'I was just doing my job': Soviet officer who averted nuclear war dies at age 77Published time: 17 Sep, 2017 19:01
https://www.rt.com/news/403625-nuclear-soviet-officer-died/[...]
On September 7, Schumacher, who kept in touch with Petrov in the intervening years, phoned him to wish him a happy birthday, but instead learned from Petrov’s son, Dmitry, that the retired officer had died on May 19 in his home in a small town near Moscow.
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On September 26, 1983, [Soviet lieutenant colonel] Stanislav Petrov was on duty in charge of an early warning radar system in a bunker near Moscow, when just past midnight he saw the radar screen showing a single missile inbound from the United States and headed toward the Soviet Union.
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Taught that in case of a real attack the US would have gone on an all-out offensive, Petrov told his bosses the alarm must have been caused by a system malfunction.
“I’ll admit it, I was scared. I knew the level of responsibility at my fingertips,” he said.
It was later revealed that what the Soviet satellites took for missiles launch was sunlight reflected from clouds.
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