Key takeaways
- Submarine B-59 carried a nuclear torpedo and was under pressure from US depth charges.
- Launch reportedly required agreement among three senior officers; Vasili Arkhipov refused.
- The incident was only fully understood decades later, and some details remain contested.
On 27 October 1962, the most dangerous day of the Cold War, a Soviet submarine lay trapped beneath the Caribbean while American warships dropped practice depth charges around it. The submarine carried a nuclear torpedo. What happened next is often told as a story of a single hero. The truth is a story of a flawed system and a fragile decision.
The situation aboard B-59
B-59 was a diesel submarine sent toward Cuba. Cut off from Moscow, with failing air conditioning, dwindling batteries and temperatures reported above 40 degrees Celsius, its crew heard explosions overhead. US Navy ships were using small charges to force it to surface, a practice the Americans considered a signal and the crew could not know was not an attack. The captain, Valentin Savitsky, reportedly believed war might already have begun and ordered the nuclear torpedo made ready.
The refusal
According to later accounts, firing required the agreement of the captain, the political officer and, because he was a flotilla commander aboard, Vasili Arkhipov. Arkhipov is said to have refused and calmed the others, and the submarine surfaced. The story became public through a 2002 conference with American and Russian participants, and has since been repeated widely.
What we should be careful about
Historians caution that details are disputed. Some argue the command arrangements are not as simple as popular tellings suggest, and not every crew member agrees about the mood on board. What is not disputed is the danger: nuclear weapons were in the hands of crews who had little contact with their governments and a limited understanding of what was happening above them.
Editorial assessment
It is tempting to build a moral tale around one officer. It is more honest to see the incident as evidence of how thin the margin was. The world was not saved by a flawless safeguard. It was saved, if the account is right, by a person’s judgement under pressure, and the safeguards around him were weaker than we would like. The real lesson is about systems, not saints.
Questions to think about
- Should we celebrate a world saved by one individual’s judgement?
- What does this episode say about the safety of nuclear command systems?
Disagree? Say why in the discussion below. Good arguments change minds.
References and sources
- Svetlana Savranskaya, “New Sources on the Role of Soviet Submarines in the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Journal of Strategic Studies (2005)
- National Security Archive, George Washington University, Cuban Missile Crisis collection
Discussion
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