If this one man were a pushover, none of us would likely be alive right now.
On October 27, 1962, Vasili Arkhipov was deep beneath the cerulean waves of the Caribbean near Cuba, crammed with 77 other Russians on board a Soviet submarine called B-59. They were deeper than normal, because they were being chased.
It was hot and cramped onboard the Soviet sub, the constant noise from its three propellers hammering the exhausted sailors’ eardrums. The B-59 was a Foxtrot submarine, a diesel-electric design that sacrificed space to accommodate large batteries which allowed it to submerge for longer — several days if need be. This came at the expense of comfort.
They hadn’t surfaced in days. The air was stale, hot and stuffy — reaching above 50C. Carbon dioxide levels rose as oxygen depleted, causing headaches. Sailors suffered heat stroke, rashes and severe dehydration. It was palpable from the unbearable heat that Foxtrot subs weren’t designed for tropical waters. The atmosphere was tense, the crew exhausted.
At the surface, 11 American destroyers and an aircraft carrier were in hot pursuit. They dropped non-lethal ‘signalling’ depth charges to force the submarine to come up. Neither relented. The Americans knew there was a sub beneath them, but they did not know what was on board.
The B-59 had been dispatched with three sister subs, all Foxtrots, to break the US naval blockade of Cuba. Each carried a nuclear-tipped torpedo with a 10kt yield, with instructions to use it if attacked. Three people had to agree before it could be launched.
Sonar was their eyes, radio their ears. But at their depth, they were effectively deaf. They could not receive radio signals, and had no idea what was going on up above. From inside the submarine, the ‘signalling’ depth charges were indistinguishable from real ones.
“They exploded right next to the hull,” wrote Vadim Orlov, an intel officer onboard the B-59. “It felt like you were sitting on a metal barrel, which somebody is constantly blasting with a sledgehammer. We thought, ‘that’s it, the end.’”
The B-59’s captain, Valentin Savistky, believed that they were under attack, and that war had broken out above. He wanted to fire the nuclear torpedo at his pursuers. But it was a decision he wasn’t authorized to make alone.
He needed sign-off from two other men. One was political officer Ivan Maslennikov. The other was Arkhipov, 2nd-in-command of the sub and chief-of-staff for the entire flotilla. Even though Savitsky was the sub’s captain, Arkhipov was his equal-in-rank.
There wasn’t much time.
The sub rocked side to side form the exploding charges. The batteries were running low. Amidst the chaos, the top three men convened.
The conditions on board frayed Savistky’s nerve. “He’s yelling at everyone and torturing himself,” wrote one sailor. “He is already becoming paranoid, scared of his own shadow. He’s hard to deal with. I feel sorry for him and at the same time angry with him for his rash actions.”
Savitsky already had his men prepare the nuclear torpedo — armed with a yield comparable to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. “We’re gonna blast them now!” he yelled. “We will die, but we will sink them all — we will not become the shame of the fleet.”
Maslennikov agreed with Savitsky. The two men turned to Arkhipov. He weighed his options. If war had indeed broken out above, and they surfaced, they would likely be killed. The nuclear alternative that his co-captains favoured seemed ludicrous to Arkhipov. The costs were too great.
Arkhipov said no, and stood firm. He convinced Savitsky that the charges were non-lethal, that they were not under attack, and suggested that they surface and await instructions from Moscow. His comrades relented, and the B-59 began its ascent.
When it broke the surface, they quickly learned that there was no war — but they were not welcomed. They were quickly surrounded and swarmed by airplanes and helicopters, which blinded them with spotlights and fired across its bow. Destroyers trained their guns on the B-59’s hull.
As tensions settled, the B-59 returned home, tail between its legs. Only one submarine in the flotilla, the B-4, wasn’t forced to the surface this way. They were berated by Soviet commanders for giving in, but crisis was averted, and the rest is history.
It’s impossible to know what would have happened had Arkhipov not been on board the B-59. Had Savitsky launched a nuke, it likely would have sparked a chain reaction resulting in all-out nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union.
Arkhipov’s cool reasoning under pressure came from experience. He’d been on board the Soviet nuclear sub K-19 years before when the cooling system failed, threatening a meltdown. The crew jury-rigged a secondary coolant system just in time, exposing themselves to massive doses of radiation.
What happened on October 27th, 1962 did not come to light until 40 years later, when it was revealed that the Soviet submarines involved in the crisis had carried nuclear warheads, and that Arkhipov was the reason they were not used. He’s widely credited with single-handedly averting nuclear war.
But he did not live to see this recognition. After the incident, Arkhipov remained in the Soviet navy until the 1980s, achieving the rank of Vice Admiral before retiring. He died in 1998 of kidney cancer — possibly related to radiation exposure on the K-19.
Arkhipov had a wife and children, and even they didn’t learn of his deed until after his death. “He never said a word to his family because it was secret information,” his grandson said. “He would always say, ‘I can’t tell you now, but one day you will know.’”
In 2017, Arkhipov was honoured with the inaugural Future of Life award. “We were extremely lucky that Vasili Arkhipov happened to be the guy who was there,” said Future of Life Institute president Max Tegmark. “[He] is arguably the most important person in modern history.”
“Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles,” John F. Kennedy said, “hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or madness.” We can only hope that next time, there’s an Arkhipov in the room.
