November 2, 2022 • 43 mins
It’s Opening day for Able Archer 83. The Soviets have front row seats to NATO’s autumn military exercises. Tens of thousands of soldiers are playing pretend war in West Germany. The Soviets are NOT enjoying the show. And then… the war game actors begin ‘launching’ nukes. Holy sh*tballs, this is not looking good. The spies try to thwart disaster, and one man is faced with a cataclysmic decision. Produced by FilmNation and Pacific Electric Picture Co. in association with Gilded Audio.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
This is Joseph Stalin giving a speech to Soviet citizens.
It's July third, nineteen forty one. In the months before
this speech, Hitler had lined up thousands of troops alongside
the Soviet border for some military exercises. Yet there's early
(00:38):
turns out they weren't just exercises. They were cover for
a surprise attack on the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
June twenty first, nineteen forty one, with treacherous assault, Germany
declares war on Soviet Russia.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
The invasion was called Operation Barbarossa. It was brutal. It
marked the beginning of the Soviet's four year long entanglement
in World War II. So great news the Nazis lost.
I don't know if you heard, but the Soviet death
toll in World War two was staggering. Twenty five million
Soviet soldiers and civilians were lost. Stalin hadn't seen it coming.
(01:14):
Operation Barbarosa had caught him totally by surprise, and getting
caught unawares was utterly humiliating. His intelligence had failed him.
The embarrassment of Operation Barbarossa would plant a seed of
paranoia amongst the Soviets and decades later land them on
an inevitable crash course with NATO nuclear exercise able Archer
(01:34):
eighty three. If you go to therapy, as most of
us probably should, especially if you're anything like Stalin, you'll
recognize that this German sneak attack qualifies as a traumatic event.
You think you know someone until they turn on you
and ravage your homeland. Textbook trauma, trauma that, if left unchecked,
(01:55):
could cause the Soviet Union to accuse the West of
treachery every time they did a military exercise, even though
it's it's really just an exercise. But you're too scared
to accept that because of your traumatic history with Germany,
who was totally a jeter. But no Soviet leaders to
my knowledge at least didn't go to therapy. Maybe their
insurance didn't cover it, I don't know. Instead, they stole
(02:16):
the sneak attack move for themselves. They began to use
military exercises as a cover for invasion. It's how they
invaded Czechoslovakia in the sixties, and the Russians would go
on to do the same thing in Crimea, Georgia and
even Ukraine in twenty twenty two. And they figured, if
it's something we would do, then of course the Americans
(02:37):
will do it too. You'd think the Americans would be all, hey,
maybe I'm not that guy. I know your last squeeze
did you wrong, but it's different between us. But instead
America is all.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
They are the focus of evil in the modern world.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So let's just say when it comes to military exercises,
the Soviets didn't process their trauma, they didn't have healing.
They've got trust tissues and can you blame them? Now?
Fast forward to the Fall of eighty three, which, as
we all know, was a totally crazy year.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
The aggressive impulses of an evil empire.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Shut down the Korean Airlines plane that death straight into
Soviet airspace.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
The army says that the Pershing two can fly up
to one thousand miles in under ten minutes.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Her name is Alex.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
She works in a man's world.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
She dances in a world of her dreams, flash dance.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Like I said, crazy year. I mean, who knew welders
could dance like that anyway. NATO is now preparing to
start a massive military exercise, culminating in Able Archer eighty three,
a rehearsal for nuclear war. What could go wrong? I'm
(03:53):
at helms and this is Snafu, a podcast about history's
greatest screw ups, on season one, telling you the story
of a snafo that is gigantic, terrifying, and absurd. It's
called Able Archer eighty three, the nineteen eighty three NATO
military exercise that may have almost triggered a real nuclear war.
(04:23):
In this episode we get to it, the real deal,
the big Chabang Abel Archer itself, NATO practice is a
nuclear war. The Soviets reach their breaking point and one
man is faced with a cataclysmic decision.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
We practiced who to shoot, when to shoot.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
That was our job, was to practice going to war.
This is Brian Regal. He was a Cold War tank
driver and a former participant in NATO's massive annual military
wargame Autumn Forge, which can best be described as NATO's
dress rehearsal for World War three. And it would all
end with little old Able Archer eighty three. It was
(05:05):
all a coordinated effort. It's like, you know, the most
elaborate large scale production of West Side Story.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Ever.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Like West Side Story, Autumn Forge has two teams, but
instead of the Sharks and the Jets fighting over a
girl named Mario, Sorry, I just I love West Side
Story anyway. Instead of the Sharks and the Jets, Autumn
Forge has blue and orange. Blue team is NATO and
orange the Soviets. And just like a play, Autumn Forge
(05:37):
has a script. The script has different stages or acts,
if you will, as the drama of a fake war
plot unfolds. And let me be clear, NATO is very
serious about rehearsing this play. Opening day is tomorrow. The
actors are in full makeup and gas masks. I'm talking
tens of thousands of military men actively playing for tend
(05:58):
war in Western Germany. They're driving around in real tanks,
surveilling in real airplanes, setting up fake supply lines and
fake medical evacuations, because Brian says, it's essential that the
whole thing feels realistic so that NATO can find the
wrinkles in their war plan and fix it because next
time it might not be a rehearsal.
Speaker 7 (06:21):
It wasn't a question of would it happen, It was
a question of when was it going to happen.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
We were preparing to fight armageddon.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
That's what we were told, That's what we believed, you know,
that's what we trained for.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
We were training to fight the end of the world.
The problem with Autumn Forge's realism, of course, is that
each year the Soviets watched becoming more and more fearful.
They wondered, is this one an exercise or is this
the year when the exercise turns into a surprise attack.
(06:55):
So in nineteen eighty three, like every other year before,
the Soviets took their seats in the front row of
NATO's grand production of World War Three, and this year
they were in for one hell of a show.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Hello, I'm an Mulligan. Sergeant Richard real is standing by
at the AFN Autumn Forge News death.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah. So they even made a fake newscast about it,
which might seem really bizarre, but it just goes to
show you how committed they were in producing this thing.
They really wanted it to feel real. Right now, there
was a shift in the battle lines. For the past
two days.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Orange Forces after crossing the Donau River, I've made steady
advances against the Blue Forces to the west.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Act one, Autumn Forge Orange invades West Germany. Of course,
the Soviets are the aggressors in our little war scenario here.
I mean, they are the evil empire after all, and
then Blue approaches the Iron Curtain to try to hold
off the aggressors. Yes, the invasion isn't real, but there
are real NATO tanks and very real guns marching right
(07:55):
up to Soviet territory here, and the Soviets are watching.
The plot continues, Blue struggles against the might of the
Orange forces.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The Orange are and have been making penetration against the
Blue forces.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
NATO is going to need some backup, which means now
it's time for act too. Sixteen thousand American troops board
planes in the United States flyover and are dropped right
into the Autumn Forge theater. These gis have flown twelve
hours from Fort Hood, Texas to take part in the
multinational maneuvers. Now, this phase of the exercise happened every year,
(08:31):
but this year NATO would make a change, a change
that would add just a dash of paranoia to what
was already a recipe for disaster. Over the course of
eight days, all these sixteen thousand troops were flown in
under total radio silence. This isn't the kind of silence
(08:51):
you get at a convention for mimes. I don't know, No,
this is radio silence, which is what the military does
when it's trying to avoid enemy's surveillance, and it made
the Soviets wonder what are they trying to hide. Meanwhile,
in the real world, the United States would make a
dramatic move, and the Soviets believed their worst fears were
(09:13):
being realized.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Corrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you an NBC
News report.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Good afternoon, emby one.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I'm Tom Broke, O NBC News in New York, and
here is the latest situation as we now know it
on the island of Grenada. It has been invaded by
a multi national force. The bulk of that force about
eighteen hundred American troops that includes Marie.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
On October twenty third, nineteen eighty three, the United States
invaded the small island nation of Grenada, a tiny Caribbean
island but an important Soviet ally. Grenada had been ruled
by a communist government for years. It was going through
a violent power struggle when the United States invaded. Reagan
claimed he was just trying to help restore democracy, but
(09:56):
even US allies condemned the invasion, and the Soviets believed
it was proof of just how aggressive America could be. Meanwhile,
the autumn forged script continued to escalate. Orange attacks Blues
supply lines, Blue retaliates. Orange uses chemical weapons, not cool guys.
The invasion continues, and all of a sudden, according to
(10:18):
the script, there's nothing left to do but start launching
nuclear missiles. And that's what brings us to Act three,
Able Archer. You may wonder, like I did, where the
name able Archer comes from. I'm so glad you asked.
(10:40):
I actually don't have an answer for you on that one.
But don't worry. I have something better because during our
research we discovered that while there is no known source
for the name Able Archer, there does exist a porn
actor named Abel Archer who stars in skin flicks such
as Reality Dudes and The Balls of Wall Street.
Speaker 6 (10:57):
Any You girls, or to a large with extra cream?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
This is true, and yeah, apparently he didn't even know
about the wargame. He just came up with it all
on his own.
Speaker 8 (11:12):
Anyway, it was a week just like every other week.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
This is Jane Gay, a participant in Able Archer eighty three.
Speaker 8 (11:19):
NATO headquarters is located in a village called Mons, Belgium.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Monstown Center looked like every classic European city all cobblestone
and Gothic architecture. But a few miles out there's NATO's
military headquarters, Stately Square Modern. That's where Gene and his
colleagues are as Act three, Able Archer kicks off in
early November.
Speaker 9 (11:46):
The whole purpose of able Archer was the emphasis on
the practice of the nuclear weapons release for seizures.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Here's Colonel Spike Calendar, another VET who was also involved
in Able Archer that year. Now, a few different NATO
countries had nukes and they didn't need permission from their
pals to use them. But the whole idea of NATO
is that if the Soviets invaded one member, all NATO
countries would coordinate on a nuclear defense. You ever hear
the phrase big ships turn slowly. In nineteen eighty three,
(12:17):
there were sixteen NATO member nations, each with their own
languages and protocols. But when the fate of the world
hangs in the balance, NATO needed to be able to
turn that big ship fast.
Speaker 9 (12:29):
The whole idea was, if you ever had to do it,
you didn't want to do it for the first time.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Here's how the whole thing is supposed to go down.
Speaker 8 (12:37):
They forced things to happen to make you react to
it as if it was the real world situation.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
The planners came up with an escalating war scenario and
the players are given a challenge. As the scenario escalates,
when will you step in and recommend the use of
nuclear weapons? Which nuclear weapons should we use? How many?
And where is trusting use of twenty five years web?
The men reference their binders of war plans, come up
(13:04):
with a strategy, and rehearse the approval process for launching nukes.
Speaker 9 (13:09):
When yeah, it reached a point where the yes that
the president of the Prime Minister agreed that these weapons
were required and then would give the in effect the
official release to it.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
During the wargame, once our pretend president approves the fictional
nuclear launch, the Able Archer communications ricochet backed down the
chain of command, finally reaching the folks who launch the
fake nukes, which is exactly what it's like in the movies.
Two men sitting at opposite ends of a nuclear control room,
confirming the codes and simultaneously turning the launch keys. Now
(13:47):
Able Archer, compared to the rest of bottomn Forge, is
extremely pared down. No more helicopters and tanks, just men
in a bunker with phones. But even though there are
fewer players and the stage is largely empty, this is
where the stakes are highest. I guess that's the thing
about nuclear wars. When it gets to that point, all
the thousands of troops and tanks and infrastructure just don't matter.
(14:11):
It all comes down to a few people in a
room letting the nukes do all the work. And this
year the Able Archer players had a few new weapons
on their nuclear menu, the Pershing twos and the ground
cruise missiles. The nukes that were scheduled for installation eminently,
the nukes that could obliterate Moscow in seven minutes. Now,
(14:38):
it's important to say that even though jene was practicing
nuclear war with the new euro missiles, they had not
yet been installed in Western Europe. That deployment date was
still a couple of weeks away. But the Soviets saw
deception everywhere, and as Able Archer kicked off, they feared
those missiles may already be in place. So the first
(14:59):
week of November nineteen eighty three, a few miles outside
the lovely town of Mons, Belgium, Gene Spike and their
colleagues filed into a bunker carrying binders full of nuclear
plans to hear their Able Archer war game challenge. Earlier
this year, communist hard liners in Moscow took over the Kremlin.
(15:21):
Since then the group has expanded their influence in Eastern
Europe and the Middle East. Now they have officially invaded
Western Europe.
Speaker 8 (15:35):
So that was the kickoff, and that was my work
as I started out that week.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Which brings us to November fourth, nineteen eighty three. The
bunker deep inside NATO headquarters in Belgium is buzzing to life.
The communications machines are switched on the lines tested.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Exercise exercise exercise testing communications over.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
And the Able Archer planners begin performing the wargame script
over the airwaves. The script's plot is getting more and
more dire. Remember they're trying to lead the able larger
players towards a fake nuclear war, So the planners keep
escalating the narrative.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Exercise exercise exercise Orange has invaded Germany over.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And relaying all this drama on NATO's secure communications line.
But of course they had company. The Soviets had picked
up the signal.
Speaker 10 (16:29):
Now all this time the communications are going backwards and forwards,
being listened into by the Soviets, who knew this was
an intended exercise.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Here's historian Taylor Downing.
Speaker 10 (16:41):
And each signal was begun with the sort of three
words exercise, exercise, exercise, exercise. But the Soviet analyzes analyzing
the radio signals that are being picked up are starting
at this point to get really quite anxious, and they're
now starting to think, is this actually a real NATO exercise?
Is this genuine or is it what they feared was
(17:02):
the Russian wood his Maskrovka deception? Is all this a
deception to delude us to the fact that NATO is
actually amassing its resources to prepare a nuclear assault.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Now, as you and I both know, NATO is absolutely
not planning a nuclear assault upon the Soviet Union. They
want to play the war game, learn their lessons, then
go catch flash dance or risky business. But the Soviets
don't know that. All they know is that under Operation Ryan,
intelligence from Soviet spies seems to keep supporting their assumption
(17:38):
that the West is definitely planning a nuclear attack. Also
this year, strangely, autumn forged troops flew in under total
radio silence, and the US just invaded Grenada. And now
what they're overhearing from the able archer war game is
feeling kind of intense. So the Soviets were left one ring.
(18:00):
What is that Wiley Reagan really up to? Well, actually,
I would fucking love to tell you what Reagan was
up to on November fourth. I know because we checked
the presidential photo archives. While the Soviets were imagining Ronald
Reagan sitting in the Oval Office with a maniacal grin
on his face and nuclear plans spread across the resolute desk,
(18:21):
he was actually quite literally feeding acorns to squirrels on
the White House lawn.
Speaker 7 (18:28):
Here you go, a little guy, here's a big one
for you.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
God damn it, you're cute.
Speaker 7 (18:34):
You seem like you've got it all together up in
your little tree. I've got a whole stash of these
in my desk, little buddy. Don't you worry, adorable presidential
respite or an insidious ruse. I'll say this for Reagan.
The guy contains multitudes.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Meanwhile, in London, it becomes clear to one double agent
that the KGB is convinced a nuclear war is imminent,
so that there was.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
A cable in the beginning warning the stations as the
American status and a very important exercise which can develop
to something sinister.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Here's our old pal, Oleg Gordievski. Remember he's a Western
spy pretending to be a loyal KGB spy who is
pretending to be a Russian diplomat. I mean, the guy's
a human nesting dog. Anyway. It's November fifth, nineteen eighty three.
Gordievski is sitting in the Soviet embassy in London when
he receives a telegram from Moscow. The telegram tells the
(19:37):
spies to keep close watch on the movements of British politicians.
It says, since the US and the UK are such
close allies, surely the British will be involved in any
sudden nuclear attack, and so it literally tells them to
go hang out outside Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher's house and
watch for any indication that the West has decided to attack,
(19:58):
because the telegram said once that decision was made, the
attack would be coming in seven to ten days.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
I knew it was a dramatic moment. I knew Moscow
was nervous.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
November sixth is quiet. It's Sunday. The Lord rests and
all that, Ronald and Nancy Reagan wake up at Camp
David and head back to DC. The night before, they
stayed up late watching The Wicked Lady starring Faye Dunaway.
The Wicked Later.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I'd like a dangerous entity.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
You make a dangerous patna, Reagan writes about it in
this journal. Naturally, it was embarrassing, damn near pornographic. He
doesn't even write out the word damn. He literally writes
d dash dash in Oh my God, what a dork.
But while Reagan is writing rotten tomatoes reviews in his
(20:52):
diary and feeding the squirrels, and Dropov isn't having such
a good time.
Speaker 10 (20:58):
The seventh eighth and November is the anniversary of the
revolution in Russia back in nineteen seventeen, and this is
a big public holiday in the Soviet Union. There was
always a big parade in Red Square.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
But Yuri and drop Off doesn't give a speech at
the parade in Red Square as he ordinarily would. Instead,
he lays in a hospital bed in a secure clinic
twenty kilometers outside of Moscow, dying of kidney failure.
Speaker 10 (21:28):
All the roads to it were very heavily guarded. Nobody
could get into it. You know, it was far away
from prying eyes of reporters or dissidents or anybody else.
It was completely surrounded by a ring of KGB security.
All the other members of the Politbureau would come out
in their limousines to visit him.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
And never leaving. A drop Off side was the aid
who carries the Cheggott, the Soviets version of the nuclear football.
It's named after a mountain in Russia. I assume because
they don't play football.
Speaker 10 (21:58):
There was a feeling in Russia that if the West
is going to attack, they'll probably attack while we're sort
of off our guard, while we're relaxing, while we're on holiday.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Now we don't know what happened in that hospital room,
but here's what we do know. We know that and
drop Off was dragged into World War II as a
young man when Operation Barbarossa traumatized the Soviet Union with
a surprise attack under the ruse of military exercises. We
know that he conceived of Operation Ryan to preempt a
surprise nuclear attack from the West. We know Russians believed
(22:31):
a surprise attack would come during a holiday, and we
know that now during a holiday, and drop Off was
dying in a hospital bed with nuclear codes within reach,
all while NATO rehearsed a nuclear war.
Speaker 10 (22:46):
It's impossible to know what thoughts go through a person
when they're in that physical state, but it's difficult to
imagine that it didn't have some effect upon his mental outlook.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Oh and one other thing. We all also know that
if the Soviet leaders believed an attack was eminent, they
had a policy to launch a preemptive strike to take
out enemy weapons before they were even launched. One can
only wonder if what was really going on in that
hospital room on November seventh was the Soviet leadership preparing
a nuclear attack of their own.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
So obviously, as there was a lot of activity on
the JERU.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Say, this is Oleg Gordievski again back in London during
able archer. He's talking about the GRU, the Soviet military's
intelligence department. Now this is a little technical, but it's important,
so let me break it down for you. The KGB,
Oleg's employer, is the official intelligence organization for the Soviet Union,
But the Soviet military had their own intelligence department called
(23:47):
the GRU.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
It was their responsibility. It was their department which was
responsible for their countermeageres and for monitoring what was happening
in the nights of countries.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
So like, I don't know, oh, concerns that NATO is
about to launch a bunch of nukes, that would be
the primary concern of the GRU, not necessarily the KGB.
The GRU also had a bunch of spies in London,
also posing in the embassy as Russian diplomats, and Gordiovski
remembers that during Able Archer eighty three, those GRU guys
(24:19):
were looking pretty stressed out.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
I remember that we were sitting on the loft of
the embassy and they were sitting in the basement, and
they were sitting like mice day and night during the
able Archer exercise.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
One reason Grdiovsky could tell the GRU was busier than
usual is because all of them were skipping the mandatory
morning meetings with the Russian ambassador.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
In those days of able arch none of them, to
the irritation of the ambassador, was present.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
For example, the head of the GRU station in London
was a man by the name of Yezhov.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
People after the because Yezov Heitchhock, as he looks like.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Heitchcock, always with the sick burn. Here's Gordo, He cracks
me up. Anyway, She was sitting in a city all
the time, as the papers, Gordievsky says it was unusual
for the hedgehog to be head down buried in papers.
It was clear to him that something was happening that
was very important to the GRU. Gordievski also says that
(25:19):
the GRU had a signal station in a building opposite
the embassy across Kensington Palace gardens. There a GRU radio
communicator would intercept signals like military communications.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
And he was coming from that building, crossing the roads quickly,
and in the embassy and down to the basement.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Gordievski watched this poor guy run back and forth all
week long, and listen, when you're a top secret GRU spy,
you don't leave yourself vulnerable to being seen or followed.
So whatever was happening, it must have been urgent. And
back in Belgium, well, the temperature was going up there too.
Speaker 10 (25:56):
The Warsaw Pact started to use chemical weapons.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
That's Tailor Downing again, talking about the Able Archer script.
It's November seventh.
Speaker 10 (26:04):
And the planners decided they had no alternative but to
respond by NATO forces using chemical weapons.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Remember we're talking fake chemical weapons here.
Speaker 10 (26:14):
Then on Monday, the seventh of November, in the script,
the warsaw pac to taking out various NATO command posts.
For instance, the US Air Force Command Center at Ramstein
in West Germany is in the script destroyed.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Exercise Exercise Exercise Orange is undeterred by Blues use of
chemical weapons. Oranges attack Ramstem with chemical weapons. Boo, what's
your move?
Speaker 10 (26:36):
The planners, sitting around their tables and looking at the
maps on the wall, have to decide how to respond.
Then at this point they begin to think about a
nuclear execution plan, and on Tuesday, the eighth of November,
NATO decides that the only way it can respond is
with a nuclear response, and the planners start working out
(26:57):
how many megatons of bombs they need to request the
un of which key targets across the Soviet Union will
be targeted.
Speaker 8 (27:04):
Part of my role during this time was to integrate
the new weapons into the NATO arsenal and operational plans.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
That'd be our man Gene.
Speaker 8 (27:13):
And then these new weapons include the ground launched cruise
missile which were being deployed into a NATO military basis
across Europe as well as the improved US Army pershing
two missiles.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Over in London. Some poor gru bastard is listening closely
to able Archer communications prepared to spreads across Kensington Gardens
to the Russian embassy and deliver messages to Soviet military intelligence.
And then within able Archer Blue comes up with their
next move. They're going to hit Orange with a nuclear strike.
Speaker 10 (27:45):
And now they do something that nature had never done
before in this regular exercise. They change the codes that
they're using.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Diable Archer Able Archer Blue is requesting use of twenty
five nuclear missiles for use on Orange targets. Please look
for presidential approval.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
The Soviet guy listening must have been like, they didn't
say exercise, exercise, exercise. They didn't say it. They didn't
say exercise.
Speaker 10 (28:13):
And suddenly this change of code now is the final straw.
The fact they're changing the codes, which they hadn't done before,
clearly signified to the Soviets that this wasn't just a wargame,
wasn't just an exercise, but this was a real preparation
for the launch of nuclear weapons. And the KGB Center
(28:34):
hearing these reports of NATO mobilizing to prepare to defend itself,
starts sending out increasingly urgent messages to its residencies abroad
to tell its agents to look for imminent signs of
nuclear warfare. You must look for even the slightest hints
that missiles are being readied.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Let's check back in with Comrade Gordievski.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
Well, it was a flash telegram. It was an super
urgent telegram.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
On November eighth or ninth, he can't remember which ole,
Gordievski received a flash telegram from the KGB center.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
Saying the Americans so now in the middle of their exercise,
so be ready for everything and watch thorodly because they
know what may happen.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Next, the telegram claimed that American bases had been placed
on high alert. Now that was not true. American bases
were not on high alert. They had just tightened up
security in reaction to a recent bombing in Lebanon, but
the KGB does not know this. The telegram states that
one explanation for this high alert is that quote the
countdown to a nuclear first strike had begun under the
(29:58):
cover of able archer their allies.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
It was more panic and he stated than Emma.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Meanwhile, President Reagan and the First Lady packed their bags
at the White House, preparing to leave DC for a
little trip.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Well in a few moments. As you know, Nancy and
I'll be bored, Marine want to begin the first leg
of our trip to Japan and Korea.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Naturally, their cameras pointed at him, so of course he
can't leave without a little Soviet jab.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
The Soviet shooting down of Kamla seven, their continued military
build up in Asia are grim reminders to us that
we live in a dangerous world. I will reaffirm America's
commitment to remain a reliable partner for peace and stability
in the region and in the world. And that's the
(30:54):
spirit of our trip.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Moments later, Reagan boarded the helicopter, his aid a few
paces by behind him, carrying the nuclear football and what's
in drop off supposed to make of all? This was
Reagan priming the public, reminding them how evil the Soviets are,
before he cracked open that briefcase and blew them all
to smithereens Now a little while later, over in Belgium,
(31:17):
the able Archer players receive a pretend message that the
pretend President has approved the use of pretend nuclear missiles
not real ones. Guys. I know you get it by now.
I'm just trying to be perfectly clear, and to be fair,
the Soviets don't get it. They're on the able archer
line and all they hear is able.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Archer, able archer use of nuclear weapons is approved, and.
Speaker 10 (31:39):
It's around this time that the Soviets start mobilizing their
entire nuclear arsenal.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Soviet leaders had a fateful decision to make, and they
needed to make it fast. If NATO is in fact
launching nuclear weapons, the Soviets would need to launch their
own urgently. If they didn't, their missiles could be taken
out in the first wave of the American attack. But
if they hit the button and they're wrong, then they've
started a war and ended the world as we know it.
Speaker 10 (32:08):
The whole crisis comes to a head really on the
evening of Wednesday, the ninth of November nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
That night, in the middle of holiday celebrations across the
Soviet Union, military officials received phone calls party time is over.
They were needed back at work urgently.
Speaker 10 (32:27):
A lot of the Soviets who were mobilized in this
nuclear operation, they remember that twenty four hour shift that
they were on, very very clearly as being the most
anxious point of their career.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
The Soviet military went on a state of nuclear alert
unlike anything before. And this this is not a rehearsal,
my friends, this was real.
Speaker 10 (32:48):
Thousands of warheads were mobilized and prepared to launch nuclear weapons.
That is, ascent to their battle stations. Each of these
ICBMs has well the average was about six warheads, each
war head with something like forty times the destructive capability
of a Hiroshima bomb.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Commanders who manned the Soviet's nuclear missiles were told to
stand by and await launch instructions that could be coming
any time in the next few hours.
Speaker 10 (33:16):
The Soviet leadership stayed up anxiously waiting for signs that
the Americans had in fact launched an attack and prepared
to retaliate in a full scale nuclear assault upon Western
Europe and North America. And they sent out a message
effectively saying, you know, are these guys about to attack us?
Are they about to launch nuclear weapons?
Speaker 11 (33:38):
The courier at first brought me the message.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
This is ryaner Rup again aka Agent Topaz. He's in
Brussels at his job in NATO, where he's working undercover
for the East German Stazi, a close partner of the KGB.
It's November ninth, nineteen eighty three when he receives an
urgent message from a Stazi.
Speaker 11 (33:55):
Courier Hilers, the Russians are really scared. Day one and
away everything any NATO is preparing for war and son.
Speaker 10 (34:05):
As far as Rainer grew Up is concerned, it's just
another day in the office. There's absolutely nothing going on. No, no, no,
we're not preparing any sort of assault at all. It's
just another regular day at work.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
That NATO headquarters, Yiner Rupp is instructed to respond urgently.
He reaches into his pocket and takes out his spy calculator.
It's pouring rain. Reiner runs to the designated phone booth.
He's out of breath, He's paranoid. He looks over his shoulder.
Has he been followed? He puts two francs in the
coin slot and dials the number. An elderly woman answers
(34:38):
the phone.
Speaker 8 (34:38):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Reiner says the code phrase, hello Grandma, I'd like to
come visit you this weekend. There's a pause and then
a click. Now he knows quote unquote, grandmother is recording
the call. He raises the calculator to the receiver, presses
a button and it makes a noise. Yeah. Encoded in
(35:02):
the crackle is his urgent message. NATO is not preparing
an attack. There are no plans for a secret surprise attack.
Stand down. He hangs up the phone.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
No be armed.
Speaker 11 (35:18):
I mean, I don't see anything of that happening in NATO.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Now. Somewhere in East Germany, Stazi agents rushed to the
home of the elderly woman, retrieved the recording and decode
the bleepity, bluepity message that could save the entire world
as we know it. They'd send an urgent telegram back
to the KGB in Moscow. NATO is not preparing an attack,
and when the KGB receives this message, the panic will
all die down. Ryan or Rupp will have single handedly
(35:46):
ended the nuclear scare, popped the champagne. The world is saved, right,
of course not.
Speaker 10 (35:53):
They might well have just been another form of deception.
And these supremely paranoid KGB officials are seeing Maskarovka everywhere.
You know, they're all out to get us. That Rynner
Up had been taken over and been told to send
this message.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
I mean it sounds paranoid, but at the same time, like,
how are you supposed to trust a spy?
Speaker 11 (36:15):
Of course I was only one agent's and they had
their other views.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Sorry, Ryner, we know you tried your best. The KGB
doesn't trust him. The one man who could solidly confirm
that NATO was not preparing an attack on the Soviet Union.
And even at this moment where it seems like things
could not get any worse, they do.
Speaker 6 (36:47):
It was extraordinarily tense time.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
This is John Perutz.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
Lieutenant General Lennarprutz was my father and he was in
Germany while I was in high school when the events
of the Soviet War took place.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
John's father, Lieutenant General Leonard Perutz, was a high ranking
intelligence officer for the US Air Force stationed in Germany,
and it was during Exercise Able Archer when a memo
from the NSSA landed on Lyonard Perut's desk about some
concerning Soviet military movements.
Speaker 6 (37:18):
The first thing, it's the first thing they noted were
some heightened activities by some Soviet aircraft across the border
in Germany.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
The memo said that as of nineteen hundred hours on November,
two Soviet fighter bomber planes in East Germany were on
high alert. By itself, it wasn't enough to be extremely alarming.
But then a few days later he got an update
and the picture got a lot scarier.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
We found out that some Soviet Air Force unit got
approval to arm their aircraft without their jamming pods. Now,
the electronic jamming pods are pretty standard piece of equipment
on a military aircraft.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
They're actually an essential piece of equipment on a military aircraft.
They can jam a radar, letting the flight go undetected
by enemy surveillance.
Speaker 6 (38:12):
And there was speculation as to why would they be
allowed to get ready, to be on alert and get
ready to fly without that, And there were speculation that, well,
maybe they had a different payload.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Than they were used to. Let me do just some
military translating for you. The electronic jamming pods are heavy.
Linard Perots analysts told him the planes are experiencing weight issues.
They're trying to rebalance the aircraft because the weight distribution
is changing. It's our theory that they're taking off the
jamming pods because whatever they're loading onto those planes is
(38:42):
too heavy. And we think they're loading real nuclear weapons.
Speaker 6 (38:50):
Interesting, anomalous.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Something you should know about Leonard Peruts. He was a
military man his whole life. Procedures, chain of command, I mean,
protocol was practically middle name. Actually it was Harry, but
you know what I mean. So when he got that
frightening report from his analysts, Lynyrd Perutz immediately called his
superior four star General Billy Minter.
Speaker 6 (39:12):
And he had to report to him, Hey, sir, there's
some anomalies Soviet forces seemed if air forces have gone
on a heightened alert.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Heightened alert with bombs and tow General Billy Mintor asks
Peruts what he thinks.
Speaker 6 (39:26):
They said, you know, Lenny, should we heighten our alert level?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Should we put our air force on alert? In that moment,
Leonard Perutz was completely unaware that his next move might
determine the fate of humanity. He had no clue that
the Soviets had intercepted able archer radio communications in which
NATO ordered the pretend launch of twenty five nuclear weapons
upon Soviet targets, and that the Soviet leaders were awake
(39:53):
that night waiting for those missiles to appear on their
radar screens. All he saw was real Soviet bombs being
loaded onto real Soviet planes, and he had a decision
to make Option one, put the air force on alert,
pass the intel up the chain of command. But what
would Reagan do with this information? Would he start a war?
(40:15):
And what would the Soviets do if they saw us reacting?
Option two? Wait and watch, risk getting it wrong, risk
the fate of the world. If he waited while the
Soviets launched nuclear bombs from their planes, the world would
be forever changed, possibly destroyed, and it would be all
his fault. All right, my nerves are totally fried. So
(40:40):
let's recap where we are in a fun way. Let's
do it in song.
Speaker 12 (40:45):
With The Soviets were paranoid that any military exercises might
just be cover for an actual attack, and so they
had all of their.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Spies looking signs of an attack. And basically we're swimming
in a stew of confirmation bias. And then NATO begins
Able Archer. It's a giant exercise and it fulfills all
the soviets worst nightmares. They loaded up all their planes
(41:18):
with bombs, and all the leaders retreated to the bunkers,
and now their fingers are hovering over the buttons, and
they're gonna launch missiles at each other and start a
huge jugar war. And it's down to good old Leonard Peruts,
who has no idea what's actually going on, but has
to make a crazy decision next week. Oh no, we
(41:50):
have to wait until next week. Yep, sorry everybody. This
is how we did things before Netflix gave you bingeables.
Next week on SNAFU.
Speaker 5 (41:59):
And General Pots makes a really critical decision at this time.
He's not making this decision based on any knowledge about
what's happening.
Speaker 6 (42:07):
That decision made is attributed to out of misinformation. It's
even described as that of ignorance.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
So there are two versions of this.
Speaker 11 (42:15):
There's the version the CIA initially put out, and then
Ilfoya the State Department and got its version, and its
version is pretty interesting.
Speaker 6 (42:24):
Speak truth to power even when it hurts.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Snapfoo is a production of iHeartRadio, Film, Nation Entertainment, and
Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio. Our
lead producers are Sarah Joyner and Alyssa Martino. Our producer
is Carl Nellis, Associate producer Tory Smith. It's executive produced
by me Ed Helms Milan Papelka, Mike Falbo, Andy Chug,
and Whitney Donaldson. This episode was written by Sarah Joyner,
(42:54):
with additional writing from me Elliot Kalen, and Whitney Donaldson.
Our senior editor is Jeffrey Lewis. How upset are you
about this fact? Olivia Kenny is our production assistant. Our
creative executive is Brett Harris. Additional research and fact checking
by Charles Richter, Engineering and technical direction by Nick Dooley.
Original music and sound design by Dan Rosatto. Additional editing
(43:14):
from Ben Chugg. Some archival audio from this episode originally
appeared in Taylor Downing's fantastic film nineteen eighty three, The
Brink of Apocalypse. Thank you, mister Downing for permission to
use it. Special thanks to Alison Cohen and Matt Aisenstadt.
This is Joseph Stalin giving a speech to Soviet citizens.
It's July third, nineteen forty one. In the months before
this speech, Hitler had lined up thousands of troops alongside
the Soviet border for some military exercises. Yet there's early
(00:38):
turns out they weren't just exercises. They were cover for
a surprise attack on the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
June twenty first, nineteen forty one, with treacherous assault, Germany
declares war on Soviet Russia.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
The invasion was called Operation Barbarossa. It was brutal. It
marked the beginning of the Soviet's four year long entanglement
in World War II. So great news the Nazis lost.
I don't know if you heard, but the Soviet death
toll in World War two was staggering. Twenty five million
Soviet soldiers and civilians were lost. Stalin hadn't seen it coming.
(01:14):
Operation Barbarosa had caught him totally by surprise, and getting
caught unawares was utterly humiliating. His intelligence had failed him.
The embarrassment of Operation Barbarossa would plant a seed of
paranoia amongst the Soviets and decades later land them on
an inevitable crash course with NATO nuclear exercise able Archer
(01:34):
eighty three. If you go to therapy, as most of
us probably should, especially if you're anything like Stalin, you'll
recognize that this German sneak attack qualifies as a traumatic event.
You think you know someone until they turn on you
and ravage your homeland. Textbook trauma, trauma that, if left unchecked,
(01:55):
could cause the Soviet Union to accuse the West of
treachery every time they did a military exercise, even though
it's it's really just an exercise. But you're too scared
to accept that because of your traumatic history with Germany,
who was totally a jeter. But no Soviet leaders to
my knowledge at least didn't go to therapy. Maybe their
insurance didn't cover it, I don't know. Instead, they stole
(02:16):
the sneak attack move for themselves. They began to use
military exercises as a cover for invasion. It's how they
invaded Czechoslovakia in the sixties, and the Russians would go
on to do the same thing in Crimea, Georgia and
even Ukraine in twenty twenty two. And they figured, if
it's something we would do, then of course the Americans
(02:37):
will do it too. You'd think the Americans would be all, hey,
maybe I'm not that guy. I know your last squeeze
did you wrong, but it's different between us. But instead
America is all.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
They are the focus of evil in the modern world.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So let's just say when it comes to military exercises,
the Soviets didn't process their trauma, they didn't have healing.
They've got trust tissues and can you blame them? Now?
Fast forward to the Fall of eighty three, which, as
we all know, was a totally crazy year.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
The aggressive impulses of an evil empire.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Shut down the Korean Airlines plane that death straight into
Soviet airspace.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
The army says that the Pershing two can fly up
to one thousand miles in under ten minutes.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Her name is Alex.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
She works in a man's world.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
She dances in a world of her dreams, flash dance.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Like I said, crazy year. I mean, who knew welders
could dance like that anyway. NATO is now preparing to
start a massive military exercise, culminating in Able Archer eighty three,
a rehearsal for nuclear war. What could go wrong? I'm
(03:53):
at helms and this is Snafu, a podcast about history's
greatest screw ups, on season one, telling you the story
of a snafo that is gigantic, terrifying, and absurd. It's
called Able Archer eighty three, the nineteen eighty three NATO
military exercise that may have almost triggered a real nuclear war.
(04:23):
In this episode we get to it, the real deal,
the big Chabang Abel Archer itself, NATO practice is a
nuclear war. The Soviets reach their breaking point and one
man is faced with a cataclysmic decision.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
We practiced who to shoot, when to shoot.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
That was our job, was to practice going to war.
This is Brian Regal. He was a Cold War tank
driver and a former participant in NATO's massive annual military
wargame Autumn Forge, which can best be described as NATO's
dress rehearsal for World War three. And it would all
end with little old Able Archer eighty three. It was
(05:05):
all a coordinated effort. It's like, you know, the most
elaborate large scale production of West Side Story.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Ever.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Like West Side Story, Autumn Forge has two teams, but
instead of the Sharks and the Jets fighting over a
girl named Mario, Sorry, I just I love West Side
Story anyway. Instead of the Sharks and the Jets, Autumn
Forge has blue and orange. Blue team is NATO and
orange the Soviets. And just like a play, Autumn Forge
(05:37):
has a script. The script has different stages or acts,
if you will, as the drama of a fake war
plot unfolds. And let me be clear, NATO is very
serious about rehearsing this play. Opening day is tomorrow. The
actors are in full makeup and gas masks. I'm talking
tens of thousands of military men actively playing for tend
(05:58):
war in Western Germany. They're driving around in real tanks,
surveilling in real airplanes, setting up fake supply lines and
fake medical evacuations, because Brian says, it's essential that the
whole thing feels realistic so that NATO can find the
wrinkles in their war plan and fix it because next
time it might not be a rehearsal.
Speaker 7 (06:21):
It wasn't a question of would it happen, It was
a question of when was it going to happen.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
We were preparing to fight armageddon.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
That's what we were told, That's what we believed, you know,
that's what we trained for.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
We were training to fight the end of the world.
The problem with Autumn Forge's realism, of course, is that
each year the Soviets watched becoming more and more fearful.
They wondered, is this one an exercise or is this
the year when the exercise turns into a surprise attack.
(06:55):
So in nineteen eighty three, like every other year before,
the Soviets took their seats in the front row of
NATO's grand production of World War Three, and this year
they were in for one hell of a show.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Hello, I'm an Mulligan. Sergeant Richard real is standing by
at the AFN Autumn Forge News death.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah. So they even made a fake newscast about it,
which might seem really bizarre, but it just goes to
show you how committed they were in producing this thing.
They really wanted it to feel real. Right now, there
was a shift in the battle lines. For the past
two days.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Orange Forces after crossing the Donau River, I've made steady
advances against the Blue Forces to the west.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Act one, Autumn Forge Orange invades West Germany. Of course,
the Soviets are the aggressors in our little war scenario here.
I mean, they are the evil empire after all, and
then Blue approaches the Iron Curtain to try to hold
off the aggressors. Yes, the invasion isn't real, but there
are real NATO tanks and very real guns marching right
(07:55):
up to Soviet territory here, and the Soviets are watching.
The plot continues, Blue struggles against the might of the
Orange forces.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The Orange are and have been making penetration against the
Blue forces.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
NATO is going to need some backup, which means now
it's time for act too. Sixteen thousand American troops board
planes in the United States flyover and are dropped right
into the Autumn Forge theater. These gis have flown twelve
hours from Fort Hood, Texas to take part in the
multinational maneuvers. Now, this phase of the exercise happened every year,
(08:31):
but this year NATO would make a change, a change
that would add just a dash of paranoia to what
was already a recipe for disaster. Over the course of
eight days, all these sixteen thousand troops were flown in
under total radio silence. This isn't the kind of silence
(08:51):
you get at a convention for mimes. I don't know, No,
this is radio silence, which is what the military does
when it's trying to avoid enemy's surveillance, and it made
the Soviets wonder what are they trying to hide. Meanwhile,
in the real world, the United States would make a
dramatic move, and the Soviets believed their worst fears were
(09:13):
being realized.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Corrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you an NBC
News report.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Good afternoon, emby one.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I'm Tom Broke, O NBC News in New York, and
here is the latest situation as we now know it
on the island of Grenada. It has been invaded by
a multi national force. The bulk of that force about
eighteen hundred American troops that includes Marie.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
On October twenty third, nineteen eighty three, the United States
invaded the small island nation of Grenada, a tiny Caribbean
island but an important Soviet ally. Grenada had been ruled
by a communist government for years. It was going through
a violent power struggle when the United States invaded. Reagan
claimed he was just trying to help restore democracy, but
(09:56):
even US allies condemned the invasion, and the Soviets believed
it was proof of just how aggressive America could be. Meanwhile,
the autumn forged script continued to escalate. Orange attacks Blues
supply lines, Blue retaliates. Orange uses chemical weapons, not cool guys.
The invasion continues, and all of a sudden, according to
(10:18):
the script, there's nothing left to do but start launching
nuclear missiles. And that's what brings us to Act three,
Able Archer. You may wonder, like I did, where the
name able Archer comes from. I'm so glad you asked.
(10:40):
I actually don't have an answer for you on that one.
But don't worry. I have something better because during our
research we discovered that while there is no known source
for the name Able Archer, there does exist a porn
actor named Abel Archer who stars in skin flicks such
as Reality Dudes and The Balls of Wall Street.
Speaker 6 (10:57):
Any You girls, or to a large with extra cream?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
This is true, and yeah, apparently he didn't even know
about the wargame. He just came up with it all
on his own.
Speaker 8 (11:12):
Anyway, it was a week just like every other week.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
This is Jane Gay, a participant in Able Archer eighty three.
Speaker 8 (11:19):
NATO headquarters is located in a village called Mons, Belgium.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Monstown Center looked like every classic European city all cobblestone
and Gothic architecture. But a few miles out there's NATO's
military headquarters, Stately Square Modern. That's where Gene and his
colleagues are as Act three, Able Archer kicks off in
early November.
Speaker 9 (11:46):
The whole purpose of able Archer was the emphasis on
the practice of the nuclear weapons release for seizures.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Here's Colonel Spike Calendar, another VET who was also involved
in Able Archer that year. Now, a few different NATO
countries had nukes and they didn't need permission from their
pals to use them. But the whole idea of NATO
is that if the Soviets invaded one member, all NATO
countries would coordinate on a nuclear defense. You ever hear
the phrase big ships turn slowly. In nineteen eighty three,
(12:17):
there were sixteen NATO member nations, each with their own
languages and protocols. But when the fate of the world
hangs in the balance, NATO needed to be able to
turn that big ship fast.
Speaker 9 (12:29):
The whole idea was, if you ever had to do it,
you didn't want to do it for the first time.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Here's how the whole thing is supposed to go down.
Speaker 8 (12:37):
They forced things to happen to make you react to
it as if it was the real world situation.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
The planners came up with an escalating war scenario and
the players are given a challenge. As the scenario escalates,
when will you step in and recommend the use of
nuclear weapons? Which nuclear weapons should we use? How many?
And where is trusting use of twenty five years web?
The men reference their binders of war plans, come up
(13:04):
with a strategy, and rehearse the approval process for launching nukes.
Speaker 9 (13:09):
When yeah, it reached a point where the yes that
the president of the Prime Minister agreed that these weapons
were required and then would give the in effect the
official release to it.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
During the wargame, once our pretend president approves the fictional
nuclear launch, the Able Archer communications ricochet backed down the
chain of command, finally reaching the folks who launch the
fake nukes, which is exactly what it's like in the movies.
Two men sitting at opposite ends of a nuclear control room,
confirming the codes and simultaneously turning the launch keys. Now
(13:47):
Able Archer, compared to the rest of bottomn Forge, is
extremely pared down. No more helicopters and tanks, just men
in a bunker with phones. But even though there are
fewer players and the stage is largely empty, this is
where the stakes are highest. I guess that's the thing
about nuclear wars. When it gets to that point, all
the thousands of troops and tanks and infrastructure just don't matter.
(14:11):
It all comes down to a few people in a
room letting the nukes do all the work. And this
year the Able Archer players had a few new weapons
on their nuclear menu, the Pershing twos and the ground
cruise missiles. The nukes that were scheduled for installation eminently,
the nukes that could obliterate Moscow in seven minutes. Now,
(14:38):
it's important to say that even though jene was practicing
nuclear war with the new euro missiles, they had not
yet been installed in Western Europe. That deployment date was
still a couple of weeks away. But the Soviets saw
deception everywhere, and as Able Archer kicked off, they feared
those missiles may already be in place. So the first
(14:59):
week of November nineteen eighty three, a few miles outside
the lovely town of Mons, Belgium, Gene Spike and their
colleagues filed into a bunker carrying binders full of nuclear
plans to hear their Able Archer war game challenge. Earlier
this year, communist hard liners in Moscow took over the Kremlin.
(15:21):
Since then the group has expanded their influence in Eastern
Europe and the Middle East. Now they have officially invaded
Western Europe.
Speaker 8 (15:35):
So that was the kickoff, and that was my work
as I started out that week.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Which brings us to November fourth, nineteen eighty three. The
bunker deep inside NATO headquarters in Belgium is buzzing to life.
The communications machines are switched on the lines tested.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Exercise exercise exercise testing communications over.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
And the Able Archer planners begin performing the wargame script
over the airwaves. The script's plot is getting more and
more dire. Remember they're trying to lead the able larger
players towards a fake nuclear war, So the planners keep
escalating the narrative.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Exercise exercise exercise Orange has invaded Germany over.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And relaying all this drama on NATO's secure communications line.
But of course they had company. The Soviets had picked
up the signal.
Speaker 10 (16:29):
Now all this time the communications are going backwards and forwards,
being listened into by the Soviets, who knew this was
an intended exercise.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Here's historian Taylor Downing.
Speaker 10 (16:41):
And each signal was begun with the sort of three
words exercise, exercise, exercise, exercise. But the Soviet analyzes analyzing
the radio signals that are being picked up are starting
at this point to get really quite anxious, and they're
now starting to think, is this actually a real NATO exercise?
Is this genuine or is it what they feared was
(17:02):
the Russian wood his Maskrovka deception? Is all this a
deception to delude us to the fact that NATO is
actually amassing its resources to prepare a nuclear assault.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Now, as you and I both know, NATO is absolutely
not planning a nuclear assault upon the Soviet Union. They
want to play the war game, learn their lessons, then
go catch flash dance or risky business. But the Soviets
don't know that. All they know is that under Operation Ryan,
intelligence from Soviet spies seems to keep supporting their assumption
(17:38):
that the West is definitely planning a nuclear attack. Also
this year, strangely, autumn forged troops flew in under total
radio silence, and the US just invaded Grenada. And now
what they're overhearing from the able archer war game is
feeling kind of intense. So the Soviets were left one ring.
(18:00):
What is that Wiley Reagan really up to? Well, actually,
I would fucking love to tell you what Reagan was
up to on November fourth. I know because we checked
the presidential photo archives. While the Soviets were imagining Ronald
Reagan sitting in the Oval Office with a maniacal grin
on his face and nuclear plans spread across the resolute desk,
(18:21):
he was actually quite literally feeding acorns to squirrels on
the White House lawn.
Speaker 7 (18:28):
Here you go, a little guy, here's a big one
for you.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
God damn it, you're cute.
Speaker 7 (18:34):
You seem like you've got it all together up in
your little tree. I've got a whole stash of these
in my desk, little buddy. Don't you worry, adorable presidential
respite or an insidious ruse. I'll say this for Reagan.
The guy contains multitudes.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Meanwhile, in London, it becomes clear to one double agent
that the KGB is convinced a nuclear war is imminent,
so that there was.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
A cable in the beginning warning the stations as the
American status and a very important exercise which can develop
to something sinister.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Here's our old pal, Oleg Gordievski. Remember he's a Western
spy pretending to be a loyal KGB spy who is
pretending to be a Russian diplomat. I mean, the guy's
a human nesting dog. Anyway. It's November fifth, nineteen eighty three.
Gordievski is sitting in the Soviet embassy in London when
he receives a telegram from Moscow. The telegram tells the
(19:37):
spies to keep close watch on the movements of British politicians.
It says, since the US and the UK are such
close allies, surely the British will be involved in any
sudden nuclear attack, and so it literally tells them to
go hang out outside Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher's house and
watch for any indication that the West has decided to attack,
(19:58):
because the telegram said once that decision was made, the
attack would be coming in seven to ten days.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
I knew it was a dramatic moment. I knew Moscow
was nervous.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
November sixth is quiet. It's Sunday. The Lord rests and
all that, Ronald and Nancy Reagan wake up at Camp
David and head back to DC. The night before, they
stayed up late watching The Wicked Lady starring Faye Dunaway.
The Wicked Later.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I'd like a dangerous entity.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
You make a dangerous patna, Reagan writes about it in
this journal. Naturally, it was embarrassing, damn near pornographic. He
doesn't even write out the word damn. He literally writes
d dash dash in Oh my God, what a dork.
But while Reagan is writing rotten tomatoes reviews in his
(20:52):
diary and feeding the squirrels, and Dropov isn't having such
a good time.
Speaker 10 (20:58):
The seventh eighth and November is the anniversary of the
revolution in Russia back in nineteen seventeen, and this is
a big public holiday in the Soviet Union. There was
always a big parade in Red Square.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
But Yuri and drop Off doesn't give a speech at
the parade in Red Square as he ordinarily would. Instead,
he lays in a hospital bed in a secure clinic
twenty kilometers outside of Moscow, dying of kidney failure.
Speaker 10 (21:28):
All the roads to it were very heavily guarded. Nobody
could get into it. You know, it was far away
from prying eyes of reporters or dissidents or anybody else.
It was completely surrounded by a ring of KGB security.
All the other members of the Politbureau would come out
in their limousines to visit him.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
And never leaving. A drop Off side was the aid
who carries the Cheggott, the Soviets version of the nuclear football.
It's named after a mountain in Russia. I assume because
they don't play football.
Speaker 10 (21:58):
There was a feeling in Russia that if the West
is going to attack, they'll probably attack while we're sort
of off our guard, while we're relaxing, while we're on holiday.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Now we don't know what happened in that hospital room,
but here's what we do know. We know that and
drop Off was dragged into World War II as a
young man when Operation Barbarossa traumatized the Soviet Union with
a surprise attack under the ruse of military exercises. We
know that he conceived of Operation Ryan to preempt a
surprise nuclear attack from the West. We know Russians believed
(22:31):
a surprise attack would come during a holiday, and we
know that now during a holiday, and drop Off was
dying in a hospital bed with nuclear codes within reach,
all while NATO rehearsed a nuclear war.
Speaker 10 (22:46):
It's impossible to know what thoughts go through a person
when they're in that physical state, but it's difficult to
imagine that it didn't have some effect upon his mental outlook.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Oh and one other thing. We all also know that
if the Soviet leaders believed an attack was eminent, they
had a policy to launch a preemptive strike to take
out enemy weapons before they were even launched. One can
only wonder if what was really going on in that
hospital room on November seventh was the Soviet leadership preparing
a nuclear attack of their own.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
So obviously, as there was a lot of activity on
the JERU.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Say, this is Oleg Gordievski again back in London during
able archer. He's talking about the GRU, the Soviet military's
intelligence department. Now this is a little technical, but it's important,
so let me break it down for you. The KGB,
Oleg's employer, is the official intelligence organization for the Soviet Union,
But the Soviet military had their own intelligence department called
(23:47):
the GRU.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
It was their responsibility. It was their department which was
responsible for their countermeageres and for monitoring what was happening
in the nights of countries.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
So like, I don't know, oh, concerns that NATO is
about to launch a bunch of nukes, that would be
the primary concern of the GRU, not necessarily the KGB.
The GRU also had a bunch of spies in London,
also posing in the embassy as Russian diplomats, and Gordiovski
remembers that during Able Archer eighty three, those GRU guys
(24:19):
were looking pretty stressed out.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
I remember that we were sitting on the loft of
the embassy and they were sitting in the basement, and
they were sitting like mice day and night during the
able Archer exercise.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
One reason Grdiovsky could tell the GRU was busier than
usual is because all of them were skipping the mandatory
morning meetings with the Russian ambassador.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
In those days of able arch none of them, to
the irritation of the ambassador, was present.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
For example, the head of the GRU station in London
was a man by the name of Yezhov.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
People after the because Yezov Heitchhock, as he looks like.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Heitchcock, always with the sick burn. Here's Gordo, He cracks
me up. Anyway, She was sitting in a city all
the time, as the papers, Gordievsky says it was unusual
for the hedgehog to be head down buried in papers.
It was clear to him that something was happening that
was very important to the GRU. Gordievski also says that
(25:19):
the GRU had a signal station in a building opposite
the embassy across Kensington Palace gardens. There a GRU radio
communicator would intercept signals like military communications.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
And he was coming from that building, crossing the roads quickly,
and in the embassy and down to the basement.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Gordievski watched this poor guy run back and forth all
week long, and listen, when you're a top secret GRU spy,
you don't leave yourself vulnerable to being seen or followed.
So whatever was happening, it must have been urgent. And
back in Belgium, well, the temperature was going up there too.
Speaker 10 (25:56):
The Warsaw Pact started to use chemical weapons.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
That's Tailor Downing again, talking about the Able Archer script.
It's November seventh.
Speaker 10 (26:04):
And the planners decided they had no alternative but to
respond by NATO forces using chemical weapons.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Remember we're talking fake chemical weapons here.
Speaker 10 (26:14):
Then on Monday, the seventh of November, in the script,
the warsaw pac to taking out various NATO command posts.
For instance, the US Air Force Command Center at Ramstein
in West Germany is in the script destroyed.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Exercise Exercise Exercise Orange is undeterred by Blues use of
chemical weapons. Oranges attack Ramstem with chemical weapons. Boo, what's
your move?
Speaker 10 (26:36):
The planners, sitting around their tables and looking at the
maps on the wall, have to decide how to respond.
Then at this point they begin to think about a
nuclear execution plan, and on Tuesday, the eighth of November,
NATO decides that the only way it can respond is
with a nuclear response, and the planners start working out
(26:57):
how many megatons of bombs they need to request the
un of which key targets across the Soviet Union will
be targeted.
Speaker 8 (27:04):
Part of my role during this time was to integrate
the new weapons into the NATO arsenal and operational plans.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
That'd be our man Gene.
Speaker 8 (27:13):
And then these new weapons include the ground launched cruise
missile which were being deployed into a NATO military basis
across Europe as well as the improved US Army pershing
two missiles.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Over in London. Some poor gru bastard is listening closely
to able Archer communications prepared to spreads across Kensington Gardens
to the Russian embassy and deliver messages to Soviet military intelligence.
And then within able Archer Blue comes up with their
next move. They're going to hit Orange with a nuclear strike.
Speaker 10 (27:45):
And now they do something that nature had never done
before in this regular exercise. They change the codes that
they're using.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Diable Archer Able Archer Blue is requesting use of twenty
five nuclear missiles for use on Orange targets. Please look
for presidential approval.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
The Soviet guy listening must have been like, they didn't
say exercise, exercise, exercise. They didn't say it. They didn't
say exercise.
Speaker 10 (28:13):
And suddenly this change of code now is the final straw.
The fact they're changing the codes, which they hadn't done before,
clearly signified to the Soviets that this wasn't just a wargame,
wasn't just an exercise, but this was a real preparation
for the launch of nuclear weapons. And the KGB Center
(28:34):
hearing these reports of NATO mobilizing to prepare to defend itself,
starts sending out increasingly urgent messages to its residencies abroad
to tell its agents to look for imminent signs of
nuclear warfare. You must look for even the slightest hints
that missiles are being readied.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Let's check back in with Comrade Gordievski.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
Well, it was a flash telegram. It was an super
urgent telegram.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
On November eighth or ninth, he can't remember which ole,
Gordievski received a flash telegram from the KGB center.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
Saying the Americans so now in the middle of their exercise,
so be ready for everything and watch thorodly because they
know what may happen.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Next, the telegram claimed that American bases had been placed
on high alert. Now that was not true. American bases
were not on high alert. They had just tightened up
security in reaction to a recent bombing in Lebanon, but
the KGB does not know this. The telegram states that
one explanation for this high alert is that quote the
countdown to a nuclear first strike had begun under the
(29:58):
cover of able archer their allies.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
It was more panic and he stated than Emma.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Meanwhile, President Reagan and the First Lady packed their bags
at the White House, preparing to leave DC for a
little trip.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Well in a few moments. As you know, Nancy and
I'll be bored, Marine want to begin the first leg
of our trip to Japan and Korea.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Naturally, their cameras pointed at him, so of course he
can't leave without a little Soviet jab.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
The Soviet shooting down of Kamla seven, their continued military
build up in Asia are grim reminders to us that
we live in a dangerous world. I will reaffirm America's
commitment to remain a reliable partner for peace and stability
in the region and in the world. And that's the
(30:54):
spirit of our trip.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Moments later, Reagan boarded the helicopter, his aid a few
paces by behind him, carrying the nuclear football and what's
in drop off supposed to make of all? This was
Reagan priming the public, reminding them how evil the Soviets are,
before he cracked open that briefcase and blew them all
to smithereens Now a little while later, over in Belgium,
(31:17):
the able Archer players receive a pretend message that the
pretend President has approved the use of pretend nuclear missiles
not real ones. Guys. I know you get it by now.
I'm just trying to be perfectly clear, and to be fair,
the Soviets don't get it. They're on the able archer
line and all they hear is able.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Archer, able archer use of nuclear weapons is approved, and.
Speaker 10 (31:39):
It's around this time that the Soviets start mobilizing their
entire nuclear arsenal.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Soviet leaders had a fateful decision to make, and they
needed to make it fast. If NATO is in fact
launching nuclear weapons, the Soviets would need to launch their
own urgently. If they didn't, their missiles could be taken
out in the first wave of the American attack. But
if they hit the button and they're wrong, then they've
started a war and ended the world as we know it.
Speaker 10 (32:08):
The whole crisis comes to a head really on the
evening of Wednesday, the ninth of November nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
That night, in the middle of holiday celebrations across the
Soviet Union, military officials received phone calls party time is over.
They were needed back at work urgently.
Speaker 10 (32:27):
A lot of the Soviets who were mobilized in this
nuclear operation, they remember that twenty four hour shift that
they were on, very very clearly as being the most
anxious point of their career.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
The Soviet military went on a state of nuclear alert
unlike anything before. And this this is not a rehearsal,
my friends, this was real.
Speaker 10 (32:48):
Thousands of warheads were mobilized and prepared to launch nuclear weapons.
That is, ascent to their battle stations. Each of these
ICBMs has well the average was about six warheads, each
war head with something like forty times the destructive capability
of a Hiroshima bomb.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Commanders who manned the Soviet's nuclear missiles were told to
stand by and await launch instructions that could be coming
any time in the next few hours.
Speaker 10 (33:16):
The Soviet leadership stayed up anxiously waiting for signs that
the Americans had in fact launched an attack and prepared
to retaliate in a full scale nuclear assault upon Western
Europe and North America. And they sent out a message
effectively saying, you know, are these guys about to attack us?
Are they about to launch nuclear weapons?
Speaker 11 (33:38):
The courier at first brought me the message.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
This is ryaner Rup again aka Agent Topaz. He's in
Brussels at his job in NATO, where he's working undercover
for the East German Stazi, a close partner of the KGB.
It's November ninth, nineteen eighty three when he receives an
urgent message from a Stazi.
Speaker 11 (33:55):
Courier Hilers, the Russians are really scared. Day one and
away everything any NATO is preparing for war and son.
Speaker 10 (34:05):
As far as Rainer grew Up is concerned, it's just
another day in the office. There's absolutely nothing going on. No, no, no,
we're not preparing any sort of assault at all. It's
just another regular day at work.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
That NATO headquarters, Yiner Rupp is instructed to respond urgently.
He reaches into his pocket and takes out his spy calculator.
It's pouring rain. Reiner runs to the designated phone booth.
He's out of breath, He's paranoid. He looks over his shoulder.
Has he been followed? He puts two francs in the
coin slot and dials the number. An elderly woman answers
(34:38):
the phone.
Speaker 8 (34:38):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Reiner says the code phrase, hello Grandma, I'd like to
come visit you this weekend. There's a pause and then
a click. Now he knows quote unquote, grandmother is recording
the call. He raises the calculator to the receiver, presses
a button and it makes a noise. Yeah. Encoded in
(35:02):
the crackle is his urgent message. NATO is not preparing
an attack. There are no plans for a secret surprise attack.
Stand down. He hangs up the phone.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
No be armed.
Speaker 11 (35:18):
I mean, I don't see anything of that happening in NATO.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Now. Somewhere in East Germany, Stazi agents rushed to the
home of the elderly woman, retrieved the recording and decode
the bleepity, bluepity message that could save the entire world
as we know it. They'd send an urgent telegram back
to the KGB in Moscow. NATO is not preparing an attack,
and when the KGB receives this message, the panic will
all die down. Ryan or Rupp will have single handedly
(35:46):
ended the nuclear scare, popped the champagne. The world is saved, right,
of course not.
Speaker 10 (35:53):
They might well have just been another form of deception.
And these supremely paranoid KGB officials are seeing Maskarovka everywhere.
You know, they're all out to get us. That Rynner
Up had been taken over and been told to send
this message.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
I mean it sounds paranoid, but at the same time, like,
how are you supposed to trust a spy?
Speaker 11 (36:15):
Of course I was only one agent's and they had
their other views.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Sorry, Ryner, we know you tried your best. The KGB
doesn't trust him. The one man who could solidly confirm
that NATO was not preparing an attack on the Soviet Union.
And even at this moment where it seems like things
could not get any worse, they do.
Speaker 6 (36:47):
It was extraordinarily tense time.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
This is John Perutz.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
Lieutenant General Lennarprutz was my father and he was in
Germany while I was in high school when the events
of the Soviet War took place.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
John's father, Lieutenant General Leonard Perutz, was a high ranking
intelligence officer for the US Air Force stationed in Germany,
and it was during Exercise Able Archer when a memo
from the NSSA landed on Lyonard Perut's desk about some
concerning Soviet military movements.
Speaker 6 (37:18):
The first thing, it's the first thing they noted were
some heightened activities by some Soviet aircraft across the border
in Germany.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
The memo said that as of nineteen hundred hours on November,
two Soviet fighter bomber planes in East Germany were on
high alert. By itself, it wasn't enough to be extremely alarming.
But then a few days later he got an update
and the picture got a lot scarier.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
We found out that some Soviet Air Force unit got
approval to arm their aircraft without their jamming pods. Now,
the electronic jamming pods are pretty standard piece of equipment
on a military aircraft.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
They're actually an essential piece of equipment on a military aircraft.
They can jam a radar, letting the flight go undetected
by enemy surveillance.
Speaker 6 (38:12):
And there was speculation as to why would they be
allowed to get ready, to be on alert and get
ready to fly without that, And there were speculation that, well,
maybe they had a different payload.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Than they were used to. Let me do just some
military translating for you. The electronic jamming pods are heavy.
Linard Perots analysts told him the planes are experiencing weight issues.
They're trying to rebalance the aircraft because the weight distribution
is changing. It's our theory that they're taking off the
jamming pods because whatever they're loading onto those planes is
(38:42):
too heavy. And we think they're loading real nuclear weapons.
Speaker 6 (38:50):
Interesting, anomalous.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Something you should know about Leonard Peruts. He was a
military man his whole life. Procedures, chain of command, I mean,
protocol was practically middle name. Actually it was Harry, but
you know what I mean. So when he got that
frightening report from his analysts, Lynyrd Perutz immediately called his
superior four star General Billy Minter.
Speaker 6 (39:12):
And he had to report to him, Hey, sir, there's
some anomalies Soviet forces seemed if air forces have gone
on a heightened alert.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Heightened alert with bombs and tow General Billy Mintor asks
Peruts what he thinks.
Speaker 6 (39:26):
They said, you know, Lenny, should we heighten our alert level?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Should we put our air force on alert? In that moment,
Leonard Perutz was completely unaware that his next move might
determine the fate of humanity. He had no clue that
the Soviets had intercepted able archer radio communications in which
NATO ordered the pretend launch of twenty five nuclear weapons
upon Soviet targets, and that the Soviet leaders were awake
(39:53):
that night waiting for those missiles to appear on their
radar screens. All he saw was real Soviet bombs being
loaded onto real Soviet planes, and he had a decision
to make Option one, put the air force on alert,
pass the intel up the chain of command. But what
would Reagan do with this information? Would he start a war?
(40:15):
And what would the Soviets do if they saw us reacting?
Option two? Wait and watch, risk getting it wrong, risk
the fate of the world. If he waited while the
Soviets launched nuclear bombs from their planes, the world would
be forever changed, possibly destroyed, and it would be all
his fault. All right, my nerves are totally fried. So
(40:40):
let's recap where we are in a fun way. Let's
do it in song.
Speaker 12 (40:45):
With The Soviets were paranoid that any military exercises might
just be cover for an actual attack, and so they
had all of their.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Spies looking signs of an attack. And basically we're swimming
in a stew of confirmation bias. And then NATO begins
Able Archer. It's a giant exercise and it fulfills all
the soviets worst nightmares. They loaded up all their planes
(41:18):
with bombs, and all the leaders retreated to the bunkers,
and now their fingers are hovering over the buttons, and
they're gonna launch missiles at each other and start a
huge jugar war. And it's down to good old Leonard Peruts,
who has no idea what's actually going on, but has
to make a crazy decision next week. Oh no, we
(41:50):
have to wait until next week. Yep, sorry everybody. This
is how we did things before Netflix gave you bingeables.
Next week on SNAFU.
Speaker 5 (41:59):
And General Pots makes a really critical decision at this time.
He's not making this decision based on any knowledge about
what's happening.
Speaker 6 (42:07):
That decision made is attributed to out of misinformation. It's
even described as that of ignorance.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
So there are two versions of this.
Speaker 11 (42:15):
There's the version the CIA initially put out, and then
Ilfoya the State Department and got its version, and its
version is pretty interesting.
Speaker 6 (42:24):
Speak truth to power even when it hurts.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Snapfoo is a production of iHeartRadio, Film, Nation Entertainment, and
Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio. Our
lead producers are Sarah Joyner and Alyssa Martino. Our producer
is Carl Nellis, Associate producer Tory Smith. It's executive produced
by me Ed Helms Milan Papelka, Mike Falbo, Andy Chug,
and Whitney Donaldson. This episode was written by Sarah Joyner,
(42:54):
with additional writing from me Elliot Kalen, and Whitney Donaldson.
Our senior editor is Jeffrey Lewis. How upset are you
about this fact? Olivia Kenny is our production assistant. Our
creative executive is Brett Harris. Additional research and fact checking
by Charles Richter, Engineering and technical direction by Nick Dooley.
Original music and sound design by Dan Rosatto. Additional editing
(43:14):
from Ben Chugg. Some archival audio from this episode originally
appeared in Taylor Downing's fantastic film nineteen eighty three, The
Brink of Apocalypse. Thank you, mister Downing for permission to
use it. Special thanks to Alison Cohen and Matt Aisenstadt.
Host
Ed Helms
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