The Man Who Saved the World - October 27, 1962 (bet U never heard of him)

by fulltimestudent 19 Replies latest social current

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  fulltimestudent

  October 27, 1962. A Soviet submarine was being bombed with depth charges by US warships who had detected the submarines presence in waters off Cuba.

  In the emergency the Soviet submarine Captain ordered a torpedo attack on the American warships. Problem was, the torpedo's were fitted with nuclear warheads. The submarine could not contact Moscow for authorisation. The emergency procedure was that the three senior officers had to make the authorisation. The Captain and one other senior officer agreed to blast the US ships out of the water. They turned to the second in command Vasily Alexandrovich Arhhipov for his agreement. He thought a few moments longer ... and said No!

  Can you imagine what would have transpired if he had said, Yes?

  The British BBC is making a film of the incident - look out for it.
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  fulltimestudent

  I guess that was the closest we came to the earth being a radioactive wasteland. The other occasion I know of was during the Korean War, when Douglas Macarthur wanted to drop a whole series of cobalt loaded nuclear weapons along the border between North korea and China.

  Was he insane?

  At any rate Truman eventually sacked him.
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  Giordano

  Castro sent a letter to Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis asking the Soviets to nuke the US. Khrushchev called him a mad man and that's when he decided to pull the missiles out of Cuba and put an end to the entire affair.
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  cofty

  Thanks I will look out for that.

  JFK and his advisers also deserve credit for keeping their nerve. The world came very close to the brink for a while.
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  fulltimestudent

  Thnx Giordano and cofty for reminding us of the parts played by Krusehchev and Kennedy. Yes. they certainly played a role (thankfully) I'd still celebrate Arkhipov over the two K's simply because at the coalface of possible nuclear war, he kept his cool. All his training as a Naval officer, his instincts to preserve his ship and crew, his patriotism, must have been pushing him to say, Yes!

  But he seems to have considered in that split moment of decision making, the greater good of humanity. He's dead now, but there should be a memorial to him, that could become a place for world pilgrimages for peace and bugger all the pollies.
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  talesin

  K-19 The Widowmaker

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-19:_The_Widowmaker
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  Leolaia

  That was on October 27.

  Over the next week, after the Cuban Missile crisis ended, there were four more close calls the first week of November.

  http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/10/31/cuban-missile-crisis-secret-revealed-four-soviet-submarines-came-within-moments-of-firing-nuclear-armed-torpedoes-at-u-s-fleet/

  Another lesson of "It ain't over till it's over".
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  Phizzy

  Phew ! we were close ! One other good thing to occur, not just the saving of the planet, but the events prompted Bob Dylan to write "A Hard Rains a Gonna Fall".
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  Refriedtruth

  It's all true

  With all due respect 911 Sept 11 2001 events were nothing compared to Cuban Crisis.

  There is a lot more to tell there were FOUR TIMES as many warheads than Kennedy knew about and there was no Soviet fail safe on launch it was as easy as turning one key and pushing a button (same as starting your car) to send 25 megatons on there way.

  Moeover many soviet launch crew members were drunk or hung over.
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  Refriedtruth

  October 27, 1962. A Soviet submarine was being bombed with depth charges by US warships who had detected the submarines presence in waters off Cuba.

  Seeking possible correction,I think they were dropping hand grenades to simulate depth charges just to 'piss off' the submariners