Posted on 05/16/2015 6:09:02 AM PDT by rickmichaels
LONDON — Kevin Costner has done it, as has Robert De Niro and a delegation at the UN. But should you, too, feel like thanking the Man Who Saved the World in person, beware: it can be a difficult task. First, travel to Moscow and drive to a grimy village in the southern suburbs. Then, leaving nothing valuable in your car, head up the urine-stained stairwells of a crumbling, Soviet-era apartment block and look for a grouchy, stubbly pensioner.
This is Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, who, at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s, was in charge of the Soviet Union’s nuclear missile early warning system. As reporters who have tracked him down testify, he will often shout at visitors to go away, or — at best — grudgingly admit: “I was just in the right place at the right time.”
That he most certainly was. On the night of Sept. 26, 1983, Petrov was on duty at Serpukhov-15, a secret command station south of Moscow. His job was to analyze satellite data that would detect a pre-emptive nuclear first strike from the U.S. — a prospect that in Soviet minds, at least, was not unrealistic at that time. Just three weeks before, the Soviets had shot down a Korean jet carrying 269 passengers, including a U.S. Congressman and 60 other Americans, after wrongly suspecting it of being a spy plane. The incident pushed East-West tensions to their highest since the Cuban missile crisis and prompted Ronald Reagan’s infamous remark that the Soviet Union was an “evil empire.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalpost.com ...
That’s a very interesting read. I often wondered how close we came to destruction, and how often.
“Where did you get the idea that we wanted to attack? We, too, only had weapons for defence,” Petrov tells him. “Damn the politicians — we all want to live without fear that this world can be destroyed.”
He may very well be correct in that assertion.
Unfortunately, we all now face an opponent that demonstrates on a regular basis that it revels in the attack and eagerly looks forward to death.
I’m of the opinion that our Constitution would have fared better in the wake of a nuclear attack as opposed to the constant drip-drip-drip of liberals, progressives & federal bureaucrats...
Good article!
Truer words are hard to find.
An interesting way of describing the current Administration.
Sadly, I realize that your reference is directed elsewhere.
I caught that too, our biggest threat isn’t overseas.
“if they were going to attack pre-emptively, they would do so with more than just five missiles.”
Nice to know that we can safely deliver up to five MRV’s
safely to Russia.
We had a much closer call than this event...
Read “Red Rogue”...in 1969 a Soviet nuclear sub actually launched a nuclear missile at Pearl Harbor...
Thank God the Kremlin had secretly installed protocols for stopping a Rouge attack...
Without the extra codes from the Kremlin the missiles exploded in the tubes...when launched...
You’re correct.
It’s not much of a stretch to apply it to the current regime.
Interesting handle. British MD residing in America, are you?
And we should give them what they eagerly look forward to at every opportunity. Killing any male Muslim over ten years of age is merely preemptive self defense.
Infamous, maybe. 100% accurate, for sure.
Aspiring MD.
1968 and not really. The missile exploded in the tube during a test.
Did you read the book...?
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