but this year s exercise is more realistic than before. forty thousand u.s. and nato troops gather across europe, right on the u.s.s.r. s border. [ken] able archer was a normal military exercise by nato command. to prepare nato forces in europe. for an attack from the soviet union. but the way it was done was not normal at all. the nuclear component of the exercise was hyped up. [indistinct radio chatter] the idea of it was, make this as realistic as you could possibly make it. [narrator] the western powers show an almost naive ignorance of how this huge training exercise will be received in the u.s.s.r. for andropov, it looks like his operation ryan prophecy
[dramatic music playing] and for andropov, reagan was that cowboy who is going to destroy the soviet union because he was playing in all these films like john wayne. reagan and andropov in some ways found each other. neither of them would back off. this was the moment when we were really scared of the nuclear war. that really stayed with me as the scariest time that i ve ever experienced in my life in the soviet union. [narrator] the opposing sides in the cold war could not be further apart. britain s double agent is now vital to understanding the level of andropov s paranoia. [sir david omand] he s got access
who will take over? [news anchor] administration officials said there will be no change in u.s. foreign policy toward the soviets until there is a change in soviet policy. [narrator] the soviet union finds reagan s aggressive tone not just insulting, but an existential threat. right now, the last thing the communist party wants is to be seen as weak. so it decides to promote someone with a very clear agenda. [news anchor] one advisor called front-runner yuri andropov a hard-line man who would be tough to deal with.
these diplomats worry that new communist party chief yuri andropov may have had to pledge a tough anti-washington line and big weapons buildup to win military support. they would like the american delegation to meet with andropov after the funeral monday, but have no assurance the meeting will be arranged. [susan eisenhower] here was a guy who came out of the soviet intelligence community. you had the feeling during andropov s period that, you know, things were really inert, and the old generation was still running the country. [nina] my family was simply terrified. my great-grandfather was khrushchev. he was the general secretary of the communist party of the soviet union. khrushchev dismantled, or as much as he could, he dismantled the kgb after stalin s death. so andropov, as my mother was convinced,
secret intelligence. yuri andropov is the head of the soviet intelligence service, the kgb. the kgb have been running the russian life for years. andropov was getting more and more convinced of the menacing west. he was a full-blown kgb person who thought that it s either us or them. and basically, it better be them. [tim naftali] yuri andropov concludes that the superpowers are on the verge of a nuclear war. and so he begins a process of collecting information that would be indicators of the approach of nuclear war. [narrator] this running tally of signs is called operation ryan. and every time andropov gets new intelligence,