Vasiliy Arkhipov
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| Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov | |
|---|---|
| 1926 – 1999 (aged 72–73) | |
| Place of birth | Staraya Kupavna, Moscow Oblast,Soviet Union |
| Allegiance |  Soviet Union |
| Service/branch |  Soviet Navy |
| Years of service | 1945-1985? |
| Rank | Vice Admiral |
| Battles/wars | Cuban Missile Crisis |
Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov (Russian: Василий Александрович Архипов) (1926-1999) was a Soviet naval officer. During the Cuban Missile Crisis he prevented the launch of a nuclear torpedo and therefore a possible nuclear war.
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[edit] Early Life
Arkhipov was born in Kupavna near Moscow. He studied at the Pacific Naval College and joined the Soviet Pacific Fleet in 1945. He served on minesweepers during the Soviet war with Japan. He subsequently studuied at the Baku Naval Academy graduating in 1947
Arkhipov subsequently transferred to the submarine arm and served on various boats in the Northern, Black Sea and Baltic Fleets. He was an officer on board the Soviet submarine K-19 at the time of the accident
[edit] Cuban Missile Crisis
On October 27, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a group of eleven United States Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph trapped a nuclear-armed Soviet Foxtrot class submarine B-59 near Cuba and started dropping practice depth charges, explosives intended to force the submarine to come to the surface for identification. Allegedly, the captain of the submarine, Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky, believing that a war might already have started, prepared to launch a retaliatory nuclear-tipped torpedo.
Three officers on board the submarine — Savitsky, the Political Officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and the Second in command Arkhipov — were authorized to launch the torpedo if they agreed unanimously in favour of doing so. An argument broke out among the three, in which only Arkhipov was against the launch, eventually persuading Savitsky to surface the submarine and await orders from Moscow. The nuclear warfare which presumably would have ensued was thus averted.
[edit] Later Life
After the Cuban Crisis Arkhipov continued in Soviet Navy service, commanding submarines and later submarine squadrons. he was promoted to rear Admiral in 1975 and became head of the Kirov Naval academy. He was promoted to Vice Admiral in 1981 and retired in the mid 1980's. He subsequently settled in Zheleznodorozhny, Moscow Oblast where he died in 1999.
At the conference commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis held in Havana on 13 October 2002, Robert McNamara admitted that nuclear war had come much closer than people had thought. Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, said that "a guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world."
In Aleksandr Mozgovoy's 2002 book, Cuban Samba of the "Foxtrot" Quartet: Soviet Submarines during the Year 1962 Caribbean Crisis[1], a participant of the events, retired Commander Vadim Pavlovich Orlov, presents the events less dramatically (the captain lost his temper, but the two other officers calmed him down).
[edit] See also
- Stanislav Petrov, a Russian duty officer at a missile warning station who averted a possible nuclear war in 1983.
[edit] References
- ^ VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV (June 21, 2002). "Russian Book Looks at Missile Crisis" (HTML). johnson. http://65.120.76.252/russia/johnson/6320-12.cfm. Retrieved on 2008-05-03.
[edit] External links
- A 2002 Boston Globe article
- Washington Post interview with Thomas S. Blanton, Executive Director, National Security Archive
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