The man who prevented World War 3

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Stanislav Petrov

Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (Russian: Станисла́в Евгра́фович Петро́в; born 1939 in Odessa, Ukraine) is a retired lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces. On September 26, 1983, just three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile, followed by another one and another up to five, were being launched from the United States. Petrov judged the report to be a false alarm, and his decision is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in large-scale nuclear war. Investigation later confirmed that the satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned ...

Had Petrov reported incoming American missiles, his superiors might have launched an assault against the United States, precipitating a corresponding nuclear response from the United States. Petrov declared the system's indication a false alarm. Later, it was apparent that he was right: no missiles were approaching and the computer detection system was malfunctioning. It was subsequently determined that the false alarm had been created by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites' Molniya orbits, an error later corrected by cross-referencing a geostationary satellite.

Petrov later indicated that the influences on his decision included: that he was informed a U.S. strike would be all-out, so five missiles seemed an illogical start; that the launch detection system was new and, in his view, not yet wholly trustworthy; and that ground radar failed to pick up corroborative evidence, even after minutes of delay. However, in a 2013 interview, Petrov said at the time he was never sure that the alarm was erroneous. He felt that his civilian training helped him make the right decision. His colleagues were all professional soldiers with purely military training and, following instructions, would have reported a missile strike if they had been on his shift ...

[Apex]

Far out. Petrov's Spockian logic saved the day, for sure. Lessons to all, a little logic (OK, in this case, maybe a lot of logic) and some cool heading thinking can go a long way.

I wonder if he passed his reasons on to his comrades there. It all makes sense, let's write it up in the manual. Only five missiles, there would have been enough to retaliate with, so why not wait and see.

Scary stuff.

[OldAirmail]

Another man who prevented war by calling Russia's bet.


This article has it so wrong.

Cuban Missile Crisis - JFK Presidential Library

"No one was sure how Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev would respond to the naval blockade and U.S. demands. But the leaders of both superpowers recognized the devastating possibility of a nuclear war and publicly agreed to a deal in which..."

This is the new type of history that is total revisionist trash.

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The real story

Kennedy had hard proof from internal soviet spies that the accuracy of soviet ballistic missiles was extremely poor.

As best as I can recall the accuracy was, at best, somewhere around 20%.

Kennedy also had solid information that the soviets actual successful launch numbers were low.

We also knew, that Khrushchev knew (from internal US spies), that the US accuracy was near 80%.


There are many more aspects to the story, but in the end Khrushchev backed down due to US missile superiority.

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Kennedy also withdrew NATO (not American) missiles from Turkey and Italy. But that was 20 years before the Petrov incident.