Declassification

Reagan's Nuclear War Briefing Declassified

On 26 February 1982, one of the most nuclear-averse of Cold War presidents, Ronald Reagan, received his first full briefing on U.S. plans for waging nuclear war against the Soviet Union. Reagan would be told that primary targets for the war plans would be “nuclear threat, conventional threat, and economic/industrial targets,” but also “leadership,” indicating that Soviet political and military leaders and their offices and bomb shelters would be major targets. The detailed outline of the briefing, recently declassified from the files of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman David Jones, is published today for the first time by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University.

Reagan received the briefing on the eve of a major Pentagon nuclear command post exercise, IVY LEAGUE 82, which – combined with two other exercises, REX 82 ALPHA and NINE LIVEs – were designed to practice decision-making for U.S. plans to wage nuclear war and to test procedures for preserving continuity of government, including presidential successors, during a world war.