Vasily Arkhipov saved the world during the Cuban missile crisis

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Vasily Alexandrovich Arkhipov, 30 January 1926 – 19 August 1998) was a Soviet Navy officer credited with casting the single vote that prevented a Soviet nuclear strike (and, presumably, all-out nuclear war) during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Such an attack likely would have caused a major global thermonuclear response which, as Noam Chomsky described, could have destroyed much of the world.[1] As flotilla commander and second-in-command of the diesel powered submarine B-59, only Arkhipov refused to authorize the captain's use of nuclear torpedoes against the United States Navy, a decision requiring the agreement of all three senior officers aboard. In 2002 Thomas Blanton, who was then director of the US National Security Archive, said that Arkhipov "saved the world".[2]



Soviet submarine B-59

Soviet submarine B-59 (Russian: ?-59) was a Project 641 or Foxtrot-class diesel-electric submarine of the Soviet Navy. It played a key role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, when senior officers—believing they were under attack—considered launching a T-5 nuclear torpedo.