Twilight: 1983, or Able Archer '83

[Matt Wiser]

Fellas, here's a Washington Post article on the Able Archer '83 exercise, the exercise that Yuri Andropov and the KGB thought might be a cover for a real attack:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-1983-war-scare-soviet-leadership-feared-nuclear-surprise-attack-by-us/2015/10/24/15a289b4-7904-11e5-a958-d889faf561dc_story.html


Thoughts?

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Fellas, here's a Washington Post article on the Able Archer '83 exercise, the exercise that Yuri Andropov and the KGB thought might be a cover for a real attack:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-1983-war-scare-soviet-leadership-feared-nuclear-surprise-attack-by-us/2015/10/24/15a289b4-7904-11e5-a958-d889faf561dc_story.html


Thoughts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14IRDDnEPR4

But seriously given the fact that we got even closer during the CMC (US destroyers were actively prosecuting Soviet subs in the FL Straits, dropping live depth charges on them, one captain had a carrier (Independence?) worked up on a firing solution and the political officer was urging him to hit her with a nuke torp but he backed down), and even later in the cold war (Stanislav Petrov's decision to ignore a computer error and not launch his division of missiles), while AA was one of those "phew!" moments it wasn't the closest nor the most deadly.

I can't remember the name of the general offhand but he told Truman to let him ram a division into East Germany to open the land route to West Berlin and start WWIII if necessary (because the Soviets sure as hell were going to shoot the shit out of a column of armor, regardless of whether or not they were "protecting" a convoy of supply trucks).

Now, the Walkers* may have blown the info about our phone tap in the Sea of Ohktosh but we had one in the north that (thank God) they DIDN'T know about, and monitoring that we found out that far from being ready to nuke us at the drop of a hat the Sovs were terrified of us kicking off WWIII with a decap strike, and after AA they redeployed their SSBNs to respond to it.

...

*=honestly they all should've gotten the death penalty, along with that little fucking weasel Pollard but that's for another discussion...

[Matt Wiser]

Walker didn't betray IVY BELLS: that was Ronald Pelton. The little weasel betrayed one of the best intelligence operations we had all because he was $35K in debt due to gambling. So he went to the KGB. Hope he liked Marion, then ADX Florence....He, like the Walkers, should've been shot.

[aspqrz]

He, like the Walkers, should've been shot.

So, purely as a matter of proportionality, then, Soviet (or other) nationals working (aka 'spying') for the West should also be shot?

I believe there's generally a reason that such people are often imprisoned - so that, at need, they can be used as bargaining chips to get the release of someone the holding nation may want released. Or to encourage the 'other side' to not do the same in lesser cases, as retaliation ...

Good politics, in that sense only.

If one could be entirely sure that such people would never be needed as bargaining chips and that their execution wouldn't trigger some disproportionate retaliation down the track, executing them is fine ... but can you ever be sure?

In wartime, of course, it's also why they are generally executed, with the blessing of the Hague and Geneva Conventions.

Phil

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Walker didn't betray IVY BELLS: that was Ronald Pelton. The little weasel betrayed one of the best intelligence operations we had all because he was $35K in debt due to gambling. So he went to the KGB. Hope he liked Marion, then ADX Florence....He, like the Walkers, should've been shot.

Yeah, Pelton. My mistake.

[unkated]

This exercise was the focus of Deutschland 83 (see here (http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=4904)).

[TrailerParkJawa]

I think we were very lucky that there was never an actual nuclear exchange either but accident, during a crisis, or a time of mistaken intentions. It is kinda scary really, I was a teen in the 80's and at the time wasn't afraid of a nuclear war because I thought MAD worked.

But it never occurred to me at that time that someone might just screw up.

[Matt Wiser]

One incident like that happened in '79, when a training tape was accidentally fed into NORAD's displays and it showed a major Soviet ICBM attack. SAC put the alert bomber crews in their cockpits, a backup Looking Glass was actually scrambled, and a "Threat Assessment Conference" was convened with NORAD, SAC, and the Pentagon before other assets like BMEWS were able to confirm that there was no attack underway. NORAD later built an off-site facility to train its controllers so that it wouldn't happen again.

[pmulcahy11b]

I think we were very lucky that there was never an actual nuclear exchange either but accident, during a crisis, or a time of mistaken intentions. It is kinda scary really, I was a teen in the 80's and at the time wasn't afraid of a nuclear war because I thought MAD worked.

But it never occurred to me at that time that someone might just screw up.

It's like the code "Broken Arrow" --The weapons officer had a good point when he said something like, "I don't know if I'm more afraid that it happened or that it happens so often that they have a code name for it."

Now that it is known to the public, I wonder what the current code name is for a lost nuclear weapon?

[lordroel]

Now that it is known to the public, I wonder what the current code name is for a lost nuclear weapon?

I hope a name they have not just for a long time.

[Matt Wiser]

For aspqrz: Every Western agent betrayed by the traitors Aldrich Ames and Robert Hansen was executed, but one: Oleg Gordievsky, who was extracted by MI-6 in 1985 and gave the first impression of the Soviet view of ABLE ARCHER.

For betraying those agents, both Ames and Hansen should have been executed, IMHO.

[TrailerParkJawa]

It's like the code "Broken Arrow" --The weapons officer had a good point when he said something like, "I don't know if I'm more afraid that it happened or that it happens so often that they have a code name for it."

Now that it is known to the public, I wonder what the current code name is for a lost nuclear weapon?

I think it is the same. Individual Broken Arrows incidents may have or still are classified but not the term in general. I remember checking out a book from the library that was full of military info. It was like an info-graphic; navys of the world, armies, etc. One page was dedicated to nuclear accidents and listed the terms broken spear and broken arrow

[Nowhere Man 1966]

If you go on Youtube, there is a recording from WOWO in Ft. Wayne, Indiana and WCCO from Minneapolis, Minn where on Saturday February 20th, 1971, NORAD send down the wrong message tape to the EBS and radio stations where instead of using a teat tape, they used one declaring a real attack. The WOWO announcer, Bob Sievers, upon receiving this stopped playing "Doesn't Somebody Want to Be Wanted" by The Partridge Family and announced from "Cheyenne Mountain" issued an "emergency action notification." I heard the aloofness in his voice, he seemed like a deer in headlights as he was stammering in the microphone trying to keep the public informed despite him not knowing what is going on. I can't blame him because I'm sure in his mind as well as many listeners that they are afraid that their lives will be changing very drastically in 15 minutes. He was also calling to all newsmen to report in as well as telling the listeners that WOWO went down to low power and tell other listeners out of the area to tune to their own local emergency stations. When the word came down that is was an accident, Sievers sounded very relieved.

[aspqrz]

For aspqrz: Every Western agent betrayed by the traitors Aldrich Ames and Robert Hansen was executed, but one: Oleg Gordievsky, who was extracted by MI-6 in 1985 and gave the first impression of the Soviet view of ABLE ARCHER.

For betraying those agents, both Ames and Hansen should have been executed, IMHO.

But those agents executed were traitors, too! Including Gordievsky.

In wartime executing spies is fine, as they have the potential to kill many (thousands, tens of thousands etc) servicemen or civilians on the side they are spying on ... and that's condoned by the Hague and Geneva Conventions, following long standing practise (but isn't always followed through with, anyway).

In peacetime, when all sides are attempting to use foreigners as spies in their own (the foreigners) countries, usually with some success, but rarely causing more than a handful of deaths, often amongst traitors against the country fielding the traitors in the other country, then it would seem to me that what your position is is that it is OK for one side to use traitors, but not the other.

For example, I am sure that the US has spies in Australia, and that some Australians are traitors working for the US. Should we, if we catch them, execute them? I am sure that their treason has, on occasion, caused the death of Australians or negatively affected Australian interests ... so we would be justified in doing so, according to you?

And you'd be fine with that?

Should Pollard (spying for Israel in/against the US) have been executed, or should he have been exchanged, as the Israelis have tried for several times? And how about the Israeli traitor, Yosef Amit, who was (evidently) spying for the US and/or NATO against the Israelis? Should he have been executed?

Phil

[Matt Wiser]

Pollard's treachery, while disgusting, didn't cost any asset his or her life, that we know of, anyway. Ames and Hansens', OTOH, did. Those were assets that fed the West valuable information on technical intelligence, orders-of-battle, warfighting plans, etc. Hansen probably betrayed double agents in the KGB and GRU.

SECNAV John Lehman wanted all of the Walkers executed, and I'm sure it took his legal advisors some time to explain that their treachery wasn't capital. He also wanted Pelton, the traitor who betrayed IVY BELLS, executed.

When someone betrays the names of assets to an enemy, who then liquidates them, that person is just as responsible for their deaths as if they had pulled the trigger themselves. Walker's treason could have had war-winning implications for the Soviets, reason enough to send him to the gallows as Lehman wanted.

Spying on allies-everyone does it, but it's not as serious as when someone betrays agents to an enemy or compromises codes. Or, in the '50s, people like Klaus Fuchs or Ted Hall. Fuchs did ten years, while Hall wasn't arrested due to the need to keep the Venona COMINT program secret. Hall's co-workers, though...they felt he should've been shot.

[Targan]

For example, I am sure that the US has spies in Australia, and that some Australians are traitors working for the US. Should we, if we catch them, execute them? I am sure that their treason has, on occasion, caused the death of Australians or negatively affected Australian interests ... so we would be justified in doing so, according to you?

Australia has many spies active in the US, Russell Crowe chief among them. Of course, because he's actually a New Zealander he's a deniable asset :cool:

[aspqrz]

Spying on allies-everyone does it, but it's not as serious as when someone betrays agents to an enemy or compromises codes. Or, in the '50s, people like Klaus Fuchs or Ted Hall. Fuchs did ten years, while Hall wasn't arrested due to the need to keep the Venona COMINT program secret. Hall's co-workers, though...they felt he should've been shot.

"Great Britain [Great Powers] do[es] not have friends. Great Britain [Great Powers] has [have] interests." Lord Acton (IIRC, though oft repeated by others and wrongly attributed.

So, if, say, tomorrow something changed, fundamentally, in the US-Australian relationship that meant our bought and paid for US national traitors in the US and your bought and paid for national traitors in Oz were the origin of material that led to the deaths of some US-suborned traitors here and some Australian suborned traitors in the US, that would justify the death penalty?

And I am talking nationals of a foreign country who have been suborned to spy on their country, not the legitimate diplomatic personnel whose job it is to 'spy' on the country they are stationed in (one group are spies, the other agents, and there is a difference, tho I can never remember it).

Treason is treason, no matter how you slice and dice it, surely? And in wartime the actual number of deaths caused by a specific Spy are not normally taken into account when they are executed, as they mostly are.

There are, for example, many older Australians who would very likely be happy to see any Australian traitors involved in the CIA interference very likely to have been part of The Dismissal to be declared traitors and hung, peacetime or no. And I'd be there metaphorically knitting as the tumbril rolled by with the traitors in it ...

And for those who think that was justified, they would be cheering at the gallows for the supposed commie spies in the ALP from assorted periods.

And I don't think the Israelis, for example, would necessarily agree with you, either ... though they don't tend to execute people as much (in prisons, anyway).

Phil

[Raellus]

New details about the USSR's response to Able Archer.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39331/misinterpretation-of-1983-nato-exercise-led-to-the-soviets-arming-100-jets-for-nuclear-war

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