On 26 September 1983, the nuclear early warning system of the Soviet Union twice
reported the launch of American Minuteman intercontinental ballistic
missiles from bases in the United States. These missile attack warnings
were correctly identified as a false alarm by Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov,
an officer of the Soviet Air Defence Forces. This decision is seen as having
prevented a retaliatory nuclear attack based on erroneous data on the United
States and its NATO allies, which would have likely resulted in nuclear war and
the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. Investigation of the satellite
warning system later confirmed that the system had malfunctioned.
Background The incident occurred at a time of
severely strained relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Only
three weeks earlier, the Soviet military had shot down a South Korean passenger
jet, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, that had strayed into Soviet airspace,
killing all 269 people on board. Many Americans were killed, including U.S.
Congressman Larry McDonald. Bruce Blair, an expert on Cold War
nuclear strategies and former president of the World Security Institute in
Washington, D.C., says the American–Soviet relationship at that
time "had deteriorated to the point where the Soviet Union as a system—not
just the Kremlin, not just Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, not just the KGB—but as a
system, was geared to expect an attack and to retaliate very quickly to it. It
was on hair-trigger alert. It was very nervous and prone to mistakes and
accidents. The false alarm that happened on Petrov's watch could not have come at
a more dangerous, intense phase in U.S.–Soviet relations." In an interview
aired on American television, Blair said, "The Russians [Soviets] saw a U.S.
government preparing for a first strike, headed by a President [Ronald Reagan]
capable of ordering a first strike." Regarding the incident involving Petrov,
he said, "I think that this is the closest our country has come to
accidental nuclear war." Incident
On 26 September 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air
Defense Forces, was the officer on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow
which housed the command center of the Soviet early warning satellites,
code-named Oko. Petrov's responsibilities included observing the
satellite early warning network and notifying his superiors of any impending
nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union. If notification was
received from the early warning systems that inbound missiles had been detected,
the Soviet Union's strategy was an immediate nuclear counter-attack against
the United States, specified in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction.
Shortly after midnight, the bunker's computers reported that one
intercontinental ballistic missile was heading toward the Soviet Union from the
United States. Petrov considered the detection a computer error, since a
first-strike nuclear attack by the United States was likely to involve
hundreds of simultaneous missile launches in order to disable any Soviet
means of a counterattack. Furthermore, the satellite system's reliability had
been questioned in the past. Petrov dismissed the warning as a false alarm,
though accounts of the event differ as to whether he notified his superiors or
not after he concluded that the computer detections were false and that no
missile had been launched. Later, the computers identified four additional
missiles in the air, all directed towards the Soviet Union. Petrov again
suspected that the computer system was malfunctioning, despite having no other
source of information to confirm his suspicions. The Soviet Union's land
radar was incapable of detecting missiles beyond the horizon, and waiting
for it to positively identify the threat would limit the Soviet Union's response
time to a few minutes. It was subsequently determined that the
false alarms were caused by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude
clouds and the satellites' Molniya orbits, an error later corrected by
cross-referencing a geostationary satellite.
In explaining the factors leading to his decision, Petrov cited his belief and
training that any U.S. first strike would be massive, so five missiles
seemed an illogical start. In addition, the launch detection system was new and
in his view not yet wholly trustworthy, while ground radar had failed to pick up
corroborative evidence even after several minutes of the false alarm.
Aftermath Petrov underwent intense questioning by
his superiors about his actions. Initially, he was praised for his
decision. General Yury Votintsev, then commander of the Soviet Air Defense's
Missile Defense Units, who was the first to hear Petrov's report of the incident,
states that Petrov's "correct actions" were "duly noted." Petrov himself states
he was initially praised by Votintsev and was promised a reward, but recalls
that he was also reprimanded for improper filing of paperwork with the
pretext he had not described the incident in the military diary.
Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB chief of foreign counter-intelligence who knew
Soviet chairman Andropov well, says that Andropov's distrust of American leaders
was profound. It is conceivable that if Petrov had declared the satellite
warnings valid, such an erroneous report could have provoked the Soviet
leadership into becoming bellicose. Kalugin says, "The danger was in the
Soviet leadership thinking, 'The Americans may attack, so we better
attack first.'" In popular culture
The false alarm incident was depicted in the 2014 feature film The Man Who Saved
the World. The incident is also mentioned in the
November 1, 2015, episode #2.5 of the U.S. television show Madam Secretary.
See also WarGames, a 1983 movie released 4 months
prior to the incident, depicting an early warning system's false alarm of a
thermonuclear strike 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash — another
nuclear accident which narrowly missed widespread destruction.
Vasili Arkhipov — another nuclear war-averting incident during the Cuban
Missile Crisis. Able Archer 83 — NATO military exercise
that happened over a month after the Petrov incident.
Norwegian rocket incident — a rocket carrying scientific equipment to study
the aurora borealis resembled a submarine-launched Trident missile.
World War III — Situations resulting in close encounters of a third world war.
References External links
BrightStarSound.com Stanislav Petrov tribute website, multiple pages with
photos and reprints of various articles about Petrov
Nuclear War: Minuteman Article from Weekendavisen, 2 April 2004.
The Nuclear War that Almost Happened in 1983. History News Network, Originally
in the Baltimore Sun of 31 August 2003 Armageddon Almost Not Averted link is
dead on 30 September 2013 "Sept. 26, 1983: The Man Who Saved the
World by Doing ... Nothing". 30 years on: The day a computer glitch
nearly caused World War III. The Register. 27 September 2013