Loops: This is how the world's two officers avoided two devastating nuclear wars in 1983

In 1983, humanity came close to a nuclear catastrophe twice that would lead to the end of the world, and in both cases, the catastrophe was avoided after it was on the brink of falling thanks to the composure of two humble officers who refused to implement military measures, the first being Soviet and the other American, so what is their story?

The French magazine L'Obs tells the two stories in all their details. The first spoke about its Russian owner Stanislav Petrov 15 years after its occurrence, and the second was transmitted by the American Leonard Perutz, who never spoke about its achievement, but wrote a report on which it was declassified after a long legal battle it fought. The non-governmental organization "National Security Archive".

Severe tension

In his report for the magazine, writer Vincent Juffair says that it was not a coincidence that the two secret atomic crises occurred in 1983, when tension during the Cold War was at its highest, and the two superpowers were in a confrontation on several fronts, in Afghanistan, where the Soviet army was waging a war against the armed mujahideen. By the US Central Intelligence Agency, and in Poland, where the Kremlin supports General Jaroselsky against the "Solidarity Union" that is assisted by many Western intelligence services, at a time when both Washington and Moscow have deployed medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe.

And it did not end there in the early eighties - as the writer says - when US President Ronald Reagan saw that it was possible to deal a fatal blow to what he called the "evil empire", by sowing panic among the sick elderly and teenagers of the leaders of the Soviet Union.

In March 1983, Reagan laid down his hazy "Star Wars" plan that was supposed to disable Soviet nuclear missiles, then sent 40 American ships to the Pacific Ocean to simulate an all-out war with the Soviet Union, and wrote in a memo issued by the National Security Agency that "these Actions aimed at stirring up paranoia and they have succeeded. "

At the time, Soviet President Yuri Andropov believed that America was preparing to be the owner of the first nuclear strike. To avoid surprise, he launched the covert giant "Ryan" operation, by which he tasked 300 Soviet spies working in the West to monitor possible preparations for atomic attacks.

In this anxious atmosphere - as the writer says - the first crisis occurred, and the first hero entered the scene one night in late September 1983. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov was the duty officer in the "Serpikhov-15" satellites bunker near Moscow, which is Responsible for monitoring intercontinental missile attacks that do not usually occur.

But that night, all the screens flashed shortly after midnight, and the alarm siren sounded, after the satellites detected an American nuclear missile said to be heading towards the Soviet Union and then detected two, three by five, and according to computers, these attacks will hit their targets. After 20 minutes.

false alarm

Officer Petrov - knowing this - should have alerted his superiors immediately so that the Kremlin had time to launch a massive counterattack, but he remained frozen "in shock," as he later said, as the minutes passed heavy and the computer was announcing the missiles, and Petrov's comrades urged him to contact his superiors. But he was stalling, because his intuition told him that the decision to start a third world war, the Americans would not start with 5 missiles, but rather hundreds, so he decided not to inform his commanders.

After a very long 20 minutes, the Soviet officer finally breathed a sigh of relief after he knew that the warning was indeed false, and he knew after days that the reason was the reflection of sunlight on the high clouds, except that no one in the West knew about this error that could have caused The biggest disaster in history.

The writer pointed out that if Reagan had known about this incident, he might not have allowed NATO to launch the giant Apple Archer exercises in which 19 thousand soldiers were transported from the United States to Europe, in which the dummy atomic bombs were loaded in the stores of about 20 "B-" bombers. 52 '' (B-52).

Although the Soviet Union had been informed of the exercise in advance as usual, Moscow feared that the enormity of the force used in it could be a prelude to a real, large-scale attack, so instead of responding with maneuvers they unleashed a real nuclear noise, and for the first and only time in the Cold War, charges were installed. Atomic numbers on Soviet military aircraft stationed in the (eastern) German Democratic Republic and Poland.

In these circumstances, it was the turn of the second hero, Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Perutz, an intelligence officer from the US Air Force at the German Ramstein base, tasked with monitoring any movements of the Soviet Air Force, and thanks to his technical and human resources, he discovered the opponent’s nuclear preparations, and he had - as he knows - to inform His bosses who, according to the procedures, must adapt their situation to that of the Soviets, thus loading their combat aircraft with real atomic bombs.

Appropriately warned

But Perutz’s instinct called him to be cautious, and it was likely that the Soviets might misunderstand this escalation and mistakenly think that it was the beginning of an American attack. Therefore, the commander of the US Air Force in Europe, General Billy Minter, advised him to calm down and not respond and wait, and it seemed that his understanding was correct, because the Soviet generals stopped At that point.

National Security Archive historian Nate Jones says, "If Perutis had advised responding to the Soviets and continuing the escalation, the war would probably have occurred." However, Perutz did not know the seriousness of the situation until a few weeks later, when the Soviet communications were finally decrypted. A frightening thing emerged, according to declassified documents, when the commander of the Fourth Soviet Army ordered all its units to prepare for "immediate use of nuclear weapons." In his report, which was revealed, Perutz indicated that the combat bombers were on alert "for 30 years." Minute, "Leonard Perutz has been honored for this awareness and demonstration of extraordinary coldness.

These nuclear crises had a very positive impact - as the writer says - they shed light on the dangers of launching a nuclear catastrophe that kills the world due to a simple misunderstanding, and Ronald Reagan wrote a few days after the end of the confrontation with Apple Archer, "I have the impression that the Soviets are very cautious and paranoid. We have to tell them that no one here has the slightest intention of attacking them without surrendering to them. "

A few months after this incident, Reagan proposed to the new Kremlin president, Mikhail Gorbachev, drastically reduce their nuclear arsenals, resulting in 4 years after the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the elimination of all medium-range missiles in Europe, a major step towards the end of the Cold War.