The Cuban Missile Crisis: Back from the Brink

One person can make all the difference

Vasily Arkhipov was a handsome fellow. He’s also the reason the world isn’t currently being run by intelligent cockroaches. I mean, that might be an improvement, but he is a prime example of how one person can literally save the world by saying, “Wait a fucking minute. What if we decided to not be psychopathic dicks and start a nuclear fucking holocaust?”

--On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down: October 27, 1962--

Many don’t realize just how fucking close we came to nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis. One such example of the levels of dumbfuckery was that Cuba had a hundred short-range “tactical” nukes on the island, and local Soviet officers were pre-authorized to use them in case of an invasion by the United States. President Kennedy was encouraged by his military advisers to invade the island, which would have resulted in the American forces being vaporized, which would have snowballed into the cockroach scenario I mentioned earlier.

Kennedy saved us by deciding not to invade, even though he had no idea about the tactical nukes. That wasn’t the only near-miss during those tense thirteen days where a cooler head kept humanity alive.

Arkhipov’s personal history may have contributed to him keeping his cool. The year prior to the missile crisis he was executive officer on K-19, the USSR’s first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. Soviet technology being not the best, the boat almost suffered a meltdown in its reactor. Arkhipov, who was played by Liam Neeson in a 2002 film version of the event, witnessed twenty-two of his fellow sailors get a lethal dose of radiation. Perhaps the experience made him personally leery of the negative potential of nuclear reactions.

During the missile crisis Americans implemented a naval blockade of Cuba, and the Soviets tested their resolve with an oceanic confrontation. Arkhipov was aboard the submarine B-59 when the U.S. Navy detected it on October 27, 1962, and dropped signaling depth charges to force it to surface and identify itself. The sub had been too deep for any communications with the outside world for days, and the captain thought war had already broken out and decided to launch a nuclear torpedo, which is the same as a nuclear bomb, just put inside a torpedo. It still has a mega-radioactive-explodey-pow. If they launched it, it would have triggered World War We Are So Fucking Fucked.

To authorize a launch, the captain, the political officer, and executive officer Arkhipov all had to agree. The other two did, but Arkhipov said what are you totally fucking bugshit? No! Arkhipov had a solid reputation from his K-19 days, and he convinced the captain to surface and ask Moscow the fuck was going on.

Planetary destruction was averted, and Arkhipov was eventually promoted to the rank of vice-admiral, retiring from the Soviet Navy in the mid-1980s. He lived to be seventy-two, dying from kidney cancer that may have been caused by radiation exposure on K-19.

Those who cannot remember the past need a history teacher who says “fuck” a lot. Get both volumes of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.