We Are the Clash

by Mark Andersen

  Caldicott spoke from direct experience, for she had met with Reagan in December 1982, thanks to the intervention of his daughter, Patti Davis. Reagan found Caldicott to be a “nice caring person . . . but she is all steamed up and knows an awful lot of things that aren’t true.” The doctor was horrified to discover the president was apparently unable to distinguish between Reader’s Digest allegations and top-secret intelligence data. Reagan’s emphasis on building more bombs as to prevent nuclear war seemed delusional to her.

  “Peace through strength” was Reagan’s key talking point. He was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), an advocacy group of powerful right-wing hawks who believed that the US had slipped dangerously behind the USSR in military power. This was not true—but once in office, Reagan acted on this belief by vastly ramping up arms spending, alarming the Soviets.

  The danger was heightened by Reagan’s skepticism about arms control talks. For him, as for the CPD, such agreements were essentially meaningless. The Soviets couldn’t be trusted—the US had to be stronger than the Soviets, so its rival would not risk an attack. Ergo, Reagan and his ilk were the real peace activists, their preparations for war the most effective way to prevent it.

  A novel interpretation, and perhaps it was true. Still, Reagan’s words recalled the prescient warning issued by George Orwell about “war propaganda . . . disguised as peace propaganda.”

  After speaking with Reagan, Caldicott agreed. She saw the flaw in his argument: military buildup would make the Soviets fear attack from a stronger America, so they, in turn, would build more weapons. The US would do the same—and on and on, with tensions building toward a breaking point.

  This unending arms spiral was insanely expensive, foreclosing more socially beneficial uses for the money. It also held other dangers, for its momentum would almost inevitably lead to war. In Caldicott’s 1984 book Missile Envy, she argued, “The logical consequence of the preparation for nuclear war is nuclear war”—a direct rebuttal to Reagan’s assertions in their meeting.

  Reagan claimed to be misunderstood. Yet it is more likely that he believed—at least at the outset—that it was in America’s best interest to scare the Soviets with tough talk and military buildup.

  In Reagan’s home state of California the previous month, Strummer had lambasted the leader: “His job is trying to press that button. And when he presses it, he wants 900 million missiles, not nine thousand. He wants the Fourth of July from here to Timbuktu! And he’s going to get it unless people snap out of it.”

  This might seem wild overstatement—but the administration’s lavish wish list of superweapons gave ballast to Strummer’s claims. Reagan, as one wag put it, “had never met a weapons system he didn’t like.”

  Perhaps the most destabilizing weapon of all would be the one Reagan touted as a bid to end the arms race: the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), announced in late March 1983, two weeks after his “evil empire” speech. Intended to intercept incoming Soviet missiles, SDI was derisively dubbed “Star Wars,” and dismissed by many experts as an insanely expensive boondoggle that could never work.

  Reagan portrayed SDI as a defensive shield that could prevent a Russian first strike. To the Soviets, however, it appeared to facilitate a first strike, allowing the US to attack without fearing retaliation, thus fatally undermining the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine at the heart of deterrence.

  This was dangerously destabilizing, given that MAD had arguably prevented nuclear war for more than three decades by making it unthinkable, since both sides would be destroyed, no matter which struck first. According to analyst Marc Ambinder, “By November of 1983, Russia was convinced that US nuclear doctrine had been changed to include a tilt toward launch-on-warning or first strike posture.” This meant the margin for error was frighteningly slim.

  The Washington Post later described 1983 as “the most dangerous year” of the US-Soviet face-off. Despite growing support for a nuclear freeze, the shooting down of KAL 007 on September 1 kicked off ten weeks of unprecedented peril. The overkill possessed by both sides, the fever pitch of anger and fear in the absence of ongoing dialogue, all made for an extraordinarily volatile cocktail.

  Reagan and Thatcher star in a 1984 satirical movie poster. (Designer unknown.)

  Civil Disobedience Is Civil Defense button, 1984. (Courtesy of Greg Carr.)

  The Future in Our Hands button. (Courtesy of Mark Andersen.)

  This is the context in which Stansilav Petrov made his fateful decision. Arms expert Bruce Blair asserts the US-Soviet relationship “had deteriorated to the point where the Soviet Union as a system—not just the Kremlin, not just [then–Soviet leader Yuri] Andropov, not just the KGB—but as a system, was geared to expect an attack and to retaliate very quickly. It was on hair-trigger alert. It was very nervous and prone to mistakes . . . The false alarm that happened on Petrov’s watch could not have come at a more dangerous phase in US-Soviet relations.”

  The same was true of Able Archer 83, a massive NATO military exercise held near the Soviet border shortly thereafter. Thanks to a long-classified document finally released in 2015, it has come out that the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board had reported, “In [November] 1983 we may have inadvertently placed our relations with the Soviet Union on a hair trigger.”

  While this near miss was long suspected, the document erased all doubt. According to the New York Times, “The fact that the Warsaw Pact’s military response to Able Archer was ‘unparalleled in scale,’ the board concluded, ‘strongly suggests that Soviet leaders may have been seriously concerned that the US would use the exercises as a cover for launching a real attack . . . Soviet forces were preparing to preempt or counterattack a NATO strike.’”

  As the report concludes, “This situation could have been extremely dangerous if during the exercise—perhaps through a series of ill-timed coincidences or because of faulty intelligence—the Soviets had misperceived US actions as preparations for a real attack.” Such misperception was glimpsed, but then sidestepped, thanks to the cool head of Lt. General Leonard Perroots at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany, who, according to the report, made a “fortuitous, if ill-informed” call to not escalate in response to the Soviet moves.

  The board’s report quotes Reagan describing the situation as “really scary” in June 1984 after he read “a rather stunning array of indicators” of Soviet war preparations compiled by the CIA in the wake of Able Archer. While Reagan felt America’s good intentions should be self-evident, the world was not so trusting.

  Only one nation had ever used nuclear weapons: the United States. The Soviets knew this and, given Reagan’s words and actions, assumed the worst. The Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board warned, “It is an especially grave error to assume that since we know the US is not going to start World War III, the next leaders of the Kremlin will also believe that—and act on that belief.”

  The fear was hard to avoid; even network TV paid heed. The Day After—an ABC dramatization of the aftermath of nuclear war—debuted on November 20, 1983, mere days after Able Archer had brought the world to the brink for the second time in three months. More than 100 million people watched the program during its initial broadcast, making it the highest-rated television film in history.

  Rarely did a film seem so in tune with a specific moment, coming at the end of what were perhaps the most dangerous months of the Cold War. One of the film’s viewers was Ronald Reagan. Genuinely moved, he wrote in his diary that the film was “very effective and left me greatly depressed.”

  Few had the chance to know as many of the specifics at the time as Reagan, but many made reasonable guesses about the gravity of the situation. Joe Strummer was a serious student of the nuclear threat and was thus reasonably terrified.

  After the January 19 show in Santa Barbara, he gruffly challenged a skeptical interviewer—Record’s John Mendelsohn, a self-described “long-ago college radical”—about American complacency in the face o
f US-backed savagery in Central America and the nuclear arms buildup. Strummer: “Every American is responsible for what their government does—if it ain’t being done in your name, whose name is it being done in? I read all about the Committee on the Present Danger, and I know they are the ones calling the shots. Why doesn’t every American know this? Why are they all on drugs and goofing off?”

  Unimpressed, Mendelsohn dubbed Strummer “the mouth that roared,” comparing him with a rabid dog running at “full froth,” and calling The Clash “the most shrilly self-righteous boors in pop history.” In retrospect, Strummer appears to have been largely correct. Reagan’s pursuit of policies promoted by the Committee on the Present Danger had brought the world into the gravest danger imaginable.

  Words carried a deadly logic. If the USSR was simply an “evil empire” as Reagan said, acting outside the bounds of human decency, what option did the West have but military confrontation? Such language fed the feedback loop now spiraling the world toward nuclear holocaust.

  Saner voices challenged both superpowers to stand down. In October 1983, in what UK activist E.P. Thompson called “the greatest mass movement in modern history,” nearly three million people across Western Europe protested nuclear missile deployments and demanded an end to the arms race. The largest crowd of almost one million people assembled outside the Hague in the Netherlands.

  In London’s Hyde Park, 400,000 people participated in what was probably the largest demonstration in British history, opposing the arrival of US nuclear-armed cruise missiles. While Thatcher had asked Reagan to delay the deployment until after the 1983 election, they were due to arrive at the Greenham Airbase in early November, just before the Able Archer exercises began.

  Despite knowing that British public opinion opposed the cruise missiles, Thatcher refused to bend. Thatcher biographer Charles Moore reports, however, that even she was worried by the escalation in rhetoric and the danger of war. This concern didn’t stop Thatcher from authorizing spying and harassment against the peace movement or suggesting that it served Soviet interests.

  The new Clash ventured into this maelstrom of fear and mobilization with an eight-date tour of Europe. Vowing to “outwork those heavy metal bands” with relentless gigging, Strummer and the others wound their way through Norway, Sweden, West Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and France.

  Before the tour’s second show—at Johanneshov Isstadium in Stockholm, Sweden—the unit posed backstage for a photo that captured the confrontational spirit of the moment. The Clash stood starkly outlined against a white backdrop in dark-colored quasi-commando gear. Strummer is in white, flanked by the others. With a newly trimmed Mohawk and brandishing his Mohawk Revenge shirt, the singer has a snarl on his lips and his fists balled up, as if ready for a rumble.

  A casual observer could have been forgiven for wondering if the band was on a mission of mayhem rather than peacemaking. In fact, The Clash had long been ambiguous on the question of war and peace; the same Strummer who composed lines like “when violence is singing / silence the sound” and “I don’t want to kill” also wrote “I want a riot of my own” and “I don’t mind throwing a brick” and wore a Red Brigade/Red Army Faction T-shirt at the biggest UK show they ever played, the Rock Against Racism rally in Victoria Park.

  Moreover, The Clash’s support for armed guerrilla movements such as the Sandinistas and El Salvador’s FMLN was well documented. As already noted, the martial-sounding “Are You Ready for War?” hardly came across as a pacifist ballad. One observer approvingly noted, “They looked and moved like a guerrilla unit onstage.” A more skeptical one groused, “For a group so against the machinations of violence they still get an awful lot of mileage from its imagery.”

  The ambivalence was real. Strummer would argue, “Real revolutions are in the mind,” while in the next breath asserting, “Mind you, I think there’s really going to be an armed struggle between the have-nots and the haves of the world.”

  Asked by one interviewer about the band’s “army surplus terrorist chic” clothing, Strummer responded, “It’s just self-defense.” With his questioner at a loss, he elaborated: “You take a Green Beret, who’s this well-trained killing machine, which is what we’re against. So how do we express what we’re opposite to—by dressing like some shambling hippie stoned on acid? The point is, if you’re going to defend yourself, you’ve got to be as fit and tough as the opposition.”

  Before a sold-out crowd of eight thousand in Stockholm, The Clash seemed ready for the fight. After Vinyl’s rousing intro, the band kicked off with “London Calling,” “Safe European Home,” and “Are You Ready for War?” with “Know Your Rights” thrown in. The intense reaction led Strummer to briefly stop the show to urge the audience to step back, lest folks in front be crushed.

  The show had some rough patches—a muffed, out-of-tune opening to “Complete Control,” a sluggish “Dictator”—but overall the band was hitting its marks. The tension of playing amid the expectations of the UK home crowd was absent, and no Jones advocates made themselves known. Strummer remained spirited, speaking with brevity and passion on topics like Central America, police brutality, and race relations. He also interjected shouts of “1984!” into “I Fought the Law” and “White Riot,” and called out Reagan by name in “Are You Ready for War?”

  When the band returned for its first encore, “Glue Zombie,” Strummer provided fly for the ointment, shouting, “I’d like to say something to stop you all cheering at once—I say, from now on, drugs are crap!” If the rhythm was a bit static, the singer’s throat-shredding invested the tale with pathos, suggesting sympathy for—even identification with—the addict’s plight.

  Meanwhile, Mick Jones was making himself present via the legal injunctions that—according to Clash scholar Marcus Gray—were greeting the band at every stop. The notices were ignored, and the shows went on, but it was getting harder to brush off rumors of a rival Clash, especially once concert impresario Bill Graham reported getting a call from Jones promising to bring “the real Clash” to tour Stateside.

  So when The Clash returned for a second encore that night amid a sea of flickering cigarette lighters—a concert ritual Strummer found tiresome—this was on his mind: “We are about to play a song entitled ‘We Are The Clash.’ You way well have heard there might be two or three or four Clashes. I DON’T CARE. Let there be five hundred! As long as there is one real one . . . We need to hear TRUTH!”

  The band then crashed into the song, which now featured a new opening verse evoking the 1982 conversations with fans in Australia and Japan. While a kinetic call-and-response revamp of the chorus tried on recent dates had been dropped, the song was a bit less stiff than the studio demo, with stirring guitar lines.

  There were also less-fortunate adjustments, especially to the chorus. Before, the “We are The Clash” line had been used once, the focus being on “We can strike the match / if you spill the gasoline.” Now, “We are The Clash” was repeated three times, with the “strike/spill” couplet split apart and de-emphasized. The song’s title had been its weakest link; now it was front and center.

  The song now seemed less about cocreation with the audience, and more about staking a simple claim to the name. If a brutal power still shone through, this lyrical shift confused the tune’s intent and undermined its resonance.

  On this night, however, any doubts were dispelled by the set’s momentum, with blazing renditions of “Brand New Cadillac,” “Armagideon Time,” and “Janie Jones” following “We Are The Clash.” When the third and final encore of “English Civil War” and “White Riot”—introduced as an “old English folk song”—was over, there was a sense of well-earned triumph in the air.

  As the crowd called out for more, an ebullient Strummer shouted a goodbye and strode off the stage. Gray panned the performance, but a Swedish newspaper’s verdict seemed closer to the mark: “Everything works for the ‘new’ Clash.”

  Big crowds and rave reviews in Europe—�
�New Clash Is Excellent,” from a newspaper in Oslo, Norway.

  Offstage matters were considerably less copacetic. “You can forget Joe, you can forget Paul, you can forget everybody,” White snapped later. “Bernie was the man with the controls. He was the one dictating. I was in a situation where I had to listen to him.” This was hardly encouraging, as Rhodes tended to be a drill sergeant at the best of times, albeit one of the Marxist variety, with perhaps hints of Asperger’s syndrome. Sheppard: “You’d come offstage feeling good, but there would be Bernie to bring you down . . . Nothing was ever good enough.”

  Rhodes’s approach was intended to foster “self-criticism.” Knowing that rock nourished hedonism and ego-tripping far more readily than revolution, Strummer defended the value of the practice: “Every star surrounds himself with yes-men—we’d rather have a team with internal self-criticism.”

  This reflected the influence of Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung. In the 1940s, Mao had written, “Conscientious practice of self-criticism is still another hallmark distinguishing our Party . . . To check up regularly on our work and in the process develop a democratic style of work, to fear neither criticism nor self-criticism—this is the only effective way to prevent all kinds of political dust and germs from contaminating the minds of our comrades and the body of our Party.”

  In principle, the practice was both common sense and revolutionary. Self-criticism was adopted by elements of the New Left in the late sixties and early seventies. Perhaps the best-known exponent was the Weather Underground, a splinter faction of Students for a Democratic Society, the most important US student organization of the 1960s. In 1969, the group—who soon made its name with a series of bombings, including of the Pentagon and US Capitol—put striking new lyrics to the holiday standard “White Christmas”: “I’m dreaming of a white riot.”