On Sept. 18, 2017, a hero of humanity, Stanislav Petrov, died.
Hero of humanity is a mild description for Petrov.
On Sept. 26, 1983, Soviet air defense officer, Stanislav Petrov, was on duty at a ballistic missile early warning center near Moscow. Along with his colleagues, Petrov was responsible for monitoring any indications of a NATO nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. With multiple security checks and redundant backups against false alarms, most of Petrov’s shifts were boring.
But not the one that took place on Sept. 26, 1983. That day, Petrov’s computer began blinking with indications of a U.S. missile launch. First, it was one missile, then two, then three, then four: Soviet Russia, it seemed, was under a preemptive U.S. nuclear attack.
According to protocol and all Petrov’s training, his response should have been immediate and decisive: flagging the launch to Soviet leaders and thus enabling them to launch an immediate counterstrike. Fortunately, Petrov hesitated, leaning towards the launch indications being a false alarm.
As he told the BBC in a 2013 interview, “There were 28 or 29 security levels. After the target was identified, it had to pass all of those checkpoints. I was not quite sure it was possible, under those circumstances.” Believing that if he followed standing orders, his superiors would launch their own intercontinental ballistic missiles against the U.S., Petrov called in a system malfunction. Around thirty minutes later, it became clear (seeing as Moscow was still standing) that Petrov had been correct; the alert was a false alarm.
Some might read this story and believe that even if Petrov had called in the alert, war could have been avoided. That, for example, someone in the Soviet leadership would have hesitated before sparking an inadvertent nuclear holocaust.
But such an assessment does not comport with the Soviet political mentality of the time. After all, in 1983, former KGB chief Yuri Andropov was Soviet leader and Ronald Reagan was President of the United States. Unlike his later pairing with Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan did not enjoy a positive relationship with Andropov. On the contrary, as the Mitrokhin KGB archives attest, Andropov was convinced the U.S. was preparing a secret preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union and prioritized KGB efforts to find evidence to that effect. Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech and missile defense initiative only reinforced Andropov’s paranoia amidst an increasingly fragile Soviet economy.
Had Petrov passed on the indicators of a U.S. nuclear strike, Andropov would very likely have launched a counterstrike. And then…
Rest in peace, Stanislav Petrov.
