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Jan. 30th, 2012 07:58 amTwo questions for those of you reading today:
1. Are you alive?
2. Do you live in a horrifying, largely lifeless, irradiated post-nuclear wasteland?
If the answer to the first question is yes, and the answer to the second question is no, then join me today in commemorating the birthday of this man:
His name is Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov and, in the words of cracked.com, you owe him your goddamned life.
See, back in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet submarine that Arkhipov served aboard as second-in-command got itself trapped by American naval destroyers and an aircraft carrier’s worth of depth charges. The sub’s captain flipped out. Things were pretty tense at the time and Captain Savitsky thought a war had already started, so what the hell did he have to lose by launching a nuclear torpedo? His zampolit- Ivan Maslennikov, the sub’s political officer- agreed with him, but there was one little catch… Soviet naval policy required a unanimous vote among the three senior officers when it came to launching nuclear anything. Arkhipov was vote #3. He didn’t believe a state of war had begun yet, so launching that torpedo would have been the thing that did begin one, and frankly, he didn’t particularly like the idea of bringing about the end of the world. He managed to convince the zampolit that they should refrain from firing, and while Captain Savitsky was still pretty angry about the whole thing, he eventually calmed down enough to see reason. Instead of firing the nuclear torpedo, Savitsky ordered the sub to surface and wait for clear orders from Moscow.
And it did.
And we’re still here.
So thank you, Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, for being one persuasive son of a bitch in the face of a bad situation and a captain who thought he had nothing to lose. We appreciate it more deeply than we can say.
1. Are you alive?
2. Do you live in a horrifying, largely lifeless, irradiated post-nuclear wasteland?
If the answer to the first question is yes, and the answer to the second question is no, then join me today in commemorating the birthday of this man:
His name is Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov and, in the words of cracked.com, you owe him your goddamned life.
See, back in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet submarine that Arkhipov served aboard as second-in-command got itself trapped by American naval destroyers and an aircraft carrier’s worth of depth charges. The sub’s captain flipped out. Things were pretty tense at the time and Captain Savitsky thought a war had already started, so what the hell did he have to lose by launching a nuclear torpedo? His zampolit- Ivan Maslennikov, the sub’s political officer- agreed with him, but there was one little catch… Soviet naval policy required a unanimous vote among the three senior officers when it came to launching nuclear anything. Arkhipov was vote #3. He didn’t believe a state of war had begun yet, so launching that torpedo would have been the thing that did begin one, and frankly, he didn’t particularly like the idea of bringing about the end of the world. He managed to convince the zampolit that they should refrain from firing, and while Captain Savitsky was still pretty angry about the whole thing, he eventually calmed down enough to see reason. Instead of firing the nuclear torpedo, Savitsky ordered the sub to surface and wait for clear orders from Moscow.
And it did.
And we’re still here.
So thank you, Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, for being one persuasive son of a bitch in the face of a bad situation and a captain who thought he had nothing to lose. We appreciate it more deeply than we can say.
