In 2008, a song called “On Top of the World,” featured three artists: T.I., Ludacris and a little-known southern rapper by the name of B.o.B.
Sandwiched between the inspiring verses of two well-established hip-hop artists, the splendidly-sung chorus became nothing but an afterthought.

Two years and a smash single later, that little-known southern artist has evolved into one of the most promising young musicians in recent memory.
With six mix tapes and two EPs under his belt already, Bobby Ray Simmons – aka “B.o.B” – isn’t exactly the “little-known southern artist” he once was in ’08.

Not that that’s a bad thing.
On April 27, the man behind “Nothin’ On You” released his much-anticipated, first studio LP, The Adventures of Bobby Ray.

Although the album has only 12 songs in all, it is the quintessential example of quality over quantity.
Mellow, acoustics-driven ballads like “Don’t Let Me Fall” and “Lovelier Than You,” as well as “Ghost in a Machine,” not only highlight B.o.B’s unique songwriting, they put his mastery of the guitar on display for all to hear.

More uptempo tracks like “The Kids,” “Fame” and “Magic” are sure to find mainstream success in the coming months. Those songs, along with the Lupe Fiasco-assisted “Past My Shades,” beautifully capture the wit and silky-smooth delivery that made B.o.B an underground success (“Always in detention for the lack of my attention/you can call it deficit/really I just didn’t listen” – “The Kids”).

The production, songwriting, delivery and overall impact of “Airplanes Part II” make it, without question, the album’s crown jewel.Eminem and Hayley Williams (from Paramore) both bless the 12th and final track with their respective gifts: Eminem with an emotional verse chronicling the journey of a budding hip-hop artist whose indecision inevitably keeps him from becoming a star, and Williams with a perfectly-sung chorus.

It's almost a wonder that in todays moraly stripped media, that looks more and more like a mechanised production line that makes vast quantities of identical products, an artist striving for quality has emerged to prominence. And for a hip-hop idealist like me this is a cause for celebration because despite a few ideological strays B.O.B.'s lyrical and musical style is hip-hop and  will take its place in the library of hip-hop culture.

Funny how things always seem to come full circle.

A Moment In Time

Christina Aguilera’s new album and video introduces fans to a definite style change. The singer now clearly fits the mold of the occult music industry by  incorporating its themes and symbolism into her art. We will look at the hidden meaning of her video “Not Myself Tonight” to and we’ll see how her new album relates with the rest of the music industry.


I’ve always considered Christina Aguilera to be a notch above most pop singers due to the fact that she could actually sing. However,  in order to continue with her success, it was only a matter of time before she ended up in the same place as the other pop stars in the market today. Everything about her new album is heavily tainted with the Illuminati agenda, and the first single Not Myself Tonight acts as an initiation piece. We will see that this plagiarism is, in fact, Christina only following the trend forced on pop stars.
Warning: Parts of this article might be disturbing for some.

From Christina to Xtina

Christina was first discovered by Disney, a company that has specialized in recruiting kids who then progressively become sex bombs as the years go by (Miley Cyrus is next).  Christina was part of a particularly prolific edition of the Mickey Mouse Club.

Christina used her great talent to make her way into the pop scene with the 1999 album Christina Aguilera, with a clean “innocent teen” look. Everything changed in 2002-2003 with the release of the album Stripped. In a very symbolic performance during the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, Christina is “consecrated” by the Kabbalistic Grand Priestess Madonna. This highly publicized event deserves a second look.

2003 VMA Perfomance

Taking place on a Masonic checkerboard-patterned floor, this symbolic performance is the ritualistic initiation of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera into the occult music business. The ceremony starts with Britney and Christina making their way down a pyramid-shaped cake singing Madonna’s Like a Virgin. The song choice is very significant as it describes the young singers’ purity and innocence before the ceremony. This is also reinforced by their white gowns. Then the Priestess comes out, wearing a black tuxedo and a Masonic top hat.

She sings Hollywood, a song about the city symbolizing the entertainment establishment, the gateway to super-stardom, as she walks down the 13 steps of initiation. Madonna is a representative of the occult industry and welcomes Britney and Christina into it. She sings:
Everybody comes to Hollywood
They wanna make it in the neighborhood
They like the smell of it in Hollywood
How could it hurt you when it looks so good?
Shine your light now
This time it’s got to be good
You get it right now
Cause you’re in Hollywood

The entire performance puts into light Madonna’s domination and superiority over the singers. She ultimately passes on the torch to the two singers with a symbolic kiss.

Following in the footsteps of Madonna, Christina and Britney then appeared to dabble with Kabbalah, though only a “Hollywood” brand of Kabbalah, as tattoos are not permitted in its sacred scriptures.



Left is Britney’s tattoo of the Hebrew letters Mem-Hey-Shin, one of the 72 names of God. This one represents “healing”. Right is Christina’s tattoo of the Hebrew characters Yud and Bet, apparently dedicated to her husband Jordan Bratman.
In the years that followed, Christina took the apparently obligatory “sexualization” path of Illuminati idols and also appeared in works associated with black magic and mind control.

New Christina




Black magic photo shoot complete with ritualistic pentagram and discarded dolls



Dehumanization and alter persona symbolized by the mannequin
Her latest effort completely embraces today’s Illuminati agenda by exploiting the theme of transhumanism. The album title “Bionic” and the cover art is truly about the merger of man and robot. Christina’s head is portrayed as a programmable mechanism, a concept relating to mind control.



Christina as a programmable robot (reference to mind control) and the now inevitable focus on one eye

More One Eye Symbolism

As seen in many other articles, almost all pop artists taking on Illuminati themes in their art almost always flash the “one eye sign” in their videos or photo shoots. Christina is not an exception.




Concept of Not Myself Tonight

 The Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjoqHasrjIQ 
Not Myself Tonight has been accused of copying Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. Although the videos were produced by two different directors (Francis Lawrence for Gaga and Hype Williams for Christina), they both exploit similar themes, which are also common in many other pop music videos. Although it is easy to say “the bitch copied Gaga!”, this statement does not take into consideration the bigger picture of the music industry. The same themes are expected and required to be prevalent in today’s hits. The industry defines its own trends and in order to be successful, artists must follow these trends and communicate the same messages. Not Myself Tonight is simply a continuation through another artist, and therefore exploits trademark themes such as mind control, transhumanism, occult initiation and so forth.

The subject of the song is Christina being “not herself tonight” which is, at face value, her wanting to go out and go crazy, “kissing the boys and the girls.” However, the imagery and symbolism of the video adds another level of interpretation to the song that refers to mind control, occult initiation and alter personalities. The theme of being “out of character” and not controlling one’s actions is often portrayed in recent videos and is associated, through symbolism, to Monarch programming or supernatural “possession.” This is often symbolically represented by the classic “devil horns” as seen on the promo image of her single.


As said earlier, she is just following the trend set by the industry.

Monarch programming is a mind-control method based on the creation of an alternate persona through the usage of torture and ritual abuse. Some authors on the subject, such as Ron Patton, have mentioned that Monarch programming utilizes ancient occult techniques reminiscent of spirit possession. The lyrics of the song reflect the creation of a new persona:
“I’m out of character, I’m in rare form
And if you really knew me, you’d know its not the norm

Cos I’m doing things that I normally won’t do
The old me is gone
, I feel brand new
And if you don’t like it, fuck you”

As we will see later, the symbolism of the video is based on initiation and on the creation of an alter personality, which is expressed lyrically The old me is gone, I feel brand new. The theme of being a crazier/wilder/sexier self is often portrayed in recent videos and is almost always coupled with scenes of restraint, dehumanization and/or torture. This is an obvious case of cognitive dissonance, where the portrayal of torture is a part of one’s “liberation.” In Not Myself Tonight, Christina is seen hog-tied with her eyes forced opened, which is reminiscent of mind control victims being forced to watch videos to reinforce their programming.

This practice is depicted in the mind-control themed Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick.



Screen shot from Clockwork Orange where Alex is forced to watch ultra-violent scenes as part of his reprogramming.

Sex Kitten Programming

The first part of the video is heavily tainted with references to mind control and, more precisely, Sex Kitten programming. This trend is becoming increasingly common in the music and fashion industry.
BETA. Referred to as “sexual” programming. This programming eliminates all learned moral convictions and stimulates the primitive sexual instinct, devoid of inhibitions. “Cat” alters may come out at this level.
-Ron Patton, Project Monarch
In mind control, Beta programming, also known as Sex Kitten programming creates in the dissociative victim an alter-personality that is a programmed to be sex slave.
“The mind will begin to dissociate, and will begin to reverse the primordial brain functions such as pain is pleasure. The person’s mind rearranges. This is often done with Beta alters or Beta models to get them to think that the pain of sadistic rape is a pleasure. After this reversal in the mind that “PAIN IS LOVE”, the S&M kitten alters will beg their handler to slap them, tie them up, hurt them, etc.”
- Cisco Wheeler and Fritz Springmeier, The Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Controlled Slave
Some references to sex kitten programming are peppered throughout the video.

The creation of alter personalities is represented in the video with Christina being surrounded by  look-a-likes. She plays the role of the mind-control handler herself.



Ritual Initiation

The second part of the video essentially describes Xtina’s “initiation” through ritual sex. Some symbolic scenes tell this story.
Halfway through the song, Christina is dressed in black with masculine features and standing between two pseudo-masonic pillars.

This scene is similar to the VMA performance referenced above, where Madonna played the master of ceremonies. Christina plays the same role in this scene. She is standing on top of stairs, near a mysterious gateway, symbolizing her high rank within the “inner-hierarchy”. Her monocle covers one eye which refers to the Illuminati power structure. The master of ceremonies kicks off the ritual initiation of Xtina, the Sex Kitten.
In the following scene, Xtina is shown entering a doorway, symbolizing the “passing through the gates” of her initiation.
Xtina is then shown putting fire to her clothes, indicating that she is destroying her old self and embracing the new Xtina alter persona.

The initiation is then sealed and consummated by nothing less than an orgy inside a church.



The scene in the church gives spiritual connotation to the initiation. An orgy in a place that is considered sacred is a form of desecration that  is reminiscent of black magic rituals. The video is not simply about a girl wanting to “go crazy,” it is about an initiation into the “dark side.”

In Conclusion

Although Christina Aguilera’s new work was accused of plagiarism by some pop culture observers, they fail to realize that she is simply following the agenda forced on pop stars. The standardization of the music industry has resulted in different artists exploiting the same symbolism, themes and aesthetics. Superficial differences define each artist, but the content and message of their music stay the same.This repetition is an important clue to identify the existence of a alternative agenda in the industry.
The complete transformation of Christina Aguilera for the Bionic album, and her embrace of ALL of the themes discussed in previous articles (including the “one-eye thing”) should send you a clear message. There is an agenda in the music industry and one must fit the mold in order to get promoted as a star. This does not guarantee worldwide success, but it is the only way to get the industry approval needed to obtain it.

Spring #3


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Imagine we are foreign intelligence service agents and we spy for Russian military bases. Just a few years ago it was impossible, not to mention how it was impossible during the iron curtain era. But now thanks to google we can see all the top secret Russian objects clearly on those shots.
Russia still stays very militarized country.
If to explore with Google earth just a small part of it, the Murmansk region (one of many of Russian regions) which is located next to Norway and Finland, we can meet tens of military objects, mainly Russian Navy ones.
Here they are:
murmansk, russia

All the locations on these shots as have been said are from Murmansk region.
This one is Olenegorsk, Russian air force base. Those are not just fighters, those are strategic bombers.
murmansk, russia
Murmansk itself, abandoned navy ships.
murmansk, russia
Murmansk. Nuclear-powered ice-breaker in the dock.
murmansk, russia
Kola Bay, near Murmansk, small town “Poliarniy”, oil-tanker “Belokamenka”. One of the largest oil tankers in the world. It is 100 feet tall (as ten stores building).
murmansk, russia
It is more than 1000 ft long (340 metres), width 200 ft (65 metres), it transports 4 millions tons of oil each year.
murmansk, russia
Severomorsk. Ships of Russian Northern Navy. The sixth from the left is the biggest ship in the Russian Northern Navy - nuclear-powered cruiser “Kirov”.

murmansk, russia
Russian submarines.
murmansk, russia
Different types of Russian submarines.
murmansk, russia
Russian S-300 (SA-10) long range surface-to-air missiles. The same ones as Russia now exports to Iran. We had a few months ago an article about an inflatable version of those missiles - the ones that can fool the from-air observer.
murmansk, russia
Another abandoned ship near Murmansk.
murmansk, russia
More Russian submarines. It is the home base of legendary “Kursk” submarine, the one which got sank a few years ago near Murmansk and whole crew died, because the rescue team has not come in time. Take a not on the submarine to the right - it is split to two parts, probably this is a bug of google photos.
murmansk, russia
And even more abandoned Russian Navy ships.
murmansk, russia
Some unidentified Navy object a few miles from the shore.
murmansk, russia
All the submarines we have seen before were children toys in comparisson with those. Those are sisters of the already mentioned “Kursk” submarine. 500 ft long, 60 ft high. They say it can sweep major USA cities of the ground.
murmansk, russia
Those are previously top-secret “Taifun” class submarines. The biggest nuclear-powered submarines in the world. They could carry up to 200 missiles.
murmansk, russia
Here are them from a more distant perspective. “Taifuns” from the left and “949A” (”Kursk sisters”) from the left.
murmansk, russia
This is the storage for a used nuclear fuel.
murmansk, russia
Gremiha. Empty nuclear missiles wells.

murmansk, russia
Gremiha. Under this cape there is another underground submarine base and from these road two tunnels lead inside.
murmansk, russia
Kovdor. A hidden mountain.
murmansk, russia
Allakurti. Military base.
murmansk, russia
Allakurti, same military base.




Hip-Hop legend and GangStarr founder Guru has passed away on the morning of April 19 after a long battle with cancer.

According to his producer, Solar, Guru suffered from the malicious illness for over a year and after numerous special treatments under the supervision of medical specialists failed, the legendary MC succumbed to the disease. Guru always tried to keep this harrowing diagnosis in private but in early 2010 he had to admit himself to hospital due to serious effects caused by the disease.

Since the onset of illness, Guru tried to live a "normal" life as an influential and outstanding musician, loving father, family man, and best friend. Doctors encouraged Guru to think positive that the cancer can be arrested and that a full recovery is possible but several special treatments including hard hitting chemotherapies failed.

While in hospital with terminal cancer, Guru wrote a letter, which was provided by Solar, to his fans addressing his illness, his shining music career, his family and loved ones.

"I, Guru, am writing this letter to my fans, friends and loved ones around the world. I have had a long battle with cancer and have succumbed to the disease. I have suffered with this illness for over a year. I have exhausted all medical options. I have a non-profit organization called Each One Counts dedicated to carrying on my charitable work on behalf of abused and disadvantaged children from around the world and also to educate and research a cure for this terrible disease that took my life. I write this with tears in my eyes, not of sorrow but of joy for what a wonderful life I have enjoyed and how many great people I have had the pleasure of meeting," read the official Guru statement provided by Solar.

"My loyal best friend, partner and brother, Solar, has been at my side through it all and has been made my health proxy by myself on all matters relating to myself. He has been with me by my side on my many hospital stays, operations, doctors visits and stayed with me at my home and cared for me when I could not care for myself. Solar and his family is my family and I love them dearly and I expect my family, friends, and fans to respect that, regardless to anybody's feelings on the matter. It is my wish that counts. This being said I am survived by the love of my life, my sun KC, who I trust will be looked after by Solar and his family as their own. Any awards or tributes should be accepted, organized approved by Solar on behalf myself and my son until he is of age to except on his own."

The statement reads on, "I do not wish my ex-DJ to have anything to do with my name likeness, events tributes etc. connected in anyway to my situation including any use of my name or circumstance for any reason and I have instructed my lawyers to enforce this. I had nothing to do with him in life for over 7 years and want nothing to do with him in death. Solar has my life story and is well informed on my family situation, as well as the real reason for separating from my ex-DJ. As the sole founder of GangStarr, I am very proud of what GangStarr has meant to the music world and fans. I equally am proud of my Jazzmatazz series and as the father of Hip-Hop/Jazz. I am most proud of my leadership and pioneering efforts on Jazzmatazz 4 for reinvigorating the Hip-Hop/Jazz genre in a time when music quality has reached an all time low. Solar and I have toured in places that I have never been before with GangStarr or Jazzmatatazz and we gained a reputation for being the best on the planet at Hip-Hop/Jazz, as well as the biggest and most influential Hip-Hop/Jazz record with Jazzmatazz 4 of the decade to now. The work I have done with Solar represents a legacy far beyond its time. And we as a team were not afraid to push the envelope. To me this is what true artists do! As men of honor we stood tall in the face of small mindedness, greed, and ignorance. As we fought for music and integrity at the cost of not earning millions and for this I will always be happy and proud, and would like to thank the million fans who have seen us perform over the years from all over the world. The work I have done with Solar represents a legacy far beyond its time and is my most creative and experimental to date. I hope that our music will receive the attention it deserves as it is some of the best work I have done and represents some of the best years of my life."

Guru, born Keith Elam, rose to fame in the 80's as the founder of the legendary rap group GangStarr. The group released the classic single Words I Manifest followed by their critically acclaimed debut album No More Mr. Nice Guy (1989) and the classic album Step In The Arena (1991). Guru was the first artist to truly blend Hip-Hop with Live Jazz beginning in 1993, and seeing the vast influences his Jazzmatazz concept has had on the industry, it is clear that Guru's musical contributions have been way ahead of their time. Guru has worked with such great artists as Herbie Hancock, Isaac Hayes, Donald Byrd, Ramsey Lewis, Roy Ayers, Chaka Kahn, Branford Marsalis, David Sanborn, Bob James, Erykah Badu, The Roots, Common, Angie Stone, Jamiroquai, Macy Gray and Damien Marley, to name a few. Despite the fact that Guru isn't hailing from New York, he is noted as a pioneer of the New York sound and true lyrical Hip-Hop. Guru later on joined forces with hit producer Solar and formed his label 7 Grand Records with the goal to keep "real" Hip-Hop alive.

Guru's longtime partner, Solar, issues an official statement about the lost of the legendary MC which you can read below:

"The world has lost one of the best MCs and Hip-Hop icons of all time -- my loyal best friend, partner, and brother, Guru! Guru has been battling cancer for well over a year and has lost his battle! This is a matter that Guru wanted private until he could beat it but tragically this did not happen. The cancer took him. Now the world has lost a great man and a true genius. For the fans that reached out with love and support, I can't tell you how much that meant to Guru and myself. Guru prepared this letter [read above] while he was in the hospital for the fans. I hope now that Guru has moved on to a better place! Guru is a great Black American Hero and should always be remembered as such and he is much more that just a Hip-Hop icon -- he has changed the world for the better. I salute my fallen brother Guru! He will be missed tremendously!" Solar stated.
 
It is always sad when great men pass away, and this is such a case indeed. Highly underappreciated, maybe now Gang Star’s legacy will be observed and analysed closely for what it really is. R.I.P. Guru.


Scott Shane, writing in the Baltimore Sun (August 31, 2003):
Twenty years ago this fall, as the Orioles triumphed in the World Series, baby boomers flocked to The Big Chill and radios played Michael Jackson's Thriller, the superpowers drifted obliviously to the brink of nuclear war.
That is the disturbing conclusion of a number of historians who have studied the bellicose rhetoric and mutual incomprehension of the United States and the Soviet Union, which then had more than 20,000 nuclear warheads between them. With the possible exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, they say, the autumn of 1983 might have been the most dangerous moment in the history of the Cold War.
Ailing Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov, urged on by Soviet hard-liners and acutely aware that his country was losing the military technology race, had become increasingly worried that the Americans might be planning a nuclear first strike. President Ronald Reagan's rhetoric about the "evil empire" and U.S. military exercises poured fuel on Soviet war paranoia.
A series of mishaps and misunderstandings made conceivable a catastrophe that would have dwarfed today's worst fears of terrorists wielding weapons of mass destruction. That it did not happen is in part thanks to a KGB turncoat who alerted the West to Soviet fears and a Russian duty officer who did not panic when an archaic satellite reported that U.S. missiles were on the way.
"In retrospect, it was a pretty terrifying time," says Benjamin B. Fischer, a 30-year CIA veteran who now works on the agency's historical staff. "We're lucky it ended the way it did."
Fischer, who has published a seminal paper on the period through the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence, says the danger resulted when wildly exaggerated fears of a U.S. surprise attack took hold in "the geriatric ward" of the aging Soviet leadership. But a contributing factor was the reluctance of Reagan and his advisers to believe that Russian fears were genuine, he says.
"We don't do Pearl Harbors. So we couldn't believe they really thought we were capable of a first strike," Fischer says.
John Prados, a Cold War historian and senior analyst at the National Security Archive in Washington, calls the fall of 1983 "a moment of high danger, in some respects more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both sides were more heavily armed. Both sides were more hostile."
Yet, by comparison with the Cuban crisis, what historians call the "Soviet war scare" of 1983 remains little known.
"The Cuban Missile Crisis evolved in a very public manner," Prados says. "In 1983, the whole thing happened in secret."
Behind the tensions of 1983 was a program devised in 1981 by then-KGB chief Andropov called Operation RYAN, not a code name but a stark Russian acronym for "nuclear missile attack." Secret orders were issued to KGB officers around the world to look for signs, however subtle, that the United States might be preparing a pre-emptive strike.
KGB officer Oleg A. Gordievsky, who as a British agent later played a key role in the drama, watched RYAN unfold from KGB headquarters in Moscow and then as an intelligence officer posted to London. He saw a gulf between the views of worldly Soviet intelligence officers in the field and the paranoia of Kremlin leaders.
"I never met anyone in the KGB who believed in the possibility of a first nuclear strike by the U.S.," Gordievsky says in an interview from his home in England. "Yet they all reported on the signs of such an attack because they were ordered to do it. They were afraid to say what they really thought."
By 1983, Soviet fears were growing, heightened by the imaginary evidence of a planned surprise attack reported by the Kremlin's cowed spies and by tough talk from Reagan.
In March, Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, a futuristic missile-defense scheme many American scientists thought technically implausible. Soviet military leaders took the plan far more seriously, worrying that it might eventually make the Soviet nuclear arsenal useless.
That month, Reagan famously stepped up his anti-Soviet rhetoric. Speaking to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, he urged the Christian group in considering nuclear freeze proposals not to "label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil."
Meanwhile, NATO plans to deploy Pershing II nuclear missiles in West Germany were seen by the Soviet Union as shortening to a few minutes the warning they might have of a strike. From Moscow, the Pershing deployment created fears like those that shook Washington when U.S. spy planes discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba.
"The danger was in the Soviet leadership thinking, 'the Americans may attack, so we better attack first,' " says Oleg D. Kalugin, a former KGB chief of foreign counterintelligence, who lives outside Washington. While the KGB and military had institutional interests in exaggerating the risk of attack, Andropov's distrust of American leaders was profound, says Kalugin, who knew him well.
But American officials tended to interpret shrill protests from Andropov and his colleagues as empty propaganda. "The Reagan administration was committed to believing its own rhetoric - that SDI didn't threaten the Soviet Union and that the Pershings were not a first-strike weapon," Prados says.
Then came a series of potential sparks. On Sept. 1, 1983, a Soviet fighter shot down a South Korean airliner that had strayed into Soviet airspace, killing the 269 people aboard and prompting angry accusations from both sides.
Next, on Sept. 26, a Soviet satellite misinterpreted sunlight glinting off clouds above a U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile site in Montana as the launch of five ICBMs.
Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, the duty officer overseeing the warning system, kept his cool, reasoning that a U.S. first strike would involve hundreds of missiles, not just five. Instead of sounding the alarm, Petrov checked ground radar and other data, and decided that the satellite's alert was false.
Petrov's health was broken by the stress of the incident and its aftermath, and he soon retired from the military. When his actions that day were revealed by a Russian magazine in 1998, reporters found him infirm and surviving on a tiny pension outside Moscow.
Petrov's unsung heroism did not end the danger. A major U.S.-NATO military exercise called Able Archer was planned for November 1983. With emotions still running high on both sides, some Soviet officials feared that the exercise might be a cover for the long-feared nuclear attack.
But by then, Gordievsky had begun to feed to skeptical contacts in British intelligence documents from Operation RYAN showing that Soviet leaders' war fears were genuine.
"There was incredulity at first. The British couldn't believe the Soviet leaders could think like this," recalls Gordievsky. "The Americans were even more disbelieving."
Nonetheless, in part because Gordievsky's warnings were being passed on by British intelligence, the United States scaled back Able Archer, which initially foresaw a role-playing part for Reagan. Tensions gradually eased, though the CIA's Fischer has found the war scare had a second phase in East Germany as late as 1985-1986. By then, Mikhail S. Gorbachev had come to power, quashed the first-strike fears and moved boldly to negotiate an end to the Cold War.
Gordievsky, 64, escaped Russia in 1985 but was sentenced to death in absentia for treason, a penalty never canceled by post-Soviet Russian governments. He says he considers Reagan's defense buildup "brilliant" because it persuaded the Soviet leadership that they could no longer compete and sped the end of the Cold War.
But the strategy was also extremely risky, he says.
"If the Soviet Union had overreacted, it could have gone very badly," he says, adding in a mild understatement: "If war had come, Soviet missiles would have destroyed Britain entirely, at least half of Germany and France and America would have lost maybe 30 percent of its cities and infrastructure."

Glory


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