The one that didn't click
More than twenty years ago, Stanislav Petrov saved the world from thermonuclear war. Russia still prefers not to notice his feat
He had to press the button. Because everything pointed to a missile attack carried out by the United States on the USSR.
He had to press. After all, he, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, wrote the instructions prescribing to act this way and nothing else.
He had to. And he didn’t press.
JUDGMENT NIGHT
Foreigners tend to exaggerate my heroism - retired Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov is tired of talking about the “forgotten hero of the Cold War.” - What to take from them: well-fed, apolitical people. Sometimes half the address is written on the envelopes - “city of Fryazino, hero such and such” - and it gets through. And I was just doing my job. At the right moment in the right place.
The right moment was the night of September 26, 1983. That time when from there they say about us - “an evil empire”, and from here about them - “the American military, rattling warheads” plus the just shot down of a South Korean Boeing. The level is close to the maximum.
The right place is Serpukhov-15, the command post of the space early warning system - a missile attack warning system. The first line of detection for their "Minutemen" is right at the exit from the mines.
We gave the country's leadership additional time to think - 10 - 12 minutes. The remaining 15 minutes are already too late to think about. It is necessary to give orders to the missiles in order to spin up the gyroscopes and enter the flight mission.
Lieutenant Colonel Petrov was not the regular operational duty officer of the SPRN command post. It’s just that he - like other theoreticians and analysts of Serpukhov-15 - was put behind the control panel in this capacity a couple of times a month. So that the service does not seem like honey.
On the screen is the territory of the United States, as seen from satellites,” Petrov describes the familiar interior. - In the optical range, that is, just look and observe the missile bases there - and in the infrared. But just observing is not enough to make a decision. We need an impartial judge. That is, a computer.
On the night of September 26, the electronic judge probably decided it was time to pronounce a verdict. And he gave Petrov and his colleagues a “start” sign: the rocket had launched from one of the American bases.
The siren at the checkpoint is blaring with all its might, the red letters are blazing. The shock, of course, is colossal,” admits the lieutenant colonel. - Everyone jumped up from behind the consoles and looked at me. What about me? Everything is according to the instructions for operational duty officers, which I wrote myself. We did everything we needed to do. We checked the functioning of all systems. Thirty levels of verification, one after another. There are reports: everything coincides, the probability is two.
What's this?
This is the highest,” analyst Petrov smiles intelligently.
He answered approximately the same way a couple of years ago to American journalists who were asking from which exact base the Russian satellite had detected the launch: “What difference does it make to you? America wouldn’t exist anyway.” And then, in 1983, it wasn’t limited to just one start. The computer, an impartial judge, began to signal new launches: the second, third, fourth - from the same base. This is no longer called a “launch”, but a “missile attack”. And the letters on the board match, and the siren is worse than before. And directly, not in infrared, nothing is visible - this happened on ordinary days, and only according to the law of meanness...
That is, the choice of duty officer Petrov is very limited. Or press the button, and then the final decision must be made by Secretary General Andropov with his suitcase - knowing that in about fifteen minutes he will arrive from America. Or report to your superiors: “We are giving out false information,” and be responsible for the consequences yourself.
If, of course, there is someone to answer to and to whom.
You can’t really analyze anything in those two or three minutes,” Petrov argues twenty years later. - Intuition remains. I had two arguments. Firstly, missile attacks do not start from one base; they take off from all of them at once. Secondly, a computer, by definition, is a fool. You never know what he'll take for a launch...
Judging by the fact that we are sitting and talking, the lieutenant colonel settled on the second assumption. Although, according to Bruce Blair, director of the American Center for Defense Information, "that night, nuclear war was nowhere closer to us."
“I heard this,” says Petrov. - He knows better. Although your Western brother writers made such a big deal about that night... I read from the British: they say, when everything calmed down, the lieutenant colonel dropped half a liter of vodka right at the control panel and fell asleep for 28 hours.
Isn't that true?
Firstly, in Serpukhov-15 there was a prohibition law: only beer was brought into the military town, and even then not always. Secondly, I didn’t have to sleep for a few more days. Because the commissions have arrived...
DEBRIEFING
If we omit the technical details, it turned out that the computer was indeed a little crazy. That is, he’s at least somewhere, and thirty levels of protection are in order. But under certain conditions... in certain orbits... at a certain angle of the satellite lens and in the infrared spectrum... In general, an overlap occurred, by a certain number of megatons. “God’s joke from space,” as Stanislav Evgrafovich says.
And then, in Serpukhov-15, having not yet really understood the technology, the commission set to work on the living Petrov. And in a big way: the lieutenant colonel was personally taken into use by Colonel General Yuri Votintsev, who commanded the missile defense and anti-space defense of the USSR. Which didn’t exist officially at all then - just air defense, that’s all.
What’s interesting: upon arriving at the site, Votintsev promised to nominate me for promotion. And a little later he latched on: “Why wasn’t your combat log filled out at that time?” - recalls the lieutenant colonel. “I explain to him that in one hand I had a receiver, through which I reported the situation to my superiors, in the other, a microphone, which amplified my commands for my subordinates. Therefore, there is nothing to write about. But he doesn’t let up: “Why didn’t he fill it out later, when the alarm was over?” Yeah, now... so that you can sit down later, when the first investigator picks up the same handset and microphone and tries to keep a log in real time? This is pure fraud...
In short, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov did not receive any encouragement from Colonel General Votintsev for preventing World War III. But I only received a scolding from the boss. What the lieutenant colonel personally understands:
If I was rewarded for that incident, then someone else had to suffer greatly for it. First of all, those who developed the early warning system. Great academics who were allocated huge billions. Therefore, it’s also good that I didn’t completely ruin the magazine...
"I WENT MYSELF"
Nobody kicked me out of the army, again that’s not true,” Petrov again leafs through Western newspapers. - The colonel, as usually happens when leaving, was not assigned, that’s true. And so he left on his own, after a few months. Do you know how they alerted us? Sitting at home or sleeping - a phone call. And in the tube there is music: “Get up, the country is huge.” Get dressed and go to the object. For a day or more, depending on the circumstances. And these calls mostly came at night, on weekends and on holidays - so I hated both of them...
The situation at home was also not conducive to continuing the service: Petrov’s wife almost never got up (“In short, it’s a brain tumor. If it’s long, then she’s been sick for thirty years”). So he and his family left for Fryazino, near Moscow, into the defense industry - but as a civilian. He received a panel apartment, but he was not given a dacha plot so that he could take his sick wife out into the countryside. Soon his wife died, so Stanislav Evgrafovich’s dacha is now unnecessary. True, there is a pension - five thousand rubles. For thirty years of military service with length of service and another ten - in the defense industry.
NEW LIFE
The same Colonel General Votintsev declassified the September night of 1983 and Petrov himself in an interview in the early 90s. Then it started. Articles in the most famous Western publications, television filming, and sometimes invitations. Not from governments - just from people. For example, Stanislav Evgrafovich was driven around Europe by a German man named Karl - a rich man, a businessman. Like many in the West, Karl considers Petrov a hero. Without whom there would be nothing and no one today. Even Karl himself and his business.
Even though Karl himself is the owner of a chain of funeral homes.
From that public life, Stanislav Petrov was left with a palm-thick stack of journalistic business cards and several folders of articles about himself - German, English, American. There are Russian ones there too, three of them. The last one is from six years ago, from a newspaper owned by the Presidential Administration. Her correspondent arrived in Fryazino following a letter sent to Yeltsin: a certain lady in New Zealand also heard about Petrov and asked our president if Russia had helped its hero in any way. But he is no hero, the article says. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. And, to his credit, he admits it himself. And it’s a long time ago - ’83, no joke...
And recently Petrov spent several months at home: his legs were swollen mercilessly. Local doctor - therapist. But it is needed for vessels, but such a one does not go from house to house. And he needs to be paid, but the Petrovs have five thousand rubles between them. Unemployment, yes: they don’t hire a son who is a computer scientist into the Fryazino defense industry (and there’s really nothing else in the city, and you can’t get far from a sick father), nor a lieutenant colonel to work as a janitor (and he wouldn’t mind). Stanislav Evgrafovich didn’t even go to the polls because of his legs. Although I wanted to - both in December and March. For whom?
Funny question. He works for Russia. “And I love my country,” explains the lieutenant colonel.
In six months he will be sixty-five.
Recently, those events took place twenty years ago. Another wave of articles has passed - in the West, of course. They call Petrov to America, they want to present him with an award - Honorary Citizen of the World. They remember there, almost like in that song - that there was one who didn’t click.
And here? Funny question.
Permanent address of the article:
http://www.flb.ru/info/27637.html
On September 26, 1983, Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov was on duty at the Serpukhov-15 command post, 100 km from Moscow. The Cold War was in full swing. Petrov's task was to monitor the sensors of the space early warning system for the launch of nuclear missiles. If the sensors signaled a nuclear attack, Petrov's duty would be to immediately notify the country's leadership, who would decide whether to retaliate.
So, on September 26, the computer notified Petrov about the launch of missiles from an American base. Despite the terrible threat, the lieutenant colonel maintained complete composure. He analyzed the sensor readings and was confused by the fact that the missiles were launched from just one point, and there were only a few missiles themselves. Petrov came to the conclusion that there was a case of system failure and did not notify the high command. As it later turned out, the sensors were illuminated by sunlight reflected from the clouds. This issue has been fixed.
Petrov’s iron self-control may have saved all of our lives, because if a nuclear war had started because of this mistake, the consequences would have been devastating.
On January 19, 2006 in New York at the UN headquarters, Stanislav Petrov was presented with a special award from the international public organization “Association of World Citizens”. It is a crystal figurine of “Hand Holding the Globe” with the inscription “To the Man Who Prevented Nuclear War” engraved on it.
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While the Nobel Committee is choosing which of the current candidates to award the Peace Prize, I remembered this story.
Stanislav Petrov is the man who prevented nuclear war in 1983.
Dry information from Wikipedia:
“On the night of September 26, 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov was the operational duty officer of the Serpukhov-15 command post, located 100 km from Moscow. At that time, the Cold War was at its peak: three and a half weeks ago, the Soviet Union shot down a South Korean passenger Boeing- 747.
The command post, where Petrov was on duty, received information from the space early warning system that had been put into service a year earlier. In the event of a missile attack, the country's leadership was immediately notified, which made a decision on a retaliatory strike.
On September 26, while Petrov was on duty, the computer reported the launch of missiles from an American base. However, after analyzing the situation (“the launches were made from only one point and consisted of only a few intercontinental ballistic missiles”), Lieutenant Colonel Petrov decided that this was a false alarm of the system.
A subsequent investigation determined that the cause was the satellite's sensors being illuminated by sunlight reflected from high-altitude clouds. Later, changes were made to the space system to eliminate such situations.
Due to military secrecy and political considerations, Petrov's actions became known to the general public only in 1988.
On January 19, 2006, at the UN headquarters in New York, Stanislav Petrov was presented with a special award from the international public organization “Association of World Citizens.” It is a crystal figurine of “Hand Holding the Globe” with the inscription “To the Man Who Prevented Nuclear War” engraved on it.
After his retirement, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov lives and works in Fryazino, near Moscow."
The Nobel Prize is given for achievements that have influenced the entire life of mankind. They are given for discoveries that could actually have been made decades ago and have proven their value over time. Nobel prizes are given for books written a long time ago: so that their value can be proven by time. They are given alive, although this year the committee made an exception. And only the Peace Prize has been a constant source of bewilderment in recent years.
So: in my opinion, the actions that Colonel Petrov took saved the world from a nuclear disaster: if he had been mistaken in his assessments, we all might not have existed at all. Perhaps, together with the planet on which we all live. The accuracy of his assessment has been confirmed by time, and its significance is difficult to underestimate. He is our contemporary and a completely worthy candidate from our country.
I would very much like it to be remembered not only about politicians (whose actions cannot always be unequivocally assessed over the course of one life) when deciding who should receive the Peace Prize.
And just a good story with a happy ending. Just what you need on a warm and sunny Friday.
“The shift started as usual, at 20:00 I came to work. On that day, I had 80 military personnel under my command. We were doing what we usually do, just routine... At 00:15, I will never forget this time, the sirens began to wail. The word “START” suddenly appeared on the screen opposite my workstation. There you could also see a map of North America and a small square near a military base, it was from there that the missiles were flying.
“One hundred and one, one hundred and first! - the speakers screamed. - This is one hundred and second. Ground assets, spacecraft and combat programs are functioning normally.” “One hundred and first. “One hundred and three says,” was heard next, “the target was not detected by visual means.” “I understand,” Petrov replied.”
“I had only a few minutes to report to the country’s leadership about the threat. The missiles were supposed to explode on our territory in just half an hour,” the officer said. “It seemed to me that my head had turned into a computer - a lot of data, but they were not formed into a single whole. I called management 2 minutes later and said into the phone that it was a false alarm and the computer had malfunctioned. Now all that remained was to wait until the missiles, if they were really launched, would invade our airspace and be detected by radar. This should have happened in 18 minutes, but it didn’t.”
“All data from our computer is duplicated to higher authorities. But there is surprise: why is there no confirmation from me? A couple of minutes later - a call on government communications. I pick up the phone and report to the person on duty: “I’m giving you false information.” He answered briefly: “Got it.” I am grateful to this person who communicated clearly, without unnecessary phrases and questions at that moment. And then the system roared again. The second rocket went off. And the letters “START” light up again. And then within three minutes three more times. The caption changed to "ROCKET ATTACK".
“You can’t really analyze anything in those two or three minutes. What remains is intuition. I had two arguments. Firstly, missile attacks do not start from one base; they take off from all of them at once. Secondly, a computer, by definition, is a fool. You never know what he might mistake for a launch.”
“From the very beginning it was strange that the radar showed a launch from only one base; this does not happen during a missile attack. Only six months later it became known what had caused the false alarm: the rays of the sun reflected from the Earth in a certain way and illuminated the satellite. As luck would have it, it happened right above a military base.”
“They prophesied the order. But inspections began and many violations were found. They changed their mind about rewarding me. We're stuck: why isn't your combat journal filled out? I answer: how would I do this if I had a telephone receiver in one hand and a microphone in the other? I gave the commands at that moment.”
Yesterday marked exactly 35 years since the day when a real war almost began between America and the USSR.
On September 26, 1983, planet Earth survived thanks to Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov.
Making choices and taking responsibility for them is never easy. Even when it comes only to your own life. It is even more difficult to choose if the fate of people depends on this decision.
Life on a string
September 26, 1983 to Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov the fate of billions of human lives had to be decided. Moreover, to decide in conditions when there were only a few seconds left to think about it.
In the fall of 1983, the world seemed to have gone crazy. American President Ronald Reagan, obsessed with the idea of a “crusade” against the Soviet Union, brought the intensity of hysteria in the West to the limit. The incident with the South Korean Boeing, shot down in the Far East on September 1, also contributed to this.
After this, in the USA and other countries, the hottest heads in all seriousness called for “revenge” on the USSR, including with the use of nuclear weapons.
The Soviet Union was headed by that time by a seriously ill Yuri Andropov, and in general the composition of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee was not distinguished by youth and health. However, there was no one willing to give in to the adversary and give in to him. And in general, American pressure was perceived extremely negatively in Soviet society. It is generally difficult to scare a country that survived the Great Patriotic War.
At the same time, there was anxiety in the air. It seemed like everything was really hanging by a thin thread.
Analyst from a military dynasty
At this time, in the closed military town of Serpukhov-15, the operational duty officer of the command post of the space missile attack warning system was Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov.
In the Petrov family, three generations of men were military men, and Stanislav continued the dynasty. Having graduated from the Kiev Higher Engineering Radio Engineering School in 1972, he arrived in 1972 to serve in Serpukhov-15.
Petrov was responsible for the proper functioning of the satellites that were part of the missile attack warning system. The work is extremely difficult, calls for services occurred at night, on weekends, and on holidays - any problems had to be resolved promptly.
Lieutenant Colonel Petrov was the chief analyst at Serpukhov-15, and not a regular duty officer at the command post. However, about twice a month, analysts also took a place at the desk on duty.
And the situation when it was necessary to decide the fate of the world fell precisely on Stanislav Petrov’s watch.
A random person could not become a duty officer at such a facility. The training lasted up to two years, despite the fact that all officers already had a higher military education. Each time the duty officers received detailed instructions.
However, everyone already understood what they were responsible for. A sapper makes only one mistake - an old truth. But the sapper risks only himself, and a mistake by the person on duty at such a facility could cost the lives of hundreds of millions and billions of people.
Phantom attack
On the night of September 26, 1983, the missile attack warning system dispassionately recorded the launch of a combat missile from one of the American bases. In the hall of the duty shift in Serpukhov-15, sirens howled. All eyes turned to Lieutenant Colonel Petrov.
He acted in strict accordance with the instructions - he checked the functioning of all systems. Everything turned out to be in good condition, and the computer persistently pointed to “two” - this is the code for the highest probability that a missile attack on the USSR is actually happening.
Moreover, the system recorded several more launches from the same missile base. According to all the computer data, the United States of America started a nuclear war against the Soviet Union.
Despite all the preparation, Stanislav Petrov himself later admitted that he was in deep shock. My legs were weak.
According to the instructions, the lieutenant colonel was then supposed to report the US attack to the head of state, Yuri Andropov. After this, the Soviet leader would have had 10-12 minutes to make a decision and give the command to retaliate. And then both countries will disappear in the flames of nuclear fires.
Moreover, Andropov’s decision would be based precisely on the military’s information, and the likelihood that a blow would be struck against the United States is extremely high.
It is unknown how a regular duty officer would have behaved, but chief analyst Petrov, who had worked with the system for many years, allowed himself not to believe it. Years later, he said that he proceeded from the postulate that a computer, by definition, is a fool. The likelihood that the system was wrong was reinforced by another purely practical consideration - it is extremely doubtful that the United States, having started a war against the USSR, would have struck from only one base. But no launches were noted from other American bases.
As a result, Petrov decided to consider the signal about a nuclear attack to be false. I informed all services about this by phone. True, in the operational duty officer’s room there was only a special connection, and Petrov sent his assistant to the next room to call on a regular phone.
He sent me simply because the lieutenant colonel’s own legs wouldn’t obey him.
The Fate of Humanity and the Blank Journal
Only Stanislav Petrov knows what it was like to survive the next few tens of minutes. What if he was wrong, and nuclear charges now begin to explode in Soviet cities?
But there were no explosions. Lieutenant Colonel Petrov was not mistaken. The world, without knowing it, received the right to life from the hands of a Soviet officer.
As it turned out later, the cause of the false alarm was a flaw in the system itself, namely the illumination of the sensors of the satellite included in the system with sunlight reflected from high-altitude clouds. The deficiency was corrected, and the missile attack warning system successfully continued its operation.
And immediately after the emergency, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov received a stick from his superiors because during the inspection he did not have his combat log filled out. Petrov himself logically asked: what for? A telephone receiver in one hand, a microphone in the other, American missile launches in front of your eyes, a siren in your ears, and you need to decide the fate of humanity in a matter of seconds. And you can’t add anything later, not in real time – it’s a criminal offense.
On the other hand, General Yuri Votintsev, Petrov’s boss, can also be understood - the world was brought to the brink of a nuclear disaster, there must be someone to blame? Getting to the creators of the system is not so easy, but the person on duty is right there. And even if he saved the world, he didn’t fill out the journal?!
It's just that kind of work
However, no one began to punish the lieutenant colonel for this incident. The service continued as usual. But after some time, Stanislav Petrov quit himself - he was simply tired of the irregular working hours and endless worries.
He continued to work on space systems, but as a civilian specialist.
The world learned about who he owed his life to only 10 years later. Moreover, none other than General Yuri Votintsev spoke about this in the Pravda newspaper, who mercilessly denounced Lieutenant Colonel Petrov for an unfilled journal.
From that moment on, journalists began to constantly visit the retired lieutenant colonel, who lived modestly in the Moscow region. Letters also came from ordinary people who thanked Petrov for saving the world.
In January 2006, at the UN headquarters in New York, Stanislav Petrov was presented with a special award from the international public organization “Association of World Citizens.” It is a crystal figurine of “Hand Holding the Globe” with the inscription engraved on it "To the man who prevented nuclear war".
In February 2012, in Baden-Baden, Stanislav Petrov was awarded the German Media Prize. In February 2013, the retired lieutenant colonel became a laureate of the Dresden Prize, awarded for the prevention of armed conflicts.
Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov himself said about himself in one of his interviews:
“I’m just a regular officer who did his job. It’s bad when you start thinking about yourself more than you’re worth.”
It became known that Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov died in May 2017 at the age of 77 from congestive pneumonia. His son confirmed the information about his father's death.
Andrey Sidorchik
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