They were forced to surface at the behest of the fleet of eleven U.S. Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier that was engaging them. All rights reserved. [3], On 27 October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a group of 11 United States Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USSRandolph located the diesel-powered, nuclear-armed Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 near Cuba. The George Washington University It felt like you were sitting in a metal barrel, which somebody is constantly blasting with a sledgehammer.. Robert McNamara acknowledged, after a reevaluation of the circumstances and the risks of confrontation during those fateful days that the United States and the U.S.S.R. were closer [to nuclear war] than we knew at the time.. Moreover, I was still small at the time and I practically never saw my father. Vasili Aleksandrovit Arhipov (ven. ) (30. tammikuuta 1926 Moskovan alue - 19. elokuuta 1998 Moskovan alue) oli venlinen Neuvostoliiton laivaston sukellusveneupseeri, arvoltaan vara-amiraali.Arhipov osallistui nuoresta istn huolimatta toiseen maailmansotaan ja palveli muun muassa K-19-sukellusveneell. 35+ YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION, The Underwater Cuban Missile Crisis at 60, FOIA Advisory Committee Oversight Reports. Between October 16 and October 28, 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis saw the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a potentially cataclysmic standoff. They include difficulty of securing accurate intelligence, and the unpredictability of events. The next day October 28, 1962 Khrushchev and Kennedy reached an agreement. Wikimedia CommonsOne of the American spy plane images photographs missile sites in Cuba that helped instigate the crisis. Somehow keeping a level head in the midst of chaos, Arkhipov reportedly managed to convince Savitsky that the Americans were not actually attacking them and that they were only firing depth charges in order to get the Soviets attention and merely draw them to the surface. What the U.S. Navy didnt realize was that the B-59 was armed with a nuclear torpedo, one theyd been instructed to use without waiting for approval if their submarine or their Soviet homeland was under fire. In the words of John F. Kennedy administration staffer Arthur Schlesinger, It was the most dangerous moment in human history.. But unknown to Washington, the officers aboard B-59 were out of contact with their superiors and had every reason to believe that their American counterparts were trying to sink them. He always thought that he did what he had to do and never considered his actions as heroism. The most remarkable episode that made him famous among submariners happened a year before the Cuban crisis. Elena Andriukova: Thank you very much for not forgetting the events or my father. The nuclear torpedo armed submarine he was a crew member of came under depth charge attack from the U.S. Navy. [17], Grechko was infuriated with the crew's failure to follow the strict orders of secrecy after finding out they had been discovered by the Americans. Whether my life has changed since then? They served the world from utter destruction. During the Cuban Missile Crisis a false alarm of nuclear war almost made a Soviet nuclear submarine near the U.S launch it's nukes. Cut off from communication with the outside world, the panicked Soviet sailors feared that they were now under attack. He retired in the mid-1980s and died in 1999. This period made a strong impression on him and it made a significant contribution to the development of his personality, the formation of his character and his feeling of responsibility towards the lives of other people. [2], After graduating in 1947, Arkhipov served in the submarine service aboard boats in the Black Sea, Northern and Baltic Fleets.[2]. The officers had to decide whether to fight back or not. Click here to find out more. The long-range radio had also been disabled during another incident, rendering the sub unable to contact its HQ in Moscow. (5 votes) Very easy. Three officers had to make a decision: to surface according to American demands, or launch torpedoes, including the nuclear one. Vasili Arkhipov (1960's). In this same interview, Olga alluded to her husband's possible superstitious beliefs as well. You can also contribute via, By submitting your email, you agree to our, 60 years ago today, this man stopped the Cuban missile crisis from going nuclear, This story is part of a group of stories called, Sign up for the 2 /5. Arkhipov was promoted to vice admiral in 1981 and retired in the mid-1980s. President John F. Kennedy had ordered what he called a quarantine of Cuba, stationing a flotilla of naval ships off the coast of the island to prevent Soviet ships from carrying weapons to Cuba and demanding that the USSR remove the missiles. So much money has already been spent on armaments. The prize, dubbed the Future of Life award is the brainchild of the Future of Life Insitute a US-based organisation whose goal is to tackle threats to humanity and whose advisory board includes such luminaries as Elon Musk, the astronomer royal Prof Martin Rees, and actor Morgan Freeman. Ich habe die Datenschutzerklrung gelesen und erklre mich mit der Speicherung und Verarbeitung meiner Daten einverstanden. Because of the heightened tension between the U.S. and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, someone had had the wisdom and foresight to install Vasili as the leader of the fleet of the four Soviet subs on the mission. 2023 Initiative Gesichter des Friedens | Faces of Peace, Vasili Arkhipov (72), Chief of Staff of the 69th Submarine Brigade of the Northern Fleet, https://www.faces-of-peace.org/wp-content/themes/blade/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg, https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/89f8bcb53e45adc60699ad1be4fef89d?s=96&d=mm&r=g, Ich bin ausdrcklich damit einverstanden Pressemitteilungen zu erhalten und wei, dass ich mich jederzeit wieder, Steve Killelea, Creator of the Global Peace Index (GPI), Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Chair of Chatham House Council, Farzana Kochai, Mitglied des afghanischen Parlaments, Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Die missbrauchten Frauen des Krieges (Teil 2) Interview mit Prof. Dr. Stefanie Bock, The Abused Women of War (Part 1) Interview with Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman, Die missbrauchten Frauen des Krieges (Teil 1) Interview mit Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman, Detlef Dzembritzki, Bundesvorsitzender DGVN, Im Visier Die Bedrohung aus dem Cyberraum, Chief of Staff of the 69th Submarine Brigade, Man kann uns nicht mehr ignorieren, deswegen werden wir bekmpft!, Diplomacy in the modern age can never afford to stand still!, Die Welt ist verantwortlich dafr, was in Afghanistan passiert!, We need to focus on human security for sustainable peace!, Die Prozesse sind komplex und zeitaufwendig!, For me that was my day of apocalypse the day that felt like the last of my life!, Fr mich war es der Tag der Apokalypse der Tag, der sich wie der letzte meines Lebens anfhlte!, Knnen nur hoffen, dass Donald Trump nicht erneut zum US-Prsidenten gewhlt wird!, Jeder kann einen Cyber-Angriff fr weniger als 18 Euro beauftragen!. His wife, Olga, is in no doubt about his crucial role, The man who prevented a nuclear war, I am proud of my husband always., Sign up to our newsletter and follow us on social media. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Chapter Five Vasili Arkhipov: The Man Who Prevented World War Three By Ron Ridenour . words of John F. Kennedy administration staffer Arthur Schlesinger, Stanislav Petrov, another Cold War hero who saved the world from nuclear annihilation. One of the American spy plane images photographs missile sites in Cuba that helped instigate the crisis. We will notdisgrace our navy!. Vasili was born to a poor, peasant family near the Russian capital, Moscow on 30th January 1926. Vasili Arkhipov was a Soviet Union Naval Officer who prevented the launch of a nuclear torpedo and therefore a possible nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He said there were three scenarios: 'First, if you get a hole under the water. When they did so on the B-59, the captain Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky believed that war had broken out and accordingly wanted to fire a nuclear torpedo at the vessels firing them on. "[16] Each captain was required to present a report of events during the mission to Marshal Andrei Grechko, who substituted for the ill Soviet defense minister. As one man on board, Anatoly Andreev, wrote in his journal: For the last four days, they didnt even let us come up to the periscope depth My head is bursting from the stuffy air. As the B-59 shook with repeated depth charges on either side, one of the three captains, Valentin Savitsky, decided that they had no choice but to launch their nuclear torpedo. Trapped in a diesel-powered submarine thousands of miles from home, buffeted by exploding depth charges and threatened with suffocation and death, Arkhipov kept his head. Had Vasili Arkhipov not been there to prevent the torpedo launch, historians agree that nuclear war would likely have begun. Savitsky was one of the Soviet commanders above Vasili in the Soviet Navy,and who ordered the launch of the missile to the Americas during the Cuban Missile Crisis. All That's Interesting is a Brooklyn-based digital publisher that seeks out stories that illuminate the past, present, and future. Arkhipov, K-19s deputy captain was among the few who remained calm, maintained order and helped to organize a proper evacuation. To those people who consider my father a coward I want to say: You havent experienced what he had to go through! That gave him strength! . On Oct. 27, 1962, the world was close to a full-scale confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers. The depth charges were exploding closer and closer. The three men were captain Savitsky, political officer Ivan Semyonovich Maslennikov, and executive officer Arkhipov. It is worth noting that when coming under fire Arkhipov knew he was risking two things; getting killed by simply surfacing if a shooting war was in fact underway and starting a nuclear war by returning fire in such a manner if one wasnt underway. All members of the engineer crew and their divisional officer died within a month due to the high levels of radiation they were exposed to. This website uses cookies. Vasili Arkhipov was a Soviet naval officer who, upon making a split second decision, prevented the Cuban Missile Crisis from escalating into a nuclear war. That gave the commander of the submarine task force, Vasili Arkhipov, who was behind him, the chance to countermand the order. Arkhipov l mt trong ba s quan ch huy cp cao ca tu ngm ht nhn tn cng . Two years later he graduated from the Caspian Higher Naval School, serving in the Black Sea and . WHAT IS VASILI ARKHIPOV FAMOUS FOR? They had a daughter named Yelena. Russia was never an aggressor and never will be. Elena Andriukova: Thats right, my father spoke in public about the events aboard the B-59 for the first time on October 14, 1997, at the Institute of Military History of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. When detected, Americans were horrified to find that their key cities could be taken out in a Soviet first-strike attack. Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov (Russian: , IPA: [vsilj lksandrvt arxipf], 30 January 1926 - 19 August 1998) was a Soviet Naval officer who prevented a Soviet nuclear torpedo launch during the Cuban Missile Crisis.Such an attack likely would have caused a major global thermonuclear response, destroying . He was educated in the Pacific Higher Naval School and participated in the SovietJapanese War in August 1945, serving aboard a minesweeper. Aptly, the U.S. National Security Archive has dubbed Arkhipov a man who " saved the world.". In recognition of his actions onboard B-59, Arkhipov received the first "Future of Life Award," which was presented posthumously to his family in 2017. Many others became ill including my father. This presentation is the only known public statement by Vasily Arkhipov about the events on submarine B-59 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Verantwortlich gem 5 Abs. No one knew that he had been commissioned, not even my mother. Knowledge is power or so they say. The Americans wouldnt find out until decades later that the submarine had been carrying a nuclear missile. turned on powerful searchlights and blinded the people on the bridge when [the commander] blinked and blinked his eyes and could see again, it became clear that the plane was firing past and along the boat. The lesson from this is that a guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world, Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, told the Boston Globe in 2002, following a conference in which the details of the situation were explored. Through a series of tense negotiations over the coming days, the Americans and the Soviets worked out a deal to end the conflict. They then dove deep to conceal their presence after being spotted by the Americans and were thus cut off from communication with the surface. Sven Lilienstrm, founder of the Faces of Peace initiative, spoke to the daughter of the man whose tragic past is still largely unknown 21 years after his death about the person behind the uniform, the role of the mother and the desire for peace. During World War two he served on a minesweeper fighting against the Japanese in the Pacific and after attending the Caspian Higher Naval School from . Arkhipov was a Soviet hero, and an unsung hero to other nations as well. In fact, Washington had issued a message stating they would be using practice depth charges to force Soviet submarines they determined to be in breach of their blockade to surface. Vasili Aleksandrovich Arkhipov ( ting Nga: ; sinh ngy 30 thng 1 nm 1926 - mt ngy 19 thng 8 nm 1998) l mt s quan hi qun Lin X. During Oct. 22-28 1962, Washington and Moscow sparred on the edge of thermonuclear war. But the main thing was that the crew avoided a full-scale clash. Commander Nikolai Shumkov commanded the K-19s maiden voyage, and his task was to test a torpedo fitted with a nuclear warhead. Homo sapiens have existed on the planet for about 300,000 years, or more than 109 million days. That money should be used to improve peoples lives. newsletter, Hailey Bieber, Selena Gomez, and the Easter egg-ification of the Hollywood feud, The Supreme Court signals that a terrifying attack on voting rights will vanish for now, Brad Pitt was the only winner of the Aniston-Jolie tabloid battle. In a 2012 PBS documentary titled The Man Who Saved the World,[22] his wife described him as intelligent, polite and very calm. He had previously experienced very hard times. It was posthumous Arkhipov died in 1998, before the news of his actions was widely known. Then an American fleet detected submarine B59, harassing her by dropping small practice depth-charges to frighten her into surfacing. With no backup systems, captain Nikolai Zateyev ordered the seven members of the engineer crew to come up with a solution to avoid nuclear meltdown. Copyright 2012-2023 The Gentleman's Journal. Only after his return did my father tell my mother where he had been, but without giving any details. Born in 1926, Arkhipov saw action as a minesweeper during the Soviet-Japanese war in August 1945. It seemed like youre sitting in an iron barrel and someone is hitting it with a sledgehammer Vadim Orlov, who was on B-59 as an intelligence officer, recalled later. I can therefore say, without doubt, that of course my father was aware of the consequences of his decision. Schreiben Sie uns hier sicher und mit automatischer Ende-zu-Ende-Verschlsselung. After retirement he quietly lived with his family in the Moscow Region. The prior year, Arkhipov was deputy commander of the new Hotel-class ballistic missile submarine K-19, where he survived the radiation spread throughout the ship due to the jury-rigged cooling water system that successfully reduced the temperature in the reactor after the primary coolant system developed a major leak.He then helped to quell a potential mutiny, backing Captain First Rank . Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. In his lecture my father spoke about the submarine escort deployments in connection with operation Kama. After a week submerged, electric power was failing, the air-conditioning had stopped with the temperature a boiling 60C (140F), the crew rationed to a glass of water a day. Please consider making a one-time contribution to Vox today. In hopes of relocating the sub, the U.S. Navy began dropping non-lethal depth charges in hopes of forcing the vessel to surface. [30], For the Soviet general twice awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, see, Last edited on 11 February 2023, at 01:17, "Arkhipov, Vasily Alexandrovich (1926-1999)", "Chronology of Submarine Contact During the Cuban Missile Crisis", "Thank you Vasili Arkhipov, the man who stopped nuclear war", Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, "About participation of submarines "B-4," "B-36," "B-59," "B-130" of the 69th submarine brigade of the Northern Fleet in the Operation "Anadyr" during the period of OctoberDecember, 1962/CARIBBEAN CRISIS/", "The Cuban Missile Crisis: 40 Years Later", "A Russian submarine had a 'Crimson Tide' moment near Cuba", "Vice-Admiral Vasili Arkhipov | National Security Archive", "The Underwater Cuban Missile Crisis at 60 | National Security Archive", "New Sources on the Role of Soviet Submarines in the Cuban Missile Crisis", "Soviets Close to Using A-Bomb in 1962 Crisis, Forum is Told", "Gorbachev Proposes Soviet Sub Crew For Nobel Peace Prize", "Soviet submarine officer who averted nuclear war honoured with prize", "55 Years After Preventing Nuclear Attack, Arkhipov Honored With Inaugural Future of Life Award", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vasily_Arkhipov&oldid=1138687379, This page was last edited on 11 February 2023, at 01:17. Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov (Russian: ) was a Soviet Navy officer who is credited with averting nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 by preventing the launch of a nuclear-armed torpedo from the Soviet submarine on which he served. Deeply impressed, Thomas Blanton, director of the U.S. National Security Archive, said: The lesson from this is that a guy called Vasily Arkhipov saved the world. The conference participants agreed, but no one would ever hear Arkhipovs viewpoint. I f you . The radiation level jumped dangerously; many crew members and officers were in panic, and tried to riot. The Cuban missile crisis was over. But, unknown to the US forces, they had a special weapon in their arsenal: a ten kilotonne nuclear torpedo. We will die, but we will sink them all we will not become the shame of the fleet.. . Now, 55 years after he averted nuclear war and 19 years after his death, Arkhipov is to be honoured, with his family the first recipients of a new award. Such an attack likely would have caused a major global thermonuclear response. The lessons remain of fundamental importance. But at the peak of the crisis, one Soviet naval officer managed to keep a cool head and avert nuclear devastation.