Or did they? When Cold War tensions, nuclear brinkmanship, and tech errors collided, they left behind stories of near-catastrophe – here are just two of them.
While the first of the two tales below has arguably been over-sensationalised in some accounts, both show the vital impact their prior individual experiences played in their role as a human safeguard.
Stanislav Petrov
26th September 1983
Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, at the age of 44, spent a fateful September evening as the watch officer on duty at a military bunker near Moscow. The bunker, named ‘Serpukhov-15’, was home to the command centre of the Soviet Air Defence Force’s early warning satellite system. The bunker held a dozen men who used the satellite equipment to spot a potential early intercontinental ballistic missile launch from America.
The stakes were higher than usual in the autumn of 1983. President Reagan described the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” earlier that year. Meanwhile, Soviet General Secretary Andropov was becoming increasingly unwell with kidney failure; and growing paranoid about the credibility of Moscow’s ability to maintain the deterrent of ‘mutually assured destruction’.
Just a few weeks before the 26th September, Soviet Air Defence Forces had shot down a passenger airline, Korean Air Lines Flight 007. All 269 people on board were killed, including Larry McDonald, a member of the US House of Representatives. McDonald’s time in office had seen him rally strongly against left-wing activities, leading some of his supporters to believe the shooting of the plane was an assassination. The plane, due to a navigation error by the crew, had flown through restricted Soviet airspace. Despite the Soviets correctly identifying it as a civilian aircraft, they still believed it could have been adapted for a military purpose and decided to shoot.
Petrov’s shift was, therefore, undeniably at a tense geopolitical moment. Journalist David E Hoffman, who interviewed Stanislav Petrov a number of times after the incident became known about in the public domain – stated that Petrov was both aware of the rhetoric, and privately critical of party bosses.
The false alarm itself consisted of a computer alert stating that five intercontinental ballistic missiles were on their way from the US. Later investigations concluded the data error was caused by the system misinterpreting reflections from clouds as missiles.
Faced with the alert, Petrov chose not to believe it, despite the computer showing the readings as being of “high reliability”. Although he was the watch officer, the majority of his work was as a computer engineer. His experience wisely led him not to automatically trust the readout, given both the low number of missiles involved (he reasoned if it were a real attack, there would be many more than five inbound) and his knowledge of similar glitches occurring before.
Petrov had little confidence in the computer system, believing it to be flawed and rushed into live action by incompetent military superiors, merely to maintain the veneer of having a functional early warning system and therefore the threat of ‘mutually assured destruction’.
But was he, as one film about him sensationalises, The Man Who Saved The World?
Petrov decided to report it to his superior officers as a false alarm. Had a different watch officer, without Petrov’s technical experience (and private cynicism of leaders), been on duty – they may have more rigorously followed their training and relayed the message without question.
Importantly, the decision to launch a retaliatory strike did not lie with Petrov or any of his team, and there would have been other early warning systems which could disprove the alerts – although only once precious seconds had ticked by.
The theoretical possibility certainly remains that had he confirmed a false incoming attack – a potentially disastrous, rushed decision would have been taken with incorrect data, in a state of panic over high geopolitical tensions. There remains much historical debate as to the true impact of Petrov’s decision.
Viewing the incident through a modern lens, where technology is now vastly more powerful – Petrov’s case is a vital case study in favour of factoring in human decision making and not relying on solely automated systems. Russia still allegedly has a ‘Dead Hand’ system in place today which sends firing orders to nuclear bases in the event key human decision-makers are unable to be contacted.
Despite Petrov’s expertise (and him ultimately making the correct call) – he acted outside of standard procedure as a watch officer in interpreting the data rather than relaying it. Although he happened to be well placed to make a judgement call, he was not officially a decision maker.
Investigators reprimanded him for mistakes in his logbook. The more sensational records state he was scapegoated and dismissed from the military over this incident. Petrov himself stated that while there was an inquiry and he did believe his superiors were trying to protect themselves, he was not dismissed – he resigned to care for his wife, whose health was deteriorating.
The incident did not come to public attention until the publication of memoirs by Petrov’s commanding officer over a decade later. Petrov was given commendations including the “World Citizen Award” and posthumously in 2018, “Future of Life Award”, where he was praised by then-Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon.
He passed away in 2017, living alone in a Moscow suburb. His death was not widely reported in Russia for several months. On the same day as Ban Ki-Moon’s public praise, the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation issued a press release downplaying Petrov’s role.
In a BBC Radio Interview, Petrov said:
“I don’t think I did anything extraordinary […] I felt uncomfortable with all these pompous things being said about me”
Arguably, however, another Russian man, more than two decades before Petrov’s incident – had a more direct impact on saving the world.
Vasily Arkhipov
October 27th, 1962
Arkhipov, a distinguished naval officer, was second-in-commend of the B-59, a Soviet submarine sent to the Caribbean in 1962, armed with nuclear torpedoes. This mission was a closely-guarded secret, with some members of the crew only being told their destination during the journey.
Just one year prior, he was deputy commander of nuclear submarine K-19, which had a fault causing a leak in its reactor coolant system. While the crew were able to develop a secondary coolant system to avoid nuclear meltdown, they were all (including Arkhipov) exposed to extremely high levels of radiation. All members of the engineer crew died within a month, and a further 15 died within two years, all directly from the after effects.
The B-59 found itself struggling with poor communications equipment, and surrounded by US forces. The US dropped signal depth charges, non-destructive explosives which would let the B-59 know it had been detected. The US Navy were aiming to force it to surface to identify it; they did not know it was a Soviet nuclear-armed submarine.
Importantly, these charges were dropped while in international waters. This caused the submarine’s captain, Valentin Savitsky, to believe war had already broken out between the two states. As with Petrov, this incident came at a time of intense political pressure.
The 27th October 1962 would be the penultimate day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was a tense 13-day standoff between the US and Soviet Union regarding Soviet missiles in Cuba, which led to a US ‘naval quarantine’ of the country. President Kennedy carefully used the phrase ‘naval quarantine’ instead of ‘blockade’ to avoid the connotations of war. He also declined to carry out any more aggressive action such as an air strike on, or invasion of, Cuba, to avoid escalation. Kennedy and Khrushchev eventually agreed to a compromise, which was widely seen within the Soviet Union as a humiliation.
Given the communication difficulties faced by the B-59, the crew were not aware of the latest developments. What was clear, is that US forces were firing on them in international waters and they were unable to communicate with Moscow – both potential indicators of war having already broken out. He therefore ordered for the nuclear weapons onboard to be prepared.
To launch a weapon without contact from Moscow, the three most senior officers had to agree to fire. Arkhipov was the only one of the three who refused to consent to the launch.
Arkhipov argued they should surface, attempt to re-establish communications, and await orders from Moscow – rather than act without full knowledge of events. After surfacing, it became clear he had made the correct call and war had not broken out – a US plane used a searchlight and fired alongside the submarine, but not at it.
The conditions aboard the submarine were poor; in addition to the limited communication, there was a lack of food and water, space onboard was cramped, and the heat was unbearable, causing those onboard to faint. This undoubtedly would have hindered their ability to make rational decisions.
Indeed, in his only statement on this incident, a powerful piece of testimony, Arkhipov said that Savitsky ‘physically could not give any orders, could not even understand what was happening’. Arkhipov does not mention his own role in the statement, written over thirty years after the event – instead, using it to praise others.
Given that, unlike in Petrov’s case, the decision to fire was solely within the discretion of these three officers – there is a strong argument to be made that Arkhipov had more of a direct impact. Arkhipov also, identically to Petrov, had a documentary featuring him called The Man Who Saved The World, though unlike Petrov, he did not feature in it.
There are, and will be, more…
We just don’t know them. Either because their names will remain a secret, or because the incident hasn’t happened yet.
The nature of nuclear history means these individuals can remain shrouded in mystery.
For instance – several false alarms similar in nature to Petrov’s incident, occurred at the US North American Aerospace Defense Command, three years before Petrov’s infamous shift (see endnotes). Yet, no named ‘hero’ human safeguard has been publicly identified.
For as long as nuclear weapons have been available, there have been countless individuals who are involved in some aspect of a potential launch, who could use whatever power they hold to question or disrupt the process – acting as a safeguard. Some safeguards are designed in to command chains for that purpose, such as Arkhipov – some safeguards arguably act beyond their remit in doing so, such as Petrov.
The ongoing development of technology brings with it the potential to automate decisions in place of human safeguards, the “men who saved the world”. Would this result in faster and more objective decision-making – or would it increase the risk of accidental launch?
Such is the concern, over 40 nations in November 2023 signed a US declaration on ‘Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy‘. One would assume they didn’t use ChatGPT to write it.
Further reading/sources
Petrov
Film, directed by Peter Anthony – ‘The Man Who Saved The World‘
Taylor Downing, 1983 : The World at the Brink (Abacus, 2019)
David Hoffman, The Dead Hand: Reagan, Gorbachev and the Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race (Icon Books, 2018)
Arkhipov
PBS Documentary – ‘Secrets of the Dead: The Man Who Saved The World‘
Guardian article by Edward Wilson – ‘Thank you Vasili Arkhipov, the man who stopped nuclear war‘
Amy B. Zegart “The Cuban missile crisis as intelligence failure.” Policy Review 175 (2012)
Morielle I. Lotan “Strategic Dilemmas of WMD Operators” Comparative Strategy 34 (2015)
US Office of the Historian, Kennedy-Khrushchev exchanges – offers fascinating insight into the Cuban Missile Crisis
Serhii Plokhy, Nuclear Folly : A New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis (London: Allen Lane, 2021)
Other incidents, and AI
Michael Depp and Paul Scharre, War on the Rocks – ‘Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Stability‘
US Incidents in 1979 and 1980 covered by William Burr, ‘False Warnings of Soviet Missile Attacks Put U.S. Forces on Alert in 1979-1980 , National Security Archive
Top stock photo credit: Lucas Fonseca
