This declassified US intelligence report from 1990 is one of the most terrifying things you'll ever read

By Armin Rosen

The 1983 US-Soviet "war scare" is one of the most controversial episodes of the Cold War.

Now we finally know it was also one of the most dangerous, thanks to a February 1990 report published by the National Security Archive at George Washington University this week after a 12-year Freedom of Information Act battle.

The US and Soviets were dangerously close to going to war in November 1983, the bombshell report found, and the Cold War-era US national-security apparatus missed many warning signs.