approach. Remember when the AP History test got criticized for identifying his approach as bellicose.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ap-history-revisions-ronald-reagan

is that they did not wake Reagan.

but changed his mind at the last Minute. The Soviets knew about the highly classified COG (Continuation of Government) program and were watching the DC area facility where he was headed to command Able Archer '83. Their orders were to launch an all-out pre-emptive nuclear strike against NATO if he went into the Bunker. The FBI agent, Robert Hanssen was the one who gave them all the details of the COG program.
Hanssen was not supposed to be privy to the information, but he ingratiated himself with the CIA unit that was in charge of GOG and somehow, managed to get the plans and turn them over to the Soviets.
As he was arriving at the facility, alarms were going off all over that the Soviets were preparing to strike and his staff convinced him to cancel the Day's events.
An innocent CIA Officer that worked at the facility was blamed for the failure and Hanssen was eventually put in charge of the investigation.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the FBI was able to purchase Hanssen's KGB file for a few Million.

Altho the Francis Gary Powers story is well enough known to us, it was still a very scary moment in history. The back story is captivating (Spielberg is a genius) as the strange turn of events develop. The lawyer defending Rudolph Abel and saving him from being executed (by arguing that we should keep him alive because perhaps in the future we may need to swap him for one of our spies...and sure enough, he was right) was anticipating a need to swap. But it turned out that he had ANOTHER American (being held in East Germany) to get released, a two for one. He managed to pull it off and got both of them.

This film is very suspenseful. Even tho we know the ending it is wonderful to see Spielberg work his craft so finely. Hanks was excellent, too as was the actor playing Abel.

Chilling ending which I won't reveal...

Sounds interesting, though.

The Movie 'Breach' gives some insight into Hanssen's capture, but doesn't go into much detail as to how Hanssen was able to pull it off as well as his religious motivations for spying for the Soviets. Hanssen was Lois Freeh's buttboy. Freeh protected Hanssen from scrutiny. They both belonged to the Opus Dei cult.

Bridge of Spies unfolds as the Berlin Wall is going up and the scene where you see the workers build it (along with watch tower manned by armed soldiers) really gave me the creeps. And it also goes to the design of his spy plane which is interesting. The scene where Powers plane was shot down is terrifying, even tho you know he is going to survive it.

The lawyer had to negotiate with two governments to get the Yale grad student as well as Powers. The poor grad student was just trying to reach his girlfriend and get her out before the wall was sealed and they nabbed him. He was no spy.

This is probably one of the most engrossing movies I have ever seen. Hanks is terrific and kinda looks his age.

I can see all kinds of awards going to this one...

Thank You.

Be aware that Breach is the FBI approved version of the facts.

You will learn some interesting things that have come to light since the U2 was shot down....but see it all unfold for yourself. I don't want to spoil anything.

and surprise beginnings.

too riveted.

The audience applauded at the end...

Just kidding...lol

same Opus Dei chapter as Hanssen and Freeh. What a slimy bunch.

How the Doomsday Project Led to Warrantless Surveillance and Detention after 9/11

Nov 13, 2014 by Peter Dale Scott

EXCERPT...

Since World War II, secrecy has been used to accumulate new covert bureaucratic powers under the guise of emergency planning for disasters, planning known inside and outside the government as the “Doomsday Project.”

Known officially (and misleadingly) as “Continuity of Government” (COG) planning, the Doomsday Project, under the guiding hands in the 1980s of Oliver North, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and others, on 9/11 became the vehicle for a significant change of government. The extreme repressive powers accumulated under the guise of the Doomsday Project were first developed to control the rest of the world. Now, to an unprecedented extent, America itself is being treated as an occupied territory.

In 1994, Tim Weiner reported in The New York Times that “The Doomsday Project” had “less than six months to live.” (1) Weiner’s language was technically justifiable, but also very misleading. In fact COG planning now simply continued with a new target: terrorism. On the basis of Weiner’s article, the first two books to discuss COG planning, by James Bamford and James Mann, both reported that COG planning had been abandoned. (2)

What Weiner and these authors did not report was that in the final months of Reagan’s presidency the purpose of COG planning had officially changed: it was no longer for arrangements “after a nuclear war,” but for any “national security emergency.” This was defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: “any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.” (3)

In this way a totally legitimate program dating back to Eisenhower, of planning extraordinary emergency measures for an America devastated in a nuclear attack, was now converted to confer equivalent secret powers on the White House for anything it considered an emergency.

Cheney and Rumsfeld in from the Start

From its beginning in 1982, two of the key planners on the secret COG planning committee were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the same two men who implemented COG on 9/11. (4) The committee had been established by Reagan under a secret executive order, NSDD 55 of September 14, 1982. Despite what Weiner implied, the committee continued to meet without interruption until the George W. Bush presidency in 2001. (5)

An expanded application of COG was apparently envisaged as early as 1984, when, according to Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan,

Lt. Col. Oliver North was working with officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency… to draw up a secret contingency plan to surveil political dissenters and to arrange for the detention of hundreds of thousands of un-documented aliens in case of an unspecified national emergency. The plan, part of which was codenamed Rex 84, called for the suspension of the Constitution under a number of scenarios, including a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. (6)

1In other words, extreme measures, designed originally to deal with an externally directed and devastating nuclear attack, were being secretly modified to deal whenever desired with domestic dissenters: a situation that still pertains to today. (7)

CONTINUED...

http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/11/13/doomsday-project-led-warrantless-surveillance-detention-911

Predicting dire results because of Soviet responses to their perceptions and models. To any model results you have to reason as a human if it makes sense. Whatever the reason the Lt. Gen. decided not to act, from the limited info in the article, I'd argue that deterrence and MAD worked, even if it was inadvertent. Obviously the best scenario for all sides is no nukes. But in the bellicose ways of the WWII generation that was in power at the time, MAD and deterrence was the best strategies, if anything because they were the only strategies.

Under President Clinton in 1995: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident

As well as the most commonly known incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

More on Able Archer 83: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83

Operation RYAN (or RYaN) was a cold war military intelligence program run by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the early 1980s when they believed the United States was planning for an imminent first strike attack. The name is an acronym for Raketno-Yadernoe Napadenie (Russian: Ракетно-ядерное нападение, "Nuclear Missile Attack&quot . The purpose of the operation was to collect intelligence on potential contingency plans of the Reagan administration to launch a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union.[1][2][3] The program was initiated in May 1981 by Yuri Andropov, then chairman of the KGB.

RYAN took on a new significance after the announcement of plans to deploy Pershing II nuclear-capable missiles to West Germany.[1] These missiles were designed to be launched from road-mobile vehicles, making the launch sites very hard to find. The flight time from West Germany to European Russia was only four to six minutes (approximate flying time from six to eight minutes from West Germany to Moscow), giving the Soviets little or no warning.

On 23 March 1983 Ronald Reagan publicly announced development of the Strategic Defense Initiative. The Soviet government felt that the use of SDI technology was to render the US invulnerable to Soviet attack, thereby allowing the US to launch missiles against the USSR without fear of retaliation. This concern about a surprise attack prompted the sudden expansion of the RYAN program. The level of concern reached its peak after the Soviets shot down KAL 007 near Moneron Island on 1 September 1983, and during the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation exercise Able Archer 83. The Soviet Union believed that a United States first strike on the Soviet Union was imminent.[1]

Operation RYAN was downscaled in 1984, after the deaths of its main proponents, Yuri Andropov and defense minister Dmitriy Ustinov.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYAN

who was named after a false alarm that almost started WWIII.