It was exactly 20 years ago this week a Soviet military officer,
Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, averted a worldwide nuclear war.
This account from the PRWeb Newswire tells of the incident:


September 25, 1983, is a date that could have been burned into
the history books forever. On that day, against overwhelming
odds, a Soviet military officer averted a worldwide nuclear
war. What almost happened would have dwarfed into near obscurity
any wars or terrorist attacks or natural disasters in memory.

The false alarm involving Petrov occurred at a time of severely
strained relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Only three weeks earlier, the Soviet military had shot down a Korean
passenger jet that had wandered into Soviet airspace, killing all
269 people on board, including many Americans. The KGB sent a flash
message to its operatives in the West, warning them to prepare for
possible nuclear war, according to CNN.

It was exactly 20 years ago this week a Soviet military officer,
Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, averted a worldwide nuclear war.
This account from the PRWeb Newswire tells of the incident:


September 25, 1983, is a date that could have been burned into
the history books forever. On that day, against overwhelming
odds, a Soviet military officer averted a worldwide nuclear
war. What almost happened would have dwarfed into near obscurity
any wars or terrorist attacks or natural disasters in memory.

News of this incident first surfaced in 1998 in press interviews
with Stanislav Petrov, a retired lieutenant colonel, who described
the chain of events that nearly led to the massive devastation of
much of the Northern Hemisphere.

In a military bunker near Moscow, in the former Soviet Union,
Petrov was in charge of an early warning system that used computers
and satellites to alert the Soviet Union if there were ever a
nuclear missile attack by the United States. The Soviet Union's
strategy at that time was to fire its arsenal as soon as possible
after receiving indications of an attack, according to Bruce Blair,
a Cold War nuclear strategies expert and nuclear disarmament advocate
with the Center for Defense Information.

It was just after midnight Sept. 26, 1983, Moscow time - still
Sept. 25, a Sunday, in the West - when something went wrong. Suddenly
the computer alarms sounded, warning that an American missile was
heading toward the Soviet Union. Petrov reasoned that a computer
error had occurred, since the United States was not likely to launch
just one missile if it were attacking the Soviet Union - it would
launch many. So he dismissed the warning as a false alarm.

A short time later, however, the situation turned very serious. Now
the early warning system was indicating a second missile had been
launched by the United States and was approaching the Soviet Union.
Then it showed a third missile being launched, and then a fourth
and a fifth. The sound of the alarms in the bunker was deafening,
Petrov said. In front of him the word "Start" was flashing in bright
lettering, presumably the instruction indicating the Soviet Union
must begin launching a massive counterstrike against the United States.

Even though Petrov had a gnawing feeling the computer system was
wrong, he had no way of knowing for sure. He had nothing else to go
by. The Soviet Union's land-based radar was of limited usefulness
since it was not capable of detecting missiles beyond the horizon.
And worse, he had only a few minutes to decide what to tell the
Soviet leadership. He made his final decision: He would trust his
intuition and declare it a false alarm. If he were wrong, he realized
nuclear missiles from the United States would soon begin raining down
on the Soviet Union.

He waited. The minutes and seconds passed. Everything remained
quiet - no missiles and no destruction. His decision had been right.
Those around him congratulated him for his superb judgment.

It had indeed been a false alarm, and a subsequent investigation
determined that the early warning satellite system had mistakenly
interpreted sunlight reflections off clouds as the presence of
enemy missiles.

Petrov felt an enormous sense of relief, but now he faced another
problem. He had disobeyed military procedure by defying the computer
warnings, and as a result he underwent intense questioning by his
superiors about his actions during this ordeal. Perhaps because he
had ignored the warnings, he was no longer considered a reliable
military officer. Presumably in the military it is understood that
orders and procedures are to be carried out unfailingly, without
question.

In the end, the Soviet military did not reward or honor Petrov for
his actions. It did not punish him either. But his once promising
military career had come to an end. He was reassigned to a less
sensitive position and soon was retired from the military. He went
on to live his life in Russia as a pensioner.

The false alarm involving Petrov occurred at a time of severely
strained relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Only three weeks earlier, the Soviet military had shot down a
Korean passenger jet that had wandered into Soviet airspace, killing
all 269 people on board, including many Americans. The KGB sent a
flash message to its operatives in the West, warning them to prepare
for possible nuclear war, according to CNN.

Blair said the Russians "saw a U.S. government preparing for a first
strike, headed by a president capable of ordering a first strike."

Reflecting the tensions of the time, the American leadership had
referred to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire."

With conditions so volatile at the time of the false alarm, if Petrov
had declared the nuclear attack warning valid, as his instruments
indicated, the Soviet leadership likely would have taken his decision
as fact. A mistaken massive nuclear attack by the Soviet Union would
undoubtedly have been followed by a devastating response from the
Pentagon. Because of Petrov's actions, however, the risk of nuclear
war was stopped well before it reached this point.

Petrov has said he does not regard himself as a hero for what he did
that day. But in terms of the incalculable number of lives saved, and
the overall health of the planet, he appears to have emerged as one
of the greatest heroes of all time.

There is something else unsettling about this incident. Petrov was not
originally scheduled to be on duty that night. Had he not been there,
it is possible a different commanding officer would not have questioned
the computer alarms, tragically leading the world into a nuclear holocaust.
As it turned out, this incident ended fortunately for America and for the
world. But unfortunately for Stanislav Petrov, it ruined his career and
his health, and it deprived him of his peace of mind. This is one debt
the world will never be able to repay.


Sources:

http://www.brightstarsound.com
Burrelle's Information Services (Dateline NBC, Nov. 12, 2000)
Washington Post (Feb. 10, 1999)
BBC News (Oct. 21, 1998)
Daily Mail (Oct. 7, 1998)

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N.S.