More about Able Archer (scratchpad)

I listened to a podcast (well, god help me two) about Able Archer. It was not very good (see here).

But I persisted, and found what seems to be a pretty good podcast, Cold War Conversations, specifically episodes 19 and 269. They are interviews with Francesca Akhtar, who had done a masters and then PhD on this stuff. I listened to them in reverse order, which was stupid.

1980 Presidential Directive 59 (under Carter) starting the talk about a winnable nuclear war – wikipedia

“Washington, D.C., September 14, 2012 – The National Security Archive is today posting – for the first time in its essentially complete form – one of the most controversial nuclear policy directives of the Cold War. Presidential Directive 59 (PD-59), “Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy,” signed by President Jimmy Carter on 25 July 1980, aimed at giving U.S. Presidents more flexibility in planning for and executing a nuclear war, but leaks of its Top Secret contents, within weeks of its approval, gave rise to front-page stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post that stoked wide-spread fears about its implications for unchecked nuclear conflict.”

Someone did a Master’s thesis – Holmgren, Tatevik. 2013. From Nuclear Arms Reductions and Détente to PD-59 and Limited Nuclear Strikes: Understanding the Change in the Carter Administration’s Nuclear Strategy. Master’s thesis, Harvard University, Extension School.

1989 letter by Lt Col-General Leonard Perroots where he says the spooks/”intelligence” analysts missed the point.

More generally, it’s a fascinating empirical/epistemological problem. Until and unless you get a good rummage in the Soviet archives, who will know what really went down? But even if somehow you did a) archives can’t be trusted and b) archives get weeded. I can’t imagine detailed accounts of how the Soviet analysts confirmation-biased themselves and spooked (hah) themselves got written, or they did they or their authors survived (professionally speaking) for that long. People with power don’t enjoy being portrayed as frit…

Also, I should see if anyone has written a good non-fiction book on KAL-007 since RW Johnson.