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Forecasting Nuclear War: Stasi/KGB Intelligence Cooperation under Project RYaN

Join us for a discussion with Bernd Schaefer, Nate Jones, and Benjamin Fischer on the unprecedented significance of newly translated documents detailing Soviet KGB and Easter German Stasi cooperation under Project RYaN, a system for detecting signs of an impending western nuclear first strike.

Date & Time

Monday
Dec. 1, 2014
1:00pm – 2:30pm ET

Location

6th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center
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Overview

Forecasting Nuclear War:

Stasi/KGB Intelligence Cooperation under Project RYaN

Between 1981 and 1989 the foreign intelligence branches of the Soviet KGB and the East German Ministry of State Security launched a combined effort to develop a system for detecting signs of an impending western nuclear first strike. Codenamed “Project RYaN”, this early-warning system constituted one part of the Soviet response to the perceived threat of a surprise “decapitation” strike by NATO nuclear forces.

Join us as  Bernd Schaefer, Nate Jones, and Benjamin Fischer discuss these newly translated sources and give unprecedented insight into the capabilities and fears of the Eastern Bloc intelligence services from the Able Archer ’83 War Scare to the end of the Cold War.

Click here to read the full article and the translated documents.

 

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Cold War International History Project

The Cold War International History Project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War. Through an award winning Digital Archive, the Project allows scholars, journalists, students, and the interested public to reassess the Cold War and its many contemporary legacies. It is part of the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program.  Read more

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