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Chronicle 1983

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    • 11 November

      1983

      Start of the strictly secret NATO nuclear command post exercise "Able Archer 83" – considered by observers to be probably the highest point of military tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union.

      The exercise simulates – without troops and without the mobilisation of nuclear weapons – the relay of commands in the case of a nuclear war according to the Pentagon’s "Single Integrated Operational Plan" (SIOP). It contains 50,000 Soviet targets. The Soviet Union takes this exercise very seriously, according to information from the later KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky. Moscow puts nuclear-capable fighter planes on high combat alert including in the GDR and Poland.

      According to Gordievsky, KGB circles persuade the Soviet leadership that the USA is preparing a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union – this fear has become commonplace in the Soviet Union at the time. Even after the NATO exercise finishes, tensions remain: on 14 November 1983, the first cruise missiles are stationed in Great Britain. less
    • 22 November

      1983

      The West German Bundestag approves the stationing of new US medium-range missiles, thus implementing the NATO resolution on building up its arms capability. In response, the Soviet Union breaks off the INF negotiations in Geneva on 23 November and the START negotiations as well on 8 December.
    • 24 November

      1983

      The Soviet party leader Yuri Andropov announces military measures against NATO’s arms build-up, including the stationing of additional missiles in the GDR and the CSSR and of submarines in closer proximity to the USA coastline.
    • 25 November

      1983

      In a speech to the SED Central Committee, General Secretary Erich Honecker says that the decision to station missiles has caused "serious damage" to the European system of treaties, including the Basic Treaty on relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. But in the next sentence he continues: "We are in favour of limiting this damage as far as possible."
    • 28 November

      1983

      The CPSU leadership confidentially tells the SED Politburo that "those states that have agreed to the stationing of the missiles must now feel the political consequences of this decision." more
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