book about something like this called "Fail Safe". It showed the fault of total automation and what it could--and did lead to.

After reading your post the year 1984 now has even more special meaning to me.

[Skybird]

All that stuff is not really new, with two exceptions: the deep Northern penetration of nthe NATO armada and the simulated attack on Murmansk in 1981, and the wide scale to which Soviet preparation for a nuclear war had come in 1983. But Able Archer, the Soviet reaction called RYAN, and all the other stuff, is nothing all new for historians.

The CIA's chief historian said that Soviet Lieutenant-Colonel who during the Montana "missile launch" decided not to press the button, to him and many of his American and British colleagues is a true hero. Note that the nColonel already had been given green light from the top in the Kreml to con tinue according to the plans and the system'S preplanned stages. Everybody in the Kreml was sure that the Americans were striking. A 2-man-rule at the top w no longer applied, the system was no longer safe, but hot. The tragic anbd perverse note here is that after he had saved the world and mankind, the Colonel nevertheless received disciplinary punishment for having ignored orders and having decided independently. They called it insubordination.

Wikipedia lists m ost of the story,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83

but the docu yesterday just opened my eyes to how close it was. Wiki gets it right, but still leaves it all looking tame and relatively harmless. The huge almost-hot confrontation between Americans and Soviets first at the North Cape and two years later in the West Pacific, do not get mentioned or correctly covered.

I rememeber 1983. I was at school, life was easy and everything was gay. Strange to now learn that in those weeks and months when nobody of us was aware of anything happening and just lived his life, the world has been that very very close to the abyss. A single man'S insubordination, and just some minutes - that's all what saved us.

[breadcatcher101]

I was wondering what happened to the officer who failed to push the button and you answered the question for me, written up for saving the world.

In 1983 I was with the DOD, Dept. of Defense in LA. All of us were pretty hip on things that were happening at that time. We had heard that a US warplane had shadowed the airliner just before it was shot down and assumed that the Russians had thought it was one of our planes. It is news to me of the massive force we had in that area though. At that time my position was in aerospace applications and although the test area I was in was shared by the navy none of us caught on to all you posted.

I do recall how strange it was that everyone was covering Reagan in CA like they were with everything else going on. Like "Big deal, what is so special about him being on his ranch of all things?"

He must have downed quite a bit of jelly beans during that time. It was around then too, maybe earlier that in joking around he said into a mic which he thought wasn't on that we would began bombing in 30 minutes.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Reece

Certainly an eye opener, amazing how it can boil down to a decision of just one man, and if that person was not of sound mind...

A good read Skybird.

+1 I still think about the book "October Fury" with the Cuban Missle Crisis and how close we came to shooting there.

Basically, the Soviet subs were armed with 1 nuke torp and they were authorised to use it if they were attacked. They came very close to launching and the captain backed down at the last minute.

[nikimcbee]

"This book is a very detailed account of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as told by both the Russian submariners tasked to get through to Cuba and the American destroyers bent on stopping them. In 1962, the decision was made to station both land-based nuclear missiles and nuclear-armed bomber, as well as SSB submarines armed with nuclear missiles in Cuba. The land-based portion, dubbed Operation Anadyr, would use cargo ships to deploy the land based missiles, bomber and troops. The Naval operation, Kama, was to be initiated by four Soviet Project 641 Foxtrot diesel attack submarines, sailing from the Kola peninsula bound for Cuba. These would act as an advanced guard, to be followed by seven Project 629 Golf class ballistic missile submarines, each carrying three nuclear-tipped missiles. The plan was for these submarines to be based out of Cuba, where they could threaten the southern U.S. Just prior to departure, each of the Foxtrot submarines received, in addition to their normal torpedo loads, one 10 kiloton T-5 nuclear torpedo. Admiral Gorshkov's orders were; "You will use these weapons if American forces attack you submerged or force your units to the surface and the attack...." The fate of the world was thereby placed in the hands of four Russian submarine commanders. The book skillfully weaves the ensuing tale, alternating the Soviet submariner's stories with the American destroyer's ASW pursuits as the crisis progresses. A showdown in which USS Blandy drops small charges to force one of the submarines, B-130, to surface, leads to frustration for the submarine captain. He therefore orders loading and flooding, in preparation for firing, of the torpedo tube with the T-5 nuclear warhead. Fortunately, cooler heads prevail upon the captain to back down. Although overall a good read, I had a few minor quibbles. The author uses interviews to reconstruct conversations, and the places them in quotes. In fact it is highly unlikely that those represent the actual words spoken, as quotes imply. He also has two Russian attaches taking the train to Boston in order to observe the submarines at the New London sub base when the train stops in New London. In fact, Electric Boat is visible across the river, but the submarine base and piers are not at all visible from the train. The closest approach of the train is on the bridge over the Thames River, still some distance, with the sub base some 3 miles away. Nonetheless, this book lends new insights into just how close the world really came to disaster during that alarming time in history. The author was on board one of the American destroyers, USS Blandy, assigned to the USS Essex task force group, and thus tells tale that from a first hand perspective. Thomas J. Dougherty
"I bought this book because I was offended by the hype on the dust cover, which presented it as another Kennedy Court History in which the Cuban Missile Crisis is made to sound even more scary than it really was. It was a pleasant surprise to read a balanced account of Soviet submarine operations during the Crisis, which refutes many of the exaggerated claims still being made about the possibility of unauthorized use of tactical nukes. We learn that Soviet nuclear torpedoes were escorted by armed KGB officers who actually slept on top of the weapons, and the Rules of Engagement were so onerous that a sub would have to be actually sinking before one could be fired. Just to be safe, the sub crews were given no training on the nukes and were kept ignorant of their capabilities. This isn't too surprising when one considers that a military coup was always the secret nightmare of communist governments. If the tactical nukes assigned to Soviet Army units in Cuba were under similar restrictions, it is hard to see how they could ever have been fired––the nightmare scenario still being cited by Robert MacNamara to justify the Kennedys' secret treaty with Khrushchev. Another revelation is the very poor mechanical performance of the Soviet subs which suffered an appalling series of engine breakdowns. From the limited details given in this book, it appears that many of these failures were due to mistakes by poorly trained engineering personnel. (Fatigue due to the intense tropical heat and humidity may be a factor also.) Since these subs had specially selected crews and were just out of refit, the mind boggles at what the average Soviet diesel boat must have been like in 1962. Had Khrushchev actually proceeded with his plan to base Golf-class missile subs permanently in Cuba, the result could only have been utter disaster. The more we learn about the Soviet side of the Missile Crisis, the more it looks like the most badly planned and implemented military operation of all time." Jeffrey F. Bell