Thread by @DrRadchenko

Spent several days reading piles and piles of documents and analysis on Able Archer - that moment in Nov. 1983 when the Soviets and the Americans nearly ended in an accidental nuclear war (or not?).

There was a lot of discussion of the episode earlier this year because of the release of the relevant FRUS volume, which included a testimony by Leonard H. Perroots. Here's the document: history.state.gov/historicaldocu…. Makes a pretty good reading by itself but...

Check out also this oped by @FOIANate and @thedeadhandbook: washingtonpost.com/national-secur… and also this rebuttal by Simon Miles: warontherocks.com/2021/03/the-my….

To sum up, those in favour of the war scare point to new bits of evidence, in particular to the fact (mentioned by Perroots) that Soviet forces in East Germany and Poland went on a heightened state of alert and potentially prepared to fight a nuclear war.

They also point to Andropov's worries about an accidental nuclear war, and his long-term concern that the West would launch a nuclear attack under the cover of exercises. Finally, they point to Gordievsky's testimony that suggests that the Soviet intel *were* very worried.

Those against argue that the Soviets, while worried, were not exactly on the edge. Miles, for instance, asks why, if they were so scared, did they only put a small portion of the forces on alert, and why there's scant evidence of nuclear alert in Eastern European archives.

He also asks how it all of this square with oral history, which (except for Gordievsky) generally points in the direction of the Soviets not taking Able Archer all that seriously.

My take: I don't have one. Having read everything that is currently available, I must sadly conclude that we don't have sufficient evidence to unequivocally claim one or the other. The smoking gun, if there's one, would be the relevant Politburo records, which remain closed.

So, there we go, having spent a long, long time reading everything and can't come to a plausible conclusion. Useless!