 |
| In March 1983, the same month in which President Ronald Reagan gave his "Evil Empire" and "Star Wars" speeches, journalist-to-be Ken Prendergast began digging a bomb shelter in his family's back yard in suburban Cleveland (James Prendergast). |
Why did I write a six-episode docudrama about this true story of the Cold War? Because I lived it -- more closely than I realized at the time with one of my neighbors directly involved. But we all lived it without realizing that we were hours away from a nuclear holocaust. If it wasn't for The Heroes of Able Archer 83, very few of us would be here today.
So I wrote six episodes to explain what happened and why. No names were changed except for my neighbors'. Each episode would run about one hour, although the nail-biting last episode would probably be about 75 minutes. I posted the first episode online. What's it about?
In 1983, East & West moved closer to World War 3. Few people in the West back then knew the Soviet Union was terrified of NATO in general and President Reagan in particular. The Soviets had worked itself into a paranoid frenzy through its death-by-confirmation-bias intelligence-gathering effort Operation RYaN. And in November 1983, the Russians feared NATO's nuclear weapons-release exercise Able Archer 83 was cover for the real deal. In turn, the Soviets and its Warsaw Pact allies were hours from launching a preemptive nuclear strike. Their planes sat armed on the runways, engines running. Their missile subs sneaked under the Arctic ice. Their missile silos were opened and ready to fire.
But a small group of people on both sides of the Iron Curtain were aware of what the Soviets were about to do and worked together, without knowing of each other or of their efforts, to save the world from catastrophe. If one of these heroes had slipped while running in the London Underground to reach a make-or-break safehouse meeting, or got into a car crash on the way to a planet-saving phone call at a kiosk in Brussels, most of us would not be here today. This story is how these Heroes of Able Archer 83 saved the world from nuclear annihilation..
END
