Stanislav Petrov
Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (Russian: Станисла́в Евгра́фович Петро́в; 7 September 1939 – 19 May 2017) was a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces who played a key role in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident.[2] On 26 September 1983, three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to five more. Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm.[3]
For the footballer, see Stanislav Petrov (footballer).
Stanislav Petrov
Raisa Petrova (m. 1973; died 1997)
2
Soviet Union
1972–1984
His subsequent decision to disobey orders, against Soviet military protocol,[4] is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in a large-scale nuclear war. An investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned. Because of his decision not to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike amid this incident, Petrov is often credited as having "saved the world".[5][6][7]
Early life and military career[edit]
Petrov was born on 7 September 1939 to a Russian family near Vladivostok. His father, Yevgraf, flew fighter aircraft during World War II.[8] His mother was a nurse.[8]
Petrov enrolled at the Kiev Military Aviation Engineering Academy of the Soviet Air Forces, and after graduating in 1972 he joined the Soviet Air Defence Forces. In the early 1970s, he was assigned to the organization that oversaw the new early warning system intended to detect ballistic missile attacks from NATO countries.[8][9]
Petrov was married to Raisa, and had a son, Dmitri, and a daughter, Yelena. His wife died of cancer in 1997.[8]
Awards and commendations[edit]
On 21 May 2004, the San Francisco-based Association of World Citizens gave Petrov its World Citizen Award along with a trophy and $1,000 "in recognition of the part he played in averting a catastrophe."[31] 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 him with a second special World Citizen Award.[32] The next day, he met 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, was filmed for The Man Who Saved the World,[31][33] a narrative feature and documentary film, directed by Peter Anthony of Denmark. It premiered in October 2014 at the Woodstock Film Festival in Woodstock, New York, winning "Honorable Mention: Audience Award Winner for Best Narrative Feature" and "Honorable Mention: James Lyons Award for Best Editing of a Narrative Feature."[34]
In the effective altruism movement, 26 September is commemorated as Petrov day.[35]
For his actions in averting a potential nuclear war in 1983, Petrov received the Dresden Peace Prize in Dresden, Germany, on 17 February 2013. The award included €25,000.[36] On 24 February 2012, he was given the 2011 German Media Award, presented to him at a ceremony in Baden-Baden, Germany.[31][37][38]
On 26 September 2018, he was posthumously honored in New York with the $50,000 Future of Life Award.[39] At a ceremony at the National Museum of Mathematics in New York, former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said: "It is hard to imagine anything more devastating for humanity than all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States. Yet this might have occurred by accident on September 26, 1983, were it not for the wise decisions of Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov. For this, he deserves humanity's profound gratitude. Let us resolve to work together to realize a world free from fear of nuclear weapons, remembering the courageous judgement of Stanislav Petrov." As Petrov had died, the award was collected by his daughter, Elena. Petrov's son Dmitri missed his flight to New York because the US embassy delayed his visa.[39][40]
On the same day that Petrov was first 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 person could not have started or prevented 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 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."[10]
But nuclear security expert Bruce G. Blair has said that at that time, 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 US–Soviet relations."[23] At that time, according to Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB chief of foreign counterintelligence, "The danger was in the Soviet leadership thinking, 'The Americans may attack, so we better attack first.'"[41]
Petrov said he did not know whether he should have regarded himself as a hero for what he did that day.[23] In an interview for the film 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. 'Nothing. I did nothing.'"[23]
The story of the nuclear incident is portrayed in the novel La redención del camarada Petrov by Argentinian writer Eduardo Sguiglia (Edhasa, 2023).[42]