On This Day in History: September 26

Stanislav Petrov saves the world from nuclear war

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At least twice that we know of level-headed Russians prevented the world from being transformed into a delightful paradise for radioactive cockroaches via the launching of intercontinental boomsticks. I remember the one in 1983 because I still hadn’t had sex yet.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: September 26, 1983--

President Kennedy prevented nuclear war by ignoring the advice of his military commanders and not invading Cuba during the missile crisis in 1962. What the U.S. didn’t know was the island already had short-range “tactical” nukes in place that local Soviet commanders were pre-authorized to use and would have used if the Americans invaded and then rapid escalation and ow shit my face is melting.

We got even closer to atomic kerblooie a few days later during the ensuing naval blockade of Cuba when a Soviet sub had been incommunicado for a few days and an American ship dropped depth charges to force it to surface and the sub Captain said well fuck I guess war has started let’s start the nuking and the political officer said fuck yeah I’m in I’ll turn my key and Executive Officer Vasily Arkhipov said hey don’t you think we should confirm World War End of Days is actually happening before we atomize a bunch of folks?

Vasily was a hero for standing up to senior officers and refusing to authorize a nuclear launch. Stanislov Petrov was a hero a couple decades later because he decided not to tell anyone that American nukes might be on their way. Tensions were high because three weeks earlier the Soviets shot down a Korean passenger jet with a U.S. Congressman aboard. The Soviets said it was a spy plane and the Americans were fucking furious and I was saying for fuck’s sake please don’t kill everyone I haven’t even gotten to second base yet.

On September 26, 1983, a computer glitch almost made things go boom. Lieutenant Colonel Petrov was duty officer for the Soviet nuclear early warning system. The system said hey those capitalists just launched a bunch of nukes at us. Protocol was that Petrov bump it up the chain, but he wasn’t wholly trusting of the new detection system, because there were indications it might be a false alarm, such as the system saying it was only five missiles and not an all-out fusion fuck you as they expected with a first strike. So he said fuck it and kept his mouth shut.

And as a result, perhaps he saved more humans than anyone who ever lived. Probably. Petrov didn’t have his finger on the button. He was supposed to tell his superiors who would then make the decision if they should launch a retaliatory strike. Thing is, Petrov knew everyone was twitchy as shit over the prevailing political environment and likely would have just launched rather than questioning if there really was an incoming American missile strike. So he disobeyed orders and paused to evaluate the situation. He guessed—correctly—that it was a system malfunction and reported that instead. And a while later I finally got to have sex.

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