Your code I'll break; you made your last mistake. Called out cold war, remnants now on the floor

The person of the week this week is someone who I just recently even knew existed. Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov probably saved the lives of most of the world population. He did that by doing his job ... or more specifically not doing his job.

On September 1, 1983 the Russians blew up a Korean Air Lines flight headed to Seoul, Korea that flew into their airspace and did not reply to their communications. I won't get into the details other than the fact that it was a commercial plane, 200+ civilians died, including a US Congressman. A very anti-Communism Congressman. Click on the earlier link for the full story, especially if you are like me and had never heard of this before. It is pretty amazing.

Needless to say America was pissed. So pissed that most Russians assumed we would retaliate. Retaliation at that point meant nuclear weapons. It meant MAD - mutually assured destruction. Obviously since it was the Cold War nothing happened ... but it almost did.

On September 26, 1983 Petrov took over a buddy's shift watching the skies of Mother Russia for attacks. The computer decided around midnight to play war games with him .. aka it fucked up. Majorly. All of a sudden a nuclear weapon was heading to the USSR. Then there were two. Eventually there were five.

Needless to say the people in the bunker with Petrov were concerned. Petrov, however, used logic. Five missile made no sense. All it would do would cause the Russians to retaliate fully with everything they had, which destroys the USA and gives the USSR a chance to survive. If the US would attack, it would be a full assault. He bet it was a computer glitch, did not inform his higher ups and begin a line of dominoes that likely would have resulted in nuclear war (which was protocol), and was correct.

So three cheers for Petrov right? Not really, he was reassigned jobs, forced into early retirement, and wasn't publicly acknowledged for his actions until 1998. He may have also had a nervous breakdown in there. Who knows...

All I know is that Petrov potentially saved a lot of lives that day. Sure the government of the USSR might have not retaliated and waited a little bit, but I doubt it. Not at the high alarm they were on. Read more here where I first read about Petrov and then check out the wikipedia article on Petrov that is a little better.

Relatedly .. yeah I just made up a word .. you may find this guy pretty interesting. Probably kept a torpedo with a nuclear warhead from being fired at a US ship during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Looking back on it, I have no idea how a nuclear war was not started by some trigger happy imbecile. Thank heavens for fear and checks and balances.