On October 27, 1962, a man you’ve never heard of saved your life …
It was at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. and Soviet Union were on hair trigger alert for World War Three.
And an order to launch a nuclear missile against Americans was actually given by the commander and political officer of a Soviet nuclear submarine.
One man stopped global nuclear war.
Edward Wilson explains in the Guardian:
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.
***
The decision not to start world war three was not taken in the Kremlin or the White House, but in the sweltering control room of a submarine. The launch of the B-59’s nuclear torpedo required the consent of all three senior officers aboard. Arkhipov was alone in refusing permission. It is certain that Arkhipov’s reputation was a key factor in the control room debate. The previous year the young officer had exposed himself to severe radiation in order to save a submarine with an overheating reactor. That radiation dose eventually contributed to his death in 1998.
PBS’ The Man Who Saved the World adds details:
Just how close the world came to complete destruction during those dark October days has only recently come to light.
***
“I now believe that it could have meant the end of humanity.”
***
“I saw Defence Secretary McNamara, take Dean Rusk to the side and said, ‘The sun is setting, it could be the last sunset we will ever see.’ And that’s when I got scared.”
***
“There is a specific signal that we have, and that is 3 explosions, grenade explosions, which means you have to surface.
I don’t know what the Americans were doing, but it wasn’t three…”
The American signal to surface is different from the Russians …
***
[The commander and political officer of the Russian nuclear sub both command the launch of a nuclear weapon against the Americans. But Arkhipov said:]
“We don’t know that this is an attack – for all we know they are trying to surface us…”
The future of the world now rests on Vasili Arkhipov’s shoulders…
***
[Gary Slaughter, signalman aboard the American destroyer USS Cony:] “God only bless the man because err, what would have happened after that? We would have been a nuclear war with Soviet Russia, and there would maybe perhaps not be a world.”
We only avoided a nuclear war because one man – Arkhipov – put down his foot and said no.
Postscript: We are also grateful to American military heroes – many of them anonymous – who have blown the whistle on things which could also have led to nuclear war.
Unfortunately, Michel Chossudovsky documents In Towards a World War III Scenario that the U.S. is currently so enamored with nuclear weapons that it has authorized low-level field commanders to use them in the heat of battle in their sole discretion … without any approval from civilian leaders.
Given that top Russians, Americans and Poles say that we’re once again drifting towards a nuclear confrontation with Russia, cool-headed, ethical commanders may be our best chance of preventing catastrophe.
http://listverse.com/2010/11/28/8-potentially-world-ending-nuclear-scares/
Take a look at #8 - a black bear almost ended civilization!
I spent much of my life with officers. He did good. Probably the best, but among the core we just acknowledge his victory.
Its our conditioning. But given time, ie. surviving, that wears off and leads to perceptual bias. Cog Diss. /ht
I didn't walk the path, I marched it. I did my best in situations you don't describe as combat, and I'm a field veteran. This is definitely combat on the fields of finance and economology. Heads rolling at this rate is a good thing. Progress.
I went with my brothers. They didn't all make it. Thats the price. No matter what your measure, you can't buy a singe life.
As a soldier they didn't tell me shit. Same same you. There is no monthly check that will bend me, I didn't line up for that. I lined up because of that, to prevent it.
So I belong here. With me, My brothers come. Figure that out, Senator.
Huge bless'ed grace for all you have done good sir. All your deeds are known, good and bad. Have peace at the end of the day for speaking your truth to power, for following the heart that only knows the path of Love.
Forgiveness is what it is and it is not a sin to forgive yourself. Take heart to know you are loved and appreciated for the good you do each day from this second forth, until you take your last breath.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs
Funny coincidence: I just watched "Sum of All Fears" last night.
The book was good, the movie sucked. The Manchurian Candidate remake was better. Even that was a waste of time, unless you enjoy watching overpaid shills patting themselves on the back as they leech other people's ideas onto the preferred medium of sheep. And wolves dressed up as sheep.
Seeing it for the first time, it didn't suck. I actually enjoyed it -- although the lead, whatshisname, was too pretty for the part and not a convincing ass-kicker. If I read the book I might agree, though. Morgan Freeman is good in just about anything.
Morgan Freeman is no James Earl Jones. Lowering the bar to catch all you low hanging fruits...
This captain is stone white.
? Clancy ?
that's how he earns his freckles.
I read the book; it was great. But, as far as movies go .... The Sum of All Fears was pretty good (IMHO of course)
War is when governments tell you who is the enemy.
Revolution is when you finally figure out who is the real enemy.
Very true, thanks.
This Russian was playing the long game.
This was about the time that Obama was born, right?
Correct, somewhere in Kenya.
That Kenya story is smoke in your eyes, a diversion from the deeper questions around who is this man Barack Obama and what's he doing in the Presidency.
The more important story is I believe the one brought out by Wayne Madsen in four articles on his blog in 2010, about Obama's deep family involvement with the CIA going back three generations, and the multiple lines of evidence that the CIA groomed him and paved his way.
This is the background story that helps make sense of the mayhem he has so coolly produced, left right and center, and the paralysis he has induced in the people. The story that explains how a man could so easily appear from nowhere, take the leadership of the Democratic Party speaking like a cross between Jesus and Gandhi, and then while still talking like a socialist bail out the banks, vastly expand the US policy of wars and politics by death squad, and smoothly undermine and repeal our rights and freedoms on all fronts. It is the story around which all the enemies of tyranny and opression could unite.
The Kenya Birth story on the other hand is another piece of raw meat - fabricated or not - that was tossed into the media-sponsored left-right shout-fest, another unresolvable issue setting us against each other in battles that go nowhere.
WhyWait-- I absolutly agree. These mouth-breathing goofs who blather about, repeating stale jokes about Obama being a muslim, born in Kenya, missing a birth certificate, etc., do disservice to the facts that are both real and tangible.
I loathe Obama and think that he's been a disaster to the USA, but it becomes more difficult to convince others of this, persons who assume that because you oppose Obama, it's probably because you're a birther, racist, or conspiracy-nut. In this, it's safe to say that the name-calling and slander does serve the neocon/Obama interests well.
OH YEAH!?!? AND HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE PHOTOSHOP FILE THAT SAYS HE’S FROM HAWAI!!?!
Funny how many times it's come to light that a RUSSIAN refused to launch a nuclear weapon - it's happened a few times.
Yet we have so many neo-cons in the US all too willing to do so.
I wish you would accurately change that to neo progressives. I haven't seen a conservative in my lifetime.
..and a history of actually doing so...
... _ _ _ ...
... _ _ _ ...
and that was a good thing. After 50 years, WW II secrets have been declassified showing the Purple Code disclosed Japan was a few months from testing their own nuclear bomb in August 1945. Their testing site was in the northern Korean peninsula. When Russia declared war on Japan in 1945, their very first move was to invade northern Korea and seize this testing site. History, factual and frightening considering Nanking, Pearl Harbor, Battan and the brainwashing the Japanese citizens had gotten in order to motivate them to fight invaders.
The civilian cliff-jumping suicides on Okinawa were a measure of that propaganda's effectiveness. The thermite fire bombing of Tokyo was far deadlier than either nuclear blast, so whining about nukes doesn't cut it regarding absolute body counts.
Dup
Dup
How quickly we forget. In 2007 N weapons were "accidentally" loaded abaord an aircraft that just may have ended up in the Middle East. It is said that the enlisted fellow who stopped it all died later under suspicious circumstances. From Wikipedia:
The 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident occurred on 29–30 August 2007. Six AGM-129 ACM cruise missiles, each loaded with a W80-1 variable yield nuclear warhead, were mistakenly loaded onto a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52H heavy bomber at Minot Air Force Base and transported to Barksdale Air Force Base.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapon...
W80 Mod1 dial-a-yield warheads?
For best results, crank it up to 11!
interesting speculation about gary powers and the u2 capture in this, as well as much more:
http://smile.amazon.com/JFK-9-11-Years-Deep-State/dp/1615776311/ref=sr_1...