Posted on 09/17/2017 4:00:31 PM PDT by McGruff
On September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov was on duty in charge of an early warning radar system in a bunker near Moscow, when just past midnight he saw the radar screen showing a single missile inbound from the United States and headed toward the Soviet Union.
“When I first saw the alert message, I got up from my chair. All my subordinates were confused, so I started shouting orders at them to avoid panic. I knew my decision would have a lot of consequences,” Petrov recalled of that fateful night in an interview with RT in 2010.
“The siren went off for a second time. Giant blood-red letters appeared on our main screen, saying START. It said that four more missiles had been launched,” he said. From the moment the warheads had taken off, there was only half an hour for the Kremlin to decide on whether to push the red button in retaliation and just 15 minutes for Petrov to determine whether the threat was real and report to his commanders.
“My cozy armchair felt like a red-hot frying pan and my legs went limp. I felt like I couldn't even stand up. That's how nervous I was when I was taking this decision,” he told RT.
Taught that in case of a real attack the US would have gone on an all-out offensive, Petrov told his bosses the alarm must have been caused by a system malfunction. “I’ll admit it, I was scared. I knew the level of responsibility at my fingertips,” he said.
It was later revealed that what the Soviet satellites took for missiles launch was sunlight reflected from clouds. Petrov’s action, however, received no praise, and he was scolded for not filling in a service journal.
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
We came a lot closer to nuclear war with Russia in 1969 when K-129 Soviet ballistic sub launched a warhead toward Pearl Harbor” but blew up and sank their sub...which we recovered unknown to the Russians.
The evidence is quite compelling...
The book “Red Star Rouge” tells the story...
Indeed. In 2017, what will a NORK attack look like? Where will it be aimed? What will our response look like? How will China and Russia react? Things are a LOT murkier today. The sensible and logical conclusion Petrov reached in 1983 won't be possible today with rogue states.
I worked in a place that was the equivalent of the Russian system, and it was the duty officer. Always comes down to one man in the end.
Only with the American system, the red button shut it off...
Should have asked em if passing a brick hurt ?
True story.
It is hard to think that our own American leaders (civilian and military) at times have been worthless and our saviors were actually on the enemy side of things. I suppose the Soviets were also lucky because our finger could also get rather touchy on the “button” and our leaders a tad paranoid. This is why the deal with North Korea is much worse than being reported. What if they actually launch and hit land? What happens if the Norks launch and China goes to Taiwan? How do we predict what China and Russia will do if we have a nuclear response let alone a conventional one?
The video attached to the story:
The small group I was with and the Russians I met the one time I was there in 1991, the height of Glasnost and Perestroika, all felt exactly that. Relief that we’d survived and astonishment looking back that we’d come so close to the abyss. We’d talk about how no other nations on the planet had ever held such power, or could understand the feelings of doom we shared, both Americans and Russians, and were brought up with. The Soviet system was as evil and malicious as any that’s existed, and Putin is no angel, but I actually liked the Russians I met then and I’ve known since. They are people with a number of fine qualities, a resurgence of devout yet long buried Christian belief most recently on display.
It was later revealed that what the Soviet satellites took for missiles launch was sunlight reflected from clouds. Petrov's action, however, received no praise, and he was scolded for not filling in a service journal.Wow, what an incompetent boob, eh? ;^) He used his head, and probably some other heads he never met were used for target practice for their failures.
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