"Count to 100 before you say or do something"
It is advice that we have all received at some point and, furthermore, it is very sensible. From the end result, it seems that the Russians are faithful followers of this reflection. The 37 minutes that saved the world are divided into two sequences :
- 20 minutes :Almost a quarter of a football game, two quarters of a basketball game, 1/3 of an hour... it seems little, but it is the time it takes for an American intercontinental ballistic missile launched from the Malmstrom base (Montana, USA) to reach Russian soil. At 00:14 on September 26, 1983, Soviet satellites detected the launch of 5 supposed American ballistic missiles. Stanislav Petrov , a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet army, was responsible for activating the security protocol ("simply" launching their missiles, Nuclear War ) and he thought, thank God, that he couldn't be...
People don't start a nuclear war with just five missiles
The so-called autumnal equinox incident it was caused by a conjunction of astronomical phenomena between the Earth, the Sun, the satellites and the autumnal equinox, the result of which was a series of thermal signals that looked like missiles on radar. His "patience" and "good work" saved the world from the last war? The Soviet government admonished and demoted him. To find out what happened to Stanislav Petrov, you can read it in cabovolo.
- 17 minutes :This is how long the televised message of J.F. Kennedy , on October 22, 1962, in which he announced the naval blockade of Cuba to prevent the Soviets from continuing to install nuclear missiles on the island. Nikita Khrushchev's response , on October 24, left no room for doubt:
…the USSR sees the blockade as an aggression and will not divert the ships
The world trembled, but when the time came, the Russians thought better of it, and gave in. From that moment on, the hotline between the US and the USSR was created.
I hope that this reflection continues to be a maxim for the authorities in any field of action.