Many people think the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war since the end of WWII. However, as this compilation shows, there were even closer times. In 1983, NATO ran its annual Able Archer exercise which simulated a US military nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. That particular year, the war game was conducted with heightened realism (involving heads of state including Margaret Thatcher) which panicked the Soviets, who were on a 30-minute standby to destroy enemy targets. They had long feared NATO could use the cover of an exercise to launch an attack. Learn the name of the US intelligence official who stopped the escalation towards nuclear war.

87 -min. DVD