- A Soviet soldier who saved the world
from nuclear oblivion was rewarded with just an apartment and a telephone,
it was revealed yesterday.
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- Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov gambled on
his aging computer being faulty when it flashed up the chilling message
that it was tracking US missiles heading for the Soviet Union.
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- It indicated a nuclear strike was 40
minutes away from hitting Russia. The red alert just after midnight left
Petrov with only 15 minutes to assess the situation and decide on a response.
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- Procedure dictated he should inform his
commander, who would send a signal enabling the then Soviet leader Yuri
Andropov to use his nuclear suitcase to launch a counter-attack.
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- Soviet warheads would have locked onto
American cities, drawing a real strike from Washington in retaliation -
and triggering a full-scale nuclear war killing countless millions.
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- But Petrov knew the key Cosmos satellite
beaming down the information was faulty and decided to tell his superiors
it was a false alarm.
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- As he sweated in the early-warning centre
in a wood east of Moscow, he saw the alert was not being confirmed by land-based
monitoring sites.
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- Petrov had guessed right - the satellite
was transmitting a false reading. There were no missiles.
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- According to the Moscow magazine Kommersant
Vlast "his equipment showed the Imperialists had resorted to the ultimate
step. Apocalypse was approaching at a speed of 5km a second".
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- But the pressure of those terrifying
few minutes on September 26, 1983, took its toll and his health collapsed.
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- Kommersant Vlast added: "Petrov
saved the planet from nuclear disaster. For that he received serious stress
and several months in hospital.
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- "He was ordered to quit the army
but got an apartment in a town outside Moscow - and a phone without queueing."
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