The Soviet Union’s ICBM detection system was clunky with large gaps in radar coverage. We knew it, and they knew it.
That made the Soviets jumpy, and the Cold War more dangerous. The faults of their system very nearly triggered an accidental nuclear war on Monday, September 26, 1983. A single man, Russian duty officer Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov (photo, left), prevented it.
On that day, Russia’s early-warning system interpreted sun reflecting off clouds as five U.S. Minuteman ICBMs taking off, and flashed a “Launch” warning on Petrov’s console.
After mulling it over, he decided it was a false alarm and didn’t report it, at the risk of being executed for treason if he was wrong.
Petrov was right about it not being an ICBM launch, and the West later honored him, but he was “relentlessly interrogated … [and] never rewarded” by his own country. Petrov died in 2017. Read story and see more details here.
Didn’t somebody write a song about it?