1983

The World at the Brink

By: Taylor Downing

Narrated by: Ben Onwukwe

1983 was a supremely dangerous year - even more dangerous than 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the US, President Reagan massively increased defence spending, described the Soviet Union as an 'evil empire' and announced his 'Star Wars' programme, calling for a shield in space to defend the US from incoming missiles.

Yuri Andropov, the paranoid Soviet leader, saw all this as signs of American aggression and convinced himself that the US really meant to attack the Soviet Union. He put the KGB on alert to look for signs of an imminent nuclear attack. When a Soviet fighter jet shot down Korean Air Lines flight KAL 007 after straying off course over a sensitive Soviet military area, President Reagan described it as a 'terrorist act' and 'a crime against humanity'. The temperature was rising fast.

Then at the height of the tension, NATO began a war game called Able Archer 83. In this exercise, NATO requested permission to use the codes to launch nuclear weapons. The nervous Soviets convinced themselves this was no exercise but the real thing.

This is an extraordinary and largely unknown Cold War story of spies and double agents, of missiles being readied, of intelligence failures, misunderstandings and the panic of world leaders. With access to hundreds of extraordinary new documents just released in the US, Taylor Downing is able to tell for the first time the gripping but true story of how near the world came to the brink of nuclear war in 1983.

1983: The World at the Brink is a real-life thriller.

©2018 Taylor Downing (P)2018 Little, Brown Book Group

Great book and narration

…except the reader’s American pronunciation was absolutely dreadful. Enjoyable storyline and nice to learn about Reagan and his various Soviet counterparts.

Condescending British narration

A pretty good story of an interesting world event save the tremendous efforts to discredit President Reagan and the condescending American accent the narrator assumes. All Americans sound like and are portrayed by the narrator like unhinged and reckless cowboys . This cartoonish and biased characterization ruins an otherwise compelling incident in world history

Well-told, great detail

Enjoyed the well-constructed story and the great effort putting leaders thoughts in context of the time. Very much enjoyed listening.

Complaints About Narrator's Accents are dead-on

The story is interesting enough, but Narrator's U.S. accents are grating. Each time an American speaks, he sounds like a weird cartoon character. I made it to chapter 8 before giving up.

Dead Hand is better...

And more detailed. This narrator should stick to his native English accent. He truly has the most annoying, embarrassing and insulting American accent. Ever. Please. Stop.