Julie Mcdowall

Fingers on the nuclear button

Reagan’s Star Wars panicked the Soviets into putting their nuclear arsenal on highest alert. But a cool Nato commander refused to react

issue 26 May 2018

In 1983, Soviet spies skulked in our midnight streets to check the lights were out.

The Kremlin, convinced the West was planning nuclear war, launched Project RYAN, whereby agents watched for signs of impending attack. One was that lights would burn all night in government buildings, as fiendish mandarins drew up the war plans. It didn’t occur to them that lights might indicate nothing more than cleaners on a late shift. Soviet paranoia was such that they saw menace everywhere, and agents, eager to please Moscow, reinforced this fear. ‘The more alarming the reports, the more the agents were congratulated for their diligence.’ RYAN became self-fulfilling.

In an easy, accessible history of that anxious year, Taylor Downing shows how close we came to nuclear war, and underlines the role played by crowd-pleasing rhetoric and ludicrous paranoia.

However it was not totally ludicrous to stake out government buildings for signs of Armageddon.

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