Tuesday, September 26, 2006

If youre alive today to read this...

... thank Stanislav Petrov

Stanislav Yefgrafovich Petrov (Russian: Станислав Евграфович Петров) (born c. 1939) is a retired Russian Strategic Rocket Forces colonel who, on September 26, 1983, averted a potential nuclear war by refusing to believe that the United States had launched missiles against the USSR, despite the indications given by his computerized early warning systems. The Soviet computer reports were later shown to have been in error, and Petrov is credited with preventing World War III and the devastation of much of the Earth by nuclear weapons. Because of military secrecy and international policy, Petrov's actions were kept secret until 1998.

Thanks, comrade.

1 comment:

grifter said...

seems Tom Clancy was privy to such info, he gives it a nod to in The Sum of All Fears.