{"id":1175,"date":"2009-10-10T20:46:35","date_gmt":"2009-10-11T01:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bspcn.com\/?p=1175"},"modified":"2009-10-10T20:46:35","modified_gmt":"2009-10-11T01:46:35","slug":"the-5-minute-decision-that-saved-the-world-in-1983","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/10\/the-5-minute-decision-that-saved-the-world-in-1983\/","title":{"rendered":"The 5 Minute Decision that Saved the World in 1983"},"content":{"rendered":"
Written by Gimundo<\/a><\/p>\n Ever heard of Stanislav Petrov?<\/p>\n Probably not\u2014but you may very well owe him your life.<\/p>\n Petrov, a former member of the Soviet military, didn\u2019t actually do anything but that\u2019s precisely the point.<\/p>\n In 1983, Petrov held a very important station: As lieutenant colonel, he was in charge of monitoring the Soviet Union\u2019s satellites over the United States, and watching for any sign of unauthorized military action<\/a>.<\/p>\n This was the Cold War era, and suspicions were high; on September 1, the Soviet Union had mistakenly shot down a Korean aircraft it had believed to be a military plane, killing 269 civilians, including an American Congressman. The Soviet Union believed that the United States might launch a missile attack at any moment, and that they would be forced to respond with their own arsenal of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n Several weeks after the airplane disaster, on September 23, another officer called in sick, so Petrov was stuck working a double shift at a secret bunker, monitoring satellite activity, when \u201csuddenly the screen in front of me turned bright red,\u201d Petrov told BBC News<\/a>. \u201cAn alarm went off. It was piercing, loud enough to raise a dead man from his grave.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the system, the United States<\/a> had launched five missiles, which were rapidly heading into Soviet territory. The U.S.S.R. was under attack.<\/p>\n All Petrov had to do was push the flashing red button on the desk in front of him, and the Soviets would retaliate with their own battery of missiles, launching a full-scale nuclear war.<\/p>\n \u201cFor fifteen seconds, we were in a state of shock,\u201d he told The Washington Post<\/em><\/a>. \u201cWe needed to understand, what\u2019s next?\u201d<\/p>\n Though the bunker atmosphere was chaotic, Petrov, who had trained as a scientist, took the time to analyze the data carefully before making his decision. He realized that, if the U.S. did attack, they would be unlikely to launch a mere five missiles at once. And when he studied the system\u2019s ground-based radar, he could see no evidence of oncoming missiles.<\/p>\n He still couldn\u2019t say for sure what was going on, but \u201cI had a funny feeling in my gut,\u201d he told The Post<\/em>. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to make a mistake. I made a decision, and that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n Luckily for all of us, he decided not to push that button. Later, his instincts were proven right\u2014the malfunctioning system had given him a false alarm, and the U.S. had not deployed any missiles. Thanks to Petrov\u2019s cool head, nuclear war had been narrowly averted, and millions of lives were saved.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Petrov didn\u2019t exactly receive a heroic reward from the Soviet military: Embarrassed by their own mistakes, and angry at Petrov for breaking military protocol, they forced him into early retirement with a pension of $200 a month. Petrov\u2019s brave act was kept secret from the outside world until the 1998 publication of a book by one of Petrov\u2019s fellow officers, who witnessed his courage on that terrifying night.<\/p>\n Since the book\u2019s publication, Petrov has been honored by the United Nations and presented with a World Citizen Award, and there has been talk of giving him the Nobel Prize. Still, the humble Russian scientist plays down his role in averting a nuclear crisis: \u201cI was simply the right person in the right time, that was all,\u201d he said in the upcoming documentary, The Red Button and the Man Who Saved the World<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve got to disagree with him. Sure, he may have done nothing but in this case, it might just be the hardest thing to do.<\/p>\n