Stanislav Petrov - Wikipedia

On September 26, 1983, Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averted a worldwide nuclear war by judging a supposed missile attack from the US as an error. From the article:

"According to the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN – on 19 January 2006, over 22 years after the incident – nuclear retaliation requires that multiple sources confirm an attack.[7] In any case, the incident exposed a serious flaw in the Soviet early warning system. Petrov has said that he was neither rewarded nor punished for his actions.[8]

Had Petrov reported incoming American missiles, his superiors might have launched an assault against the United States,[2] precipitating a corresponding nuclear response from the United States. Petrov declared the system's indication 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 alarm had been created by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds above North Dakota and the Molniya orbits of the satellites, an error later corrected by cross-referencing a geostationary satellite.[9][10]

Petrov later indicated that the influences on his decision included: that he was informed a U.S. strike would be all-out, so five missiles seemed an illogical start;[1] that the launch detection system was new and, in his view, not yet wholly trustworthy; the message passed through 30 layers of verification too quickly;[11] and that ground radar failed to pick up corroborative evidence, even after minutes of delay.[12] However, in a 2013 interview, Petrov said at the time he was never sure that the alarm was erroneous. He felt that his civilian training helped him make the right decision. He said that his colleagues were all professional soldiers with purely military training and, following instructions, would have reported a missile strike if they had been on his shift.[2]

Petrov underwent intense questioning by his superiors about his judgment. Initially, he was praised for his decision.[1] General Yury Votintsev, then commander of the Soviet Air Defense's Missile Defense Units, who was the first to hear Petrov's report of the incident (and the first to reveal it to the public in the 1990s), states that Petrov's "correct actions" were "duly noted".[1] Petrov himself states he was initially praised by Votintsev and promised a reward,[1][13] but recalls that he was also reprimanded for improper filing of paperwork because he had not described the incident in the war diary.[13][14]

He received no reward. According to Petrov, this was because the incident and other bugs found in the missile detection system embarrassed his superiors and the influential scientists who were responsible for it, so that if he had been officially rewarded, they would have had to be punished.[1][8][13][14] He was reassigned to a less sensitive post,[14] took early retirement (although he emphasized that he was not "forced out" of the army, as is sometimes claimed by Western sources),[13] and suffered a nervous breakdown.[14]

In a later interview, Petrov stated that the famous red button has never worked, as military psychologists did not want to put the decision about a war into the hands of one single person.[15]

The incident became known publicly in the 1990s upon the publication of Votintsev's memoirs. Widespread media reports since then have increased public awareness of Petrov's actions.[citation needed]

There is some confusion as to precisely what Petrov's military role was in this incident. Petrov, as an individual, was not in a position where he could single-handedly have launched any of the Soviet missile arsenal. His sole duty was to monitor satellite surveillance equipment and report missile attack warnings up the chain of command; top Soviet leadership would have decided whether to launch a retaliatory attack against the West. But Petrov's role was crucial in providing information to make that decision.[16] According to Bruce Blair, a Cold War nuclear strategies expert and nuclear disarmament advocate, formerly with the Center for Defense Information, "The top leadership, given only a couple of minutes to decide, told that an attack had been launched, would make a decision to retaliate."[17]

Petrov later said "I had obviously never imagined that I would ever face that situation. It was the first and, as far as I know, also the last time that such a thing had happened, except for simulated practice scenarios."[16]"