Twentieth Century Limited Book Two ~ Age of Reckoning. Jan David Blais
which established the primacy of the Joint Chiefs Chairman as sole military advisor to the President. From now on the services would speak with one voice. I added – maybe, maybe not. As for Thatcher-Reagan, that smacked of the schoolyard. You had your Falklands – now it’s my turn.
In November a U.S.-NATO war exercise nearly brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Designed for realism, “Able Archer” (a neat irony, that) was indeed that, with simulated missile release, extensive military and diplomatic comm traffic, participation by heads of state and escalation to DEFCON-1 readiness. Soviet military leaders, well aware of the nuclear missiles recently deployed on European soil and aimed at them, believed they were witnessing the cover for a U.S. nuclear first strike. In response they placed their nuclear-capable aircraft on high alert and, though it hasn’t been definitively established, their ICBMs as well. Eleven days later the exercise concluded and the Soviets’ fears subsided, but Ronald Reagan was reportedly so shaken when apprised of the near-miss that it led him to ease off the militant rhetoric. His speeches adopted a friendlier tone toward the Soviets as he affirmed that a nuclear war can never be won, must never be fought, and expressed the hope of living to see the day “when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the earth.”
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