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Stanislav Petrov (born c. 1939) is a retired Russian Army Colonel who refused to launch Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles on September 26, 1983, despite computer indications that missiles had already been launched at the USSR from the United States. The Soviet computer reports were later shown to have been in error, and Petrov is credited with preventing World War III and the devastation of much of the Earth by nuclear weapons.
Because of military secrecy and political and international differences, Petrov's actions were kept secret until 1998, and most of the world has not heard of this man, arguably a hero who saved the lives of millions.
For most of the latter half of the 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union were bitter adversaries in an ongoing Cold War.
These two superpowers shared mutual distrust, and as a consequence kept thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at each other on hairtrigger alert, as a disincentive against attack. If there ever had been such an attack, these nuclear arsenals would very likely have devastated the world many times over, resulting in the deaths of perhaps hundreds of millions or billions of people.
The greater the potential destruction, the more important it was to prevent, the stronger the disincentive needed to be, the greater the potential destruction became still. This way of thinking was called Mutual Assured Destruction, appropriately acronymed MAD.
The extraordinary incident occurred in Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow, in the former Soviet Union, just past midnight, September 26, 1983. Because of time-zone differences, it was still September 25 in the United States, a Sunday afternoon.
It was Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov's duty to use computers and satellites to warn the Soviet Union if there were ever a nuclear missile attack by the United States. In the event of such an attack, the Soviet Union's strategy was to launch an immediate all-out nuclear counterattack against the United States.
On this particular day, something went wrong. Suddenly the computer alarms sounded, warning that an American missile was heading toward the Soviet Union. Lt. Col. Petrov reasoned that a computer error had occurred, since the United States was not likely to launch just one missile if it were attacking the Soviet Union — it would launch many. Besides, there had been questions in the past about the reliability of the satellite system being used. So he dismissed the warning as a false alarm, concluding that no missile had actually been launched by the United States.
But then, just a short time later, the situation turned very serious. Now the computer system was indicating a second missile had been launched by the United States and was approaching the Soviet Union. Then it showed a third missile being launched, and then a fourth and a fifth. The sound of the alarms was deafening. In front of Lt. Col. Petrov the word "Start" was flashing in bright lettering, presumably the instruction indicating the Soviet Union must begin launching a massive counterstrike against the United States.
Even though Lt. Col. Petrov had a gnawing feeling the computer system was wrong, he had no way of knowing for sure. He had nothing else to go by. The Soviet Union's land radar was not capable of detecting any missiles beyond the horizon, information that by then would be too late to be useful. And worse, he had only a few minutes to decide what to tell the Soviet leadership. He made his final decision: He would trust his intuition and declare it a false alarm. If he were wrong, he realized nuclear missiles from the United States would soon begin raining down on the Soviet Union.
He waited. The minutes and seconds passed. Everything remained quiet — no missiles and no destruction. His decision had been right. Those around him congratulated him for his superb judgment.
Stanislav Petrov was not originally scheduled to be on duty that night. Had he not been there, it is possible a different commanding officer would not have questioned the computer alarms, tragically leading the world into a nuclear holocaust. As it turned out, this incident ended happily for America and for the world. But unfortunately for Stanislav Petrov, it ruined his career and his health, and it deprived him of his peace of mind.
Petrov had disobeyed military procedure by defying the computer warnings. And because of this, he later underwent intense questioning by his superiors about his actions during this nerve-racking ordeal. Perhaps because he had ignored the warnings, he was no longer considered a reliable military officer. Presumably in the military it is understood that orders and procedures are to be carried out unfailingly, without question.
In the end, the Soviet military did not reward or honor Petrov for his actions. It did not punish him either. However his actions had shown imperfections in the Soviet military system, which was considered to show his superiors in a bad light, which in turn was bad for Petrov's own career. He was given a reprimand, officially for supposedly filling out paperwork improperly. His once promising military career had come to an end. He was reassigned to a less sensitive position and soon was retired from the military.
Petrov went on to live his life in Russia as a pensioner, spending his retirement living in poverty in the town of Fryazino. He has said he does not regard himself as a hero for what he did that day. But in terms of the incalculable number of lives saved, he is arguably one of the greatest heroes of all time. On May 21, 2004, the San Francisco, California-based Association of World Citizens gave Colonel Petrov its World Citizen Award along with a trophy and $1,000.
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