The World War III That Wasn’t.

Time to take another break from talking about myself. Instead, let us talk about Stanislav Petrov.

1983 was not a great year for calm, peace-seeking individuals.  This was the year that War Games came out.  And despite the fact Matthew Broderick was running around Seattle, trying to keep the peace, we still couldn’t fully accept that the only way to win a war game is not to play. 

The key date here is September 26^th.  The Soviets had a new computer program that they had calling the shots.  They had temperature sensors, pressure sensors, and seismographs that were calibrated to read symptoms of a nuclear strike.  If the U.S. started WWIII, the system would notice it and act decisively.

Satellite #5 detected an attack.  A “high reliability” was registered.  The big sign flashed, “Launch! Launch!”  Stanislav Petrov was on duty that day.  He saw all this.  He knew that the system thought that the U.S. was firing on them. 

Petrov had been involved in the development of the system.  He knew that it had been rushed.  That it was probably not 100% ready.  He believed that there was a computer glitch.  He thought that, given the U.S.’s style of attacking, it was highly unlikely that a single missile would be fired.  There should have been many, many more. 

Which is why he reset the system. The alarm came back.  “Launch! Launch!”  This time it registered four American cruise missiles fired.  The system still wanted Petrov and the Soviets to fire their missiles at the U.S. as a measured response.  Petrov reset the system.  And he reset it again. Half an hour passed and he refused to fire back.

There was no strict timeframe of when the Soviets were supposed to respond.  But everyone in the room knew that each moment wasted was time they would not have to retaliate if their resources were destroyed.  Petrov waited.  And waited.  After several minutes, the alarms cleared. 

What happened?  The cutting-edge system had picked up sunlight reflecting off clouds at a weird angle.  And it had registered those as cruise missiles. 

Petrov has been credited as single-handedly preventing a nuclear war.  He is often called, “The man who saved the world.” (There are some who say that it never would have gotten that far. Still, let us give the man credit for doing the right thing.)

So yes, one person can make a difference. And Petrov was not the only one.