"In 1962, when working for Reuters, Frederick Forsyth was posted to East Berlin where he nearly started the Third World War. Returning home late one night he found his path impeded by Soviet armoured divisions; tanks, rocket-launchers, motorised infantry, rumbling along the Karl Marx Allee in the deep dead of night. As soon as he reached his telex he filed a story that a Russian assault on West Berlin was imminent. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, the British prime minister of the time, and the US president Lyndon Johnson had to be woken up, and NATO was put on red alert. Then a wise old hand at Reuters in London suggested he check if it was a rehearsal for the May Day parade. It was."
Sources
Observer, Profile, March 22, 1987
