Who? – VASILI ARKHIPOV: THE ‘GUY WHO SAVED THE WORLD’
Knowledge is power – or so they say. It is with this in mind, Gentlemen, that we introduce you to our new contributor, Donough O’Brien, who will be imparting his wisdom on obscure and unknown Gentlemen from throughout history with extracts from his book ‘Who?’ The most remarkable people you’ve never heard of. So sit back and let you’re knowledge grow…
There can be few people so significant and yet still so unknown. But Soviet naval officer Vasili Arkhipov was, in the words of a top American, the ‘guy who saved the world.’
In 1962, during the Cold War, the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev did something very risky. Thinking that President John F. Kennedy was a weak man, he smuggled nuclear missiles into his ally Castro’s Cuba. When detected, Americans were horrified to find that their key cities could be taken out in a Soviet first-strike attack.
Kennedy responded by imposing a ‘quarantine zone’, and a terrified world waited to see if the Soviet freighters carrying new missiles would turn back.
What nobody knew was that 700 feet underwater, four Soviet submarines were lurking nearby. Each was armed with a nuclear torpedo of Hiroshima power, and each Captain had the discretion to use it! Conditions inside the submarines were terrible. 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.
Then an American fleet detected submarine B–59, harassing her by dropping small practice depth-charges to frighten her into surfacing. In the conning tower were the Captain Valentin Savitsky and Vasili Arkhipov, of equal rank, but crucially, also the Flotilla Commander.
With no orders or news from Moscow for a week, under tremendous strain and in the appalling conditions, Captain Savitsky suddenly cracked and announced that he was going to use the ‘Special Weapon’. His political officer agreed, and both reached for their keys. Arkhipov knew that the other three submarines had agreed to launch their own nuclear weapons if B-59 did, and that nuclear ‘mutual destruction’ with America was imminent.
In a dramatic confrontation, Arkhipov over-ruled Savitsky and, moreover, ordered the submarine to surface, which it did unmolested, and sailed home. Only years later did other officers reveal what went on in those few frightening moments. ‘We thought – that’s it – the end.’
Vasili Arkhipov became a Rear-Admiral and died in 1998. 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.’
By Donough O’Brien
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