Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Man, I loved the 80s. Arcade games, fanny packs, acid wash jeans, Jane Fonda doing jazzercise, I mean, what's not to like? Oh, yeah, the looming threat of nuclear war. The temperature of a nuclear fireball is 20 million degrees. Situation at all levels, alpha.
Yep, the 1980s weren't all Robotron and Rubik's Cubes. There was also that out-of-control nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. And a lot of people spent the 80s deeply, existentially terrified of nuclear war, including me.
But what most people don't know is in November of 1983, the United States and the Soviet Union almost started an actual nuclear war entirely by accident. And none of us knew anything about it. Which makes me think of a story. Wow!
I'm Ed Helms, and I'm hosting a new podcast called "Snafu." It's a show about gaffes, the disasters, history's greatest screw-ups. On season one of "Snafu," the story of Ava Larcher '83, the NATO military exercise that nearly triggered World War III. You know, this is more like two drunks in a bar circling one another, and it's not so much that anybody would deliberately choose to start the war. It's just that things would spiral out of control.
This is a true story about what really happens in the highest echelons of power. Deception, espionage, political miscalculation, all while the fate of the human race hangs in the balance. It's a story with an A-list cast, a Hollywood actor turned president. It did give me...
A real understanding of the communist menace. A paranoid Soviet dictator. America is preparing a sudden nuclear attack on our country. Two treasonous spies. Totally immersed in this world of espionage and surveillance. And a dauntless sleuth who wanted to get to the bottom of it all. Pull out the folder, open it up, and it has this green card that says, every historian's nightmare. Classified. Classified.
So what's the real story of Able Archer 83 that lies buried in government archives? Is it just a story of an almost Armageddon? Or is it a mind game all its own? To find out how close we were to doomsday and why most of us have no idea it even happened, subscribe to Snafu, premiering October 5th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever the hell you get your podcasts.
I mean, it is a miracle we did not all die. Like, it's just goofy.