1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident

File:Stanislav Petrov1.jpg

Stanislav Petrov, 1999

Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (Russian: Станислав Евграфович Петров) (born c. 1939) is a retired Russian Strategic Rocket Forces lieutenant colonel who, on September 26, 1983, allegedly deviated from standard Soviet doctrine by positively identifying a missile attack warning as a false alarm.

This decision, according to several sources, was a major factor in preventing an accidental retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States. Investigation of the satellite warning system later confirmed that the system had been malfunctioning.

Though there continue to be varying reports as to whether Petrov actually reported the alert to his superiors, or what part his decision ultimately played in preventing nuclear war, his willingness to risk punishment in order to possibly prevent a catastrophe exposed a critical flaw in the Soviet missile warning system and deeply embarrassed the upper echelons of the Soviet Army. In retaliation, he was branded as an "unreliable" officer, transferred to non-command duty, and eventually forced to retire. Because of Soviet military secrecy and international political concerns, Petrov's actions were kept secret until 1998 when a Russian officer present at the bunker wrote a book detailing the incident.

This incident is one of several high-risk decisions that were made by strategic nuclear forces over the years of the Cold War, often at the last minute, by administrative personnel far from the chain of command.

Background

The incident occurred at a time of severely strained relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Only three weeks earlier, the Soviet military had shot down a Korean passenger jet, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, that had entered into Soviet airspace, killing all 269 people on board; many Americans were killed, including US congressman Larry McDonald. NATO was soon to begin the military exercise Able Archer 83, preparations for which had been interpreted by the KGB as preparation for a first strike.

1983 incident

Stanislav Petrov, a Strategic Rocket Forces lieutenant colonel, was the officer on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow on September 26, 1983. Petrov's responsibilities included observing the satellite early warning network and notifying his superiors of any impending nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union. If notification was received from the early-warning systems that inbound missiles had been detected, the Soviet Union's strategy was an immediate nuclear counter-attack against the United States (launch on warning), specified in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction.

Shortly after midnight, the bunker's computers reported that an intercontinental ballistic missile was heading toward the Soviet Union from the US. Petrov considered the detection a computer error, since a United States first-strike nuclear attack would hypothetically involve hundreds of simultaneous missile launches to disable any Soviet means for a counterattack. Furthermore, the satellite system's reliability had been questioned in the past. Petrov dismissed the warning as a false alarm, though accounts of the event differ as to whether he notified his superiors or not after he concluded that the computer detections were false and that no missile had been launched. Later, the computers identified four additional missiles in the air, all directed towards the Soviet Union. Petrov again suspected that the computer system was malfunctioning, despite having no other source of information to confirm his suspicions. The Soviet Union's land radar was incapable of detecting missiles beyond the horizon, and waiting for it to positively identify the threat would limit the Soviet Union's response time to minutes.

Had Petrov reported incoming American missiles, his superiors might have launched an assault against the United States, precipitating a corresponding nuclear response from the United States. Petrov declared the system's indications a false alarm. Later, it was apparent that he was right: no missiles were approaching and the computer detection system was malfunctioning. It was subsequently determined that the false alarms had been created by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites' Molniya orbits, an error later corrected with cross-reference to a geostationary satellite.

Petrov later indicated the influences in this decision included: that he had been told a US strike would be all-out, so that five missiles seemed an illogical start; that the launch detection system was new and, in his view, not yet wholly trustworthy; and that ground radars were still failing to pick up any corroborative evidence, even after minutes of delay.

Aftermath

Lt. Col. Petrov stood accused of disobeying his orders and defying military protocol by the manner in which he handled the possible nuclear threat. He later underwent intense questioning by his superiors about his actions during the distressing ordeal, the result of which was that they no longer considered him a reliable military officer.

In the inquiry, Col. Petrov's commanders blamed him for the incident and held him responsible for what had happened. His actions showed his superiors in a bad light. He was given a reprimand for the improper filing of paperwork. He was reassigned to a less sensitive post, took early retirement and suffered a nervous breakdown.

The incident involving Petrov first became known publicly in the 1990s following the publication of memoirs written by Col. Gen. Yury Votintsev, the former commander of the Soviet Air Defense's Missile Defense Units. Widespread media reports since then have increased public awareness of Petrov's actions.

Petrov is now a pensioner, spending his retirement in the town of Fryazino. On May 21, 2004, the San Francisco-based Association of World Citizens gave Colonel Petrov its World Citizen Award along with a trophy and US$1000 "in recognition of the part he played in averting a catastrophe."

In January 2006 Petrov travelled to the United States where he was honored in a meeting at the United Nations in New York City. There the Association of World Citizens presented Petrov with a second special World Citizen Award. The following day Petrov met with American journalist Walter Cronkite at his CBS office in New York City. That interview, in addition to other highlights of Petrov’s trip to the United States, will be included in the documentary film The Man Who Saved the World, which is expected to be released in the summer or autumn of 2008.

Skepticism

On the same day that Petrov was honored at the United Nations in New York City, the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations issued a press release contending that a single individual would be incapable of starting or preventing a nuclear war, stating in part: "Under no circumstances a decision to use nuclear weapons could be made or even considered in the Soviet Union (Russia) or in the United States on the basis of data from a single source or a system. For this to happen, a confirmation is necessary from several systems: ground-based radars, early warning satellites, intelligence reports, etc."

However, some Cold War analysts question whether this protocol would have been strictly followed in the case of the missile attack warning involving Stanislav Petrov. Because of the state of mind of the Soviet leadership in 1983, along with distressing intelligence reports, the Soviet leadership appeared seriously concerned there would eventually be a surprise nuclear missile attack by the United States. Bruce Blair, an expert on Cold War nuclear strategies, now president of the World Security Institute in Washington, D.C., says the U.S.–Soviet relationship "had deteriorated to the point where the Soviet Union as a system — not just the Kremlin, not just Andropov, not just the KGB — but as a system, was geared to expect an attack and to retaliate very quickly to it. It was on hair-trigger alert. It was very nervous and prone to mistakes and accidents... The false alarm that happened on Petrov’s watch could not have come at a more dangerous, intense phase in U.S.–Soviet relations." In a nationally televised interview, Blair said, "The Russians saw a U.S. government preparing for a first strike, headed by a President capable of ordering a first strike." Regarding the incident involving Petrov, he said, "I think that this is the closest we've come to accidental nuclear war."

Oleg D. Kalugin, a former KGB chief of foreign counterintelligence who knew Soviet leader Yuri Andropov well, says that Andropov's distrust of American leaders was profound. It is conceivable that if Petrov had declared the satellite warnings valid, such an erroneous report could have provoked the Soviet leadership into becoming bellicose. Says Kalugin, "The danger was in the Soviet leadership thinking, 'The Americans may attack, so we better attack first.'"

Petrov has said he does not regard himself as a hero for what he did that day. In an interview for the documentary film The Red Button and the Man Who Saved the World, Petrov says, "All that happened didn't matter to me — it was my job. I was simply doing my job, and I was the right person at the right time, that's all. My late wife for 10 years knew nothing about it. 'So what did you do?' she asked me. I did nothing."

See also

• Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, for another nuclear war-averting incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis
• Able Archer 83 - another nuclear war scare in November 1983

External links

• BrightStarSound.com a tribute website, multiple pages with photos and reprints of various articles about Petrov
• Nuclear War: Minuteman
• The Nuclear War that Almost Happened in 1983 (posted 9-5-03)
• Armageddon Almost Not Averted
• World Citizen Award
• 20 mishaps that might have started an accidental nuclear war.
• Wired.com Sept. 26, 1983: The Man Who Saved the World by Doing ... Nothing