1. See www.teachpeace.com for the article “Break-In at Nuclear Site Baffles South Africa” by Michael Wines on November 15, 2007.

2. For additional background information and the original source documents, see:

Cuban Missile US Navy Logs

 

Cuban Missile Chief Notes (page 33 for the declassified Joint Chief meeting notes for the recommendation to start the war on October 29, 1962).

 

Recollections of Vadim Orlov

 

Chronology

3. See Robert McNamara in Fog of War in the movies section of the Teach Peace website or go to http://www.sonyclassics.com/fogofwar/indexFlash.html and select 1962.

4. Deck Log Book of the U.S.S. Beale; Saturday, 10/27/62.

5. Alexander Mozgovoi, The Cuban Samba of the Quartet of Foxtrots: Soviet Submarines in the Caribbean Crisis of 1962, Military Parade, Moscow, 2002.See note #2 above and http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/press3.htm.

6. When Korean Air Flight 007 was shot down Larry McDonald was one of the 269 people killed. McDonald is the only US Congressman to be killed by the Soviets during the Cold War.

7. Ronald Reagan address from the Oval Office on September 5, 1983 to the Nation on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Airliner (KAL 007). See http://www.rescue007.org/speech.htm.

8. US military exercise Able Archer 83, starting on November 2, 1983, simulated DEFCON 1 and a coordinated nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. The exercise, while more than a month away, was known by the Soviet leadership and feared to be a front for a real military first-strike operation. The arrival of Pershing II nuclear missiles in Europe in 1983 further fueled fears of a US first strike.

9. Ronald Reagan’s belief in the end times and proclamations like his February 13, 1983 declaration that 1983 is the Year of the Bible led the Soviets to believe he was capable of starting doomsday. Bruce Kennedy’s Cold War CNN report in 1998 revealed as early as May 1981, Andropov, then KGB chief and Soviet leader in 1983, addressed a secret meeting of the Soviet leadership and announced the Reagan administration was preparing for a nuclear first strike. To address a potential US first strike, Andropov announced Operation Ryan. RYAN (РЯН) was a Russian acronym for "Nuclear Missile Attack" (Ракетное Ядерное Нападение). Operation RYAN was the largest peacetime intelligence-gathering operation in Soviet history. With the goal of preventing a US first strike, Soviet agents monitored people in the nuclear release chain of command including the personnel who would implement the attack. See http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/22/spotlight/.

10. Mark McDonald, "US and Russian Nuclear Missiles Are Still on Hair-Trigger Alert," Knight Ridder, 17 December 2004. The first missile alarm occurred at 12:40 AM on September 26, 1983. Also see, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1217-01.htm. On May 21, 2004, the San Francisco-based Association of World Citizens gave Colonel Petrov its World Citizen Award along with a trophy and $1,000, in recognition of the part he played in averting a catastrophe.  In 2006, Stanislav Petrov received a second World Citizen Award (see http://www.worldcitizens.org/savetheworld.html and http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0923-11.htm).

11. See footnote number 9.

12. David Hoffman, ‘I Had A Funny Feeling in My Gut’, Washington Post Foreign Service, February 10, 1999; Page A19 (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/shatter021099b.htm)

13. David J. Dionisi, American Hiroshima, Trafford and Sanzini, 2006; page 99.

14. CNN, Rocket that spooked Moscow in 1995 goes up again, January 21, 2006 (see http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9901/21/rocket.launch/index.html).

15. The more nations in the nuclear club, the greater the risk of a nuclear holocaust. Now the club includes the US, Russia, France, Great Britain, China, Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea. Two nations, South Africa and Libya, have cancelled their nuclear bomb programs. We must stop relying on luck to prevent us from Armageddon because luck eventually runs out.