Remembering the Bomb

It’s interesting how surfing the Net can lead to switchbacks in your stream of consciousness, memories you haven’t touched in a long time but which are still visceral, like the way the smell of fresh cut grass can make you ten years old and standing on a ballfield.  

I get a newsletter called “The Straight Dope,” a site run by a character named Cecil Adams who claims to know everything but does his homework so well that we can forgive him.  In it, Mr. Adams answers readers questions to the best of his (and his staff’s) research abilities.  I’m a trivia buff, so I find the question of why outhouse doors have half-moons on them mildly interesting, but this afternoon one question stops me:  “Operation Able Archer:  Were the United States and the Soviet Union on the brink of nuclear war?”  I’m back in college and Vance, a well-read poli-sci major is telling me that Andropov became convinced that America was planning a first strike.  He began pushing a new directive; anytime Soviet radar detected something that might be an incoming missile the USSR would launch a counterattack immediately.  Thankfully, Vance went on to say, Andropov died and the plan died with him, because 57 false alarms were recorded on radar that year.  I don’t know if what Vance says is accurate, but the thought makes me queasy.

I’m back at my desk and I click the link and read about an earlier near annihilation, also featuring Andropov.  November, 1983, and the Russians are spooked.  Back in February, the U.S. prepares to deploy Pershing II nuclear missiles in West Germany, a short hop from the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact countries.  The following month, Reagan delivers his “evil empire” speech and a short time later announces the “Star Wars” missile defense project.  Then in September, two Soviet fighter jets blow Korean Air Lines flight 007 out of the sky after Soviet military commanders catch increasing heat for not responding to U.S. surveillance   October sees the U.S. invasion of Grenada.  Finally, November brings NATO’s annual military exercise, Operation Able Archer, and the Soviets start thinking that it might just be a cover for the real thing.  They go to code red and have bombers standing by with nukes armed.

I’m in the third grade, and we’re having a pizza party.  It’s supposed to be fun, but we’re talking about a movie called “The Day After” that’s got our parents worried.  The night before my own father put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You can stay up past your bedtime to watch this, Chris, because this might happen in your lifetime.”  I know what “this” means.  I’m talking to a classmate named Brett, and I ask him if he thinks that my dad could be right.  “I know that it’s going to happen.”  He’s looking far away out the window and I wonder what he sees, “We’re never going to live to be thirty.  I know it.”

I’m looking at my keyboard and trying to remember what special occasion prompted the pizza party.  I turn to Google to get more info on Able Archer and instead find Stanislav Petrov.  In September of ’83, he’s monitoring Soviet early warning satellites when the alarms start going off.  The boards say the attack is underway, five Minutemen missiles incoming and the system automatically notifies general staff headquarters.  They’re calling for confirmation, and he’s got less than five minutes to decide.  Another officer is shouting at him to remain calm and do his job.  Years later, he says his decision was based partly on a guess, that five missiles didn’t sound enough like the massive attack they’d all been expecting.  He reports a false alarm.  An investigation follows, and he’s interrogated about all details of the incident.  He later claims that investigators try to scapegoat him.  Once a twice-decorated young officer, he takes early retirement and suffers a nervous breakdown.1

I’m twelve years old and in my bedroom, surrounded by books like Alas Babylon, A Canticle for Leibowitz and On the Beach.  I’m watching Beneath the Planet of the Apes as the descendants of Humanity pray to a nuclear missile, “The heavens declare the glory of the Bomb, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork.”  I change the channel during commercial and the Reverend Pat Robertson is saying that the end times are nigh, and he knows the Soviets are the Beast of the Book of Revelation.  I remember what Brett said at that pizza party years before and wonder if he’s right.