Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Stanislav Petrov: The Man Who Saved the World

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

I’ve done episodes before about people who have saved a large number of human lives. Mostly, these people have done so through inventions or innovations in fields like agriculture or medicine. What about people who prevented an impending disaster? Like when Superman stops an asteroid from hitting the Earth. Well, there was such a case, and thanks to the actions of a single man, millions of lives might have been saved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I've done episodes before about people who've saved a large number of human lives. Mostly these people have done so through inventions or innovations and fuels like agriculture or medicine. What about people who prevented an impending disaster, however, like when Superman stops an asteroid from hitting Earth? Well, there was such a case. And thanks to the actions of a single man, millions of lives and perhaps hundreds of millions of lives might have been saved. Learn more about Stanislav Petrov, the man who saved the world, on this episode. of everything everywhere daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep only to have your mind start racing the moment

your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow? That is exactly why Catherine Nicolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama, no tension, nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest.

And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing. You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. This episode is sponsored by Brilliant.org. Brilliant's mission is to inspire and develop people to achieve their goals in STEM, one person, one question, and one small commitment to learning at a time. They enable great teachers to illuminate the soul of math, science, and engineering through bite-sized interactive learning experiences. Their courses explore the laws that shape our world, elevating math and science from something to be feared to a delightful experience of guided discovery.

If you're interested in learning more about any STEM subject, go to everything-everywhere.com slash brilliant. Once again, that's everything-everwhere.com slash brilliant. In 1983, the Cold War was near its height. The number of nuclear warheads on Earth was at an all-time high. The Soviet Union and the United States were both on high alert, and each could launch a full-scale attack in a matter of minutes. The President of the United States was Ronald Reagan, who was a staunch cold warrior, and the leader of the Soviet Union was a former KGB chief named Yuri Andropov.

In September, things were especially tense. On September 1st, the Soviets had shot down a passenger aircraft, Korean Airlines flight 007, which had strayed over Sokolian Island in the Soviet. Union. 269 people on board were killed in the attack. Moreover, information leaked after the end of the Cold War, indicated that the Soviet Union was preparing for an eventual first strike by the United States. They initiated a program called Operation Ryan in 1981, which was organized by the then KGB chief and now Soviet leader, Yuri and Jobov.

This was the situation that the world was in when the events of this story took place on September 26, 1983. Stanislov Petrov was born in 1939 in Vladivostok. His father flew fighter aircraft in World War II, and Stanisloff followed in his father's footsteps by joining the Soviet Air Force. He graduated from the Kiev Higher Engineering Radio Technical College in 1972 and was assigned to the newly created Soviet Early Warning System. The system was designed to detect the launch of American nuclear missiles against the Soviet Union.

The Soviet early warning system had a similar purpose as the American early warning system. In the event that one side was to launch a first strike, the amount of time to detect the launch in order a retaliatory strike was shockingly short. The entire process would take just 30 minutes, which is the time it took for an intercontinental ballistic missile to travel from the U.S. to the Soviet Union. There was almost no time to verify if launch information was correct and no time to contact the Americans to negotiate. The Soviet system was designed that if there was evidence of a launch, notification of the launch was to be sent up the chain of command where the authority to authorize a counter-strike would reside.

By 1983, Petrov had risen up the ranks and had achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Soviet Air Force. Early in the morning of September 26, 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov was the duty officer on the night shift, overseeing the early warning system at the secret Soviet military facility called Serpakov 15 outside Moscow. Shortly after midnight, the moment that Stanislov Petrov had trained for, yet had hoped would never happen, happened. Sirens went off indicating that there was a ballistic missile launch from the United States.

According to Petrov, he said, quote, the siren howled, but I just sat there for a few seconds, staring at the big, backlit red screen with the word launch on it. Not only did the system indicate that there had been a launch, but it also showed that this data was of the highest level of confidence. A minute later, another siren went off, indicating that there was a second missile launch, and then a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. Petrov noted that something seemed very wrong with this. The Americans had hundreds of missiles. Everything in his training said that if the Americans launched a first strike,

they would launch hundreds of missiles with overwhelming force. Five missiles wasn't really overwhelming force. The whole point of a first strike was to remove the ability of the target to strike back. Five missiles wouldn't do that, even if they all hit important targets. As he told the Washington Post in an interview, quote, When people start a war, they don't start it with five missiles. Moreover, Petrov knew that the satellite detection system, which looked for missile launches, was brand new.

And on top of that, the ground-based radar installations were not showing any incoming missiles. The procedure for what was supposed to be done was very clear. Upon notification of a launch, the duty officer was to send this notification to his superiors who would then give the authorization to launch their missiles. Soviet policy dictated an immediate retaliatory strike in such an event, and this was very probable considering the political climate at the time and who was in charge. There were 200 people in the room with everyone looking at Lieutenant Colonel Petrov waiting for him to make a decision. The decision that Lieutenant Colonel Petrov made was to do nothing. He violated his orders and did not

contact his superiors notifying them of the launch warning. He went with his gut instincts over his standing orders. Within minutes, the lack of missiles falling on the Soviet Union would verify that his instincts were correct. Eventually, once the crisis had passed, his superiors were notified about what happened and there was an investigation. Initially, he was praised for his decision. General Yuri Votensev, commander of the Soviet Air Force's military defense units, said that Petrov did the right thing. However, he was subsequently reprimanded for improperly filing paperwork, which was more of a slap on the wrist for not following orders, even if by doing so it managed to avoid World War III.

In the end, he was neither rewarded nor punished. The incident was a major embarrassment for the Soviet establishment, which had created the satellite system. The satellites detected a missile launch by looking for the heat signature which comes from the rocket. That's why, to this day, Americans and Russians notify each other before a rocket is launched. What they believe happened on September 26, 1983, is that the Soviet satellites detected the light of the sun reflecting off the clouds at just the right angle. That was why the satellites detected a launch, but the ground-based radar didn't. Americans estimate that if the Soviets were to have launched, there might have been between 80 to 180 million deaths just on the American side. The Americans, of course, would have then responded in kind, killing an additional 50 to 110 million more people.

The story of Stanislov Petrov and what happened on September 26, 1983, wasn't released to the public for over 10 years. It wasn't until the Soviet Union collapsed that knowledge of that day became public. As it turns out, this wasn't the first or last time that a nuclear close call like this has happened. In 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet submarine was being hit with depth charges and thought that a war had already started. They were going to fire a nuclear torpedo at an American ship. But that action required three senior officers on board to be in agreement. One officer, Basilia Arkipov, dissented, and the nuclear torpedo was never launched. On January 25, 1995, the Soviets picked up another launch which was taken all the way up to Russian President Boris Yelsohn.

He declined to launch, and it turns out it was an American-Slaug-Norwegian research rocket, which was just not announced. As for Stanislav Petrov, he was quietly reassigned after the incident. He later left the military and had a nervous breakdown. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was eventually growing his own food to survive. When the story of the events of 1983 finally became public, Petrov was finally given the recognition he deserved. He was given several modest cash prizes by peace groups from around the world, which helped his financial situation immensely. Stanislav Petrov passed away in 2017 at the age of 77. When he died, he had the distinction of having perhaps saved him.

more lives in an immediate and direct fashion than any other person in human history. The associate producers of Everything Everywhere Daily are Peter Bennett and Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please join the list of patrons over at patreon.com. And also remember, if you leave a review or send me a question, you two can have it read on the show.