Our Scary Past

For John, BLUF:  Heroes on all sides.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved The World,' Dies At 77

Here is the sub-headline:

September 18, 201712:32 PM ET Greg Myre - 2016 - square GREG MYRE.

[Stanislav] Petrov died on May 19, at age 77, in a suburb outside Moscow, according to news reports Monday.  He had long since retired and was living alone. News of his death apparently went unrecognized at the time.

Here is the lede plus one:

Stanislav Petrov was a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Union's Air Defense Forces, and his job was to monitor his country's satellite system, which was looking for any possible nuclear weapons launches by the United States.

He was on the overnight shift in the early morning hours of Sept. 26, 1983, when the computers sounded an alarm, indicating that the U.S. had launched five nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.

"The siren howled, but I just sat there for a few seconds, staring at the big, back-lit, red screen with the word 'launch' on it," Petrov told the BBC in 2013.

It was already a moment of extreme tension in the Cold War. On Sept. 1 of that year, the Soviet Union shot down a Korean Air Lines plane that had drifted into Soviet airspace, killing all 269 people on board, including a U.S. congressman. The episode led the U.S. and the Soviets to exchange warnings and threats.

What is missing in this story is a discussion of NATO Exercise ABLE ARCHER 83, which commence on 7 November 1983.  The Soviets reacted, for the first time, by loading out "tactical" nuclear weapons in forward Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) countries.  It was also a moment of nuclear crisis.

Legend has it that Air Force General Leonard H Perroots is the person who told President Reagan that he had to back off because he was scaring the Russians into paranoia.  Wikipedia says that Lenny Perroots "is credited with helping to avert nuclear war during the Able Archer 83 war scare." I am so old I have participated in a couple of ABLE ARCHER Exercises.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff