Averted Atomic War Claim
Rupp claims that his activities may have averted a nuclear war in the fall of 1983, a claim that is not entirely unfounded according to American experts. In an interview for the Channel 4 programme "1983: The Brink of Apocalypse", about exercise Able Archer 83, broadcast in the UK on 5 January 2008, he said that he had transmitted the message that NATO was not preparing to launch a surprise nuclear attack against the USSR during the exercise to his HVA controllers. He did this by way of encoding the message on a device disguised as a calculator which then turned the message into a short electronic burst which could be transmitted to a set telephone number. He viewed this as vital to preventing a Soviet pre-emptive strike against NATO forces. In the same program, Rupp said he was proud of the damage he did to NATO over the years of his intelligence activities.
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