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On June 3, 1980, warning displays at the Strategic Air Command suddenly indicated that a Soviet SLBM attack was underway
The National Security Archive is on Bluesky now too.
https://bsky.app/profile/nsarchive.bsky.social
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1665024416865034241.html
Stephen Schwartz
@AtomicAnalyst
Jun 3 • 14 tweets • 6 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Today in 1980, at 2:26am EDT, warning displays at the Strategic Air Command suddenly indicated that a Soviet SLBM attack on the United States was underway, first showing 2 and then, 18 seconds later, 200 inbound missiles. SAC ordered all alert air crews to start their engines.
Launch officers for 1,000 Minuteman ICBMs were also alerted to be ready to receive an Emergency Action Message (a coded launch order). Three minutes later, duty officers at NORAD determined this was a false alarm because early-warning satellites and radars indicated no attack.
Before that happened, however, Gen. William Odom, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s military asst., called him at home, telling him 220 Soviet SLBMs were hurtling toward the United States. Brzezinski told Odom to call back with a confirmation and the likely targets.
This is according to former CIA Director Robert M. Gates’ 1996 memoir, “From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War,” the only place where this anecdote—as recounted by Brzezinski to Gates—appears.
When Odom called back, he informed Brzezinski that 2,200 missiles were now on their way—practically the entire Soviet nuclear arsenal. As Brzezinski was preparing to call President Carter with the horrific news, Odom telephoned a third time to convey it was all a false alarm.
We don’t know whether Brzezinski ever went back to sleep that night. But we do know that he did not wake up his wife, Emilie (below), to tell her anything, because he later confided that he preferred she should be asleep when the nuclear warheads rained down on Washington, DC.
(Declassified contemporaneous notes taken by Gen. Odom published in 2020 by the @NSArchive raise questions about whether the early morning phone call described by Brzezinski ever happened. Brzezinski may have conflated two different nuclear false alarms.) https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2020-03-16/false-warnings-soviet-missile-attacks-during-1979-80-led-alert-actions-us-strategic-forces
{snip}
@AtomicAnalyst
Jun 3 • 14 tweets • 6 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Today in 1980, at 2:26am EDT, warning displays at the Strategic Air Command suddenly indicated that a Soviet SLBM attack on the United States was underway, first showing 2 and then, 18 seconds later, 200 inbound missiles. SAC ordered all alert air crews to start their engines.
Launch officers for 1,000 Minuteman ICBMs were also alerted to be ready to receive an Emergency Action Message (a coded launch order). Three minutes later, duty officers at NORAD determined this was a false alarm because early-warning satellites and radars indicated no attack.
Before that happened, however, Gen. William Odom, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s military asst., called him at home, telling him 220 Soviet SLBMs were hurtling toward the United States. Brzezinski told Odom to call back with a confirmation and the likely targets.
This is according to former CIA Director Robert M. Gates’ 1996 memoir, “From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War,” the only place where this anecdote—as recounted by Brzezinski to Gates—appears.
When Odom called back, he informed Brzezinski that 2,200 missiles were now on their way—practically the entire Soviet nuclear arsenal. As Brzezinski was preparing to call President Carter with the horrific news, Odom telephoned a third time to convey it was all a false alarm.
We don’t know whether Brzezinski ever went back to sleep that night. But we do know that he did not wake up his wife, Emilie (below), to tell her anything, because he later confided that he preferred she should be asleep when the nuclear warheads rained down on Washington, DC.
(Declassified contemporaneous notes taken by Gen. Odom published in 2020 by the @NSArchive raise questions about whether the early morning phone call described by Brzezinski ever happened. Brzezinski may have conflated two different nuclear false alarms.) https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2020-03-16/false-warnings-soviet-missile-attacks-during-1979-80-led-alert-actions-us-strategic-forces
{snip}