The great fear of nuclear weapons bombarding schools, churches, and homes in the 1980s was not one-sided. While American schoolchildren were scurrying under desks in “duck-and-cover” drills, Soviet citizens were bombarded by government reminders on the radio and television that an American attack could come at any time . During this period of mutual terror, NATO held regular war games. One annual event was Able Archer, a command post exercise in Western Europe that tested the ability of NATO to respond to a nuclear attack. In 1983, a particularly realistic iteration of the event nearly triggered an actual nuclear war....