How Vasily Arkhipov Saved The World.

Didn't realy know where to put this (so please feel free to move) but its a pretty fascinating account of how one Russian Naval Officer probably saved the entire Northern hemisphere from Nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missilie crisis of 1962.




Naval Blockade around Cuba - submarine incident at 1:40

Cuban Missile Crisis


Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov (Russian: Василий Александрович Архипов) (1926–1999) was a Soviet naval officer. During the Cuban Missile Crisis he prevented the launch of a nuclear torpedo and therefore a possible nuclear war. His story is to this day unknown to the wider public, although some, as the director of the National Security Archive Thomas Blanton expressed it in 2002, hold that "a guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world."

On October 27, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a group of eleven United States Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph trapped a nuclear-armed Soviet Foxtrot class submarine B-59 near Cuba and started dropping practice depth charges, explosives intended to force the submarine to come to the surface for identification. Allegedly, the captain of the submarine, Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky, believing that a war might already have started, prepared to launch a retaliatory nuclear-tipped torpedo.

Three officers on board the submarine — Savitsky, the Political Officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and the Second in command Arkhipov — were authorized to launch the torpedo if they agreed unanimously in favor of doing so. An argument broke out among the three, in which only Arkhipov was against the launch, eventually persuading Savitsky to surface the submarine and await orders from Moscow. The nuclear warfare which presumably would have ensued was thus averted.

Link

Interview - how nuclear war had come much closer than people thought

Thank you for this post.
I'd seen a quote in New Scientist years ago, about this, essentially stating that this submarine commander had saved the world (and also how Kennedy's brinkmanship nearly destroyed it). but i lost the issue of the magazine and could never find out who this guy was for further reading.
Thank you again for a great post.

reply to post by karl 12

Very Important info, this guy must be Known to all of us.

Thanks

Thanks for the replies, its certainly a very interesting (and quite disturbing) account - I watched the movie 'Thirteen days' quite recently and its scary to think how close it actualy came.

Theres a photograph of Vasily below and he looks like quite a decent chap - theres even a comic strip celebrating his exploits.


Pic:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/7d88dd4b3550.jpg[/atsimg]



Comic:

The unknown savior of the planet - Comic story



Cheers.

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

reply to post by aegis80


I don't know if it was Kennedy's brinksmanship or not, but to drop depth charges on a nuclear weapons capable submarine in the context of what was a stake in the aftermath.. It raises an important question.. what if one stumbles upon a nuclear capable vessel under similar circumstances? How does one deal with it without triggering possible nuclear war.

Shoo it off? That doesnt sound to bad.. Forcing it to surface leaves the crew with only 2 choices: attack or scuttle the vessel in face of unsurmountable odds.

Interesting documentary about how close nuclear war came (again) in November, 1983:

1983: The Brink Of Apocalypse.

Google Video Link

An extremely powerful programme, this documentary focuses on 8 November 1983, a date now recognised as one of the most dangerous moments in the entire history of the Cold War. On this near-fateful day, a series of accidents nearly unleashed the Third World War. Senior figures in the Soviet Union had convinced themselves that they were about to come under nuclear attack from the West, and the vast Soviet nuclear arsenal of missiles, bombers and submarines were put on maximum alert, ready to launch a full nuclear retaliatory attack on Western Europe and the US. Armageddon beckoned. This documentary tells the dramatic story behind this sequence of events when Soviet fingers hovered perilously over the nuclear button. The intelligence communities in the US, Europe and the former USSR have never before admitted to the scale of this crisis.

I didnt know about this guy before, I just came across his name in another discussion.

This is true integrity. We need more of this in the world.

Many people today have forgotten that its human beings just like them on the other side of the border.


[edit on 26-7-2010 by Copernicus]

reply to post by karl 12


That's not Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, the guy in the pic is Lenin, but wearing a wig and clean shaven, whilst in exile in Germany or Finland.

And another guy Stanislav Petrov, he saved the whole world from being 'wasted'.

Regards, Naeem