When I was about 8 or 9, my parents made us go see a piece of the Berlin wall in the middle of a fun vacation, and I was mad about it. I remember my mom saying "Someday you'll appreciate this moment." I laughed, but she turned out to be right.
Does anybody remember the almost palpable sigh of relief over those few days... when all historical precedent seemed to indicate there would be tanks and machine guns and dead civilians everywhere... and the tragedy never unfolded? For a minute, a brief moment in time, THE ENTIRE WORLD breathed a heavy sigh of relief... I was in high school, and for the first time, the future was uncharted. No more cold war. No more threat of nuclear annihilation. And as the world collectively stumbled into the distance, amidst the hundreds of thousands of peoples shouting freedom, I truly think that humanity found its voice, and that with the death of fear and oppression, the world discovered unity. Hope became tangible in the broken rubble of the Berlin wall...
neighbor - J - Well, too bad it led to the disaster we have now on so many fronts though. I went to Berlin and east Germany shortly after the wall came down and the east west difference was monumental, west was giant highways and boulevards and marble and gold, glass and steel. East was all a shade of brown or grey, narrow potholed streets and it honestly looked like I had imagined it. But it seems humanity forgets what socialism brings all too quickly if one looks at political developments all over the west, socialism is raising its ugly head everywhere these days, when one would expect it to have been long ago buried.
Just ran into this in my feed. I was part of this excercise in Pershing. I was a 15E Pershing Missile Crewmember from 79-85, Our motto was "We gave peace a chance" We never realized until years after how close we came. During my tour we went from P1A to the PII. We field tested the PII in Oklahoma and by the time I went back to Germany they had just deployed the PII. We took our part in the cold war very seriously and it was always in the back of our mind the power we had in those missiles. We are very proud of the mission and when Pershing was disbanded we went to "Mission Accomplished". Thank you for a great history lesson. To those of us that lived it, it is part of our memories forever.
I will never forgot the day in 1983, the very moment, that my basic training platoon sergeant walked into our barracks and announced that the 82nd Airborne Division, along with other forces, had invaded an island in the Caribbean that we'd never heard of in order to kick out the communists. I was about two weeks from leaving for jump school at Benning, and about six weeks altogether from being in the 82nd Airborne. It was fortunate that we'd been issued underwear that was already brown.
My dad enlisted in 90" and I remember that his underwear shirt was brown. I must say, he looked pretty sick in his woodland BDUs and "spit-shined" black boots! To this day, I couldn't tell you which white guy in his Plt. photo his him, other than point out the couple who ain't because there wearing BCs!
I was a Pershing missile technician. By the time of Able Archer, I had finished working the engineering development program with Martin Marietta, then operational testing leading up to the Pershing II deployment. Now I am a historian with the Pershing Professionals Association, documenting our history on Wikipedia.
Thank you Ed! I too was a Pershing 2 21G10 during Able Archer. I do remember feeling the heightened tension during that exercise, much more than usual. This is great info that fills in some of my gaps, thank you!
I was a bit before your time, 21L with Service Battery, 1/41 FA at Gmünd (P1A). Our main security concern back then was with the various "Red Brigades" of terrorists.
It is simply amazing the number of serious close calls with nuclear arms we've had as a species. Our "lucky" streak can't continue forever. The only way to win a nuclear war is to never fight one
@@Smokey298 There was 2 world wars and they were 2 decades apart but yeah. Also I’m sure anyone outside of Western Europe or North America would laugh at the longest peace statement.
I was a young Marine Officer in 1983. I studied the Soviet Threat and took it quite seriously. During this time, had no idea how close we came to the brink! Excellent video, and thank you, SIr!
I lived that year as a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. I spent time on the island of Grenada. In 1985 I was part of a group that planed and then formed up the "On Site Inspection Agency" to keep tabs on the USSR and to implement the INF Treaty. Thanks for the reminder and the memories of that time.
I remember being a 5 year old Star Wars fan and being incredibly excited that they were talking about my favorite franchise on the evening news. My father had to explain my mistake.
Hey man can you be a little bit of Mind expanding for me and tell me what your father had to say about it I am truly being open and want to know, my father was a great provider but never taught me much so that's why I'm curious and I'm not being facetious
@@brendoncoss9589 Not who you addressed but my two cents: his father most likely explained the truth of the matter as he understood it. Really, what else are you going to tell your son. Do get the good provider thing though... no point worrying, you'll work it out.
I was serving in the U. S. Navy in 1983. Out of the blue, we were put on combat status. 12 on 12 off. Half weapons stations fully manned. We didn't find out about Grenada until it was all over. Thanks for informing me about everything else that was going on. Keep up the exceptional videos. Thank you.
I was assigned to USMC command & control communications during that period. Top Secret messages flew off the teletype machines were astonishing. Interesting times indeed.
In the dark of the night on November 16, 1983, my butt (along with the rest of me) stepped off a bus at Lackland AFB, TX to begin Basic Training. Between the 007 shoot-down and Grenada, I was thinking that surely something was going to happen, and soon. It did, but not for another 8 years.
Nice storytelling, nice video as alwayws. Just a note on your last remarks about the Berlin Wall: Being born and having lived in Leipzig, Germany in the 1980s I have a vastly different picture of who brought down the Wall. Reagan and Gorbachev were only reacting to the facts that were made by the east-german people. Would love if you would tell this story, because that's history that deserves to be remembered. ;)
There are some important omissions which put an even sharper point on the history of that year. Able Archer occurred in early November. On November 20, the TV special The Day After was shown to huge audiences. Reagan was said to be shaken by the viewing of this. I don't remember if he saw the original broadcast, or watched it later, but it always seemed weird to me that he would be so affected by someone he already had to know much more about than what was in that show. But in the context of the time, with Able Archer having just occurred, I tend to think it was not so much anything new he learned from the show, but rather just its reinforcement of the overall mood. Then there was the November 26 false alarm, with Stanislav Petrov playing a crucial role-just a fairly ordinary guy, suddenly having to make an extraordinary decision, one which we can now see as having been decided correctly. Some of the popular music from in and around that year, about nuclear war, is quite memorable, but that's another rabbit hole for another time (unless someone wants to talk about it here).
Meanwhile, US schoolchildren were still watching scratchy 16 mm films of "Duck and Cover," and most US cities still had Fallout Shelters. Maps and globes still had all of the Eastern European bloc countries eerily color-coded red or pink, with the CCCP/USSR in crimson red for effect. Nuclear-tipped weapons were available to all of the armed forces. And defense spending was getting its biggest boost in decades. Cold War 2.0 was intense.
Yeah, but... the Berlin Wall *wasn't* dismantled by Gorbachev, per Reagan's request "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" but was instead dismantled by tourists seeking keepsakes [remember hearing about flights departing Berlin turning back from the runway because the luggage was too heavy w/ hunks o' wall?] after the puppet regime in East Germany collapsed. Gorbachev was too busy trying to keep the Soviet Union afloat after Ron's world class poker hand played out [bankrupting the USSR in their attempt to keep up with SDI; the U.S. spent 5% of it GDP on it; the Soviets couldn't sustain the 15% of their GDP they were spending trying to dance to Ron's tune!] Good times...
@@nunyabidniz2868 yep... 100% agree...Gorbachev is a communist first and foremost, his relaxing the rules of private ownership had more to do with strengthening his economy which was decimated by the defense spending and the Reagan's efforts to artificially reduce the prices of gas/oil - making the Soviet gas line a money pit over a money maker. To portray Gorbachev an "architect" of the dismantling the soviet system does everyone a disservice. There's no statue of Gorbachev in Moscow - and he left Russia when he realized he lost.
@@nunyabidniz2868 Related news,Putin was in charge of Stasi,KGB facility and threatened to shoot anybody who broke in. He wasn't authorized to do that, but it kept his facility as the one that didn't lose records. I think it shows who we are dealing with
I remember growing up in the 70s and 80s the prevailing thought wasn't, will there be a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and United States ? But when would it happen, scary times.
OldTriumph. It was like that when I was growing up in the "50s into the '60s, especially from the later '50s into early '60s. Imagine being a child at school having to practice those idiotic routines ("duck & cover") that were said to help you survive in case of a nuclear attack in your region. If you saw the mushroom cloud, etc, you were supposed to cover your eyes, to essentially use your desk for cover. All these official instructions for school kids were so ludicrous that it's hard to believe that any adult took them seriously, but apparently many did. I wasn't particularly well educated about 'the bomb' & its effects but even as a child, I knew these required safety maneuvers were useless. If you were close enough to see the flash of light from the nuclear blast, covering your eyes (supposedly to prevent blindness) & crouching beneath your desk wasn't going to help you survive. Also, we were taught (if outside when the bomb hit) to leap into the nearest ditch & lie face down, covering our eyes of course. Building bomb shelters in your back yard was advised as a means of surviving, with prefab shelters commonly advertised. My best friend & I decided to dig a hole big enough for a shelter in our back yard, after our parents refused to consider installing a prefab shelter. I'm sure our parents knew it was useless to build such a shelter, but my best friend & I thought it was worth a try. We ended up with a big hole, which we turned into a hideout by constructing a shelter made of fallen tree limbs with pine straw stuffed between the crisscrossed limbs. A great place to hide out on rainy days. I'm sure we weren't the only kids who were terrified for several years that at any time nuclear war would end our world. Within a few years with the Cuban Missile Crisis period, I went to school each morning wondering if I'd ever see my family again, terrified that the world might well end that day. In '66 or '67, driving with a friend from L.R. into north Ark., my friend pointed out the many missile silos. The mountains were full of them. Maybe the actual risk of nuclear attack was greater in '83, as the History Guy claims, but the risk was very high during the Cuban Missile Crisis too, & having lived through both periods I'd say the public fear was greater in the earlier crisis. Fear of nuclear was was very intense in the late '50s into early '60s, more so than I've seen since then.
@@janegarner9169 a 1-megaton bomb will cause flash blindness from up to 13 miles in a clear day, which is way further than the blast will kill you, so covering your eyes is definitely not useless. Moreover, bomb shelters, while not protecting you from a close hit, will protect you from the radiation fallout and blast damage (up to a certain point). Yes, you would live in a very dysfunctional world after a nuclear exchange, since society and basic services would have collapsed (and food would be really hard to grow for some years), but it would be possible to survive if you were lucky enough (even though your life would suck and you would probably die young).
This has got to have been one of the very best! I love your videos for a number of reasons. The seriousness to which many Americans we're Clueless and still are. Your ending in unbagging part of the Berlin Wall was the topper! I thank you for your works. J. W.
In November 1983 I was a senior at Heidelberg American High School in West Germany. We had a day off from school during this time as we practiced what was called a N.E.O Exercise or "Non-combatant Evacuation Order" which was an attempt to get as many family members out of Europe as quickly as possible prior to the Soviets coming through the Fulda Gap. We boarded a series of buses and trains until we were finally loaded onto waiting C-141's at Ramstein AFB where the exercise ended. I never knew how close we were to that actually happening... Thanks for the video.
In times such as these, I'm always drawn to the great scholarly Yiddish intellect of Henry Yungman. Known and beloved by the Alpha Male species as Henny Youngman. Take my wife, PLEASE!
@: Dude! You just caused me to snort coffee on another keyboard! I humbly bow to your superior comedic skills. Wasn't this story about nuclear annihilation? Oh well, same difference.
Another excellent installment! I graduated high school in June of '83, and went to Navy Basic Training in Great Lakes, Ill. the following month. I remember every bit of what was discussed in this video, but only now that THG has connected the dots do I realize just how tense things really were back then. Ahhh, the naivete of youth!
“We will never know how close the world was to nuclear armageddon” Stanislav Petrov prevented nuclear war because of a gut feeling he had when his satellites recorded american missile launches which were reflections of clouds.
After my generation came so close to nuclear annihilation we are a bit dismissive towards the AGW alarmists who believe that the 3% of the CO2 released into the atmosphere is going to cook us.
I talked with a former east german civil employee on a soviet airbase some time ago and apparently they had nuclear armed fighter-bombers on alert for a few days in '83. The aircraft apparently stood on the runway with engines running. That was in Magdeburg, barely 40 miles from the inner german border.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel When you do keep in mind that the CCCP could not keep up with the arms race: The T-80 tank was positioned to counter NATO tanks, but without the 3 to 4 all terrain trucks per tank needed to support the tanks in the field. So the tanks could only fight until they were out of ammo & fuel, and thus couldn't be used in an offensive capacity. I once knew a former member of the Военно-воздушные силы, who was chosen because he was an only child with few relatives, making security easier. It was essential for the secret that only two of their Tupolev Tu-22M bombers actually had engines & instruments and were only there for NATO to see by spy satellite. And most importantly, the economy failed in 1978, the year when seven months passed before any action was taken to replace the only Soviet tooth brush factory, as it had burned to the ground.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel Be careful what you say! The AGW "True Believers" don't like facts that contradict their religion, like not one of their doomsday predictions over the past 50 years has come true. It all had to happen before the year 2000 or we were all dead......and yet here I sit enjoying your channel and reminiscing about high ranking Soviet officers kissing their wives for the final time that morning, "knowing" the war was about to be launched by the west, or so their spys said (many were later shot). Great story, but it was closer than even you said. (MAJ retired)
Wow! That was one of the best HG episodes and description of how close we were to nuclear war! What a hook at the beginning?!! 😁👍 Superb finale! 👍👍😁😁 This is why I click like before I’ve even watched an episode oh HG!! 😁😁😁👍👍👍👊✌️
I moved to the states from PR on that February of 83, and it was a big impact to feel the northern cold after having spent my first 14 years of life in warm weather. I had always loved history and I remember most of these things happening at that time. As I saw these happenings I enjoyed the music of 1983 and learned to roller skate. BTW, "Return of the Jedi" was sensational.
Great history telling as usual. There was one more thing you could've tossed in as emblematic of the tensions of the time. On November 20, 1983, ABC aired "The Day After" which I watched live. It seems tame now, but it scared the living daylights out of me at the time.
Ah, you remember it too! I have a longtime friend who appeared as an extra in thst film when she was attending college at Lawrence Kansas. She can be sedn as the nurse dtanfing on the steps of the medical center next to the Asian doctor as they watch missiles streak acrosx the sky. For the record, the actor who played the doctor was incredibly generous, isnsisting she stand cloer to him so dhe would be in the shot. A minor piece of history that deserves to be remembered. The music used in the film was from Virgil Thomson's The River -- one of my favotite pieces of music.
It scared Reagan as well. He got a pre screening and got incredibly shaken by it. Might have contributed to him making the right decisions to avert war
I remember going to school and thinking, “I hope a nuclear war doesn’t start today.” We grew up under the constant threat of world annihilation and there was very little, if anything, we could do about it. To this day I remain impressed that we have NOT yet nuked ourselves into oblivion given our nature and all.
@@HeliosFive = I think this was covered in a documentary about the film, or some other text. Reagan was flawed, even to the extent that he believed there was a War Room (from Dr. Strangelove), but nuclear war really scared him, as it would be, at best, a Pyrrhic victory.
Not only did you cover one of the most fascinating slash terrifying periods of 1983......but.....you also proudly hoisted the flag of the original SW fans ! For that, you have somehow surpassed you already legendary status - thank you ! 👍
That happened on the first of my two tours in Germany with the army. I was assigned to one of the 3 Pershing missile battalions of the 56th FA Brigade (Pershing) When I got to the unit, we were using the Pershing 1a. At any given time, 9 Pershing missiles were set up at three sites in southern Germany with their nuclear warheads installed and kept in a ready state that allowed 6 missiles to launch within 10 minutes of the first alert. The brigade kept this Quick Reaction Alert status going while we started to turn in the 1a missiles and send crews back to the states to train on the PII. I still remember this exercise, because it was only command and communication personnel participating. Some of the soldiers in my platoon participated because their were the ones who would receive the top secret codes to launch and decode them while the missiles were already preparing to launch. I remember sitting at my desk when they walked in and said that we almost got attacked by the Soviets. So somehow some people new pretty early about this "close call." The rest of the winter was a blur. We rolled the first battery of Pershing II missiles past the protesters in the middle of the night in Mutlangen, where the battalion had its missile storage area (MSA) For the rest of December until I left the unit in December of 1984, we were on a break-neck pace to assemble, train on, and deploy the missiles while thousands of protesters blocked our sites and tried to find us in the field while we trained. In January I was attending Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning, GA while I was ordered to report to the company commander. I reported to him while he was surrounded by the entire cadre and staff all looking at me intently. I thought I was in serious trouble when he said "There has been an accident at a Pershing missile site in Heilbronn and that 3 soldiers were killed. You were just there, so what is going on? What is this place?" As calmly as I could muster, I had to tell him that I was not allowed to discuss anything about it. There is no such place. Yep, those were heady times!
U.K. Excellent as always. Mikhail Gorbachev. He now lives alone with a maid to help him. His family lives in Germany. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. He is not revered in Russia as he is in the West. At 88 he still works at the Gorbachev Foundation which he created. Perhaps we should remember him History Guy - we don't get many honest politicians.
I am really enjoying your videos. I’ve only watched 3 or 4 as of yet, but as a self-proclaimed history nerd, I love that you don’t follow the same route as so many other channels and try to make it “entertainment”, but your focus is on education, and your passion shows.
It is interesting to note that later in the same month as Able Archer, ABC broadcast "The Day After." This made for TV film certainly caused a great deal of concern (not only in the US, but internationally) and so I wonder how much more concern it would have generated if the events surrounding Able Archer were generally known at that point.
I was in high school when news of it broke. I always thought it ironic that it had the flight number of 007. Soviets were really embarrassed when they couldn't explain why their pilots could not recognize a Boeing 747.
It didn't help that conservative US Congressman Larry McDonald (D-GA), who was also president of the strongly anticommunist John Birch Society, was killed on that flight. Yes, there used to be such a thing as conservative Democrats.
@@deadfreightwest5956 from the range the Soviet pilots fired from they could not actually see the plane, just a blip on their radars. Plus they were being vectored in by strategic radar and command on the ground. Not like WW11 when aircraft had to get up close and personal for dogfights.
@@deadfreightwest5956 I believe that incident happened at night which could explain why they didn't recognize it as a well known commercial airliner. Plus the pilots were acting under the direction of ground control.
We didn't shoot down anything. It was a spy plane. No, you can't see the wreckage. sshhhhhhh....... crickets..... they'll all forget in a day or two.... Yep. Sounds familiar.
I remember that year well. As an engineer in the US Merchant Marine I spent over 4 months in the Indian Ocean on an ammo ship in 1983. Our main purpose was for the possible invasion of Iran but of course there were other scenarios that could happen. Every time we went out to sea we were shadowed by either a North Korean or Russian fishing boat (spy ship).
@James Sloan That's true about all the antennas on those boats. The difference between the Russians and North Koreans was interesting. The Russians had no problem making their presence obvious. Whereas the North Koreans would stay just over the horizon. When we changed course they would do exactly the same, staying just out of sight. Sneaky devils.
One of my favorite episodes thus far! I was a young soldier in West Berlin from 1982 to 1984. The tension was palpable. At the time I was certain that the shoot down of KAL Flight 007 (with American Congressman Larry McDonald aboard) would be the Sarajevo-like event that ignited another world war. Our untenable position 100 miles behind the Iron Curtain instilled me with much gratitude for the cooler heads that ultimately prevailed.
Wow! So few people knew of any of this at the time. As always, your summation of these historical facts shed a light on current events. " Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it". Very timely!
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel Strangely neither side learned this lesson, as we could have stopped building thermonuclear weapons at a 100, and still had enough in submarines to effectively destroy the CCCP. The CCCP could have stopped at 70 to effectively destroy NATO. The French have learned part of this lesson as all of their thermonuclear weapons are on missile carrier submarines...
@@davidhollenshead4892 An Art Buchwald column addressed the concept behind the Arms Race. He noted each side was always poor-mouthing their ability to adequately respond to a strike by the other side. Buchwald opined that didn't really worry him. He was worried that somebody might say, "I think we have enough now."
One of the best videos I've watched from you! No idea how close I came to getting nuked as a kid and so glad cooler heads prevailed at least for the time being.
I had no idea how close we were in 83. We had a 1 yr old daughter at the time which took up all our time. I really enjoy your very informative history videos.
Great episode! I’ve read some stuff about it earlier, but THG taught me some new things which are greatly appreciated! If you like to learn a bit more there is a quite nice typical NatGeo/HistoryChannel episode on UA-cam somewhere about Able Archer.
I was with Pershing from 1980 to 1984, first as the Brigade Signal Officer and then as the Public Affairs Officer (83 - 84). It was the highlight of my career. I remember when the first Pershing II went erect at Mutlangen. I was the culmination of so much hard work by so many people, military and civilian. Thanks for the memories.
I do have a request for a future episode! Would you please give your viewers a history of the 1953 CIA\MI6 coup in Iran. Seems particularly relevant at this moment.
It was the most dangerous year. I was in SAC at this time. I remember when the alert aircraft (Tankers and Bomber) actually took off the runway and we (aircraft ground crews) were leaving the base for an airport 50 miles away... I was sure I had said goodby to my family for the last time. They were staying and not told of the danger.
I was born in the mid 80s and grew up in the 90s. The Walkman wasnt replaced by the discman until the early 90s. Walkman was still very dominant before then.
Thank you for sharing your passion for history with us. I was 12 in 1983. Learning about this stuff is thrilling and sobering. It was around then that I realized Soviet kids were probably just like us more or less. Music was a large part of it. I remember watching the Berlin Wall start to come down and feeling in my gut how important it was. It’s cool that you have pieces of it. Probably an episode about that alone in the future? Please keep making videos and thanks again and just wow. Great video.
In November 1983, I was a young Army 24U stationed in Germany at a German Luftwaffe Nike Hercules site. We had an ECCCS (European Command Control Console System) that connected us, via the hub in Heidelberg, to the Pentagon. The ECCCS was a microwave line-of-site system and was 'supposed' to be un-hackable. It was with this system that we were able to communicate secure 'Flash Traffic' as part of the Able Archer exercise. I was on duty and was receiving/relaying messages when my commanders asked me if I had made some kind of mistake while receiving/writing the coded messages. The previous two messages were from a code book not involved in traffic for Able Archer. They were talking to me when a third message came in, so they watched me write it down, and then went to de-code it. It was also from the wrong book! They then wrote a coded message that I sent out to the hub, and about 30 minutes later we were contacted by the CIA that we had been targeted by the KGB!! Not only did they have a legit code book, but they had sent the messages via a mobile microwave tower just up the hill, less than 1 kilometer, from our base. Needless to say that we were all a little freaked out by this and took security quite a bit more serious after that! We were not aware of how close we came to war until many years later when the documentary “Able Archer 1983: Brink Of Apocalypse” came out. Fun times!
I really love your channel, as I am a dedicated fan of history. You seem to pick the most interesting topics and have a flair for composing the script. If I could offer one minute bit of feedback, occasionally it seems as though you are rushing to get it said as quickly as possible. That tends to detract from the end result IMHO. I don't mind one bit if the videos are longer. It just means there is more great detail to learn about. But in general thanks for the great contribution to teaching history. KUTGW.
Late 1983, I was 20 years old and living with my sister and her husband in Germany where he was stationed (Air Force) We had no idea how close we were.
Jan 1983 I was just assigned to A company 2/4 inf, 56 field Artillery bat. Pershing. I watch the removal of the Pershing 1A misslez and the arrival of the Pershing 2 missiles. I remember the protesta at Muteligen, Army Air force base, in Swaibash Gemunde,( forgive my spelling). But I was well aware of what was going on around us. We had to stay informed, that was crucial in our job. I remember having to go out on foot patrols around the missile site, with all these protesters around not knowing if we would get knifed, or shot, or beat up, also doing tower guard duty, at the Cass site. The stress was very high, and very real, we had to be top notch all the time because the whole world was watching us, and that's alot of pressure!!! There's plenty more to say about it, there always will be I guess...
I've enjoyed your video essays for some time now, but the quality of this one finally moved me to comment, and that only to add my voice to the chorus of those appreciating this marvelous encapsulation of that period (pop music preferences aside, having been something of a Bowie man myself, lol). I lived through those times, and while I appreciated *some* of the gravity of its various events, I had no idea of their real significance, nor any appreciation of how close humanity came, once again, to bungling our way into an apocalypse. As I'm sure a great many have said before me, your distinctive voice, sense of humor, and narrative gifts frequently manage to create pieces informative, delightful, and of uncommon quality. Thank you so much for creating this one, and for all your many essays. Cheers!
1983, goodness Norton A.F.B. in Calif. Remember all of our C-141's being sent to east coast in support of the Grenada Op. As already mentioned, hadn't realized things had gotten that close. Good episode Mr. The History Guy. Military history, I gonna guess you wrote this one. PS: you mentioned "Walkman's". Do you still have your lazerdisk??? he he he
Great stuff! I'd like to add that in the 1980s we were well aware that Nuclear Armageddon was real. It even became part of our culture. On those 'cassette tapes' we were listening to "Two Tribes" by "Frankie goes to Hollywood" (listen to this song) and at the Movies we watched "Spies Like Us". Heck even "TopGun", "FireFox" all this added to a sense of Nuclear Armageddon.
One of your best! I was in college at the time. I remember Korean flight 7 being shot down. I had no idea that Operation Able Archer 83' pushed us so close to Nuclear War. At the time l was investigating getting a commission in the Navy. The Navy had a program that would send you to college to get a Master's in Nuclear Engineering.
Thank you for a particularly interesting episode Mr. History Guy! Maybe you can do one on the development and testing of the Tsar Bomba and its geopolitical consequences.......
I was a missile operator in the GLCM (ground launched cruise missile) system based at RAF Greenham Common in the late 80's. Ours was a USAF intermediate range nuclear system along with the Army's Pershing II system . There were probably 10 times the number of GLCM's in theater as there were Pershing II's. The INF treaty got rid of the SS-20, GLCM and Pershing II. We had Soviet inspectors at our base just weeks after the treaty was signed as did the our inspectors visit the SS-20 bases in the Warsaw Pact. You did a great job, as usual, describing the events of these days. But please don't leave out the 1,000's of us who deployed the GLCM system which helped to incentivize the Soviets into signing the INF treaty.(against a lot of opposition from the British anti nuclear demonstrators)
That arms race is what eventually crushed the USSR. In 1985 there was a spoof movie “Spies Like Us” that in retrospect was probably more real than we would like. Very good story, thanks.
Done a couple Able Archers myself. 56TH FA BDE. 1980-'82. Was an "Udo's Regular." I missed the '83 version , of course. But I know my guys shined like a pair of field boots.
The danger we in "The West" and more specifically the "Anglosphere", face is that we tend to think that everyone else perceives the world, and us, the same as we do. They don't; and that is where the danger is.
@Gareth Fairclough; No, it happens mainly for people of countries where you do not learn foreign languages. So you never see news or read articles written for an audience different than you. You will lacking outside perspectives.
The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do. Samuel P. Huntington
@@slolerner7349 Normally I respect Huntington. But both the Mongols and the early islamic jihadists had larger and better armies and conquered far. But the Mongol Empire, the largest, folded fast because the Mongols themselves were primitive and brutal in their culture and politics. Ditto with the Soviets
And hearing "Winds of Change" playing on the radio all the time. I was fundamentally moved at that time to believe communism was dead, the Cold War over, and new hope for this world was possible, as a young high schooler... Not sure if we have perfected the sauce yet. We are still a work in process... Afghanistan has been going on how long? Some things got weird...
@@BeingFireRetardant , our proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan helped set the stage for the Taliban and 9/11. Read "Ghost Wars" by Steve Coll. There's ample reason for Afghanistan having once been referred to as "the graveyard of empires". Bin Laden hoped to pull us into a Vietnam- type situation. He succeeded.
@@goodun2974 Right, I don't think anyone realized just how stabilizing two antagonistic superpowers were. As the cold war ended, gremlins, ghosts, and monsters reared their ugly heads: Medellin, Noriega, Bosnia, Kosovo, China 2.0, Chechnya, Sudan, Somalia, Al Queda, Russian gangster chaos... Worldwide discontent. All within a few years. Interesting time to be alive...
@@BeingFireRetardant , hard to tell if the other "gremlins and monsters" were already there and we (the US) didn't notice, or if the power vacuum that occurred when the Soviet Union collapsed brought all these other problems to the forefront. The Soviets were definitely keeping a lot of tribal like disagreements under wraps and at bay, and with the Soviets gone these newly unfettered peoples were free to pursue their own nationalistic desires. And then there is the fact that our newly minted military industrial complex likes having these kinds of conflicts and small wars all over the place, it gives them a purpose and a reason to exist. And the way for everybody to keep drawing a paycheck.
@@goodun2974 Probably both, to the gremlins... and I agree 100% on the rest. Nationalism and self determination are human rights that will find a voice inevitably. Once the wall came down, everyone wanted a seat at the table. And some, like Al Qaeda, just wanted to kill everyone and burn the table for good measure... The next 30 years will be defining, I imagine. Into what, I don't know, but defining nonetheless...
I grew up when there were air raid sirens tests every Wednesday at noon. We were taught to duck and cover under our desks in school and not to look directly at the blast. Most public buildings had civil defense signs directing to emergency shelters. I spent two years in an armored battalion in Bamberg in the seventies. You can not imagine the enormous sense of relief I felt watching collage age kids climbing on top of the Berlin Wall and attacking it with hand tools on TV, and then some construction equipment joined them. What a night!
The story of Able Archer reminds me of _Wargames,_ which I just watched on UA-cam movies, available for free with only adverts. I wonder if the writers had Able Archer in mind, or was that a common enough premise for fiction at the time.
The makers of War Games did not know about this, but the fear that an electronic glitch could accidentally do us all in was pretty common at the time. Coincidentally, around 1983 there was a real life incident at NORAD where somebody mistakenly loaded some tapes from a simulation, leading NORAD to believe for a moment that North America may be under attack, much like the first incident in the film.
I was just starting my Air Force career in 1983 (late 82, actually) and had no idea this was happening. It certainly casts any exercises we held in a new light that year though I don't think there were any unscheduled ones.
Bravo Zulu again.. Just some things that go with your story: Fleet EX83 the Soviets sht their pants when the USS Midway CV-41 managed to close within 100 miles of Vladivostok undetected. NATO also deployed a second nuclear weapon system, the ground launch cruise missile also known as the Tomahawk.
Mike B, read Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea by John Lehman. I was out of the navy by time the USS Midway did that, but that was not the only time a carrier battle group scared the pants off of them by showing up where they least expected it.
The Midway did not get to within 100 miles of Vladivostok undetected. 100 miles is outside of Soviet territorial waters and there is only about 300 miles from eastern point of the USSR and west coast Japan so its not like naval traffic in Sea of Japan is uncommon. The exercise was to provoke the Soviets and see how they operate in their response but the Soviets didnt take the bait. The exercise was conducted quite a way from Vladivostok. It was argued that highly provocative exercises like this, and US spy flights along KAL007s route strongly contributed to its downing.
When I was about 8 or 9, my parents made us go see a piece of the Berlin wall in the middle of a fun vacation, and I was mad about it. I remember my mom saying "Someday you'll appreciate this moment." I laughed, but she turned out to be right.
Moms, go figure :-)
Hasselhoff dancing on it was epic.
I was living right next to the Berlin wall at that age and i didn't appreciate it either. Youth really is wasted on the young.
Does anybody remember the almost palpable sigh of relief over those few days...
when all historical precedent seemed to indicate there would be tanks and machine guns and dead civilians everywhere...
and the tragedy never unfolded?
For a minute, a brief moment in time, THE ENTIRE WORLD breathed a heavy sigh of relief...
I was in high school, and for the first time, the future was uncharted. No more cold war. No more threat of nuclear annihilation.
And as the world collectively stumbled into the distance, amidst the hundreds of thousands of peoples shouting freedom, I truly think that humanity found its voice, and that with the death of fear and oppression, the world discovered unity.
Hope became tangible in the broken rubble of the Berlin wall...
neighbor - J - Well, too bad it led to the disaster we have now on so many fronts though. I went to Berlin and east Germany shortly after the wall came down and the east west difference was monumental, west was giant highways and boulevards and marble and gold, glass and steel. East was all a shade of brown or grey, narrow potholed streets and it honestly looked like I had imagined it.
But it seems humanity forgets what socialism brings all too quickly if one looks at political developments all over the west, socialism is raising its ugly head everywhere these days, when one would expect it to have been long ago buried.
Just ran into this in my feed. I was part of this excercise in Pershing. I was a 15E Pershing Missile Crewmember from 79-85, Our motto was "We gave peace a chance" We never realized until years after how close we came. During my tour we went from P1A to the PII. We field tested the PII in Oklahoma and by the time I went back to Germany they had just deployed the PII. We took our part in the cold war very seriously and it was always in the back of our mind the power we had in those missiles. We are very proud of the mission and when Pershing was disbanded we went to "Mission Accomplished". Thank you for a great history lesson. To those of us that lived it, it is part of our memories forever.
I will never forgot the day in 1983, the very moment, that my basic training platoon sergeant walked into our barracks and announced that the 82nd Airborne Division, along with other forces, had invaded an island in the Caribbean that we'd never heard of in order to kick out the communists. I was about two weeks from leaving for jump school at Benning, and about six weeks altogether from being in the 82nd Airborne. It was fortunate that we'd been issued underwear that was already brown.
Doug Lee Oh man I hated that underwear 🤣🤣🤣
I was on helo detail Beirut Lebanon 23 Oct 1983 focusing on our mission of rescue and recovery
My dad enlisted in 90" and I remember that his underwear shirt was brown. I must say, he looked pretty sick in his woodland BDUs and "spit-shined" black boots! To this day, I couldn't tell you which white guy in his Plt. photo his him, other than point out the couple who ain't because there wearing BCs!
@@jed-henrywitkowski6470 BCs... Birth Control glasses? 😉
We were told to mind our own business and stop reading newspapers.........by the Drill Sgt. He. Was a jackass
I was a Pershing missile technician. By the time of Able Archer, I had finished working the engineering development program with Martin Marietta, then operational testing leading up to the Pershing II deployment. Now I am a historian with the Pershing Professionals Association, documenting our history on Wikipedia.
I was a 21G, Alpha 1/41. Arrived in Gmünd March ‘85.
Thank you Ed! I too was a Pershing 2 21G10 during Able Archer. I do remember feeling the heightened tension during that exercise, much more than usual. This is great info that fills in some of my gaps, thank you!
I was a bit before your time, 21L with Service Battery, 1/41 FA at Gmünd (P1A). Our main security concern back then was with the various "Red Brigades" of terrorists.
I always felt that if we gave Reagan half a chance he might started a nuclear war.
I was a 54B attached to. The 56th FA CMD. Decon platoon, in Gmund. Arrived in 88.
“History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
― Mark Twain
Very stable genius Archer.
@@cellpat7392 I don't know I remember a lot of history and I as well as everyone else is stuck in the rapids of reputation
@@martymethuselah Enjoy your apples.
@@bman6065 reputation? Maybe you meant "repetition"
I dunno
It does in California and in the Democrat Party.
It is simply amazing the number of serious close calls with nuclear arms we've had as a species. Our "lucky" streak can't continue forever. The only way to win a nuclear war is to never fight one
You have nuclear weapons to thank for this longest stretch of peace in history. Prior to that there were world wars every 10 years.
@@Smokey298 There was 2 world wars and they were 2 decades apart but yeah.
Also I’m sure anyone outside of Western Europe or North America would laugh at the longest peace statement.
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?" -War Games (1983)
@@connorbranscombe6819the Cold War lasted 60 years and didn't go hot specifically because of nukes.
@@WillieBrownsWeiner Okay buddy, how does that relate?
I was a young Marine Officer in 1983. I studied the Soviet Threat and took it quite seriously. During this time, had no idea how close we came to the brink! Excellent video, and thank you, SIr!
The History Guy is a model for history teachers everywhere! Keep it interesting, keep it real, and they will listen!
I hope he IA binge watched by home schooled kids
Another History Guy episode hit out of the park, and by a real pro. Thank you, History Guy.
I lived that year as a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. I spent time on the island of Grenada. In 1985 I was part of a group that planed and then formed up the "On Site Inspection Agency" to keep tabs on the USSR and to implement the INF Treaty. Thanks for the reminder and the memories of that time.
I remember being a 5 year old Star Wars fan and being incredibly excited that they were talking about my favorite franchise on the evening news. My father had to explain my mistake.
Same here! Miss this bygone era!
HA!😀
Hey man can you be a little bit of Mind expanding for me and tell me what your father had to say about it I am truly being open and want to know, my father was a great provider but never taught me much so that's why I'm curious and I'm not being facetious
@@brendoncoss9589 Not who you addressed but my two cents: his father most likely explained the truth of the matter as he understood it. Really, what else are you going to tell your son. Do get the good provider thing though... no point worrying, you'll work it out.
@@brendoncoss9589 Star wars on the news not Luke and Vader but nukes and lasers .
As a Cold War Vet 1982-1988. Thank you for telling some of what was happening. Many say the Cold War nothing.
This is the best damn subscription I ever had..
And I still miss the History Cat..
I was serving in the U. S. Navy in 1983. Out of the blue, we were put on combat status. 12 on 12 off. Half weapons stations fully manned. We didn't find out about Grenada until it was all over. Thanks for informing me about everything else that was going on. Keep up the exceptional videos. Thank you.
"And in November the world was nearly destroyed in a nuclear armageddon"
-smirks-
That's why we love you Histoy Guy.
I was 21 years old and serving in the U.S. Army at that time. I remember a lot of this but did not know how close we came to war.
We're the same age I was also serving out to sea at that time.
Thank you both for your service.
I was assigned to USMC command & control communications during that period. Top Secret messages flew off the teletype machines were astonishing. Interesting times indeed.
Same here, I was on Fleet ex 83 and had no idea either.
In the dark of the night on November 16, 1983, my butt (along with the rest of me) stepped off a bus at Lackland AFB, TX to begin Basic Training.
Between the 007 shoot-down and Grenada, I was thinking that surely something was going to happen, and soon. It did, but not for another 8 years.
Nice storytelling, nice video as alwayws.
Just a note on your last remarks about the Berlin Wall: Being born and having lived in Leipzig, Germany in the 1980s I have a vastly different picture of who brought down the Wall. Reagan and Gorbachev were only reacting to the facts that were made by the east-german people. Would love if you would tell this story, because that's history that deserves to be remembered. ;)
HERE, HERE !! The story from and about the "little people" that were a part of that action. Not just the top Pols.
There are some important omissions which put an even sharper point on the history of that year. Able Archer occurred in early November. On November 20, the TV special The Day After was shown to huge audiences. Reagan was said to be shaken by the viewing of this. I don't remember if he saw the original broadcast, or watched it later, but it always seemed weird to me that he would be so affected by someone he already had to know much more about than what was in that show. But in the context of the time, with Able Archer having just occurred, I tend to think it was not so much anything new he learned from the show, but rather just its reinforcement of the overall mood.
Then there was the November 26 false alarm, with Stanislav Petrov playing a crucial role-just a fairly ordinary guy, suddenly having to make an extraordinary decision, one which we can now see as having been decided correctly.
Some of the popular music from in and around that year, about nuclear war, is quite memorable, but that's another rabbit hole for another time (unless someone wants to talk about it here).
A great song from the time period. 99 Red Balloons 🎈. One of my favorites
@@alfreddeflorio7938 Do you prefer the English lyrics version, or the German?
Meanwhile, US schoolchildren were still watching scratchy 16 mm films of "Duck and Cover," and most US cities still had Fallout Shelters. Maps and globes still had all of the Eastern European bloc countries eerily color-coded red or pink, with the CCCP/USSR in crimson red for effect. Nuclear-tipped weapons were available to all of the armed forces. And defense spending was getting its biggest boost in decades. Cold War 2.0 was intense.
The Flase Alarm incident happend on September 26,1983
@@oceanweatherandmapping9414 Not according to my source. BTW you have two typos in less than 55 characters, so why should I take you seriously?
A classic ending for this episode... Wall fragments. Great job.
completely fitting.Hats off History Guy. Thank You.
Yeah, but... the Berlin Wall *wasn't* dismantled by Gorbachev, per Reagan's request "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" but was instead dismantled by tourists seeking keepsakes [remember hearing about flights departing Berlin turning back from the runway because the luggage was too heavy w/ hunks o' wall?] after the puppet regime in East Germany collapsed. Gorbachev was too busy trying to keep the Soviet Union afloat after Ron's world class poker hand played out [bankrupting the USSR in their attempt to keep up with SDI; the U.S. spent 5% of it GDP on it; the Soviets couldn't sustain the 15% of their GDP they were spending trying to dance to Ron's tune!] Good times...
@@nunyabidniz2868 yep... 100% agree...Gorbachev is a communist first and foremost, his relaxing the rules of private ownership had more to do with strengthening his economy which was decimated by the defense spending and the Reagan's efforts to artificially reduce the prices of gas/oil - making the Soviet gas line a money pit over a money maker. To portray Gorbachev an "architect" of the dismantling the soviet system does everyone a disservice. There's no statue of Gorbachev in Moscow - and he left Russia when he realized he lost.
@@nunyabidniz2868 Related news,Putin was in charge of Stasi,KGB facility and threatened to shoot anybody who broke in. He wasn't authorized to do that, but it kept his facility as the one that didn't lose records. I think it shows who we are dealing with
Wonderfully put!
I remember growing up in the 70s and 80s the prevailing thought wasn't, will there be a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and United States ? But when would it happen, scary times.
OldTriumph. It was like that when I was growing up in the "50s into the '60s, especially from the later '50s into early '60s. Imagine being a child at school having to practice those idiotic routines ("duck & cover") that were said to help you survive in case of a nuclear attack in your region. If you saw the mushroom cloud, etc, you were supposed to cover your eyes, to essentially use your desk for cover. All these official instructions for school kids were so ludicrous that it's hard to believe that any adult took them seriously, but apparently many did. I wasn't particularly well educated about 'the bomb' & its effects but even as a child, I knew these required safety maneuvers were useless. If you were close enough to see the flash of light from the nuclear blast, covering your eyes (supposedly to prevent blindness) & crouching beneath your desk wasn't going to help you survive. Also, we were taught (if outside when the bomb hit) to leap into the nearest ditch & lie face down, covering our eyes of course.
Building bomb shelters in your back yard was advised as a means of surviving, with prefab shelters commonly advertised.
My best friend & I decided to dig a hole big enough for a shelter in our back yard, after our parents refused to consider installing a prefab shelter. I'm sure our parents knew it was useless to build such a shelter, but my best friend & I thought it was worth a try. We ended up with a big hole, which we turned into a hideout by constructing a shelter made of fallen tree limbs with pine straw stuffed between the crisscrossed limbs. A great place to hide out on rainy days.
I'm sure we weren't the only kids who were terrified for several years that at any time nuclear war would end our world. Within a few years with the Cuban Missile Crisis period, I went to school each morning wondering if I'd ever see my family again, terrified that the world might well end that day.
In '66 or '67, driving with a friend from L.R. into north Ark., my friend pointed out the many missile silos. The mountains were full of them.
Maybe the actual risk of nuclear attack was greater in '83, as the History Guy claims, but the risk was very high during the Cuban Missile Crisis too, & having lived through both periods I'd say the public fear was greater in the earlier crisis. Fear of nuclear was was very intense in the late '50s into early '60s, more so than I've seen since then.
@@janegarner9169 a 1-megaton bomb will cause flash blindness from up to 13 miles in a clear day, which is way further than the blast will kill you, so covering your eyes is definitely not useless. Moreover, bomb shelters, while not protecting you from a close hit, will protect you from the radiation fallout and blast damage (up to a certain point). Yes, you would live in a very dysfunctional world after a nuclear exchange, since society and basic services would have collapsed (and food would be really hard to grow for some years), but it would be possible to survive if you were lucky enough (even though your life would suck and you would probably die young).
@@BrunoViniciusCampestrini Sounds like being instantly vaporized is the better end of the deal.
This kind of material is so needed today to be.....your teachings open allot of minds wide open....it's so important
I was stationed in Germany at the time and I remember Able Archer. I was a combat support engineer on loan to the signal corps.
This has got to have been one of the very best! I love your videos for a number of reasons. The seriousness to which many Americans we're Clueless and still are. Your ending in unbagging part of the Berlin Wall was the topper! I thank you for your works. J. W.
Is this the Deacon's son from Chesterfield or the USMC Colonel?
In November 1983 I was a senior at Heidelberg American High School in West Germany. We had a day off from school during this time as we practiced what was called a N.E.O Exercise or "Non-combatant Evacuation Order" which was an attempt to get as many family members out of Europe as quickly as possible prior to the Soviets coming through the Fulda Gap. We boarded a series of buses and trains until we were finally loaded onto waiting C-141's at Ramstein AFB where the exercise ended. I never knew how close we were to that actually happening... Thanks for the video.
1983: The year my ex-wife was born. So, yes indeed, a most dangerous year.
aww geez... I should have known someone would beat me to the ex wife joke! lol
🤣
@@chasbee You still get an attaboy
In times such as these, I'm always drawn to the great scholarly Yiddish intellect of Henry Yungman. Known and beloved by the Alpha Male species as Henny Youngman. Take my wife, PLEASE!
@: Dude! You just caused me to snort coffee on another keyboard! I humbly bow to your superior comedic skills. Wasn't this story about nuclear annihilation? Oh well, same difference.
Another excellent installment!
I graduated high school in June of '83, and went to Navy Basic Training in Great Lakes, Ill. the following month.
I remember every bit of what was discussed in this video, but only now that THG has connected the dots do I realize just how tense things really were back then. Ahhh, the naivete of youth!
“We will never know how close the world was to nuclear armageddon”
Stanislav Petrov prevented nuclear war because of a gut feeling he had when his satellites recorded american missile launches which were reflections of clouds.
After my generation came so close to nuclear annihilation we are a bit dismissive towards the AGW alarmists who believe that the 3% of the CO2 released into the atmosphere is going to cook us.
We'll put out an episode on that some time.
I talked with a former east german civil employee on a soviet airbase some time ago and apparently they had nuclear armed fighter-bombers on alert for a few days in '83. The aircraft apparently stood on the runway with engines running.
That was in Magdeburg, barely 40 miles from the inner german border.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel When you do keep in mind that the CCCP could not keep up with the arms race:
The T-80 tank was positioned to counter NATO tanks, but without the 3 to 4 all terrain trucks per tank needed to support the tanks in the field. So the tanks could only fight until they were out of ammo & fuel, and thus couldn't be used in an offensive capacity.
I once knew a former member of the Военно-воздушные силы, who was chosen because he was an only child with few relatives, making security easier. It was essential for the secret that only two of their Tupolev Tu-22M bombers actually had engines & instruments and were only there for NATO to see by spy satellite.
And most importantly, the economy failed in 1978, the year when seven months passed before any action was taken to replace the only Soviet tooth brush factory, as it had burned to the ground.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel Be careful what you say! The AGW "True Believers" don't like facts that contradict their religion, like not one of their doomsday predictions over the past 50 years has come true. It all had to happen before the year 2000 or we were all dead......and yet here I sit enjoying your channel and reminiscing about high ranking Soviet officers kissing their wives for the final time that morning, "knowing" the war was about to be launched by the west, or so their spys said (many were later shot). Great story, but it was closer than even you said. (MAJ retired)
Thanks sir for reminding those who may have forgotton just how dangerous those times were,....80-86 AF vet.
Wow! That was one of the best HG episodes and description of how close we were to nuclear war! What a hook at the beginning?!! 😁👍 Superb finale! 👍👍😁😁 This is why I click like before I’ve even watched an episode oh HG!! 😁😁😁👍👍👍👊✌️
I moved to the states from PR on that February of 83, and it was a big impact to feel the northern cold after having spent my first 14 years of life in warm weather. I had always loved history and I remember most of these things happening at that time. As I saw these happenings I enjoyed the music of 1983 and learned to roller skate. BTW, "Return of the Jedi" was sensational.
Great history telling as usual. There was one more thing you could've tossed in as emblematic of the tensions of the time. On November 20, 1983, ABC aired "The Day After" which I watched live. It seems tame now, but it scared the living daylights out of me at the time.
Ah, you remember it too! I have a longtime friend who appeared as an extra in thst film when she was attending college at Lawrence Kansas. She can be sedn as the nurse dtanfing on the steps of the medical center next to the Asian doctor as they watch missiles streak acrosx the sky. For the record, the actor who played the doctor was incredibly generous, isnsisting she stand cloer to him so dhe would be in the shot. A minor piece of history that deserves to be remembered.
The music used in the film was from Virgil Thomson's The River -- one of my favotite pieces of music.
I remember this film,too.
It seemed soo frightfully realistic! It pictured all fears we had as teens...it was horrible!
It scared Reagan as well. He got a pre screening and got incredibly shaken by it. Might have contributed to him making the right decisions to avert war
I remember going to school and thinking, “I hope a nuclear war doesn’t start today.” We grew up under the constant threat of world annihilation and there was very little, if anything, we could do about it. To this day I remain impressed that we have NOT yet nuked ourselves into oblivion given our nature and all.
@@HeliosFive = I think this was covered in a documentary about the film, or some other text. Reagan was flawed, even to the extent that he believed there was a War Room (from Dr. Strangelove), but nuclear war really scared him, as it would be, at best, a Pyrrhic victory.
Not only did you cover one of the most fascinating slash terrifying periods of 1983......but.....you also proudly hoisted the flag of the original SW fans ! For that, you have somehow surpassed you already legendary status - thank you ! 👍
The history guy is history, that deserves to be remembered.
Nicely done - a mostly on point summary of Able Archer. Reagan's memories are well worth the time. thanks again.
That happened on the first of my two tours in Germany with the army. I was assigned to one of the 3 Pershing missile battalions of the 56th FA Brigade (Pershing) When I got to the unit, we were using the Pershing 1a. At any given time, 9 Pershing missiles were set up at three sites in southern Germany with their nuclear warheads installed and kept in a ready state that allowed 6 missiles to launch within 10 minutes of the first alert. The brigade kept this Quick Reaction Alert status going while we started to turn in the 1a missiles and send crews back to the states to train on the PII. I still remember this exercise, because it was only command and communication personnel participating. Some of the soldiers in my platoon participated because their were the ones who would receive the top secret codes to launch and decode them while the missiles were already preparing to launch. I remember sitting at my desk when they walked in and said that we almost got attacked by the Soviets. So somehow some people new pretty early about this "close call." The rest of the winter was a blur. We rolled the first battery of Pershing II missiles past the protesters in the middle of the night in Mutlangen, where the battalion had its missile storage area (MSA) For the rest of December until I left the unit in December of 1984, we were on a break-neck pace to assemble, train on, and deploy the missiles while thousands of protesters blocked our sites and tried to find us in the field while we trained. In January I was attending Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning, GA while I was ordered to report to the company commander. I reported to him while he was surrounded by the entire cadre and staff all looking at me intently. I thought I was in serious trouble when he said "There has been an accident at a Pershing missile site in Heilbronn and that 3 soldiers were killed. You were just there, so what is going on? What is this place?" As calmly as I could muster, I had to tell him that I was not allowed to discuss anything about it. There is no such place. Yep, those were heady times!
Red leg was definitely intense.
U.K. Excellent as always.
Mikhail Gorbachev. He now lives alone with a maid to help him. His family lives in Germany. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. He is not revered in Russia as he is in the West. At 88 he still works at the Gorbachev Foundation which he created. Perhaps we should remember him History Guy - we don't get many honest politicians.
I am really enjoying your videos. I’ve only watched 3 or 4 as of yet, but as a self-proclaimed history nerd, I love that you don’t follow the same route as so many other channels and try to make it “entertainment”, but your focus is on education, and your passion shows.
It is interesting to note that later in the same month as Able Archer, ABC broadcast "The Day After." This made for TV film certainly caused a great deal of concern (not only in the US, but internationally) and so I wonder how much more concern it would have generated if the events surrounding Able Archer were generally known at that point.
Wow, is that Korean Air 007 incident ever on point right now....
I was in high school when news of it broke. I always thought it ironic that it had the flight number of 007. Soviets were really embarrassed when they couldn't explain why their pilots could not recognize a Boeing 747.
It didn't help that conservative US Congressman Larry McDonald (D-GA), who was also president of the strongly anticommunist John Birch Society, was killed on that flight. Yes, there used to be such a thing as conservative Democrats.
@@deadfreightwest5956 from the range the Soviet pilots fired from they could not actually see the plane, just a blip on their radars. Plus they were being vectored in by strategic radar and command on the ground. Not like WW11 when aircraft had to get up close and personal for dogfights.
@@deadfreightwest5956 I believe that incident happened at night which could explain why they didn't recognize it as a well known commercial airliner. Plus the pilots were acting under the direction of ground control.
We didn't shoot down anything. It was a spy plane. No, you can't see the wreckage. sshhhhhhh....... crickets..... they'll all forget in a day or two.... Yep. Sounds familiar.
The last true Historian! For modern times, the last journalist of things that should not be forgotten!
I was at a NATO base during Able Archer ‘83. No clue. Thanks for another great behind the scenes perspective.
Man, I remember these incredible times well. May they never return...
I remember that year well. As an engineer in the US Merchant Marine I spent over 4 months in the Indian Ocean on an ammo ship in 1983. Our main purpose was for the possible invasion of Iran but of course there were other scenarios that could happen. Every time we went out to sea we were shadowed by either a North Korean or Russian fishing boat (spy ship).
@James Sloan That's true about all the antennas on those boats. The difference between the Russians and North Koreans was interesting. The Russians had no problem making their presence obvious. Whereas the North Koreans would stay just over the horizon. When we changed course they would do exactly the same, staying just out of sight. Sneaky devils.
The History Guy is one of a small handful of websites that really delivers the goods. Worth your time and effort. Great job History Guy.
One of my favorite episodes thus far! I was a young soldier in West Berlin from 1982 to 1984. The tension was palpable. At the time I was certain that the shoot down of KAL Flight 007 (with American Congressman Larry McDonald aboard) would be the Sarajevo-like event that ignited another world war. Our untenable position 100 miles behind the Iron Curtain instilled me with much gratitude for the cooler heads that ultimately prevailed.
Wow! So few people knew of any of this at the time. As always, your summation of these historical facts shed a light on current events. " Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it". Very timely!
"Shall We Play A Game?"
Lockbar the only way to win is... not to play.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel Strangely neither side learned this lesson, as we could have stopped building thermonuclear weapons at a 100, and still had enough in submarines to effectively destroy the CCCP. The CCCP could have stopped at 70 to effectively destroy NATO.
The French have learned part of this lesson as all of their thermonuclear weapons are on missile carrier submarines...
@@davidhollenshead4892 An Art Buchwald column addressed the concept behind the Arms Race. He noted each side was always poor-mouthing their ability to adequately respond to a strike by the other side. Buchwald opined that didn't really worry him. He was worried that somebody might say, "I think we have enough now."
that movie kinda sucked tbh
flagmichael
The only real winners in the Cold War arms race were the corporations of the military industrial complex.
Excellent video History Guy, and a blast from the past. In November of that year, I joined the Army.
One of the best videos I've watched from you! No idea how close I came to getting nuked as a kid and so glad cooler heads prevailed at least for the time being.
I had no idea how close we were in 83. We had a 1 yr old daughter at the time which took up all our time. I really enjoy your very informative history videos.
Great episode! I’ve read some stuff about it earlier, but THG taught me some new things which are greatly appreciated! If you like to learn a bit more there is a quite nice typical NatGeo/HistoryChannel episode on UA-cam somewhere about Able Archer.
I was with Pershing from 1980 to 1984, first as the Brigade Signal Officer and then as the Public Affairs Officer (83 - 84). It was the highlight of my career. I remember when the first Pershing II went erect at Mutlangen. I was the culmination of so much hard work by so many people, military and civilian. Thanks for the memories.
War never determines who's right it only determines who's left.
- Wadsworth
Megaton, 2277
Imagine a world where absolutely everything about politics would be decided by war. It would be a shame if only the far left would be... left.
I do have a request for a future episode! Would you please give your viewers a history of the 1953 CIA\MI6 coup in Iran. Seems particularly relevant at this moment.
I was part of this exercise while serving on a submarine inside the arctic circle. Interesting times, to say the least.
Wow! I remember the wall coming down...how incredibly cool that your collection includes a bit of it!
It was the most dangerous year. I was in SAC at this time. I remember when the alert aircraft (Tankers and Bomber) actually took off the runway and we (aircraft ground crews) were leaving the base for an airport 50 miles away... I was sure I had said goodby to my family for the last time. They were staying and not told of the danger.
I was born in the mid 80s and grew up in the 90s. The Walkman wasnt replaced by the discman until the early 90s. Walkman was still very dominant before then.
I was in the Air Force serving in West Germany during this whole period. I have a piece of the wall somewhere in my household goods. :)
Thank you for sharing your passion for history with us. I was 12 in 1983. Learning about this stuff is thrilling and sobering. It was around then that I realized Soviet kids were probably just like us more or less. Music was a large part of it. I remember watching the Berlin Wall start to come down and feeling in my gut how important it was. It’s cool that you have pieces of it. Probably an episode about that alone in the future? Please keep making videos and thanks again and just wow. Great video.
A great episode; well researched and written.
In November 1983, I was a young Army 24U stationed in Germany at a German Luftwaffe Nike Hercules site. We had an ECCCS (European Command Control Console System) that connected us, via the hub in Heidelberg, to the Pentagon. The ECCCS was a microwave line-of-site system and was 'supposed' to be un-hackable. It was with this system that we were able to communicate secure 'Flash Traffic' as part of the Able Archer exercise. I was on duty and was receiving/relaying messages when my commanders asked me if I had made some kind of mistake while receiving/writing the coded messages. The previous two messages were from a code book not involved in traffic for Able Archer. They were talking to me when a third message came in, so they watched me write it down, and then went to de-code it. It was also from the wrong book! They then wrote a coded message that I sent out to the hub, and about 30 minutes later we were contacted by the CIA that we had been targeted by the KGB!! Not only did they have a legit code book, but they had sent the messages via a mobile microwave tower just up the hill, less than 1 kilometer, from our base. Needless to say that we were all a little freaked out by this and took security quite a bit more serious after that! We were not aware of how close we came to war until many years later when the documentary “Able Archer 1983: Brink Of Apocalypse” came out. Fun times!
I would love to see you do one on the March 18, 1925 Tri State Tornado. Southern Illinois storm season is fast approaching.
Thank you so much for how you give just the facts and no BS. Please keep up with your show my wife and I both just love your style
Mr. History Guy:
Just like always you are truly amazing.
I really love your channel, as I am a dedicated fan of history. You seem to pick the most interesting topics and have a flair for composing the script. If I could offer one minute bit of feedback, occasionally it seems as though you are rushing to get it said as quickly as possible. That tends to detract from the end result IMHO. I don't mind one bit if the videos are longer. It just means there is more great detail to learn about. But in general thanks for the great contribution to teaching history. KUTGW.
I’m so glad you have covered this so well!!!
I’m going to tell you a little story about me and the fall of the wall...
Hangin out with 'The Hoff'?
NefariousKoel
No Idea what you mean.
@@andrewostrelczuk406 - I recall David Hasselhoff being there, celebrating on TV at the wall.
Late 1983, I was 20 years old and living with my sister and her husband in Germany where he was stationed (Air Force) We had no idea how close we were.
Jan 1983 I was just assigned to A company 2/4 inf, 56 field Artillery bat. Pershing. I watch the removal of the Pershing 1A misslez and the arrival of the Pershing 2 missiles. I remember the protesta at Muteligen, Army Air force base, in Swaibash Gemunde,( forgive my spelling). But I was well aware of what was going on around us. We had to stay informed, that was crucial in our job. I remember having to go out on foot patrols around the missile site, with all these protesters around not knowing if we would get knifed, or shot, or beat up, also doing tower guard duty, at the Cass site. The stress was very high, and very real, we had to be top notch all the time because the whole world was watching us, and that's alot of pressure!!! There's plenty more to say about it, there always will be I guess...
Thanks again. Its like having a history lesson, every now and then, & also, giving me a greaer appreciation for history.
Wow! I never knew how close to war this was. Thank you for sharing a part of your knowledge with us.
The year I was born. Often strange, but always interesting to listen to how things were back then. Thank you.
I recall two songs from the 1980's 99 Red Balloons and Do the Russians Love Their Children. Now I know why those songs came about.
Then there is Alphaville’s Forever Young. I have no idea we were this close. Was just a young teen then.
@@jinngeechia9715 Alphavilles Forever Young is so much better than Rod Stewart's slow dead Forever Young it isn't even funny
I've enjoyed your video essays for some time now, but the quality of this one finally moved me to comment, and that only to add my voice to the chorus of those appreciating this marvelous encapsulation of that period (pop music preferences aside, having been something of a Bowie man myself, lol). I lived through those times, and while I appreciated *some* of the gravity of its various events, I had no idea of their real significance, nor any appreciation of how close humanity came, once again, to bungling our way into an apocalypse. As I'm sure a great many have said before me, your distinctive voice, sense of humor, and narrative gifts frequently manage to create pieces informative, delightful, and of uncommon quality. Thank you so much for creating this one, and for all your many essays. Cheers!
THG: 10th Jan 2020. "The most dangerous year, 1983"
2020: Hold My Calendar!
2021: 2020, hold my beer!
1983, goodness Norton A.F.B. in Calif. Remember all of our C-141's being sent to east coast in support of the Grenada Op. As already mentioned, hadn't realized things had gotten that close.
Good episode Mr. The History Guy. Military history, I gonna guess you wrote this one.
PS: you mentioned "Walkman's". Do you still have your lazerdisk??? he he he
Great stuff! I'd like to add that in the 1980s we were well aware that Nuclear Armageddon was real. It even became part of our culture. On those 'cassette tapes' we were listening to "Two Tribes" by "Frankie goes to Hollywood" (listen to this song) and at the Movies we watched "Spies Like Us". Heck even "TopGun", "FireFox" all this added to a sense of Nuclear Armageddon.
One of your best!
I was in college at the time. I remember Korean flight 7 being shot down. I had no idea that Operation Able Archer 83' pushed us so close to Nuclear War. At the time l was investigating getting a commission in the Navy. The Navy had a program that would send you to college to get a Master's in Nuclear Engineering.
I was at my first duty assignment in the Air Force. "The Rock." way out in the western Aleutians when KAL 007 was shot down. Interesting times then.
Wow. I lived through that without even knowing. Amazing perspective and great research. Thanks.
Thank you for a particularly interesting episode Mr. History Guy!
Maybe you can do one on the development and testing of the Tsar Bomba and its geopolitical consequences.......
Russian pukes
I was a missile operator in the GLCM (ground launched cruise missile) system based at RAF Greenham Common in the late 80's. Ours was a USAF intermediate range nuclear system along with the Army's Pershing II system . There were probably 10 times the number of GLCM's in theater as there were Pershing II's. The INF treaty got rid of the SS-20, GLCM and Pershing II. We had Soviet inspectors at our base just weeks after the treaty was signed as did the our inspectors visit the SS-20 bases in the Warsaw Pact.
You did a great job, as usual, describing the events of these days. But please don't leave out the 1,000's of us who deployed the GLCM system which helped to incentivize the Soviets into signing the INF treaty.(against a lot of opposition from the British anti nuclear demonstrators)
That arms race is what eventually crushed the USSR. In 1985 there was a spoof movie “Spies Like Us” that in retrospect was probably more real than we would like. Very good story, thanks.
Done a couple Able Archers myself. 56TH FA BDE. 1980-'82. Was an "Udo's Regular." I missed the '83 version , of course. But I know my guys shined like a pair of field boots.
The danger we in "The West" and more specifically the "Anglosphere", face is that we tend to think that everyone else perceives the world, and us, the same as we do. They don't; and that is where the danger is.
And visa versa....
@Gareth Fairclough; No, it happens mainly for people of countries where you do not learn foreign languages. So you never see news or read articles written for an audience different than you. You will lacking outside perspectives.
The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.
Samuel P. Huntington
@@slolerner7349 Normally I respect Huntington. But both the Mongols and the early islamic jihadists had larger and better armies and conquered far. But the Mongol Empire, the largest, folded fast because the Mongols themselves were primitive and brutal in their culture and politics. Ditto with the Soviets
Wow. I was there helping deploy Pershing II. Thank you so much for the memories.
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
And hearing "Winds of Change" playing on the radio all the time. I was fundamentally moved at that time to believe communism was dead, the Cold War over, and new hope for this world was possible, as a young high schooler...
Not sure if we have perfected the sauce yet. We are still a work in process...
Afghanistan has been going on how long? Some things got weird...
@@BeingFireRetardant , our proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan helped set the stage for the Taliban and 9/11. Read "Ghost Wars" by Steve Coll. There's ample reason for Afghanistan having once been referred to as "the graveyard of empires". Bin Laden hoped to pull us into a Vietnam- type situation. He succeeded.
@@goodun2974
Right, I don't think anyone realized just how stabilizing two antagonistic superpowers were.
As the cold war ended, gremlins, ghosts, and monsters reared their ugly heads: Medellin, Noriega, Bosnia, Kosovo, China 2.0, Chechnya, Sudan, Somalia, Al Queda, Russian gangster chaos...
Worldwide discontent. All within a few years.
Interesting time to be alive...
@@BeingFireRetardant , hard to tell if the other "gremlins and monsters" were already there and we (the US) didn't notice, or if the power vacuum that occurred when the Soviet Union collapsed brought all these other problems to the forefront. The Soviets were definitely keeping a lot of tribal like disagreements under wraps and at bay, and with the Soviets gone these newly unfettered peoples were free to pursue their own nationalistic desires. And then there is the fact that our newly minted military industrial complex likes having these kinds of conflicts and small wars all over the place, it gives them a purpose and a reason to exist. And the way for everybody to keep drawing a paycheck.
@@goodun2974
Probably both, to the gremlins... and I agree 100% on the rest. Nationalism and self determination are human rights that will find a voice inevitably. Once the wall came down, everyone wanted a seat at the table. And some, like Al Qaeda, just wanted to kill everyone and burn the table for good measure...
The next 30 years will be defining, I imagine. Into what, I don't know, but defining nonetheless...
I grew up when there were air raid sirens tests every Wednesday at noon. We were taught to duck and cover under our desks in school and not to look directly at the blast. Most public buildings had civil defense signs directing to emergency shelters. I spent two years in an armored battalion in Bamberg in the seventies. You can not imagine the enormous sense of relief I felt watching collage age kids climbing on top of the Berlin Wall and attacking it with hand tools on TV, and then some construction equipment joined them. What a night!
I always find it fascinating that I was born in a year where we almost had a nuclear war twice, both by accident.
Might be your best episode yet!
The story of Able Archer reminds me of _Wargames,_ which I just watched on UA-cam movies, available for free with only adverts. I wonder if the writers had Able Archer in mind, or was that a common enough premise for fiction at the time.
Menachem Salomon I think Wargames actually came out in 1982, but I could be wrong...
What is scary is how many times this has happened.
The makers of War Games did not know about this, but the fear that an electronic glitch could accidentally do us all in was pretty common at the time. Coincidentally, around 1983 there was a real life incident at NORAD where somebody mistakenly loaded some tapes from a simulation, leading NORAD to believe for a moment that North America may be under attack, much like the first incident in the film.
@@mattkaustickomments Released in '83, which means written and filmed in '82 and earlier.
A trip down memory lane. I remember all this well. Thanks.
"I Hope the Russians love their children, too." - Sting
They did, as they still do...
Always thought Elton Johns’ Nikita was better.
@@IrlDave71 a good Song, right.
@@thomaswilkinson3241 Not a good song, its a great song!
I thought of that too
Great video as always, but that closing bit with a piece of the Berlin wall hit hard and out of nowhere like a SS-20
I used to think the only cool guy that could rock a bow tie was Tucker Carlson. Now I realize I have to add The History Guy to the short list.
I was just starting my Air Force career in 1983 (late 82, actually) and had no idea this was happening. It certainly casts any exercises we held in a new light that year though I don't think there were any unscheduled ones.
Bravo Zulu again..
Just some things that go with your story:
Fleet EX83 the Soviets sht their pants when the USS Midway CV-41 managed to close within 100 miles of Vladivostok undetected.
NATO also deployed a second nuclear weapon system, the ground launch cruise missile also known as the Tomahawk.
The official name was Gryphon. It was a variant of the Tomahawk but did not share the name.
@@HomercidalOne Thank you for that, I never knew the official name for it.
Mike B
I was onboard USS Knox with Battle Group Alpha during that time. Shipmate Thanks for your service.
Mike B, read Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea by John Lehman. I was out of the navy by time the USS Midway did that, but that was not the only time a carrier battle group scared the pants off of them by showing up where they least expected it.
The Midway did not get to within 100 miles of Vladivostok undetected. 100 miles is outside of Soviet territorial waters and there is only about 300 miles from eastern point of the USSR and west coast Japan so its not like naval traffic in Sea of Japan is uncommon. The exercise was to provoke the Soviets and see how they operate in their response but the Soviets didnt take the bait. The exercise was conducted quite a way from Vladivostok. It was argued that highly provocative exercises like this, and US spy flights along KAL007s route strongly contributed to its downing.
A particularly "fun" episode - really loved the Walkman / Music references 😊
There is a really good television show about this year. Called deutschland 83. It is really good
Was that about the Reforger exercise (return of U.S. forces to West Germany, as part of the Able-Baker wargames simulation)?
Deutschland 86 not so good
The series never mentioned the exercise of fleet X 83. Very important piece of flashpoint. The Grenada incident as well.
Your channel is great! Another wonderful video! ♥️ Keep up the wonderful work!