The brink : President Reagan and the nuclear war scare of 1983
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-308) and index.

"The Cold War's most dangerous moment: a high-stakes and secretive game of nuclear brinksmanship that played out in the forests of Germany, in stealthy submarines underneath the Atlantic and Pacific, in hidden London compounds, in fortified bunkers and code rooms across the globe. The year was 1983. The world was on the brink. And American spies were missing the warning signals. Marc Ambinder explains the anxious period between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1984, with the Able Archer 83 war game as the fulcrum of the tension. With astonishing and clarifying new details, he recounts the scary series of close encounters that tested the limits of ordinary men and powerful leaders. Ambinder explains how political leadership triumphed over misunderstandings and the strife of interests, helping the two countries work toward a fragile peace. The Brink provides one of the most comprehensive and chilling descriptions of the nuclear command and control process, from intelligence warnings to the composition of the nuclear codes themselves. Ambinder reveals, with significant new reporting, the full story of the much-whispered-about continuity of government program that President Reagan built up to give the presidency a chance to survive a bolt-from-the-blue attack. He also provides glimpses into the secret world of preemptive electronic attack that scared the Soviet Union into action. Ambinder's account reads like a thriller, as it recounts the spy-versus-spy games that kept both countries--and the world--in check. From geopolitics in Moscow and Washington, to sweat-caked soldiers fighting in the trenches of the Cold War, to high-stakes war games across NATO and the Warsaw Pact, this book serves as the definitive intelligence, nuclear, and national security history of one of the most precarious times in recent memory."--Dust jacket.