the man who listened to his intuition...and saved the world...

Petrov in uniform 1999

twenty-six years ago, in 1983, the united states and the ussr were in the midst of strained cold war relations and under the reagan administration, things could not be much worse than the existing antagonistic relation between him and yuri andropov the soviet premier at that time - then in early september, just a few weeks previously, there had been the korean airline passenger plane shot down by the ussr killing nearly 300 people - the world political climate was more than a little strained -

it is in this tenuous political atmosphere that the story of an ordinary man who saved the world takes life - it is the story of a man about whom some of us may never have heard - he is a man that, but for a “coincidence”, none of us would, in all probability, have ever heard - his name is stanislav petrov

lieutenant colonel petrov, a member of the russian military was the officer on duty the night of September 26, 1983 - on this particular night, he had not even been originally scheduled to be on duty - he was a scientist, a supervisor - however, when the person assigned did not show for work, petrov reported for duty for the man whose job it was to warn the [then] soviet union government of an imminent nuclear missile attack [by the united states] based upon computer and satellite readings and warnings - shortly after midnight, russian time, the warning systems began a repeated alarm of approaching US missiles - the directive of the soviet government in response to such systems warnings was an immediate nuclear weapons counter-attack upon the united states - petrov assumed that the first or second warning was just a computer error as he believed if the attack were coming, there would be more than just a few launches - but the warnings continued - after five alarms, the computer system went into the START mode to begin the massive nuclear counter-attack - but petrov held fast to his intuition and did not press the “button” - he had no way of knowing if he was right - as a matter of fact, everything in front of him told him he was wrong and that a nuclear missile attack was underway at that moment - but he held firmly to his intuition and declared the warnings a computer error - then he held his breath waiting - minute after minute passed and there was no attack - his intuition had served him well - his intuition, as it turned out, had served us all well - the warnings were in error and there was no launching by the united states - of course, as one might assume, petrov’s soviet military career was thereafter short-lived - notwithstanding his heroic act, he had disobeyed military protocol and command - he retired from the military within two years and lives now as a pensioner there - he does not consider himself a hero - however, because of a scheduling “coincidence” that night and due to his steadfast perseverance in relying upon his own intuition under such dire circumstances, we are all left in his debt -

years later, petrov was honored by dag hammaarskjold of the UN, with an award from the association of world citizens - the award was a granite base with a solid glass hand holding the earth and the inscription read:

"The single hand that holds the earth symbolizes
your heroic deed on September 26, 1983
that earned you the title:
The Man Who Averted Nuclear War.”
*
The back of the award read:
“May the hand now symbolize
humanity united to save our world
by eliminating nuclear weapons
from the face of the earth.”