Radio War Nerd EP #144—"Able Archer 83" Declassified, with Nate Jones
Guest: Nate Jones, author & director of FOIA Project at the National Security Archive
Recorded: August 7, 2018
The War Nerd welcomes FOIA ninja Nate Jones to talk about his frightening discoveries uncovering the secret history of Able Archer 83—when Reagan's Cold War nearly scared the Soviets into launching a preemptive nuclear first strike. It was the closest the world came to nuclear holocaust since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Jones helps recover that lost history through relentless FOIA efforts to declassify Cold War secrets — and reminds us how relevant this story has become again, now that the US and Russia are rebuilding their nuclear arsenals and sliding back into Cold War madness. . .
At 1:14:00 the Nerd and Ames talk about current war news: US-Saudi alliance with Al Qaeda in Yemen; WaPo asks why their own Yemen death count stuck for 2 years, something RWN has been harping on endlessly; Trump sanctions/subversion efforts against Iran; Maduro assassination attempt in Venezuela; "Jihadi Charles" Lister spreading more Saudi disinformation; latest on Boko Haram's attack on Nigeria military base . . .
Buy Nate Jones' book Able Archer 83: The Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War. Nate is also chief editor of the National Security Archive blog UNREDACTED
Follow Nate on Twitter @NSANate
Total time: 2:28:09
Comments (11)
The National Security Archive is amazing. Ranbitholes for days.
Great episode!!
A bit off-topic, but re: the War Nerd letter, and why the walls didn't extend to the river? Assuming there wasn't a sound architectural reason for it, the boring answer is probably that nobody wanted to pay for it.
Oh, and a nitpick. The term man-at-arms historically meant heavy cavalry - what we think of when we heard the word knight.
Wait... Wait. So the US is supporting AQ in Yemen? This is where those spec ops commandos were killed. So they are just being used as props to show that they are fighting AQ ??
In a way, I guess you could put it that way. But I would say it is probably more about the lack of coherence in the US government. Not that the people that matter mind. Weapons are being sold, those who want to fight terrorism is happy about killing people from AQ, the Saudis are happy to work with AQ against common enemies, and since it does not get much coverage, most people never hear about it, so there is not much backlash.
fantastic ep guys
"Deutschland 83" is hugely recommended. It's unusually funny (for a German TV series) and superbly captures the paranoid 80s era well. Oddly it wasn't as popular in Germany as it was in UK, US and elsewhere.
Interestingly today I saw an ad for humanitarian aid to Yemen for famine relief during the MotoGP race on a UK sports channel. So there is some sort of a shift happening in the media. No mention of the cause of the famine though.
MSNBC for the first time in TWO YEARS finally covered a bombing in Yemen. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heh1VQcvl3A" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heh1VQcvl3A</a>
The Swedish military true to form has its largest military garrison in Boden in northern Sweden and that place has mosquitoes. But dont worry you just give up after a few weeks and let them drink. Oh and i volunteered to do my conscription there because my family is from the area and theyve all done their service in the Arctic Infantry there