Transcription
Foreign. [Music] The word "hero" is defined simply as "...someone who does something out of the ordinary to accomplish a difficult task, often at great personal risk." Throughout history, many people have earned that title. During the Cold War, there were many examples, but one man became a hero not through combat heroics or risking his life to save another person. He risked his life and the lives of millions of people around the world by simply not panicking in a very tense situation. Who was Stanislav Petrov? What made him perhaps the greatest hero in all of history? Why is he virtually unknown even in his own country?
Hello, I'm Colin Heaton, a veteran of the United States Army and Marine Corps, former history professor, book author, and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History. [Music] [Music]
On September 1st, 1983, Korean Airlines flight 007, inbound from New York to Seoul, South Korea, stopped in Anchorage, Alaska for refueling. After takeoff, it wandered off course and entered Soviet airspace over Kamchatka, and then again it entered Soviet airspace over the top secret Soviet facilities over Sakhalin Island. In addition, American submarines ran a constant game of cat and mouse with their Soviet counterparts as both sides gathered information. Given the aerial intrusion, the Soviets reacted; the Soviet Air Force Defense command launched the Mig-23 and Su-15 fighters to identify, observe, and deter the aircraft. The order to shoot it down was given, but why? Cold War tensions were high on both sides, but especially for the USSR. That decision to shoot down was made by the air defense director Anatoli Kornukov. Soviet Su-15 pilot Gennady Osipovich and his fellow pilots followed KAL 007. The 747 was shadowed for 20 minutes as ground radar and surveillance was also tracking an American RC-135 spy plane on an intelligence gathering mission in the same area. Osipovich received the order, and he fired his two missiles. KAL 007 was blown out of the sky, killing all 269 persons on board the 747. All of these factors combined made what happened next all the more tense.
Lt. Colonel Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov was assigned to the Soviet Union strategic rocket forces monitoring American and NATO activity regarding ballistic missile launches. Their secondary function was to create a satellite early warning system to assist in their ability to detect missile launches anywhere in the world. Nine satellites orbited the Earth as the only primary early warning system. On September 26, 1983, Petrov was about to make a decision that would either destroy or save the world. On that day, Petrov took over command of the location labeled Serpikov 15 when, just after 2200 hours, his warning system went off. This indicated that their system had identified an American attack. His displays signaled a specific location for the American missile launch. One missile was shown to have been fired. The Soviet computer detection system ran its 30 system checks as a verification method, which took a little time. This would be what would force Petrov to make a world-altering decision. The computer came back as verified for launch, which meant that the USSR had less than 30 minutes to launch a counter-strike. Petrov waited for the data, and when it all came in, there was one missing component to confirm a launch. There was no visual sighting report by any electronic or surveillance sources to confirm a launch. This was critical in Petrov waiting to pass the information along to his superiors at Missile Strategic Command and the Kremlin, who could authorize their own missile launches. Petrov's instincts told him there was a problem, despite the fact that he and his technicians checked the computer information system several times over, looking for any flaw, any error of any kind. There were no errors. He knew that as the first line of defense, his report would force the hands of others. He had to be certain, but then the system showed successive launches; five missiles in as many minutes from the United States. It appeared that Armageddon had started. 12 minutes had passed by that time, and still Petrov waited for better data.
Petrov had a stellar civilian training program behind him which, unlike his longtime career military colleagues, he was not prepared to blindly follow protocol and report the launches immediately, at least not yet. Petrov knew that if there was a first strike by the United States, it would be an all-out attack, perhaps hundreds of missiles at one time, not just a few. He was suspicious of his own early warning system. If he received it with final confirmation, his next call would have been to his superiors, and they would have notified the Soviet Premiere Yuri Andropov, who could give the missile launch order. It would be Andropov's final decision, and Petrov knew it. Petrov waited for the long-range radar stations to confirm incoming missiles. That was the litmus test. That would be his final confirmation, but by now almost 24 minutes had passed. If he was wrong, the Soviet Union would be half obliterated, and they may not be able to even launch their own missiles. Petrov also instinctively knew that the United States and even his own country would never realistically launch the first strike; that was his personal belief. The false alarms had been due to the sunlight radiation striking the orbiting satellites' lenses in such a way that it triggered the pre-programmed launch detection sensors, sending the erroneous information, which at that time Petrov did not know.
Initially, after an intense series of interrogations, General Yuri Votintsev, then commander of the Soviet Air Defense's Missile Defense Units, decided that Petrov acted accordingly and praised his actions and critical thinking, and that he would be rewarded. Petrov became somewhat known after Votintsev published his Memoirs in 1998. Petrov had made the right decision. He used his training and intelligence to think through the process and not panic. One would think that his country would have praised him for his efforts. You would be wrong. The situation totally embarrassed the Red Army, and incredibly Petrov was made the easy scapegoat, and some blamed him for the system failure of which he had no control, rather than the software engineers and technicians who built the system. He went into retirement and was made a pariah by the Soviet military just for doing his job, not to mention saving the world from a nuclear Holocaust. But Petrov's actions would not go unnoticed by the rest of the world. He would remain unknown even in his own country until after the fall of communism, but in January 2006, he was honored by the United Nations. Petrov was indeed the man who saved the world. [Music]
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