Unknown feat: Why the Soviet officer who prevented a nuclear war died in oblivion. The Man Who Saved the World Stanislav Petrov Died

While the Nobel Committee is choosing which of the current candidates to award the Peace Prize, I remembered this story.

Stanislav Petrov is the man who prevented a nuclear war in 1983.

Dry info from Wikipedia:

"On the night of September 26, 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov was the operational duty officer at the Serpukhov-15 command post, located 100 km from Moscow. At that time, the Cold War was at its peak: three and a half weeks ago, the Soviet Union was a South Korean passenger Boeing - 747.

The command post, where Petrov was on duty, received information from the space early warning system adopted a year earlier. In the event of a missile attack, the leadership of the country was immediately informed, which made the decision on a retaliatory strike.
On September 26, while Petrov was on duty, the computer reported the launch of missiles from the American base. However, after analyzing the situation (“launches” were made from only one point and consisted of only a few intercontinental ballistic missiles), Lieutenant Colonel Petrov decided that this was a false alarm of the system.

Subsequent investigation determined that the satellite's sensors were exposed to sunlight reflected from high-altitude clouds. Later, changes were made to the space system to eliminate such situations.

Due to military secrecy and political considerations, Petrov's actions became known to the general public only in 1988.

On January 19, 2006, in New York at the UN Headquarters, Stanislav Petrov was presented with a special award from the international public organization Association of World Citizens. It is a crystal figurine "Hand holding the globe" with the inscription "To the man who prevented nuclear war" engraved on it.
After his retirement, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov Stanislav Evgrafovich lives and works in Fryazino near Moscow.

The Nobel Prize is given for those accomplishments that have had an impact on the entire life of mankind. They are given for discoveries that actually could have been made decades ago and have proven their worth over time. Nobel Prizes are given for books written a long time ago: so that their value can be proven by time. They are given alive, although this year the committee made an exception. And only the Peace Prize in last years is always a source of confusion.

So: in my opinion, the actions that Colonel Petrov took saved the world from a nuclear catastrophe: if he made a mistake in his assessments, we all might not exist at all. Perhaps along with the planet on which we all live. The correctness of his assessment has been confirmed by time, and its significance cannot be underestimated. He is our contemporary and quite a worthy candidate from our country.

I would very much like that not only politicians (whose deeds cannot always be unambiguously assessed over the course of one lifetime) are remembered when they decide who to award the Peace Prize to.

It's just a good story with a happy ending. Just what you need on a warm and sunny Friday.

On the night of September 26, 1983, the world was closer than ever to a nuclear catastrophe, and only the professionalism of Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov saved the lives of most of the world's population.

On the threshold of the Apocalypse

The beginning of the 80s of the last century was the most dangerous time after Caribbean Crisis 1962. The confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States reached its climax, and the American president Ronald Reagan dubbed the USSR the "evil empire", promising to fight it with all available means.

The Americans responded to the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan with economic sanctions, boycotting the summer Moscow Olympics along the way, and began to strengthen missile groups near the borders of the USSR. In response, the Soviet leadership refused to send their athletes to Los Angeles for the 1984 Summer Olympics, and air defense systems were actively preparing to repel a possible nuclear strike.

On September 1, 1983, a South Korean Boeing was shot down by Soviet fighters over Sakhalin, killing all 269 people on board.

Only years later, it turns out that the autopilot was not working correctly on the plane, and the airliner completely unintentionally entered Soviet airspace twice. And then everyone expected the Americans to respond, which could be absolutely unpredictable.

Until the end of the untested system "Eye"

The Serpukhov-15 Celestial Observation Center near Moscow (100 km from the capital) actually monitored the territory of the United States and other NATO countries. Numerous Soviet spy satellites regularly transmitted information about American launchers located on the west and east coasts of the United States, fixing every missile launch without exception.

In this, the military was assisted by a 30-meter locator and a giant M-10 computer, which processed satellite information in a fraction of a second. But the real highlight was the Oko space-based early warning missile system, which was put into service in 1982.

It even made it possible to fix the opening of the hatches of the launch silos, and at the start it determined the trajectory of the missiles and made it possible to determine the target chosen by the Americans.

According to military estimates, an American missile to Moscow and other targets in the European part of the USSR had to fly at least 40 minutes. The time is quite sufficient for a retaliatory nuclear strike.

Rocket strike or system failure?

On the night of September 26, 1983, more than 100 military men took up duty at the Center, each of which was responsible for his own area of ​​work. It was up to the duty officer, 44-year-old lieutenant colonel, to coordinate their actions and make timely decisions. Stanislav Petrov.

The duty was calm, and a huge locator received signals from the Kosmos-1382 satellite, which flew over the earth at an altitude of 38 thousand kilometers. And suddenly at 00.15 a siren went off deafeningly, announcing the launch from the west coast of the United States of an intercontinental ballistic missile Minuteman III with a nuclear warhead.

The officer contacted the command post of the missile attack warning system, where he was confirmed to have received the same signal. All he had to do was to convey a message to the authorities, and after ten minutes our missiles could start from the territory of the USSR towards the United States.

But the lieutenant colonel drew attention to the fact that the conscripts, who are supposed to monitor the movement of the rocket, do not see it at all. False alarm? Signals are heard about the second, third and fourth launches, but again no missiles are visible. And then Petrov decided to inform the command about the failure of the warning system, asking them not to launch a retaliatory missile attack.

I put my own life on the line

This morning, the Commander of the USSR Anti-Missile and Anti-Space Defense Forces, who urgently arrived at the Center Yuri Votintsev shake hands with the lieutenant colonel, thanking him for his vigilance and high professionalism. And that night, Petrov simply put his career and life on the line, because in case of a mistake, a tribunal and a guaranteed death penalty would inevitably await him.

The commission that arrived on the scene quickly established the cause of the failure associated with the imperfection of the spacecraft of that time, and errors in the computer program.

The Oko early missile warning system, which almost provoked a nuclear war, will be "brought to mind" for another two years, and Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov will be quietly "pushed" into retirement in 1984. To not talk too much. And the story itself was kept in the strictest confidence until 1991, until Yuri Votintsev told one of the publications about it.

The invisible hero of our time

The role of Stanislav Petrov in preventing the Third World War became known much later. In January 2006, the retired officer was invited to New York, where he received a crystal figurine "Hand holding the globe" at the UN headquarters. On it, the engraver inflicted the inscription: "To the man who prevented a nuclear war."

In February 2012, Stanislav Petrov became the winner of the German Media Prize, and a year later he was awarded the prestigious Dresden Prize for the Prevention of Armed Conflicts.

On the slope of his life, he was remembered in our country, and in 2014 they even removed documentary"The Man Who Saved the World"

He quietly died on May 19, 2017 in Fryazino near Moscow. Stanislav Evgrafovich did not like to brag about the past, and even his neighbors did not realize that they lived next to a Soviet officer who stopped the start of the Third World War and saved millions of human lives.

The man who saved the world was "thanked" by the authorities with a reprimand

The night of September 25-26, 1983 could be fatal for humanity. The command post of the secret military unit Serpukhov-15 received an alarm signal from the space early warning system. The computer reported that five ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads were launched from the American base towards the Soviet Union.

The duty officer that night was 44-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov. After analyzing the situation, he said that the system was wrong. He gave a release on government communications: "The information is false."

About how Stanislav Petrov lived and passed away, his son Dmitry told MK.

Stanislav Petrov.

“Father laughed it off: “We spotted a flying saucer”

- Stanislav Evgrafovich deliberately chose a military profession?

My father was from a military family. He was an excellent student, went in for boxing, was physically prepared very well. They then lived near Vladivostok. My father passed the entrance exams to the visiting commission in Khabarovsk. He was very passionate about mathematics and was happy to learn in 1967 that he had entered the Kiev Higher Radio Engineering School at the faculty where algorithmic engineers were trained. The era of cybernetics and electronic computers began. After college, he ended up serving in the Moscow region, in a military town under the code name Serpukhov-15. Officially, the Center for the Observation of Celestial Bodies was located there, in fact, it was a classified part.

- Did you know that he works with the missile attack warning system?

My father had a high secrecy group, he did not tell anything about his service. Lost on site. Regardless of time, he could be called to work both at night and on weekends. We only knew that his work was connected with the computer center.

- How did it become known that on the night of September 25-26, 1983, the world was on the verge of a nuclear catastrophe?

Information about the emergency situation at the facility was leaked to the garrison. Mom began to ask her father what happened, he laughed it off: "They spotted a flying saucer."

And only at the end of 1990, retired Colonel General Yuri Votintsev, in an interview with journalist Dmitry Likhanov, spoke about what actually happened that September night in Serpukhov-15. In 1983, the general commanded the anti-missile and anti-space defense forces of the air defense forces and was at the facility in an hour and a half. And soon the journalist found my father in Fryazino. An article was published in the weekly "Sovershenno sekretno" where my father told in detail how he acted in case of a combat alarm.

Only then did we learn that my father worked in space intelligence, about a group of spacecraft that, from an altitude of about 40 thousand kilometers, monitored nine American bases with ballistic missiles. About how on September 26 at 00.15 everyone who was on duty at the facility was deafened by a buzzer, the inscription “start” was lit on the light panel. The computer confirmed the launch of a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, and the reliability of the information was the highest. The missile allegedly flew from a military base on the West Coast of the United States.

Father later recalled that the entire combat crew turned around and looked at him. A decision had to be made. He could act according to the charter and simply pass the information along the chain to the duty officer. And "above" would have already given an order for a return launch. He was waiting for confirmation. But the visual contact specialists who sat in the dark rooms did not see the rocket launch on the screens ... When the government phone called, the father said: "I'M GIVING YOU FALSE INFORMATION." And then the siren roared again: the second rocket went off, the third, the fourth, the fifth ... The inscription on the scoreboard was no longer “start”, but “missile attack”.

Father was alarmed that the missiles were fired from one point, and he was taught that during a nuclear strike, missiles are launched simultaneously from several bases. On government communications, he once again confirmed: "The information is false."

With son and daughter.

- It is hard to believe that an officer in Soviet times did not believe the system and made an independent decision.

My father was an algorithmic analyst, he created this system himself. He believed that a computer is just a machine, and a person also has intuition. If the missiles really went to the target, they should have been "seen" by early warning radars. This is the second line of control. The agonizing minutes of waiting dragged on... It soon became clear that there had been no attack and no missile launch. Mom, having learned how close a nuclear catastrophe was, was horrified. After all, my father was not supposed to be on duty at the central command post that night. He was asked to replace a colleague.

- The commission then established what could have caused the failure?

For the launch of American missiles, the satellite's sensors took the light of sunlight reflected from high clouds. The father then remarked: "It was the cosmos playing a trick on us." Then changes were made to the space system that excluded such situations.

- And a year after the incident, Stanislav Evgrafovich resigned from the army without receiving colonel's shoulder straps ...

My father was then 45 years old. Behind shoulders - solid experience. On that night, when the radars did not confirm the missile launch, and the father's decision turned out to be correct, his colleagues told him: "Well, that's it, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov, drill a hole for the order." But the general who arrived at the command post ... scolded his father. Accused him of the fact that the combat log was empty. But then time was compressed: the computer reported a nuclear attack, one missile followed another ... In one hand, my father had a telephone receiver, in the other - a microphone. Later they told him: “Why didn’t you fill it out retroactively? ..” But the father believed that the addition was already a criminal case. He wouldn't go to the forgery.

It was necessary to find a scapegoat - the father and made him guilty. In the end, as he himself admitted, he got tired of everything, and he wrote a report. In addition, our mother was very ill, she needed care. And my father, as the chief analyst, was constantly called to the facility even during non-working hours.

“In difficult times, my father worked at a construction site as a security guard”

- Do you remember how you moved to Fryazino?

It was in 1986, I was then 16 years old. At the end of military service, my father had to vacate an apartment in the garrison. He had a choice of where to move to live. My mother had a sister in Fryazino. In this town near Moscow, they decided to settle. My father was immediately taken to the Comet Research Institute, where a space information and control system was created that operates at the facility. At the enterprise of the military-industrial complex, he already worked as a civilian, as a senior engineer in the department of the chief designer. It was the leading organization in the field of anti-satellite weapons. Remarkably, then it was forbidden to use any imported components.

My father's work schedule was already different, no one pulled him, did not call him to work on holidays and weekends. He worked at the Comet for more than 13 years, and in 1997 he was forced to quit in order to look after our mother, Raisa Valerievna. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor, the disease began to progress, the doctors practically wrote it off ... After her death, her father worked at a construction site as a security guard. He was called there by a former colleague. They took up daily duty, guarded new buildings in the south-west of Moscow.

- Foreign newspapers began to write about Stanislav Petrov. He has received prestigious international awards…

In 2006, at the UN Headquarters in New York, he was presented with a crystal figurine "Hand holding the globe", which was engraved: "The man who prevented nuclear war." In 2012, in Baden-Baden, my father received the German Media Award. And a year later he became a laureate of the Dresden Prize, which is awarded for the prevention of armed conflicts.

My father remembered these trips fondly. At all speeches, he repeated that he did not consider himself a hero, that it was one of the working moments. And the decision to strike back would not have been made by him, but by the top leadership of the country.

Did the bonus come in handy?

My father supported the family of his daughter, my sister Lena, with money. She once graduated from a technical school, received the specialty of a chef. But then she got married and had two children. She and her husband lived in the south, and when perestroika broke out, they returned to Fryazino. There was no job, no place to live...

- And you did not become a military man?

I had two years in the army. I realized that the military path is not for me. But I work as a process equipment adjuster at a military plant - the Istok research and production enterprise.

"Kevin Costner sent $500 as a thank you"

In 2014, Stanislav Petrov was shot in the feature documentary film "The Man Who Saved the World", where he played himself. How did he rate the painting?

This is a Danish film. Father with great difficulty managed to persuade to take part in the filming. He was "processed" for about six months. He put forward the condition that he was not particularly disturbed, so the shooting stretched out for quite a long period. I remember the filmmakers called: “We are going” - my father categorically stated: “When I tell you, then you will come.”

But still, the father told director Peter Anthony and producer Jacob Starberg everything possible about that day - September 26, 1983. They thoroughly, according to the drawings, reproduced the command post. These scenes were filmed at a military facility in Riga. The role of the young father was played by Sergei Shnyrev. Foreign stars also starred in the film: Matt Damon, Robert De Niro ... And Kevin Costner, who was involved in the film, in gratitude for the fact that his father did not lift rockets with nuclear warheads into the air, then sent his father 500 dollars.

The film received two honorable mentions at the Woodstock Film Festival. But the father never saw the picture. I downloaded the film on the Internet, offered him to watch it, but he refused. Under the contract, he was entitled to a fee. I don’t remember the exact amount, but with the money we received we bought new clothes, started to make repairs, however, they never finished it.

- That is, Stanislav Evgrafovich did not live in poverty?

In recent years, he had a pension of 26 thousand rubles.

- What were you interested in?

Mathematics, military history. My father always read a lot and collected a large library. I offered him to write a book, to describe the events of his life. But he had no desire for it.

- Did one of his colleagues come to see him?

Three of his colleagues lived with their families in Fryazino. When he met, he spoke with them willingly. But he did not have any one bosom friend. My father was a homebody by nature. Read scientific journals fiction… He was not bored.

What were his last years like?

My father started having health problems. At first they found clouding of the lens, they performed an operation, but it turned out that the retina of the eye was badly damaged. His eyesight hasn't improved much.

Stanislav Petrov.

And then there was a volvulus. My father did not like to go to the doctors, he thought: his stomach would hurt and pass. It got to the point where I had to call an ambulance. When the doctors, before the operation, began to find out what chronic diseases he had, the father could not remember anything: he had never been in a hospital, had not undergone a medical examination ...

The operation lasted four hours. After anesthesia, the father was not in himself, he was delirious, he began to hallucinate. I took a vacation from work, began to nurse him, fed him baby food. And yet he pulled him out of this state. It seemed that everything was getting better, although he remained chained to the bed. I tied the seat belts from the car to him so that he could use them to sit down on his own. But my father always smoked a lot, and since he did not move much, he developed congestive hypostatic pneumonia. AT last days he didn't want to fight at all. I went to work, and when I returned, he was no longer alive. Father died on May 19, 2017.

- Did a lot of people come to the funeral?

I only informed my relatives of his death. And I just don’t know the phone numbers of friends and colleagues. On his father's birthday, September 7, his e-mail received a congratulation from his foreign friend, a political activist from Germany, Karl Schumacher. I told him with the help of an online translator that my father had died in the spring.

- Documents, awards and things of the father are not asked to be given to the museum in order to make an exposition?

There were no such proposals. We have three rooms in our apartment. In one of them, I want to hang photos of my father, lay out documents, books that he liked to read ... If someone is interested in looking at this, let them come, I will show it.

Abroad, Stanislav Petrov is called "a man of the world." From military service, he left the order "For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" III degree, the anniversary medal "For Valiant Labor" ("For Military Valor"), the medal "For Irreproachable Service" III degree.

The picture is a documentary footage, interspersed with staged episodes. Fryazino. An elderly man drinks beer, watches TV. The apartment is in chaos: bottles are scattered everywhere, things are scattered. The phone rings: Mr. Petrov, we are glad that you agreed to give an interview. Damn reporters! After a while, the doorbell rings. Stanislav Petrov lets in a film crew and a journalist with an interpreter. The reporter is surprised to look at the adhesive tape for catching flies: he has not seen such a thing for a long time. The owner is in the kitchen making tea for the guests. Close-up of a gas stove that has not been cleaned for a long time. The interview begins. At what age did you join the army? I was 17 years old. Did you enjoy military service that much? No. I didn't want to join the army myself. My parents sent me there. They didn't want to mess with me. So your mother wanted to get rid of you? I don't want to answer this question. What's wrong with that? What kind of relationship did you have with your mother? I don't want to talk about these topics. We agreed that the topic of the interview would be only the events of September 23, 1983. I categorically object to the fact that in an interview even a word was heard about my mother. But the journalist continues to ask questions about the mother of Stanislav Petrov. He becomes furious and kicks the interviewer, translator and film crew out of the apartment. Get out!

Petrov receives a letter from the USA with an invitation to come and talk about the events of September 1983. Documentary footage: ballistic missile launches, nuclear explosions, reports that in September 1983 a South Korean passenger airliner invaded Soviet airspace and was shot down, a speech by US President Ronald Reagan, in which he refers to this event as the murder of 269 civilians .

Petrov with translator Galya goes to the airport. Are you sure I won't be deceived? Yes, you have paid for tickets and accommodation, you will be paid money. Petrov and Galya are already in New York. They ride in a taxi past the UN building. You will be here tomorrow to give a speech. What speech? I was not warned about this. I am not a politician who is ready to make a speech at any moment. For me this is a problem. Petrov is furious again. Later, Galya complains on the phone to her friend: he yells at me all the time, I don’t know how I can stand working with him, a nasty old man!

Flashback. 1983 The young officer Petrov is to take up duty at the Command Post of the Missile Attack Prevention System in the Moscow Region. Before leaving home, he gives medicine to his seriously ill wife, Raya. In the bus, on which the officers are taken on duty, there is talk of the international situation. If they give me an order, I will definitely launch missiles at America, says one of Petrov's colleagues. They've already used it twice. nuclear weapon, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This means that they can use it against us.

Petrov is in the hotel preparing tomorrow's speech. The next day he speaks at the UN. They introduce him: this is a man who saved the world, he had to decide whether to launch missiles at the United States after a false (as it turned out) alarm, or not. Petrov says he gets embarrassed when he is called a hero. After all, he doubted for a long time what decision to make. And I'm still not sure I did the right thing. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Petrov pronounces the last phrase in English. He is applauded and given a special award.

Flashback. Petrov's shift takes over on duty. The officers are poisoning stories, suddenly an alarm is heard. A Soviet satellite recorded a missile launch from an American base. Petrov demands to designate the level of probability: maximum. He orders to check the operation of combat programs - they are working normally. Petrov asks if analysts can check this data: they will not be able to arrive as quickly as the situation requires. Petrov orders to check the program data with visual observations, having studied the images from space. The observer replies that at this moment the American base is on the terminator line, so he can neither confirm nor deny the computer data. The General Staff has been notified of the incident. They are only waiting for Petrov's summary: if he confirms the American attack, the Soviet missiles will strike back.

Petrov explains to Galya: it depended on him whether or not to start the third world war. Petrov and Galya go to the US missile base. The guide shows him the Minuteman missile silo. He reports her tactical and technical data: the power of the charge is 1.2 Mt in TNT equivalent, the maximum range is 8.5 thousand kilometers. The power of all charges detonated during the Second World War is 60% of the power of one such rocket. The guide claims that these missiles were intended to launch a nuclear retaliatory strike. Petrov explodes: we were not going to attack you. Our nuclear potential was also intended only for a retaliatory strike.

Flashback. The alarm sounds again. The launch of the second rocket was recorded, then the third, fourth, fifth. In all cases, the computer reports the highest probability of launches. Infrared sensors mark the thermal signatures of incoming missiles. Visual observation still yields nothing. Subordinates remind Petrov that visual observation is only an auxiliary means of detecting missile launches. Computers don't make mistakes, you have to make a decision, otherwise it will be too late. Petrov orders to wait. But only a few minutes remain before the missiles enter the radar surveillance zone. Later, Petrov explains to Galya: I have decided not to take responsibility for unleashing the third world war. The last moments are running out, the missiles must enter the coverage area of ​​the Soviet radar stations. But they don't find anything. The alarm turned out to be false. Everyone is happy, hugging each other. Petrov is crying.

After that, he is forced to leave the service. His wife is dying of cancer, he is left alone.

27.09.2015

And for the finale, we want to tell you one instructive story about politics, war and common sense. It happened a long time ago - in September 1983, but it would be useful to hear it for those who like to scare the whole world today with an imminent war, aggression or promises to create new military bases on foreign borders. It is scary to imagine what troubles inadequate politicians can bring if something really serious happens - a technical failure or a provocation. This is the story of how a nuclear war almost broke out in the fall of 1983. But the threat was real: at night, the missile attack warning systems howled in alarm - missiles were launched from the American base towards the Soviet Union. There was only one instruction in case of such an emergency - to shoot down missiles. But Lieutenant Colonel Petrov was on duty that night, who did not comply with this order and did not press the start button. Between the tribunal and common sense, he chose the latter. But who is he - a hero or an oath-breaker? So what happened then, on the night of September 26, 1983, who almost started a nuclear war against us?

Our special correspondent Dmitry PISCHUKHIN was looking for details of this long history. But first, he went to Fryazino, near Moscow, to meet with Stanislav Evgrafovich himself, now a military pensioner.

1983 The very peak cold war". US President Ronald Reagan calls for the first time Soviet Union"Evil Empire" Western propaganda is diligently molding the image of a bloodthirsty enemy out of our country. Under the pretext of a threat of attack, the US is modernizing its strategic nuclear forces and building the latest intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, no one could even imagine that nuclear Armageddon could start not by malicious intent, but by accident due to a fatal mistake.

Moscow region city of Fryazino. Typical apartment building. Residents of the house are clearly surprised by the arrival of television. No one seems to realize that their neighbor - a modest military pensioner once saved the world from a nuclear catastrophe.

“Tell me, do you consider yourself a hero?”

"No, what I don't consider is a hero."

At the end of September 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov went to work instead of a sick partner. Having brewed strong tea out of habit, he prepared for another boring shift. The analyst knew the location of the American missile silos by heart. Reconnaissance satellites recorded any unusual phenomenon on enemy territory. But suddenly the silence of the night was suddenly interrupted by a deafening alarm.

Stanislav Petrov, former employee of the Serpukhov-15 command post, retired lieutenant colonel:“It was like snow on the head. Zero hours fifteen minutes on an electronic clock. Suddenly, a siren starts to roar, a banner “Start!” flashes. in big blood-red letters.

Computers showed Petrov that the United States had just launched a nuclear war. An intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from one of the American military bases, this was clearly evidenced by satellite data. There was no more than 15 minutes left for reflection - that is how long a warhead flies from the USA to the USSR. The decision on a retaliatory nuclear strike had to be taken immediately. A cold sweat ran down Petrov's back.

Stanislav Petrov, former employee of the Serpukhov-15 command post, retired lieutenant colonel:“I got up from the remote control, and my heart was so seized. I see people are confused. The operators turned their heads, jumped up from their seats, everyone was looking at me. I was scared, to be honest."

Everyone knew very well what to do in the event of a nuclear attack; Soviet officers went through similar scenarios more than once during exercises. But was it possible to cold-bloodedly press the "start" button when everyone still remembered the terrible disaster of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Moreover, literally just now, in September 1983, the intensity of relations between the USSR and the West reached its peak. An aircraft flew into Soviet airspace over Kamchatka without permission, ignoring all radio signals and warnings. The command decided that this was an American spy, and ordered him to be destroyed.

Jonathan Sanders, professor of journalism at Stony Brook University, former correspondent for CBS in Moscow: “It was a provocation by the CIA that made a bad situation worse. The Russian dispatcher told the pilot to shoot down the plane. Shortly before this, an American spy plane actually flew in the sky over Kamchatka. And then he reappeared on the radar. And since he was in Soviet airspace - because of stupidity, just stupidity! “We could start a world war.”

It turned out that the fighter jets fired missiles at a civilian South Korean airlines Boeing, which went astray. More than 200 passengers and crew members were killed. Reagan again blamed the "Evil Empire" for everything. This case unleashed the hands of America - the States are beginning to deploy medium-range missiles in Europe. The then General Secretary Andropov announced that a symmetrical answer would be given in the near future.

Matvey Polynov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Department recent history Russia St. Petersburg State University:“The world is on the brink of nuclear war. When we delivered our missiles to the GDR and Czechoslovakia, this did not balance our security. The fact is that if American missiles reached the territory of the USSR, they covered the entire European part of the USSR, then Soviet missiles did not reach the target - the USA.

In such dramatic circumstances, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov had to make a difficult decision - to report a nuclear attack to the top or double-check the data. Counting the time of the missiles' arrival in Moscow, the intelligence analyst dialed the commander's number.

Despite the fact that the detection systems assessed the probability of an attack as one hundred percent, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov refused to carry out job descriptions and report the attack upstairs. He was embarrassed that the Americans carried out all the launches from one single base. Therefore, Petrov turned off the alarm and took full responsibility.

Stanislav Petrov, former employee of the Serpukhov-15 command post, retired lieutenant colonel:“I pick up the phone. I gave you false information. And at this time the siren roared again - the second start went! I affirm that the second goal will also be false.”

The difficult decision that Stanislav Petrov made threatened him with a military tribunal. But the experienced military man did not succumb to emotions and in the end turned out to be right. The world, which for 15 minutes was on the verge of death, was saved.

Stanislav Petrov, former employee of the Serpukhov-15 command post, retired lieutenant colonel:“There was a crazy thought, but what if I was wrong. Well, what can they do with five missiles? The maximum will fall on Moscow, but nothing more. The state will remain whole.

Even from the time of his studies at the military school, Petrov remembered an indicative case. In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet submarine comes under American bombing off the Cuban coast. The submarine is forced to lie deep on the bottom because of which it loses contact with the shore. Moscow has not given any signals for two weeks. The commander comes to the conclusion that the third world war has begun and decides to release the entire nuclear arsenal towards America. The assistant stops the captain, who offers at his own peril and risk to ascend. Already on the surface, the sailors realized that they could make a fatal mistake.

Sergey Boev, General Director of OAO RTI, General Designer national system missile attack warnings: “The human factor is always present in complex technical systems, and we must always be ready for them, on the one hand. But with the development of technology, speed and processing of the information that it receives, then, of course, of course, today the influence of the human factor is reduced.

The stamp "secret" from the story that happened to Petrov was removed only in the late nineties. Ten years ago, at the UN Headquarters, a retired lieutenant colonel was even awarded a special award - "The Man Who Saved the World."

Dmitry Pishchukhin, correspondent:"Could you start a third world war?"

Stanislav Petrov, former employee of the Serpukhov-15 command post, retired lieutenant colonel:"I will not be the culprit of the third world, that's all."

In that distant 1983, the world lived as usual, unaware of the catastrophe it was facing. The fact that Petrov prevented the almost inevitable exchange of nuclear strikes was recognized by many military experts. But what if someone else were in his place? Or that day the lieutenant colonel would have come to serve in bad mood? What would happen to us if the military lost his nerve at the last moment? What would the world look like after the nuclear apocalypse? And could this story teach the nuclear powers something?

After a lengthy check, it turned out that the optics of military satellites took the sun glare on the surface of high-altitude clouds for rocket plumes. The 1983 crisis unfolded behind closed doors and exposed many shortcomings in both countries' nuclear shields. But the main thing that the world has learned is that the safety of the planet can depend on the composure and responsibility of just one person.