War in the Shadows

At the end of the 1980s, the Soviet army was being completely modernised, observed closely by western military intelligence in East Germany. Weapons-scouts in the field were constantly on duty, as were agents in high command or in intelligence service stations, such as in the autumn of 1983, when Nato was practising new procedures of nuclear release. Moscow was concerned the exercise could be the beginning of a nuclear first strike. It took a double agent to clear up this dangerous misunderstanding.