Vasili Arkhipov – Soviet Navy Officer Who Prevented Nuclear Strike in 1962

First off, the guy is a hero, and one can say he saved the world. But I think he only did his job, the way he was trained to do it. He didn't do anything that was against his training, or duty, or doctrine, and very likely he didn't take personal/career risks either.

Obviously nobody knows exactly what happened in the confines of that submarine at the time the vote of cast for fire or hold. But one can make some informed guesses.

1962 was early days in the MAD (mutually assured destruction) strategy, and the strategy itself was probably quickly evolving. However, I guess at all times during the cold war there were 3 principles either explicitly or implicitly stated, that the officers with the finger on the trigger (of the nukes) had to follow:

1. Launch the nukes if ordered by the president following the correct protocol (failure to do so is probably the gravest case of disobeying a direct order, hence court martial and then very likely death penalty) 2. Do not launch the nukes first, if not under direct orders, even if you come under (non-nuclear) fire 3. If nuclear war has started: 3a. If your mission is counter-strike (e.g. you man an SLBM-armed sub) then do so, without waiting for orders (assume the central command is dead, this is the "A" from "MAD") 3b. If your mission is different, then use your judgment

This case was clearly not 1 above: they did not have orders to launch nuclear attack. In fact that was the root of the whole problem: they were deep under water, and couldn't communicate with central command.

The only ambiguity was whether nuclear war already started or not. In both situation, the correct way to respond was to surface, which is as far as we know what Arkhipov voted for.

First, what did they know: that they had been located by the US submarine defense which dropped depth charges on them. Now that in itself was a signal the war didn't start: if the US Navy meant business, they would've sent torpedoes (potentially nuclear ones). Depth charges were a little naughty game sailors of one navy would play on the submariners of the opposite navy, to make them surface, and embarrass them a bit.

Even so, depth charges, if detonated to closely, could be deadly, so it was not all fun and games, especially not when you were on the receiving end.

So that's where you are, what you know. How would you proceed? What was the likely protocol?

B-49 was an SLBM-armed submarine, not sure if it was armed at the time, but very likely, given that it was in the middle of the Cuban crisis. So it's likely that part of their mission was retaliation, in case US had launched its nukes.

In order to launch, they needed to surface (it was before the times they could launched submerged). That was not what the vote was about, it was only about sending a nuclear torpedo towards the destroyer that was hunting them.

So I think, Arkhipov told them something like this: "what do we have to lose if we surface (aside from face): if war started, we'll know for sure, and we can launch our torpedo at the time, and then launch our missiles, as per the mission. if the war didn't start, we avert nuclear war. if at any point we see a torpedo coming our way (on the sonar) we launch our torpedo (but even that is iffy, since we can't know if that torpedo is nuclear or not, the only thing we know is that is an act of war, but it could be conventional war)."

So my guess is that the vote was not about launch now or never, but launch now or wait a bit longer, and Arkhipov persuaded them to wait. Once they were on the surface, they learned the war didn't start, and they went home.