Early within the morning of September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov helped forestall the outbreak of nuclear conflict.
A 44-year-old lieutenant colonel within the Soviet air protection forces, he was hours previous his shift as an obligation officer at Serpukhov-15, the key command heart exterior Moscow the place the army Soviet was monitoring its early warning satellites over the US when the alarms went off.
Computer systems warned that 5 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles had been launched from a US base.
“For 15 seconds we had been in shock,” he known as again later. “We wanted to determine, ‘What occurs subsequent?’ ”
The alarm bells sounded throughout probably the most tense intervals of the Chilly Conflict. Three weeks earlier, the Soviets had shot down a Korean Air Strains business flight after crossing Soviet airspace, killing all 269 folks on board, together with a congressman from Georgia. President Ronald Reagan had rejected requires an arms race freeze, saying the Soviet Union “evil empire.” The Soviet chief, Yuri V. Andropovwas obsessive about worry of an American assault.
Colonel Petrov was at a turning level within the decision-making chain. His superiors on the warning system headquarters reported to the Soviet Military Normal Employees, which might seek the advice of Mr. Andropov about launching a retaliatory assault.
After 5 harrowing minutes – digital boards and screens flashed as he held a telephone in a single hand and an intercom within the different, making an attempt to soak up the incoming streams of knowledge – Colonel Petrov determined that studies of launch had been in all probability a false alarm.
As he later defined, it was a knee-jerk determination, a ’50-50′ guess at finest, based mostly on his distrust of the early warning system and the relative shortage of missiles that had been launched. .
Colonel Petrov died on the age of 77 on Might 19 in Friazino, a suburb of Moscow, the place he lived alone with a pension. The demise was not broadly reported on the time.