The Year of Maximum Danger 1983

By Ret.) Humpert (USAF

"You don't know how close war is."

Radomir Bogdanov, Deputy Director, Institute of the USA and Canada, 1983

"It was a matter of rather--I would say-greater danger than almost

• Language: English
• Publisher: Excel Book Writing
• Release date: Feb 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869209795

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Dedication

I want to dedicate 1983 to the two women to whom I owe so much. To my mother, Onita Ora Humpert, who made a green, wet-behind-the-ears seventeen-year-old promise to further his education as the price for her to sign his enlistment papers to join the USAF.  And to my wife, Mikell Shannon Egan Humpert, who steadfastly and persistently pressed me to write 1983, despite my numerous attempts to procrastinate.

During my first years in Washington, I think many of us in the administration took it for granted that the Russians, like ourselves, considered it unthinkable that the United States would launch a first strike against them.  But the more experience I had with the Soviet leaders and other heads of state who knew them, the more I began to realize that many Soviet officials feared us not only as adversaries but as potential aggressors who might hurl nuclear weapons at them in a first strike.

—President Ronald Reagan

The danger was in the Soviet leadership thinking, The Americans may attack, so we better attack first.

—Oleg D. Kalugin, former KGB Chief of Foreign Counterintelligence

In 1983, we may have inadvertently placed our relations with the Soviet Union on a hair trigger.

—President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board    Report The Soviet War Scare

The Soviets stayed very, very moderate, very, very responsible during the first three years of this administration.  I was mind-boggled with their patience.

—Alexander Haig, Secretary of State, 1981-1982

[The U.S.-Soviet] relationship had deteriorated to the point where I think the Soviet Union as a system—not just the Kremlin, not just Andropov, not just the KGB—but as a system, was geared to expect an attack and to retaliate very quickly to it.

—Bruce Blair, expert on Cold War nuclear strategies

The period 1982-1984 marked the most dangerous Soviet-American confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

—Thomas R. Johnson, National Security Agency Center for Cryptologic History

The Soviet People and the American people have a common foe—the threat of war incomparable with the horrors we went through previously.  This war may perhaps not occur through evil intent, but could happen through miscalculation.  Then nothing could save mankind.

—Conversation with Yuri Andropov, W. Averell Harriman Papers

Never, perhaps, in the postwar decades was the situation in the world as explosive and hence, more difficult and unfavorable, as in the first half of the 1980s.

         —Premier Mikhail Gorbachev

For a day or two in 1983, the world was close to a catastrophic nuclear war—over the misinterpretation of a military exercise [ABLE ARCHER 83].  That such a situation could come about after three decades of Cold War, with all the elaborate mechanisms that had been hammered out over the years, is sobering.  And there are lessons from this incident that apply today.

         —Paul Dibb, Emeritus Professor at the Strategic and Defense Studies Centre, Australia

The respected officers had a glass too many and opened up.  One of them began to hold forth loudly about the need to press the nuclear button as soon as possible, before the imperialists could gain superiority over us in every field.  The others shouted down my protests and received their comrade’s insane words with great ovation.

      —A Soviet foreign affairs briefer

One of the reasons why we misperceive Russia is because we misperceive ourselves and so misperceive how Russians see us.  We do not take seriously their objections to what we do; and we do not take those objections seriously because of our inability to regard ourselves as anything other than the good guys.  If we are to improve our understanding of Russia, we perhaps first need to improve our understanding of ourselves. 

      —Professor Paul Robinson, University of Ottawa

If the Soviets believed that Ronald Reagan sought victory in a nuclear war, the paramount misconception lay in their failure to understand their adversary in Washington.  Whatever the belligerence of Reagan’s rhetoric, and indeed his foreign policy, at no point did he ever intend to start a nuclear war.

The American intelligence misconception was not to fully realize the nature of Soviet fears and the implication of those fears….Understanding other people’s misperceptions is a long-standing problem in intelligence analysis.

      —Intelligence in the Cold War

Cast of Characters

AMERICANS

JAMES ORRELL

Former Captain, U.S. Air Force, Soviet Military and Political Affairs Officer (HUMINT).  Recruited to the Central Intelligence Agency; assigned as Deputy Chief of Moscow Station, U.S. Embassy.

JACOB DICKINSON, Staff Sergeant, USMC

Member, Marine Security Detachment, Moscow Station, U.S. Embassy.

KRIS SONDERSTROM

Central Intelligence Agency undercover operative assisted by his wife Sandy; assigned to Moscow Station, U.S. Embassy.

JACK BRADDOCK and MICHAEL EGAN

Central Intelligence Agency operatives assigned to the Directorate of Operations Headquarters, Soviet and East European Division.  Braddock formerly served as Deputy Chief of Moscow Station.

NICHOLAS SINGLETON

Chief of Moscow Station, Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. Embassy.

WAYNE ALLEN

Director of Operations (DO), Soviet and East European Division, Central Intelligence Agency.

RONALD W. REAGAN

40th President of the United States, 1981 to 1989.

WILLIAM J. CASEY

Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), 1981 to 1987.

JAMES E. CARTER

39th President of the United States, 1977 to 1981.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI

A counselor to President Lyndon Johnson, 1966 to 1968.  President Carter's National Security Advisor, 1977 to 1981.

WILLIAM E. ODOM, Lieutenant General, USA

Military assistant to Zbigniew Brzezinski.  Assistant to President Carter for national security affairs.  Director of the National Security Agency under President Reagan.

PHILIP HARTMAN

Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Embassy, Moscow.  Currently assigned to the Russia Desk, Department of State, Washington D.C.

CARTER LIVINGSTONE and RICHARD SPENCER

National Security Council members in the Reagan administration.  Members on the Soviet Union and East European Affairs subcommittee.

RUSSIANS

DMITRIY AMBROSOVICH BELOUSOV, Major General, GRU (Mitya); (wife) EKATERINA STEPANOVNA (Katya); (daughter) VIKTORIA DMITRIEVNA (Vika, Vikusa)

GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence) Headquarters, Chief of Indications and Warning Directorate, Deputy to Lieutenant General Mikhail Tikhomirov, Director, Second Division, North America.

LEONID ILYICH BREZHNEV

General Secretary of the Central Committee of the governing Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), from 1964 until his death in 1982.

MAXIM PETROVICH OSTROUMOV, Colonel, KGB

KGB (Committee of State Security) officer.  Assigned to the First Chief Directorate (FCD, Foreign Espionage, North American Division).  Deputy to the Chief, V.A. Kryuchkov.  His father was tried and executed, in 1954, on information provided by the GRU.

YURI VLADIMIROVICH ANDROPOV

Chairman of the KGB from 1967 to 1982, when he became the country's leader:  Central Committee General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) a position he held until his death in 1984.

DMITRIY FYODOROVICH USTINOV

Marshal of the Soviet Union and Soviet politician during the Cold War.  He served as a Central Committee secretary in charge of the Soviet military–industrial complex from 1965 to 1976, and as Minister of Defense from 1976 until his death in 1984.

NIKOLAI VASILYEVICH OGARKOV, Marshal of the Soviet Union

Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, and First Deputy Minister of Defense, 1977 to 1984.

ANDREI ANDREYEVICH GROMYKO

Minister of Foreign Affairs (1957–1985) and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, 1985 until his retirement in 1988.

ANATOLIY FYODOROVICH DOBRYNIN

Russian statesman and a Soviet diplomat and politician.  Soviet Ambassador to the United States for more than two decades, 1962 to 1986.

SERGEI PAVLOVICH RUDNITSKIY, Major General, GRU

GRU Chief of Residency (Field Station), Embassy of the USSR to the U.S., Washington D.C.  Friend and confidant of Major General Belousov.

IVAN STEPANOVICH SMIRNOV, Major General, Army

Assigned to the Ministry of Defense, Operations Directorate.  Brother-in-law to Major General Belousov and brother of Katya Belousova.  (Dyadya Vanya)

VIKTOR MIKHAILOVICH CHEBRIKOV, KGB

Deputy to KGB Chairman Andropov, and then Chairman of the KGB from December 1982 to October 1988.

VLADIMIR ALEKSANDROVICH KRYUCHKOV, KGB

KGB Chief, First Chief Directorate, 1974-1988.  Chairman, KGB 1988-1991.  On 18 August 1991, Kryuchkov, along with seven other Soviet leaders, formed the State Committee on the State of Emergency and attempted to overthrow the government of the Soviet Union.  The purpose of the coup d’etat supposedly was to preserve the integrity of the Soviet Union and the constitutional order.

VASILIY A. LEONIDOV and ALYOSHA B. VORONOV, Army

Russian soldiers assigned to the 27th Guards Motorized Rifle Division, 68th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment (BMP), headquarters, Halle, East Germany.

PYOTR IVANOVICH IVASHUTIN, Army General, GRU

Chief of the GRU for 24 years, from March 1963 to June 1987.

MIKHAIL VLADIMIROVICH TIKHOMIROV, Lieutenant General, GRU

GRU Headquarters, Director of the Second Division, North America.

Prologue

November 8, 1983, 1800 hours

Kuntsevo Central Medical Clinic, Moscow

Comrade Secretary, we must attack now before it’s too late!  The Americans are using their exercise as a cover to attack us!  You must give the order! pleads an exasperated KGB Chairman Viktor M. Chebrikov.  Together with the head of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelligence), Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, they were briefing the terminally ill General Secretary Yuri V. Andropov on the latest results of RYaN reporting and the eminent threat posed by the ongoing U.S.-NATO ABLE ARCHER military exercise.  RYaN (the Russian acronym for Raketno-Yadernoye Napadeniye, or, in English, a Nuclear Missile Attack) was a Soviet intelligence-collection operation to detect and possibly preempt a Western nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. 

The bedridden General Secretary was shaken by the intelligence reports and grudgingly believed that the moment he has long feared has come regarding the confrontation with the U.S. President Ronald Reagan the cowboy.  Andropov decided to call an emergency meeting with the State Defense Committee. (Gosudarstvennyi Komitet Oborony, or GKO), which were the Politburo members responsible for national security and who could make decisions about starting and managing a war.

2000 hours

The GKO members assembled in Andropov’s hospital room.  Andropov, weak and speaking slowly, ordered Kryuchkov to brief the committee members on the current situation.  This he does, concluding that the KGB believes based on the RYaN and covert agent reporting there is an urgent need to stage a preemptive attack while there is still time.

The veteran Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrei A. Gromyko, rose from his chair. 

Comrade Secretary, I strongly oppose any thought of making a preemptive attack against the Americans and NATO.

The so-called evidence of the danger of an enemy surprise nuclear attack provided by the KGB is too weak to support the nonsense notion of a U.S. first strike attack.  Comrades Chebrikov and Kryuchkov have conveniently omitted the supplementary intelligence reporting from our East German allies asserting there are no indications of NATO preparing for war.

However, the Foreign Affairs minister lacked any support among the GKO hard-liner faction.  The KGB and the Soviet Army distrusted the Foreign Ministry in matters of arms control and arms reduction unless they were securely in the hands of officials sympathetic to their viewpoints.  And the military was certainly not going to accept further cuts in its forces unless there were assurances that arms control treaties would not include concessions like those found in the prospective INF treaty. 

The Foreign Ministry was now populated by officials who were wedded to an instinctive distrust of the U.S. and who viewed American actions as a smoke screen for NATO war preparations.  Their biases tended to warp their interpretation and reporting of discussions with the U.S. government and cast a decidedly pessimistic view of U.S. intentions.  His caution goes unheeded.

Marshal Dmitriy F. Ustinov, Minister of Defense, is against a nuclear preemptive option for other reasons.

Comrade Secretary, the Soviet Union does not have a first strike disarming capability.  We could lose at least 80 million people and 65% of our industrial capability in the case of a U.S. attack. 

Ustinov turned to address the other members.

"We could, however, achieve complete surprise with a conventional military option.  This summer our Zapad (West) Exercise confirmed a bold advance in Central Europe is possible.  We could eliminate the main source of danger and disrupt the enemy plans for nuclear war.  This could buy us time, Ustinov argued, for preparations for a possible nuclear escalation."

The Defense Minister is correct, thundered the Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Nikolai V. Ogarkov. It can be done!  The Operations Directorate has assessed we can reach the Rhine River by the sixth or seventh day of the war and then the Foreign Minister can negotiate a peace agreement with the Reagan imperialists from a position of strength.  I remind you we are at a critical moment NATO has just changed its top secret nuclear launch codes.  If we wait any longer, it may be too late to respond.

No!  Gromyko was flushed, his eyes flashing.  No one had ever seen him so angry.  His composed diplomatic mien vanished.  In desperation, he pleads, All diplomatic emergency channels, including the Direct Communications Link with Washington the Hotline have to be used before we take irreversible military action!  Must I remind you that the GRU does not share your assessment of an impending attack. 

Ogarkov stridently responds to the Foreign Minister.  "К chyorty ikh! (To hell with the GRU!)  The Chief of the General Staff’s words fairly dripped with contempt.  Listen to me!  Any communication with the enemy could risk uncovering our war preparations and precipitate a NATO first strike.  We shouldn’t talk!  We must act! Comrade General Secretary, you must agree to attack now we can wait no longer!"

Comrades!  Enough!  I am not going to preside over another 1941 debacle, snapped Andropov, propped up by several pillows.  A doctor comes to Andropov’s bedside to warn him that his blood pressure had reached dangerous levels.  Andropov waved him off.  Stalin believed the Nazi fascists more than his own intelligence organizations.  Now, it seems, our people are warning us again!  For decades the Americans and their henchmen allies have been overflying our country, photographing our military sites, probing our defenses just like the fascists did before Operation Barbarossa!

Andropov struggles, his voice weakening, and his strength is rapidly failing.  His words come between wheezes.

And just like Marx foretold the imperialists are going to lash out!  Comrade Ustinov has told me it is only a matter of time before the Pershing missiles and the cruise missiles are in place.  These are first strike weapons and we have no defense against them.

The most recent RYaN reporting indicates American B-52 bombers are performing nuclear-strike drills during this so-called exercise, and in the past few years you and I have clearly seen the intentions and provocations of that madman in the White House toward our socialist Motherland what so many of our countrymen have struggled and died for.

Pausing, he caught his breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and in a somber tone said, A terrible decision is upon us:  In our relations with the Americans I have been cautious and restrained, but now I must make the riskiest and most important decision since the October Revolution.  Sober judgment, comrades, must prevail!  History will not forgive us otherwise.  I will not allow another 1941!  Comrade Ustinov, issue the appropriate orders to our forces.

The dejected and wearied Minister of Foreign Affairs collapses into his chair and mutters, Again, war in our lifetime.  When will we ever learn?

This Is How It Would Most Likely Begin

Defense Minister Ustinov turns to Marshal Ogarkov and orders, "Implement Plan Buran (Blizzard) immediately!"

Marshal Ogarkov nods and steps to the General Secretary’s secure telephone console and pushes the button that connects him directly to the General Staff’s Directorate of Operations in the Ministry of Defense.  General Zatrudnikov, General Staff Operations duty officer, answers immediately.

The General Staff Chief pulls out a laminated card fastened to a chain around his neck.

This is Marshal Ogarkov, reading from the authenticator card, on my authority Zhenya…Mikhail…Chelovek…nol’…nol’…sem’…devyat’…odin (Zh-M-Ch-0-0-7-9-1) implement Plan Buran!  The code is Volga, Volga, Volga!"

"Yest’! (Yes, Sir!) Comrade Marshal."

*  *  *

November 10, 1983, 2000 hours

German Democratic Republic,

Near the Inner-German Border (IGB)

Motorized Rifle Attack:  A Skirmish in the Bavarian Woods

Night cloaked the dense German forest.  In among the dense pines, the low, sharp-prowed, squat hulls of the BMP-2s (Boyevaya Mashina Pekhoty Infantry Fighting Vehicles) turned black, and the Soviet soldiers gathered closer into their squad groups, huddling against the light rain.  Whenever possible the vehicle commanders had tried to back off the trails in such a way that the nearby trees formed a protective barrier, allowing a safe sleeping space.  In the inky darkness, in the absence of any lights, those who failed to pay attention to such details risked being crushed under tracks/wheels during a night alert.

For the last few days, after the unit hurried out of garrison, they had moved about only during the hours of darkness.  Everyone craved news.  It was evident that this was not a routine exercise, but little information reached the soldiers.  Adjacent units had pulled out and returned to garrison.  But Ryadovoy (Private) Vasiliy Leonidov’s unit moved forward, closer to the IGB the Inner German Border area.  Strict security measures were observed.  Total radio silence.  Leonidov had already enough rumors to cause him to worry.  All of his life his teachers and youth activities leaders had drummed into him that the United States and the other Western powers were anxious to unleash a nuclear war against the Soviet Union.  The descriptions of the horrors of such a conflict had been sufficiently graphic to stay with him.  Now he wondered what in the world was happening.

All lights were forbidden, and the officers had disappeared to wherever officers went.

            The squad dismounted from the BMP and each soldier looked for a soft spot under a pine tree to get some sleep.

At about 0500 hours a UAZ-469 with its dimmed-out night driving lights on made its way carefully down a narrow track toward the bivouac area.  The jeep stopped and their squad leader Sergeant Kassabian went over to the vehicle and saluted Lieutenant Reshetnikov, their platoon commander.  Leonidov couldn’t make out the words, but he could see Kassabian’s shoulders slump.  Kassabian then came to attention, saluted the Lieutenant and the jeep turned around.  The sergeant came back to the BMP-2.

Get up, you miserable excuses for soldiers!  Move it, he yelled, kicking Efreitor (Private First Class) Alyosha Voronov awake in mid-snore from a deep sleep. 

Get your gear in order, we’re moving out!

Where to, Sergeant? Leonidov asked, fearful of the answer.

Kassabian gave Leonidov a pained look and barked, "Na Zapad!" (West!)  He turned on his heel and strode away.

As uncomfortable as the BMP-2’s ride was for the cramped soldiers, the squad had other things on their minds.  Like all soldiers going into combat for the first time, they wondered what battle would really be like.  They wondered where the enemy was.  When would the Germans start firing at them?  The claustrophobia of the dank interior of the BMP, combined with fears and anxieties about battle, made the riflemen of 1st Squad wish they could get out of the damned BMP and fight on foot.  Then at least they could see their enemy.

After thirty minutes of heavy Soviet artillery fire, the regiment crossed the West German border at 0600 hours.  Stunned by what was a massive barrage, the few German defenders at the border reeled under the overwhelming mass of the Soviet armor and were quickly overrun.

They were several kilometers to the rear of the divisional vanguards.  The roads through the forest were narrow, and the columns warned not to bunch up.  The first sounds of fighting came around 1000 hours, when lead elements of the division ran into the first German prepared positions about ten kilometers over the border.  The Bavarian forest was ill-suited for any large-scale fighting with armored vehicles.  Any fighting in the woods would have to be done on foot.

For Leonidov and his comrades, the first signs of combat came an hour later.  Traffic had slowed due to rubbernecking by the columns.  On the left side of the road was a burned-out BRDM (Boevaya Razvedyvatel’naya Dozornaya Mashina Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle) similar to a BMP-2 and used for scouting.  Something, probably a missile, had hit it on the turret front and caved in the turret’s left side.  Farther over in the clearing were at least two burned-out BMPs and a burned-out T-80 tank.  Apparently, this had been an advance guard that was ambushed by German antitank missile teams.

Around noon, the 2nd Battalion of the Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment was called forward to deal with the German defenses.  Reshetnikov’s platoon was attached to this battalion.  The 3-squad platoon was to move down the road about a kilometer, where it would be directed to its objective and given orders.

The platoon’s assignment was straightforward.  The road along which the regiment had to pass went through a large clearing.  Some German troops were positioned in a small clump of buildings about 2,000 meters to the right of the road.  The Germans had several Milan antitank missile launchers and had been firing on the columns of the regiment as they passed.  Gunfire from a BMP had eliminated this team, but the regimental commander feared that his units would continue to be subjected to missile attack unless the German position was secured.  The regiment’s 3rd Company/2nd Battalion, to which Reshetnikov’s platoon belonged, was being assigned to eliminate the German missile positions in the buildings and deal with any other German forces in the clearing.

Normally, an attack like this would be supported by tanks.  But since few were immediately available, and there was some urgency to overwhelm the enemy positions, the attack would be carried out by the BMP company alone.  The company was to deploy at the edge of the road and dismount troops 1,500 meters from the building.  Within range, the Milan ATGMs could easily blow apart a BMP.  So, the plan was to leave the BMPs back beyond missile range, but close enough to provide fire support from their 30mm autocannons. 

The BMP company had three platoons, of which Lieutenant Reshetnikov’s was one.  His platoon would be on the left flank of the attack, and the other two platoons to the right.  In all, there would be ten BMPs in the attack three in the each of the three platoons, and the company commanders to the rear watching over the action.

This will be a standard dismounted attack, explained Reshetnikov to the squads.  The enemy in those buildings in front of us are armed with antitank missiles.  Our objective is to capture and hold those buildings and clear out any German troops in the area.  Is everything clear?

"Yest’! (Yes, Sir!) Comrade Lieutenant," resounded the reply.  It sounded more like a school cheer and more appropriate on a playing field than a battlefield.  But in the Soviet Army, routine procedures like this took the soldiers’ minds from their anxieties, and made the battlefield seem a little more familiar.  The platoon sergeants crawled back into the BMPs and awaited the company commander’s signal.

At 1245 hours the company commander fired off a green flare.  The engines of the ten BMPs were already warmed up, and thus they began their charge toward the objective.  The BMPs were stretched out for half a kilometer with about fifty meters between them.  The Germans held their fire during the approach.  The Soviet infantry squads sat in the back of the BMPs, mute and anxious.  Everyone took the opportunity to check their equipment.

Leonidov prayed.  He did not know if he believed in a god or in much of anything.  But his mother had never given up her little peasant shrine and her timid, plaintive prayers.  Leonidov tightly clutched his Kalashnikov against his chest and closed his eyes.  He prayed as best he could, trying to imagine what kind of approach you would need to convince a neglected god you were really sincere at this moment.

After a couple of minutes each squad commander sounded a small klaxon.

Slezai! (Dismount!) came the order.  The two rear doors of the BMPs were thrown open and the squad piled out.  Half of Leonidov’s squad peeled off to the left, the other half to the right.  The thunderous noise of 30mm cannon and the staccato bursts of machine gun fire engulfed Leonidov’s body.  He ran laterally though the rain, trying to find his position in the dismounted line.  The squads formed a ragged skirmish line interspersed in front of their vehicles. 

The Russian soldiers began their advance across the wet field toward the objective, Kalashnikovs at their hip.  Behind them, the BMPs moved slowly to provide cover fire with their 30mm cannons.  At first it seemed like a parade ground.  No fire came from the objective.  Every soldier in the squad hoped that the Germans had fled their position.  Through the murky, gray haze they could make out the objective slightly uphill from their positions.  They could also see there was precious little cover between the squad and the buildings.  Still, no sign of movement from the Germans.  It took about six minutes for the squad to cover the first 500 meters.  The walk seemed interminable, with every soldier anxiously awaiting the sound of the first volley.

Keep your eyes on the buildings! Kassabian shouted to the squad.

There’s nothing there to see! complained Voronov, lowering his machine gun.

Voronov had barely finished griping when, from a small gully on the east side of the farm, there was a brief flash of light.  From the squad’s vantage point they could just see the slight flickers of exhaust as a Milan antitank missile began bearing down on the BMPs of 2nd Platoon.  Their advance had brought them into range of the enemy missiles.

There was no time for the platoon commander to react.  The first Milan struck a BMP on the right side.  It exploded in a bright flash and the BMP came to a halt.  The missile hit the front compartment, tearing into the diesel engine and splashing burning fuel all over the front of the vehicle. The ammunition in the BMP began cooking off.  A second Milan missile had been launched from the opposite side of the farm seconds after the first.  It struck the BMP to the left, on the bow.  The engine of the BMP absorbed most of the blast, and the driver and gunner were able to get out.  The BMP did not suffer the horrible fire that engulfed the other vehicle. 

Whether from fear or unbounded energy, a soldier bolted  by Leonidov, screaming unintelligibly, wielding his antitank grenade launcher over his shoulder like a spear.  Leonidov moved forward, vaguely conscious of Voronov off to his left.  Voronov’s large muscular presence, trotting forward with the machine gun, seemed protective.  Leonidov shouted as loud as he could, letting the sounds come randomly.  He squeezed the trigger on his assault rifle, firing into the vacant grayness ahead of him, frantic to effect something, to gain some sort of control over his fate.  He quickly ran out of rounds in the first magazine and slowed to change it. 

He dropped the full magazine.  As he bent to retrieve it from the mud a BMP almost ran over him.  It seemed to be out of line with the others.  But, glancing around, Leonidov realized he was no longer certain exactly how the line faced.  All around him the crack of small-arms fire continued without a discernible focus.

Another vehicle clanked past him.  Leonidov followed in its wake, mud sucking at his boots.  He had no idea where his squad mates had gone so quickly.

             He saw his first casualty.  It was an unfamiliar Russian boy, pawing at the pelting rain as though reaching for the bottom rungs of a ladder just beyond his reach.  The boy strained his arms, calling for his mother through a bloody face under blond hair matted with blood.

Hopelessly disoriented, Leonidov rushed ahead, firing his weapon in the general direction of his forced progress.

Another BMP exploded off to the side, shooting brilliant balls of light through the murk.  Leonidov kept his footing and trotted vacantly forward, inured to the danger of the exploding rounds.  He passed a vividly burning vehicle around which blackened bodies lay.  A voice barked in an Asiatic language and a collection of small-arms gunfire rattled in the mist.

Leonidov discovered a machine gunner lying behind a low mound.  For a moment he lit with hope Voronov!

No.  It was a stranger.  Leonidov flopped down beside him anyway, glad for any companionship.  He began to fire his weapon in the same direction as the young machine gunner.

An officer ran up to them, shrieking at them for their stupidity.  The wild, red-faced captain waved his pistol and screamed at them to go forward.  Leonidov and his machine gunner-companion lifted themselves off the wet grass and moved cautiously in the direction the officer was pointing.

Small-arms fire erupted from the buildings.  Leonidov’s companion had already dropped behind a small mound, sweeping the buildings with his squad machine gun, drawing magazines mechanically from a pouch.

            Leonidov tried to fire, but he had let his magazine go empty again.  He hurried to change it, but his fingers refused to move.  Light.  Heat.  Painful noise.  From his side, the boy machine gunner gave an anguished cry and rose up from the ground, collapsing into a lifeless heap.

Leonidov struggled to his feet, relieved to find his own body intact.  In a crouched run he went forward in the direction the officer had pointed.  Who was winning?  How can you tell? he wondered.  Leonidov did not think even so much of rejoining the fight; fighting no longer mattered, he simply wanted to be close to other living men.

*  *  *

How did it come to this?

Three years after President Ronald Reagan’s administration came to power, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union have sunk to their lowest ebb since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.  During the early 1980s, Kremlin leaders became increasingly circumspect about the growing gap in military capabilities between the USSR and the U.S. and about the intentions of the Reagan administration, which came to power in 1981.  On both sides, mistaken perceptions, predispositions and beliefs led the leaderships of the USSR and the U.S. to consistently misinterpret the other side’s intentions.

Unknown to the Reagan White House, the Kremlin and hard-line factions within the Ministry of Defense and the KGB viscerally believe their country is in mortal danger and they are edging toward a showdown with the Main Enemy, the United States.  The collapse of détente following the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and American perceptions of a growing strategic imbalance led to a series of moves are viewed as discrete and defensive by Washington but as a calculated set of aggressive actions by Moscow.  The deployment of SS-20 intermediate-range missiles steered the NATO decision to deploy sophisticated Pershing II intermediate-range missiles and air- and sea-launched cruise missiles by 1983.  NATO did not consider the deployments as destabilizing because the missiles did not have the range to strike Moscow or key command and control centers west of the Russian capital.  The Soviet military, however, did not accept NATO’s rationale, but viewed the missiles as first strike weapons a significant threat that resulted in significantly reduced warning time in the event of a decapitation nuclear attack.

Further, the Reagan administration quietly began a serious of psychological operations, or PSYOPs, throughout the early 1980s.  These were intelligence-collection missions that taunted Soviet air defenses on the country’s vast frontiers and featured large-scale naval exercises in the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans intended to intimidate and humiliate the Soviet military.

By 1983, the Politburo and the Soviet military had become increasingly anxious that the United States might seek an opportunity to carry out a nuclear first strike.  Soviet intelligence-gathering priorities shifted dramatically in response to this perceived threat.  The Soviet political, military and intelligence leadership had become convinced that American intentions had changed and that Washington, in a dramatic shift from decades of mutual nuclear deterrence, was planning or