"Few people know of him... Yet hundreds of millions of people are alive because of him. The actions of Stanislav Petrov, a retired Soviet military officer, prevented the start of a worldwide nuclear war and the devastation of much of the Earth."--IMDb Kevin Costner, Stanislav Petrov, Nataliya Vdovina, Sergey Shnyryov.
Summary:
With "Operation Able Archer" in the fall of 1983 Ronald Reagan convinced the Soviet Union that NATO was about to launch a nuclear first strike. On 26 September 1983, the nuclear early warning system of the Soviet Union twice reported the launch of USAF Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles from bases in the United States. These missile attack warnings were correctly identified as a false alarm by Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov, an officer of the Soviet Air Defence Forces. This decision is seen as having prevented a retaliatory nuclear attack based on erroneous data on the United States and its NATO allies, which would have probably resulted in nuclear war and the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. Investigation of the satellite warning system later confirmed that the system had malfunctioned.
OCLC:
(OCoLC)965830012
Locations:
OVUX522 -- University of Iowa Libraries (University of Iowa) (Iowa City)
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.