50 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
by the enemy. All 269 passengers and crew of KAL007 perished. Soviet
spokesmen stuck to the spying allegation and exculpated the Siberian
military action. Over subsequent days the furore mounted around the
world. Reagan and Shultz condemned what they saw as nothing less
than an act of state barbarism. Gradually the USSR’s standpoint
changed, and it was acknowledged that a mistake had occurred. This
was not an apology, more an expression of political embarrassment.
Things might perhaps have been different if Andropov had been fit
and in attendance. He was angry with the Soviet military commanders
who had shot down the KAL007 aircraft and undone his work to
mend relations with the US.^34 First Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister
Georgi Kornienko had forewarned him against lying that Soviet forces
had no responsibility for the incident. Kornienko had rung Andropov
in hospital to press the point. But the ailing Andropov was in no con-
dition to take up the struggle; and although Kornienko was invited to
put his case to the Politburo, Ustinov and Gromyko got their way.^35
Pershing-2 missiles arrived in West Germany and cruise missiles
reached Great Britain on 23 November 1983. The USSR had mani-
festly lost the struggle to prevent their installation and the con -
sequences for the Politburo were bound to be dire as it moved to
increase the military budget. Pravda rebuked the White House for
starting a crusade against socialism.^36 The SS-20s could not reach the
American mainland but had every European country well within their
range. The Politburo failed to anticipate America’s determined re -
action. If the Soviet armed forces were going to have intermediate-range
nuclear missiles, America would install cruise missiles in its bases in
Western Europe. The abiding fear of West European leaders was that
America might become decoupled from its commitment to NATO.
They feared that a situation might arise when the Americans decided
it was not worth launching strategic missiles from America in order to
defend Bonn, Rome or London from attack by SS-20s. It was for
this reason that countries began to accept the offer of cruise and
Pershing-2 missiles. They wanted to keep America bound into an
active alliance. Kovalëv told Gromyko that the introduction of SS-20s
brought no gain and much insecurity for the USSR.^37
Relations between the superpowers were worse than ever.
Andropov felt edgy about Reagan’s possible objectives: he thought him
mad enough to order a nuclear Blitzkrieg against the USSR. In
November 1983 there was a NATO command post exercise – Able
Archer 83 – to deal with a potential ‘escalation’ of trouble between