May 28, 2006
The Man Who Saved the World Finally Recognized
Stanislav Petrov was a Soviet army officer monitoring the satellite system for signs of a U.S. attack, the year was 1983, and his instructions, if he detected missiles targeting the Soviet Union, were to push the button and launch a counter-offensive.
He didn’t. Minutes later, no missiles came; months later, the frightening data across his monitor was determined to have been a system glitch. Today, the Association of World Citizens is calling him “the forgotten hero of our time,” a title befitting the man whose responsibility had been to start World War III.
Half an hour past midnight on September 26, 1983, he saw the first apparent launch on his computer monitor in a glass-walled room on the top floor of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) command and control post.
“I was supposed to supervise the combat crew. When the first launch happened, everyone was stupefied. After the first launch, I started giving orders, because in the room below, where there were five switchboards, and all the operators jumped out of their seats to see what my reaction was. I can only imagine what went on at the other posts.”
The warning system was by now showing five missile launches in the U.S., headed toward the Soviet Union. The “START” command Petrov was expected to give would have started an irreversible chain reaction in a system geared to launch a counter-strike without human interference.
The main computer wouldn’t ask me [what to do] — it was made so that it wouldn’t even ask. It was specially constructed in such a way that no one could affect the system’s operations.” All that was up to Petrov was analyzing the available information and either saying the alarm was false or giving the computer the go-ahead, as per the directive he himself wrote.
complete story | Moscow Times
~Sometimes it takes courage to survive.
Posted by Stubbornson at May 28, 2006 11:15 AM