Stanislav Petrov, who averted possible nuclear war, dies at 77
A former Soviet
military officer credited with averting a possible nuclear disaster at the peak
of the Cold War has died at the age of 77.
Stanislav Petrov was
on duty at a Russian nuclear early warning centre in 1983 when computers
wrongly detected incoming missiles from the US. He took the decision
that they were a false alarm and did not report them to his superiors. His actions, which
came to light years later, possibly prevented nuclear war. Petrov died at his
home in Moscow in May but his death has only now been made public. In an interview with
the BBC in 2013, Petrov told how he had received computer readouts in the early
hours of the morning of 26 September 1983 suggesting several US missiles had
been launched. "I had all the
data [to suggest there was an ongoing missile attack]. If I had sent my report
up the chain of command, nobody would have said a word against it," he
said. "All I had to do
was to reach for the phone; to raise the direct line to our top commanders -
but I couldn't move. I felt like I was sitting on a hot frying pan."
Although his training
dictated he should contact the Soviet military immediately, Petrov instead
called the duty officer at army headquarters and reported a system malfunction. If he had been wrong,
the first nuclear blasts would have happened minutes later. "Twenty-three
minutes later I realised that nothing had happened. If there had been a real
strike, then I would already know about it. It was such a relief," he
recalled. A later investigation
concluded that Soviet satellites had mistakenly identified sunlight reflecting
on clouds as the engines of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Petrov, who retired
with the rank of lieutenant colonel, died on 19 May but news of his passing
became widely known only this month, thanks to a chance phone call. German film-maker Karl
Schumacher, who first brought Petrov's story to an international audience,
telephoned him to wish him a happy birthday on 7 September only to be informed
by his son, Dmitry Petrov, that he had passed away. Mr Schumacher
announced the death online and it was eventually picked up by media outlets. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
The 2013 report:
On 26 September 1983, the world was saved from potential nuclear disaster.
In the early hours of
the morning, the Soviet Union's early-warning systems detected an incoming
missile strike from the United States. Computer readouts suggested several
missiles had been launched. The protocol for the Soviet military would have
been to retaliate with a nuclear attack of its own. But duty officer
Stanislav Petrov - whose job it was to register apparent enemy missile launches
- decided not to report them to his superiors, and instead dismissed them as a
false alarm. This was a breach of
his instructions, a dereliction of duty. The safe thing to do would have been
to pass the responsibility on, to refer up. But his decision may
have saved the world.
There was no rule
about how long we were allowed to think before we reported a strike. But we
knew that every second of procrastination took away valuable time - Stanislav
Petrov
"I had all the
data [to suggest there was an ongoing missile attack]. If I had sent my report
up the chain of command, nobody would have said a word against it," he
told the BBC's Russian Service 30 years after that overnight shift. Mr Petrov - who
retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel and now lives in a small town near
Moscow - was part of a well-trained team which served at one of the Soviet
Union's early warning bases, not far from Moscow. His training was rigorous,
his instructions very clear.
'Couldn't move': His job was to
register any missile strikes and to report them to the Soviet military and
political leadership. In the political climate of 1983, a retaliatory strike
would have been almost certain. And yet, when the
moment came, he says he almost froze in place. "The siren
howled, but I just sat there for a few seconds, staring at the big, back-lit,
red screen with the word 'launch' on it," he says. The system was telling
him that the level of reliability of that alert was "highest". There
could be no doubt. America had launched a missile.
"A minute later
the siren went off again. The second missile was launched. Then the third, and
the fourth, and the fifth. Computers changed their alerts from 'launch' to
'missile strike'," he says.
Mr Petrov smokes cheap
Russian cigarettes as he relates the incidents he must have played over
countless times in his mind. "There was no
rule about how long we were allowed to think before we reported a strike. But
we knew that every second of procrastination took away valuable time; that the
Soviet Union's military and political leadership needed to be informed without
delay.
"All I had to do
was to reach for the phone; to raise the direct line to our top commanders -
but I couldn't move. I felt like I was sitting on a hot frying pan," he
told us. Although the nature of
the alert seemed to be abundantly clear, Mr Petrov had some doubts. Alongside IT
specialists, like him, Soviet Union had other experts, also watching America's
missile forces. A group of satellite radar operators told him they had
registered no missiles.
But those people were
only a support service. The protocol said, very clearly, that the decision had
to be based on computer readouts. And that decision rested with him, the duty
officer. But what made him
suspicious was just how strong and clear that alert was. "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," says the retired officer. Mr Petrov called the
duty officer in the Soviet army's headquarters and reported a system
malfunction.
If he was wrong, the
first nuclear explosions would have happened minutes later. "Twenty-three
minutes later I realised that nothing had happened. If there had been a real
strike, then I would already know about it. It was such a relief," he says
with a smile.
'Lucky it was me' : Now, 30 years on, Mr
Petrov thinks the odds were 50-50. He admits he was never absolutely sure that
the alert was a false one. He says he was the
only officer in his team who had received a civilian education. "My
colleagues were all professional soldiers, they were taught to give and obey
orders," he told us. So, he believes, if
somebody else had been on shift, the alarm would have been raised.
A few days later Mr
Petrov received an official reprimand for what happened that night. Not for
what he did, but for mistakes in the logbook. He kept silent for 10
years. "I thought it was shameful for the Soviet army that our system
failed in this way," he says. But, after the
collapse of the Soviet Union, the story did get into the press. Mr Petrov
received several international awards. But he does not think
of himself as a hero. "That was my
job", he says. "But they were lucky it was me on shift that
night."
