1983: Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink

A riveting, thrilling account of 1983 -- the year tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union nearly brought the world to the point of nuclear Armageddon

1983 was a dangerous year. In the United States, President Reagan increased defense spending and launched the ''Star Wars'' Strategic Defense Initiative. When a Soviet plane shot down a Korean civilian jet, Reagan described it as ''a crime against humanity.'' And Moscow grew increasingly concerned about America's language and behavior. Would they attack? The temperature rose, fast. In November the West launched a wargame exercise, codenamed ''Abel Archer,'' that looked to the Soviets just like the real thing. With the Soviet leader Andropov's finger inching ever closer to the nuclear button, the world was truly at the brink.

In 1983, Taylor Downing draws on previously unpublished interviews and over a thousand pages of secret documents that have recently been released by Washington to tell the gripping, astonishing story that was almost the end of the world. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.