“Keep your head. Calm is contagious, and so is courage.”          Rorke Denver

5:00 p.m. October 27, 1962 – East Coast of Florida, U.S.A.: The explosions shook the submarine again. Aboard the sweltering Soviet sub, temperatures reached 115 degrees. Captain Valentin Savitsky was hot, tired, stressed, and about to fire his special weapon.

Savitsky ordered the 10-kiloton nuclear warhead torpedo loaded into tube #1. He shouted, “We’re going to blast them now. We will all die, but we will sink them all. We will not disgrace our Soviet Navy!” Disaster, perhaps total annihilation, was as close as the red button a few steps away.

Five days earlier, U.S. President John Kennedy informed the world that the Soviet Union was building secret atomic missile silos in Cuba, just 90 miles off the Florida coast. Kennedy ordered the missiles removed, but Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev refused. The world waited and held its breath as the two superpowers confronted each other in a diplomatic standoff while the world teetered on the brink of WWIII.

Khrushchev had also moved four Foxtrot Class Soviet submarines from his naval base in the Arctic Circle to the coast of Florida. Each sub was armed with a nuclear warhead torpedo and each warhead had the capacity to cause Hiroshima or Nagasaki-level destruction. The commanders of each sub had permission to launch the nuclear torpedo without direct orders from Moscow.

To counter the offensive, Kennedy moved 11 Navy destroyers and an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Randolph, to the area as part of a blockade of Cuban shipping lanes. While negotiations between the two enemies heated up, U.S. warships discovered the Soviet subs.

Late afternoon, October 27, destroyers began dropping non-lethal depth charges, hoping to force the Soviet subs to the surface so they could discuss their mission and intent. In submarine B-59, Commander Savitsky, who had no communication with Moscow, assumed the Soviet Union and the United States were at war.

Trapped in the sweltering sub because the air conditioner had failed, and feeling claustrophobic, Savitsky lost his cool. After loading the nuclear torpedo, he went to the periscope. His target was the U.S.S. Randolph, with 3,500 sailors on board.

Russian protocol required the approval of two senior officers to authorize a nuclear launch. Each had a portion of a key, which when joined unlocked the firing mechanism. Savitsky screamed at 36-year-old Brigade Chief of Staff Vasily Arkhipov to give him his key to unlock the firing mechanism. Arkhipov, who had the power to veto firing the torpedo, refused.

The calm, soft-spoken Brigade Chief asked for a minute with his commander. The two men stepped away from the rest of the crew; Arkhipov pleaded with his superior to reconsider, but he refused. It was too late; they were at war. Then Arkhipov quietly suggested that if the Americans wanted to destroy B-59 they would have done so by now. Savitky listened and then he calmed down.

Arkhipov suggested, “Commander, let’s surface and get an update from the Kremlin.” When they surfaced, they were met by a Navy destroyer. The two sides talked. No one boarded the sub or inspected its cargo. After communicating with Moscow and charging its batteries for 24 hours, B-59 returned with the four submarines to the Soviet Union.

The following day, the United States and the Soviet Union reached an agreement that Russia would remove its nuclear missiles from Cuba with a commitment from the United States to not invade Cuba. The 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis was over and WWIII was averted.

The incredible brush with nuclear war was kept secret for decades. It was not until 2002 that the American public learned of the barely avoided catastrophe. Vasily Arkhipov’s actions to prevent a nuclear strike came to light in an interview with retired submarine commander Vadim Pavlovich Orlov, one of the other U-boat commanders off the coast of Florida in October 1962.  

Had it not been for the courage and calm of the young Russian Brigade Chief of Staff, the events on October 27, 1962, might have resulted in a nuclear holocaust. The U.S. had an estimated 27,000 nuclear weapons, 3,000 of which would have been deployed in the initial attack on Russia. The Soviet Union had 3,000 nuclear warheads, many aimed at major American cities.

Thomas Blanton, director of the U.S. National Security Archive, stated in 2002, “The lesson from the Cuban Missile Crisis is that a guy named Vasily Arkhipov saved the world.” On October 27, 2017, 55 years after his heroic actions and 15 years after his death, Vasily Arkhipov’s family was presented the Future Life Award. He never considered himself a hero, but in simply doing his job he saved the lives of countless millions.