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Secrets Declassified with David Duchovny Season 2 Episode 1
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00:06Tonight on Secrets Declassified, the close calls that nearly triggered Armageddon
00:12and the doomsday plans designed to survive it.
00:16From the Soviet secret nuclear train.
00:19It looks like a normal railway car, but on the inside is Armageddon on rails.
00:24To NATO war games that pushed the Kremlin to red alert.
00:28The Soviets could have nukes in the air within 30 minutes.
00:32Or a Soviet submariner standing alone to prevent nuclear apocalypse.
00:38If he just follows orders, the planet is done.
00:41These are the astonishing and sometimes terrible things done by governments and the people who work for them.
00:48It's time to bring them to light.
00:59A moving target is harder to hit.
01:02So when the Kremlin wants to shield its nuclear launch sites from a US first strike, it doesn't just camouflage
01:08them.
01:09It puts them on wheels.
01:16It's late 1983 and the Kremlin is panicking.
01:19The US has just deployed new Pershing-2 missiles in West Germany.
01:24And the Soviets believe these missiles can hit Moscow in under 10 minutes.
01:29The communists are concerned that a surprise attack could take out all of their nuclear silos before they have an
01:36opportunity to counterattack.
01:38So the Soviets need a new mobile missile system that they can hide from the US and launch from anywhere.
01:45Soviet war planners find a solution hiding in plain sight.
01:50The Soviet rail system.
01:53The Soviet Union is enormous.
01:55It runs across 11 time zones and has 100,000 miles of railway running over it.
02:01This huge rail network is bigger than the US's entire interstate highway system.
02:06The thinking is that if they put an ICBM on a train, they can run it across all of this
02:11track, across 11 time zones,
02:14leaving the Americans never knowing just where it might actually be.
02:17The Kremlin hands the top secret project to a proven rocket scientist.
02:22Vladimir Utkin.
02:24Utkin is something of a genius.
02:26He's one of the best rocket scientists in the Soviet Union.
02:28His team has already built the Soviet's most powerful ICBM.
02:32A monster nicknamed Satan.
02:35Even Utkin is a little daunted by the task before him.
02:38He calls it amazing in its grandeur, which I'm pretty sure is Russian for this is insane.
02:44Utkin now has to design a missile that can be safely launched.
02:48Not from a concrete silo, but from a train.
02:53At the time, the Soviet Union is using what's called a hot launch for ICBM rockets.
02:58Basically, this means that the engine ignites, and as it does, out come the exhaust fumes, and that's what's firing
03:04the rocket off into the air.
03:05These fumes coming out of the rocket can reach temperatures similar to that at the surface of the sun, around
03:1210,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
03:14So what you're going to end up with is tracks and railroad cars that have been reduced to puddles of
03:20liquid metal.
03:20So Utkin developed something called a cold launch, and this uses compressed gas to launch the rocket instead.
03:26Basically, think of it like popping the cork on a champagne bottle.
03:32Once it's safely in the air and away from the railroad car, it fires up its conventional engines and off
03:38it goes.
03:40It's a win for Utkin, but now he faces another challenge.
03:45Normal ICBMs are just too big to fit in a Soviet train carriage.
03:50To stay hidden, Utkin needs to fit his new missile system inside a standard-sized freight car.
03:56That's a problem. Freight cars are about 80 feet long, and Satan is 120 feet long.
04:03The math just doesn't work.
04:05Utkin's solution is ingenious.
04:08Now, Utkin can't shrink the rocket, nor can he expand the freight car.
04:13However, he can do something with the nose.
04:15So, he decides to make the nose collapsible.
04:18He creates a kind of origami design made of corrugated metal, which folds down inside the rocket like an accordion.
04:26Once it's launched, compressed gases reinflate the nose cone, returning it to its perfect aerodynamic shape.
04:35Utkin calls his new missile the Maladet, rushing for good job.
04:39Now he just needs a train to put it on.
04:42So, the Soviets create what is known as the combat railway missile system.
04:47It looks completely ordinary on the outside, but it's got a missile on the inside.
04:52This is Armageddon on wheels.
04:55When it's time for the missiles to launch, the first thing that happens is hydraulic legs extend out of the
05:01train and touch down on the ground in order to stabilize the train car.
05:05An arm comes out of the top to move any power lines out of the way.
05:10The roof splits open, and the Maladet missile goes vertical and is ready to launch.
05:17Starting in 1987, the Soviets build 12 top secret nuclear ghost trains, which patrol the railways for years, completely unknown
05:27to the public, but not to the CIA.
05:30Only in 1999, the CIA declassifies its files on the Apocalypse Express.
05:37The files show that the CIA did know about these trains from their spies back in the 1980s.
05:46The files also revealed that the Soviet camouflage was startlingly effective.
05:52The U.S. knew that the trains existed, but frustratingly, they couldn't find them.
05:57So, even if the U.S. struck all of their fixed silos, the Soviets would still be able to launch
06:03a devastating retaliatory strike from their hidden nuclear trains.
06:07The system worked perfectly.
06:12From doomsday trains to doomsday planes, when nuclear missiles start flying, most governments head underground.
06:20But not the U.S. president.
06:22He heads to a command center built to survive Armageddon.
06:25One that hides 30,000 feet up in the air.
06:34In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th, there is absolute panic, and a bigger question starts to form.
06:41Will other attacks be coming?
06:44Just minutes after the assault on the Pentagon, observers in the capital are terrified by another potential threat in the
06:50sky.
06:51People spot this mysterious aircraft circling above Washington, D.C., like it's watching over the city in lockdown.
06:59The aircraft looks like a jumbo jet, with one key difference.
07:03If you look at the plane and you compare it to a traditional 747, there's a big hump on the
07:09back of the plane.
07:10Confusion turns to fear.
07:12News agencies scramble to find out if this aircraft is friend or foe.
07:18To calm the public, Pentagon sources come clean.
07:23The plane is one of theirs.
07:28It's President George W. Bush's wartime ride.
07:32An E-4B.
07:34Known to insiders as the doomsday plane.
07:39This is essentially a nuclear command and control in the air.
07:44Now, President Bush's secret apocalypse escape machine has been exposed to the world.
07:51With President Bush in Florida, its 9-11 mission is a mystery.
07:56People wonder if the government knew something was going to happen and launch the doomsday plane in advance.
08:02But in reality, it just so happens that the doomsday plane is actually engaged in a standard drill while the
08:08attacks are ongoing.
08:10Now the present public want to know more about the plane.
08:14Is the strange hump concealing a weapons system?
08:18The government decides to open up.
08:22The administration gives journalists permission to film inside so the public can see the inner workings of the doomsday plane.
08:31The E-4B doomsday plane's been in service out of the public eye since 1980.
08:37Now the government reveals it is a fully functional Pentagon in the sky.
08:43The doomsday plane can support up to 112 personnel.
08:48You've got a command center, a conference room, even a briefing room where the president can address whatever's left of
08:54the nation.
08:56Further back, you've got the operations area where 30 specialists sit glued to their screens monitoring intel and the status
09:03of every U.S. asset worldwide.
09:05One way to think of this thing is like an underground bunker with wings.
09:12The Pentagon also reveals what's inside the mysterious hump.
09:17It's the plane's vital heart allowing the president to command a nuclear war from the skies.
09:25Inside that hump is the most sophisticated communications suite that's ever been put into the air.
09:31It has 67 satellite dishes to ensure that even if one form of communication fails, there are lots of backups.
09:40The hump allows the president to speak to anybody, anywhere, across the surface of the world, as long as they
09:46can answer a phone.
09:48If World War III breaks out, the most important people for the president to contact may not be on the
09:55surface, but lurking deep down at the bottom of the ocean.
10:01Coiled up in the belly of the doomsday plane is a five mile long wire antenna.
10:07And in a worst case scenario, it can be unspooled behind the aircraft.
10:11The wire transmits very low frequency radio signals.
10:15These radio signals are the only ones capable of penetrating beneath the surface of the water to communicate with U
10:22.S. nuclear armed submarines.
10:24This simple wire lets the president give the subs that final apocalyptic order to retaliate and unleash hell.
10:35So even if the nation is a graveyard, its capacity for vengeance is very much alive.
10:45The tragedy of 9-11 exposed the president's top secret E-4B doomsday plane to the public.
10:52It's still on duty, but in a world of heightened tensions.
10:57In 2024, the Air Force awards a $13 billion contract to create an upgraded replacement.
11:05The details of those improvements remain a tightly guarded secret.
11:12Coming up.
11:13The Pentagon builds a wonder weapon so dangerous, they don't dare test it.
11:18This monster is an apocalypse machine powered by an unshielded nuclear reactor.
11:24And later, on the most dangerous day in history, a lone Soviet submariner must decide the fate of the planet.
11:33If he gives the word, he could start World War III.
11:45Nuclear weapons are designed to instill fear into the enemy.
11:49But in the 1950s, the U.S. builds an apocalypse machine of such awesome power.
11:55Even its makers are terrified to test it.
11:58They call it the flying crowbar.
12:05By 1957 in Washington, there's a new paranoia.
12:08The Soviets have just introduced the world's first ICBM, or Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.
12:13So now, the Soviets are capable of striking us first before we can retaliate.
12:18The Pentagon decides they need a wonder weapon.
12:21They want something so terrifyingly overwhelming that Moscow won't even dare start a war with the U.S.
12:28They turn to the home of the H-bomb, Lawrence Livermore Labs in California.
12:34At Livermore, they hand the responsibility for creating this monster machine to 37-year-old associate director Ted Merkel.
12:43Merkel assembles a dream team, the sharpest engineers and nuclear scientists he can find.
12:48Their job is to invent the most devastating weapon possible.
12:52The stakes are so high, he's given a budget of $230 million a year in today's money to bring this
13:01vision to life.
13:02The result should be so hellishly deadly that the mission is codenamed after the Roman god of the underworld, Project
13:11Pluto.
13:13Merkel envisions a missile bomber hybrid with no human crew, like a gigantic nuclear-armed drone.
13:20He wants it to be able to lurk for days at high altitude, and he wants it to pack not
13:25one, but 16 nukes.
13:27Soon Merkel settles on a design for the weapon, based on a stainless steel shell nearly 100 feet long.
13:36It's brutally simple, designed for destruction, so Merkel calls it the flying crowbar.
13:44First, the crowbar needs a game-changing engine to make it airborne.
13:48To keep it in the air for days, carrying 50,000 pounds of bombs, Merkel comes up with a solution
13:55straight out of atomic age science fiction.
13:58He's gonna power the crowbar using a nuclear reactor.
14:03Typically, a nuclear reactor has a lot of shielding so that people are protected from the radiation that it produces.
14:10But all that shielding is just too darn heavy for a missile.
14:13And given that this aircraft is unmanned, Merkel decides to just ditch the shielding and save all that weight.
14:20So now you have an unshielded nuclear reactor.
14:24By the early 1960s, Merkel's team has a full-scale engine prototype ready.
14:29Now they need to test it.
14:33You can't just fire up an unshielded nuclear reactor anywhere.
14:37You need a place where you can make a big, giant nuclear wasteland.
14:41So they find a location of eight square miles in Jackass Flats, Nevada.
14:48Once the reactor starts, the radiation will make it deadly.
14:52Merkel's team builds a thick-walled concrete bunker for the reactor to be tested inside of
14:58and a second concrete bunker for his team to observe the tests.
15:02To solve the problem of how to move the reactor once it's running hot,
15:06they build a two-mile railroad track and its very own remote-controlled rail car to move it into position.
15:14On May 22, 1964, the Flying Crowbar's full-size nuclear reactor engine rolls out for its make-or-break test.
15:22The engine is a monster, nine feet long, five feet in diameter, weighing 10,000 pounds.
15:31When the test starts, the roar is deafening.
15:35The reactor glows as it hits 2,500 degrees.
15:38It's so hot that it melts lead bricks placed under the tracks.
15:44The test lasts for just five minutes.
15:48Project Pluto's nuclear-powered engine is a success.
15:53Once it's been deployed, it will drive the crowbar at Mach 3 on an apocalyptic multi-stage attack run.
16:00So there are four big threats associated with the Flying Crowbar.
16:03Number one is the shockwave it produces because the weapon is traveling at Mach 3.
16:08It's producing a shockwave that can flatten buildings.
16:12Number two is the unshielded nuclear reactor that's powering it.
16:16When it's flying, it's, of course, leaving a path of radioactivity as it flies.
16:22It's carrying a payload of 16 nuclear weapons.
16:25It can drop them one at a time, each with the power to destroy a city.
16:31And lastly, the crowbar itself is a bomb.
16:34So it can be programmed to target one final bullseye and take it out.
16:41It will be horrifyingly efficient.
16:44The nuclear reactor engine works on the ground.
16:48Now the Pluto team needs to flight test the Flying Crowbar in real world skies.
16:54Where on earth can you flight test a weapon that devastating?
16:58The Nevada test range is way too close to Las Vegas, and even the Pacific test areas are too risky.
17:04While the Pluto team are grappling with this thorny problem,
17:08a newer, simpler missile steals the crowbar's thunder.
17:12While it was under development,
17:14we finished the development of our Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile.
17:18Once we had the Minuteman, we didn't really need the Flying Crowbar any longer.
17:23Only months after its successful reactor test,
17:26Project Pluto is quietly canceled.
17:28It has cost the equivalent of $2 billion.
17:32Project Pluto is not only shockingly expensive,
17:36it's a totally indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction.
17:40So the government buries the details under top-secret classification for decades.
17:45Finally in 2015, the Department of Energy and the Air Force
17:48declassify an extraordinary document.
17:52It details how truly deadly the Flying Crowbar would have been.
17:57It shows the United States government was willing to try just about anything
18:01to give it an advantage over the Soviet Union.
18:04Project Pluto would have been one of the most devastating weapons ever created.
18:10Coming up, during the Cuban Missile Crisis,
18:14a Soviet sub with nukes on board surfaces in the middle of the US battle fleet.
18:20The two crews are basically staring each other down.
18:29In the darkest hour of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
18:33the future of humanity hangs on a single Soviet submariner,
18:37stranded beneath the waves in order to fire a nuclear torpedo.
18:46It's October 1962.
18:48Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev has managed to have intermediate range ballistic missiles placed in Cuba,
18:55just a hundred miles off of the US coast.
18:58The Soviet Navy is also establishing a submarine base in Cuba.
19:04To reinforce the undercover Soviet forces there,
19:08Khrushchev orders the Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 to sail in secret to the island.
19:15Its captain is a man named Valentin Savitsky.
19:19Also on board is the cool-headed 36-year-old Commodore, Vasily Arkhipov.
19:24For this special mission, B-59 is packing an extra punch.
19:30Alongside conventional weapons, it's loaded with a single nuclear torpedo,
19:35capable of destruction on par with Hiroshima.
19:40As B-59 is crossing the Atlantic,
19:43US spy planes spot the secret nukes Khrushchev has smuggled into Cuba,
19:48and all hell breaks loose.
19:52President Kennedy orders the Navy to surround the island with warships.
19:57Now the submarine is heading straight into the Cuban Missile Crisis.
20:03Soon, destroyer escorts and anti-submarine units head to Cuban waters
20:07to stop any Soviet reinforcements from getting through.
20:10What this means for the B-59 mission is that now
20:13they are sailing into a vastly more dangerous situation
20:17than the one that they thought they were sailing into
20:19when they departed the Soviet Union.
20:22The US Navy is watching the seas around Cuba, hunting for Soviet subs.
20:27On October 27th, the B-59 gets spotted.
20:30Its secret mission is exposed,
20:33and the most dangerous day in history begins.
20:38B-59 is running for its life,
20:41pursued by US destroyers and aircraft from a nearby carrier.
20:46The US Navy drops depth charges below,
20:50basically grenades that generate shockwaves
20:52to signal to the Soviets to come to the surface.
20:58The shockwaves violently shake the Soviet sub,
21:01and for the crew inside,
21:03it's akin to sitting inside of a metal barrel
21:06while somebody hits it with a sledgehammer.
21:11They're unaware that the United States Navy
21:13wants to drive them off without killing them.
21:16All they know for sure is that there are explosions going on around their sub.
21:21It has every appearance of war.
21:24Captain Savitsky decides that the US is coming in for the kill.
21:28He was given rules of engagement when he departed the Soviet Union,
21:32and the rules of engagement were,
21:33if they fire on you, you return fire.
21:35For him, the most effective weapon system available is a nuclear-tipped torpedo.
21:40He orders the weapon to be armed.
21:43This is terrifying.
21:45We effectively have a Soviet commander giving the order
21:48that has all the potential in the world to start World War III.
21:53However, Soviet launch protocol requires both senior officers
21:57to agree to fire the nuke.
22:00So now there's just one man who can walk humanity back
22:03from the edge of Armageddon,
22:06Commodore Vasily Arkhipov.
22:10Arkhipov isn't buying it.
22:11Arkhipov realized that if these guys wanted us,
22:14they could have had us from the start.
22:16But they're putting on a display.
22:19This is theater.
22:20Not shooting directly at you, but shooting near you.
22:23So he takes these explosions to mean that
22:26the Americans just want them to come up and surface.
22:29Arkhipov defies Captain Savitsky.
22:31He refuses to give permission to fire the nuclear torpedo.
22:36That single moment, that singular decision,
22:39may very well have saved humanity's existence.
22:43With the future of the world hanging by a thread,
22:47submarine B-59 slowly ascends to the surface.
22:51B-59 finds itself surrounded by U.S. Navy warships
22:53that are not firing at it.
22:55There is no World War III going on,
22:57as they had been concerned might be the case.
22:59The two crews are basically staring each other down.
23:04They're right next to one another.
23:06The U.S. Navy doesn't board the sub,
23:08so they don't find out about the secret nuclear torpedo.
23:11The very next day,
23:13President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev cut a deal,
23:16and the Cuban Missile Crisis is over.
23:21B-59 sails back to Russia, its nuclear torpedo still a secret.
23:27For decades, no one in the West realizes just how close the world came to Armageddon.
23:34Then in 2002, on the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
23:41experts get a stunning revelation.
23:44An insider's account that for the first time unveils the one man who prevented all-out nuclear war.
23:51It makes headlines around the world.
23:53The article reveals for the first time that Vasily Arkhipov saved the world that day.
23:58He was well within his rules of engagement to release that weapon.
24:03And if he had done so, the consequence would have been the Third World War.
24:09Coming up, physics students get an explosive homework assignment.
24:14Using books from the public library, they have to build a nuclear bomb from scratch.
24:26When the U.S. built the world's first nuclear bomb, it took a team of a half a million to
24:31make it.
24:32But in the 1960s, the government tasks a couple of recent graduates to design another one.
24:39Using nothing but a pad of paper, a pen, and a library card.
24:47It's a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
24:50President Kennedy is terrified of the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world.
24:55He's thinking it's not a case of if other nations will get nuclear bombs, but when.
25:02So the U.S. government needs to find out how easy or difficult would it be to actually create a
25:08working bomb.
25:09They commissioned Lawrence Livermore Labs in California to begin a top-secret experiment.
25:15And the goal is simple, to see if physicists with no prior weapons experience, no access to classified information, can
25:24design a nuclear bomb.
25:27First, they need guinea pigs.
25:29Sharp scientists, but ones who don't know the first thing about building a bomb.
25:34They recruit physics PhDs David Dobson and Robert Selden, chosen for being what the scientists call nuclear innocence.
25:44Then they brief them on their top-secret science assignment.
25:48Building an atom bomb from scratch.
25:52Dobson's first thought? Hmm. Sounds like a bit of a challenge.
25:58This working group is tucked into a small office at Livermore.
26:02Although they have security clearance, they don't have access to any classified information.
26:07And as this is the analog era, that means that they can go to the public library and they can
26:12go to the university library.
26:13All they have access to are published sources.
26:17But everything that this working group produces immediately becomes top-secret.
26:22First, the young scientists must decide what kind of atomic bomb to make.
26:27They've got two choices. They could attempt to build either a uranium-based bomb or a plutonium-based bomb.
26:33Uranium is a simpler bomb. You can just shove one mass of uranium into another to create an explosion.
26:40Plutonium is more powerful but harder because it requires this very precise three-stage explosion to make it work.
26:50They want to impress the scientists at Livermore, so they go with plutonium.
26:55Next, they hit the library.
26:57As they seek a way forward, they're looking for whatever information they can find in the public domain.
27:03And they get lucky because they find this unclassified report from the Manhattan Project.
27:08So it's kind of like a road map.
27:11But the report is so heavily redacted, it's of little use in the end.
27:15Once they've gone through the document, it's all just nothing but disappointment.
27:20For months, they struggle, even feeling paranoid and wondering if they're being set up to fail.
27:25But still, they keep going.
27:28These are smart and resourceful men, and they understand that they don't know anything about explosives,
27:32and so they begin a process of educating themselves on the subject.
27:36Ironically, they get their biggest boost from Eisenhower's 1950s Atoms for Peace program,
27:41which declassified nuclear data for civilian purposes, so they repurposed that data for their weapon.
27:47Soon they begin to build their bomb, but their experiments aren't even allowed to leave paper.
27:54When these physicists want to run an experiment, they have to write out a very detailed report of exactly what
28:00they want to know,
28:01and then give it to their Livermore handlers.
28:03They're never told whether or not the experiments are actually carried out.
28:06They just get a report back with the results.
28:09By 1966, after less than three years, Dobson and Selden are done.
28:16They have completed their plan for the device.
28:18It's too big to fit in a missile, but it is small enough to fit in the back of a
28:22pickup truck.
28:23And the plans are so detailed that they even boast that it could be completed and manufactured in a machine
28:30shop.
28:33Now the question is, will it work?
28:35Have they passed the test?
28:37No one at Livermore will tell them.
28:40Dobson and Selden get sent out on the road on a classified lecture tour.
28:44Government-approved scientists and military officers get a chance to question the men about their assumptions and methods.
28:50After their final Q&A, their Livermore handler pulls them to the side and lets them in on a little
28:56secret.
28:56He tells them that if their design is constructed, it would make a pretty impressive explosion.
29:03Dobson and Selden want to know, how big?
29:06And the answer leaves them stunned.
29:09It would be an explosion comparable to the Hiroshima bomb.
29:12A 15 kiloton nominal yield.
29:16They've created a DIY apocalypse.
29:18It's a spine-chilling result.
29:22In less than three years, the young physicists have unlocked the secrets of mass destruction.
29:29Dobson and Selden's success has the government really concerned with nuclear proliferation.
29:35So they pushed forward with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is signed by 59 nations in 1968.
29:43The government keeps the experiment top secret for four decades until reports have declassified in 2003.
29:54Even then, the details reveal far too much about how to build a nuclear bomb.
30:00The results of this experiment are deemed so dangerous.
30:05Even when they're eventually declassified and released to the public, almost every page is redacted.
30:14Coming up, to hide a nuclear test from the Soviets, the U.S. pushes their technology to the limit.
30:21They're going to try and launch a set of nuclear rockets off the deck of a ship in one of
30:27the roughest spots in the ocean.
30:35How do you defend against a nuclear missile screaming towards you at 15,000 miles per hour?
30:40In the 1950s, the Pentagon's solution is straight out of science fiction.
30:45A gigantic radioactive force field covering the whole of the United States, created by detonating nukes in space.
30:59By the late 1950s, in the Department of Defense, there is an anxiety that the Soviets can launch an ICBM
31:06attack.
31:06The United States is working on the same technology, but we're not there yet.
31:10What this begins is an era in our history during which intelligent people come up with ideas of how one
31:18might stop an ICBM attack.
31:21One of the people that comes forward is Nicholas Christopheles.
31:25He's a former elevator repairman and self-taught physicist who's now working at the University of California's radiation lab.
31:33But Christopheles proposes a plan straight out of science fiction, a plasma shield in space.
31:40His plan is genius, but insane.
31:45Step one, explode a nuclear warhead 300 miles above continental America.
31:52This will release a cloud of nuclear particles.
31:56Step two, let nature run its course.
31:58Christopheles believes that Earth's magnetic field is going to trap those particles above the continent, essentially creating a nuclear shield
32:07above America.
32:09If the Soviets were to launch a warhead through that shield, its electronics would be completely fried.
32:15This will destroy any nuclear weapon aimed at America.
32:20The two big issues are, number one, whether or not the Earth's magnetic field will be strong enough to hold
32:25that radiation in place to create the desired barrier.
32:29And the number two is whether or not it will be created in such a concentration that it can interfere
32:34with electrical systems on an ICBM.
32:37There's no way to prove this in a lab.
32:39The only way to do it is to give it a try and see what happens.
32:44President Eisenhower signs off on the plan.
32:47Project Argus is born.
32:50But it's not a tight deadline.
32:52The U.S. and Soviets are negotiating an end to nuclear testing, set to kick in by the end of
32:58the year.
32:59To beat that deadline, Argus has to be completed in just six months.
33:04That's not very much time, so the race is on.
33:08The next challenge is secrecy.
33:11If the United States were to conduct any kind of an experiment, launching a nuclear weapon into Earth orbit and
33:18detonating it, the Soviet Union would certainly walk away from the negotiating table.
33:23That means that they can't use their normal nuclear test sites, not the one in Nevada, not the one in
33:29the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.
33:31They want a location that's so remote, the Soviet spies would never know the tests have ever occurred.
33:37They choose a spot in the South Atlantic, far out to sea, more than 600 miles away from the closest
33:42land.
33:44This is one of the most desolate stretches on the planet.
33:48Now, Project Argus must attempt an unprecedented feat, launch nuclear missiles from a ship at sea.
33:56To beat the deadline, they'll have to do it in August.
33:59That's right in the middle of the South Atlantic winter.
34:02We're talking about the roughest seas, some of the biggest waves, some of the fastest winds on Earth, and storms
34:09coming from out of nowhere.
34:11It is insane.
34:14In the early morning hours of August 27, battered by the wind and waves, the Argus team fires off their
34:21first missile.
34:24The conditions are too difficult. The missile veers off course and detonates too low.
34:30Days later, they try again. That one also fails. They've got one last chance.
34:38Their third and final attempt comes on September 6th. They launch the missile and hope that it works.
34:44The missile soars 300 miles up and detonates on target.
34:49The crewmen on deck look up and they see this beautiful man-made aurora stretching across the sky.
34:57It's from the radiation they just added to the magnetic field.
35:01A satellite flies right through it and it captures critical data and beams it right back down to mission control,
35:09ready for analysis.
35:10The good news? Christophelos is definitely onto something.
35:15The explosion does create a measurable cloud of radioactive particles in space.
35:20This becomes a new phenomenon that is known as the Christophelos effect.
35:26There's bad news too. The Christophelos effect is nowhere near strong enough to knock out a missile.
35:33Project Argus ends up costing $100 million in 21st century dollars.
35:38Within a year of the test, the project is cancelled.
35:42Argus doesn't work, but the Pentagon manages to keep it a secret.
35:46That's about to change.
35:49New York Times reporters get wind of the story, but the government convinces them to sit on it for national
35:53security reasons.
35:54Then when government scientists start pushing to release the Argus data, the New York Times doesn't want to be scooped.
36:00So it breaks the story.
36:12It turns out that primarily because Argus failed, it does not derail the negotiations toward the limited test ban treaty,
36:20which becomes a reality in 1963.
36:22And from that moment forward, there will be no more atmospheric nuclear testing, and there will also be no more
36:28nuclear blasts in space.
36:31Coming up, when NATO war games get too realistic, the Soviets prepare to strike.
36:39Soviet high command starts moving into their underground bunkers.
36:42Moscow is freaking out.
36:49In 1983, thousands of NATO troops mobilize across Europe.
36:56Nuclear weapons are armed and loaded onto aircraft.
36:59The impossible question facing the Kremlin, is this another military exercise, or the opening move of World War III?
37:11In 1983, Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as the evil empire.
37:16For the United States to demonize the Soviets in that kind of fashion suggested that Reagan was taking on the
37:23Cold War as kind of a crusade.
37:24Many in the U.S. recognize this as simple saber-rattling.
37:29However, in Moscow, they're convinced that, in fact, the United States is on the warpath.
37:35It's a powder keg of paranoia into which NATO is about to drop a lighted match.
37:43On November 7th, senior officers gather at NATO HQ in Belgium, ready for the culmination of their annual war games.
37:52An exercise known as Able Archer.
37:57What Able Archer is designed to do is to mimic the reality that most everyone assumes will be how World
38:03War III begins.
38:04With a Soviet and Warsaw Pact invasion across the Fulta Gap of Western Europe,
38:08which would be immediately reacted to by a NATO-United States nuclear response.
38:15Crucially, this is not just a paper exercise.
38:18For the first time, these are full-on war games where they have soldiers in the field and they're going
38:23through the entire exercise
38:25as though the Soviets have, in fact, crossed into NATO territory.
38:29All the way up to where NATO would need to respond with a nuclear attack.
38:35To the Soviets watching, Able Archer soon feels dangerously different from previous war games.
38:43As Able Archer starts, NATO rolls out a new encryption system.
38:48And that's exactly the sort of thing the Soviets see as a warning sign of an impending conflict.
38:55NATO forces did exactly what they would have done in a real wartime scenario.
39:00They actually moved the NATO functioning headquarters to a new location.
39:04And NATO bases all around the world had their alert statuses increased in a way they had never done before.
39:11To the Soviets, that's another red flag that war is imminent.
39:15Margaret Thatcher and the other political leaders are going through the process that they would go through
39:19in case of NATO and the United States authorizing a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union.
39:26Soviet agents in Europe are reporting this back to Moscow, and Moscow is freaking out.
39:31As far as they're concerned, this looks like exactly the scenario that they would expect from NATO attacking them.
39:36Not an exercise.
39:38So they see the beginning of the end.
39:40In a nuclear standoff, when one superpower is super scared, everybody should be super scared.
39:50Hour by hour, Soviet intelligence delivers more terrifying details to Moscow.
39:55The Soviets can see through satellite imagery and even spies on the ground that American bomber aircraft are loading up.
40:06What they don't know is that the aircraft are loaded with training warheads.
40:11Everything indicates that there's a nuclear strike inbound towards the Soviet Union.
40:16Soviet high command starts moving into their underground bunkers.
40:19They have their fighters in Poland and East Germany start loading their planes with live nukes.
40:24In bunkers across the Soviet Union, ICBM crews are preparing their own missiles to launch.
40:29The Soviets could have nukes in the air within 30 minutes.
40:33The world is now teetering on the edge of apocalypse.
40:36But NATO doesn't know it.
40:39Yet.
40:41At the Soviet embassy in London, an urgent telegram hits the desk of KGB station chief Oleg Gordievsky.
40:47It's a desperate message from Moscow to all stations.
40:50Drop everything you're doing and look out for any indications of an imminent attack.
40:54They were convinced that World War III was about to begin.
40:59Oleg Gordievsky, however, is hiding a secret.
41:03What the Soviets don't know is that Gordievsky is a double agent.
41:07He's secretly working for the British and he's a very highly placed asset for them.
41:13Gordievsky realizes the danger.
41:15So he immediately contacts his handlers in British intelligence and passes on the information.
41:21Gordievsky tells them the Soviets think this is a real world activity, not a war game.
41:28He's trying to convey that the Soviets are prepared to retaliate and might even panic and launch a first strike.
41:36The warning shoots up the chain of command in London, then to DC.
41:41And news of the critical situation is delivered straight to the president.
41:46Reagan realizes, oh my gosh, they're more afraid of us than we are of them.
41:52On November 11th, Abel Archer is wrapped up and NATO forces are ordered to stand down.
41:57Moscow breathes a huge sigh of relief.
42:01The Soviet war machine is also back down and World War III does not start.
42:06The whole event shakes Reagan to his core and he launches a new diplomatic effort to ease tensions.
42:12This ultimately culminates in the end of the Cold War.
42:16For decades, details of the exercise and the terrifying Soviet response are buried under top secret classification.
42:24And they'd be there still, but for the efforts of one persistent investigator.
42:29Researcher Nate Jones spends 12 years sending freedom of information requests.
42:33And in 2015, he gets his response.
42:39This declassified report reveals just how terrifyingly close we came to World War III.
42:49From doomsday weapons to apocalyptic close calls, governments have long covered up how near we've come to Armageddon.
42:57Only individual human courage and sheer good fortune have allowed us to escape disaster.
43:05So far.
43:06The CNAFOR
43:08The CNAFOR
43:09The CNAFOR
43:11You
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