Item BRINK OF APOCALYPSE 3/1 - Interview with Victor Cherkashin, Deputy Head of the KGB Station in Washington, [2007]

Typescript transcript of interview with Victor Cherkashin, Deputy Head of the KGB Station in Washington. Subjects include his position in 1983; Operation RYAN; the long standing possibility of nuclear attack involving the Americans and the USSR, a period of high alert; Pershing II missiles; the USSR-Afghanistan war 1979-1988; “Evil Empire” speech made by Ronald Reagan in 1981, denouncing the USSR; KGB monitoring of the White House as part of Operation RYAN; Yuri Andropov and his personal input in Operation RYAN; STAR Wars/Strategic Defence Initiative(SDI) in 1981; USSR reaction to STAR Wars; unreliability of intelligence received by the KGB in 1983; shooting down of Korean Airlines flight KAL 007, 1 Sep 1983, and the reaction from the USSR and United States; invasion of Grenada by the United States in 1983; Able Archer; relations between Europe and the United States. Original interview conducted in Russian, transcript in English. 43pp.