Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War -Episode 5 - War Games - and then Glasnost, a welcome thaw
Introduction. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Russian forces have taken it over. Zelensky is quoted "Six Chernobyls - The biggest danger in Europe. " Russia also taken over Chernobyl. Garret Graff comments - a warning that Russia could militarise these places., creating a "dirty bomb" (But no mention that fire from Ukrainian forces could do the same)
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In 1980. U.S. National Security Advisor Brzezinski was alerted that there were 2000 Soviet missiles headed to America. This turned out to be a false alarm - a computer error. USA could have launched a full-scale nuclear war. We have got close to nuclear catastrophe numerous times - we've been lucky.
In the 1980s, renewed fear of Russia, with Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. President Ronald Reagan built his campaign on harsh criticism of "detente" - the politics of fear of Russia. Nuclear arsenals were enormous, but no real communication between USA and Soviet leaders. Reagan pushed for more and greater nuclear weapons. Meanwhile The Soviets believed that the USA was plotting a nuclear first strike and world domination.
KGP conducted a new intelligence operation. USA deploys nuclear weapons to Germany. USSR has nuclear missiles near its Western border. (all this very well illustrated). 1983 a most dangerous period. Ronald Reagan gave his famous speech about "the evil empire"- the "struggle between right and wrong, and good and evil". Then he announces The Strategic Defense Initiative aimed at rendering the Soviet missile force useless- to destroy nuclear missiles in flight. Edward Teller suggests space lasers on satellites. (again, very well visually displayed) - a plan that came to be known as "Star Wars"
Tensions along the Soviet coast -1in 1983, the Russian shooting down of a civilian aircraft that mistakenly flew over Soviet nuclear submarine base. Then in September, the crisis in which the Soviet Missile Defence Centre gets intelligence of an incoming attack of 5 nuclear missiles headed to Russia. The officer on duty - Stanislov Petrov felt it was wrong, refused to set off the nuclear retaliation - and it turned out to have been a computer error - there was no U.S. attack. Soviet and U.S nuclear weapons procedures were ramped up - U.S "War Games" exercises alerted the Soviets, their military very nervous.
The series attributed the highly-watched movie "The Day After" to alerting Ronald Reagan to the awful danger of nuclear war. The film producers avoided using this as propaganda. 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev took over as Soviet leader. Excellent coverage of the Gorbachev-Reagan talks.
1986 - the Chernobyl nuclear accident - good visuals - uncontrolled release of radiation - first picked up in Sweden - Soviet's tradition reluctance to reveal the facts, but did announce them 2 weeks later. Children the most medically affected; Gorbachev saw the need to end the Russian secrecy on its nuclear industry, and increased his wish to reduce nuclear weapons. Glasnost - a move to make government more open and accountable - begun by Gorbachev - leading to the end of the Cold War