{"product_id":"the-world-at-the-brink-1983-taylor-downing","title":"The World at the Brink 1983 - Taylor Downing","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eShortlisted for the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize 2019\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e1983 was a supremely dangerous year - even more dangerous than 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the US, President Reagan massively increased defence spending, described the Soviet Union as an 'evil empire' and announced his 'Star Wars' programme, calling for a shield in space to defend the US from incoming missiles.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eYuri Andropov, the paranoid Soviet leader, saw all this as signs of American aggression and convinced himself that the US really meant to attack the Soviet Union. He put the KGB on alert to look for signs of an imminent nuclear attack. When a Soviet fighter jet shot down Korean Air Lines flight KAL 007 after straying off course over a sensitive Soviet military area, President Reagan described it as a 'terrorist act' and 'a crime against humanity'. The temperature was rising fast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThen at the height of the tension, NATO began a war game called Able Archer 83. In this exercise, NATO requested permission to use the codes to launch nuclear weapons. The nervous Soviets convinced themselves this was no exercise but the real thing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThis is an extraordinary and largely unknown Cold War story of spies and double agents, of missiles being readied, of intelligence failures, misunderstandings and the panic of world leaders. With access to hundreds of extraordinary new documents just released in the US,\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eTaylor Downing\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis able to tell for the first time the gripping but true story of how near the world came to the brink of nuclear war in 1983.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Book Bubble\/Old School Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44859911110892,"sku":"","price":5.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/8930\/2764\/files\/TWATB-TB-01.jpg?v=1712994584","url":"https:\/\/bookbubble.co.uk\/products\/the-world-at-the-brink-1983-taylor-downing","provider":"Book Bubble\/Old School Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}