The Soviet naval officer who prevented WWIII

I was six years old during the Cuban Missile Crisis back in 1962. I remember the nuclear air raid drills that we used to do when I was in elementary school. I have vague memories of the 1960 presidential election that happened the year I turned four. I have fairly vivid memories about the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. But I remember nothing of the missile crisis. Did the grownups protect us children from the news about this horror? Or was it so frightening that I simply blocked it out?

One reason that the Cuban Missile Crisis is only an important and frightening historical event that I can't remember, and not something far worse, has to do with the bravery of Vasily Arkhipov, a Russian naval officer who refused to consent to the launching of his submarine's nuclear weapon. 

Edward Wilson, writing for The Guardian, tells what happened:

If you were born before 27 October 1962, Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov saved your life. It was the most dangerous day in history. An American spy plane had been shot down over Cuba while another U2 had got lost and strayed into Soviet airspace. As these dramas ratcheted tensions beyond breaking point, an American destroyer, the USS Beale, began to drop depth charges on the B-59, a Soviet submarine armed with a nuclear weapon.

The captain of the B-59, Valentin Savitsky, had no way of knowing that the depth charges were non-lethal "practice" rounds intended as warning shots to force the B-59 to surface. The Beale was joined by other US destroyers who piled in to pummel the submerged B-59 with more explosives. The exhausted Savitsky assumed that his submarine was doomed and that world war three had broken out. He ordered the B-59's ten kiloton nuclear torpedo to be prepared for firing. Its target was the USS Randolf, the giant aircraft carrier leading the task force.

If the B-59's torpedo had vaporised the Randolf, the nuclear clouds would quickly have spread from sea to land. The first targets would have been Moscow, London, the airbases of East Anglia and troop concentrations in Germany. The next wave of bombs would have wiped out "economic targets", a euphemism for civilian populations – more than half the UK population would have died. Meanwhile, the Pentagon's SIOP, Single Integrated Operational Plan – a doomsday scenario that echoed Dr Strangelove's orgiastic Götterdämmerung – would have hurled 5,500 nuclear weapons against a thousand targets, including ones in non-belligerent states such as Albania and China.

Ironically, there might have been far fewer casualties within the US, Wilson notes, because "The very reason that Khrushchev sent missiles to Cuba was because the Soviet Union lacked a credible long range ICBM deterrent against a possible US attack." In other words, the US government considered European civilians to be "acceptable pawn sacrifices" should the Soviets launch a nuclear attack.

Fortunately, we don't know how that war would have turned out. Before the B-59 could launch its nuclear missle, all three of its senior officers had to agree. Two of the three officers said yes. Vasili Arkipov said no.

A recent PBS documentary tells the story. The entire Edward Wilson article is also worth reading for its analysis of how nuclear weapons still endanger the survival of life on Earth.

Hat tip to Brandon Wade for posting about Arkhipov on Facebook.