The world owes an enormous debt to a quiet, steady Russian naval officer who probably saved the World.Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov was born into a peasant family in the town of Staraya Kupavna, near Moscow. He was educated in the Pacific Higher Naval School and participated in the Soviet–Japanese War in August 1945, serving aboard a minesweeper. He transferred to the Caspian Higher Naval School and graduated in 1947. After graduating in 1947, Arkhipov served in the submarine service aboard boats in the Black Sea, Northern and Baltic Fleets.
In July 1961, Arkhipov was appointed deputy commander and therefore executive officer of the new Hotel-class ballistic missile submarine K-19. After a few days of conducting exercises off the south-east coast of Greenland, the submarine developed an extreme leak in its reactor coolant system. This leak led to failure of the cooling system. Radio communications were also affected, and the crew was unable to make contact with Moscow. With no backup systems, Commander Zateyev ordered the seven members of the engineer crew to come up with a solution to avoid nuclear meltdown. This required the men to work in high radiation levels for extended periods. They eventually came up with a secondary coolant system and were able to keep the reactor from a meltdown. Although they were able to save themselves from a nuclear meltdown the entire crew, including Arkhipov, were irradiated. 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. Over the course of two years, fifteen more sailors died from the after-effects It was the most dangerous day in history.
This Incident was made in to a movie in 2002 named 'K19:The Widowmaker'.Upon reading the film's script, the surviving crew members were so incensed that they sent an open letter to Harrison Ford, Producer/Director Kathryn Bigelow, and Producers Christine Whitaker and Steven-Charles Jaffe, expressing their dismay. Among the less-than-credible details they objected to were profane language, the animosity between the two highest-ranking commanding officers, insubordination among the crew, drunk crew members, the attempted mutiny, the guns (which are kept under seal in a secret location) and the handcuffs (which were only used by and available to cops).
An American spy plane had been shot down over Cuba while another U2 had got lost and strayed into Soviet airspace. As these dramas ratcheted tensions beyond breaking point, an American destroyer, the USS Beale, began to drop depth charges on the B-59, a Soviet submarine armed with a nuclear weapon. The captain of the B-59, Valentin Savitsky, had no way of knowing that the depth charges were non-lethal "practice" rounds intended as warning shots to force the B-59 to surface. The Beale was joined by other US destroyers who piled in to pummel the submerged B-59 with more explosives. The exhausted Savitsky assumed that his submarine was doomed and that world war three had broken out. He ordered the B-59's ten kiloton nuclear torpedo to be prepared for firing. Its target was the USS Randolf, the giant aircraft carrier leading the task force.
Unlike the other subs in the flotilla, three officers on board the B-59 had to agree unanimously to authorize a nuclear launch: Captain Savitsky, the political officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and the second-in-command Arkhipov. Typically, Russian submarines armed with the "Special Weapon" only required the captain to get authorization from the political officer to launch a nuclear torpedo. However, due to Arkhipov's position as flotilla commander, the B-59's captain also was required to gain Arkhipov's approval. An argument broke out, with only Arkhipov against the launch. Even though Arkhipov was only second-in-command of the submarine B-59, he was in fact commander of the entire submarine flotilla, including the B-4, B-36 and B-130, and equal in rank to Captain Savitsky. According to author Edward Wilson, the reputation Arkhipov had gained from his courageous conduct in the previous year's Soviet submarine K-19 incident also helped him prevail. Arkhipov eventually persuaded Savitsky to surface and await orders from Moscow. This effectively averted the nuclear warfare which probably would have ensued if the nuclear weapon had been fired. The submarine's batteries had run very low and the air-conditioning had failed, causing extreme heat and high levels of carbon dioxide inside the submarine. They were forced to surface amidst its U.S. pursuers and return to the Soviet Union as a result.
Immediately upon return to Russia, many crew members were faced with disgrace from their superiors. One Admiral told them “‘It would have been better if you’d gone down with your ship.” Olga, Arkhipov's wife, even said "he didn't like talking about it, he felt they hadn't appreciated what they had gone through." Each captain was required to present a report of the happenings during the mission to the defense minister, Andrei Grechko. Grechko was infuriated with the crew's failure to follow the strict orders of secrecy after finding out they were discovered by the Americans. One officer even noted Grechko's reaction, stating "upon learning that it was the diesel submarines that went to Cuba, removed his glasses and hit them against the table in fury, breaking them into small pieces and abruptly leaving the room after that."
In 2002, retired Commander Vadim Pavlovich Orlov, a participant in the events, held a press conference revealing the subs were holding nuclear missiles, and that Arkhipov was the reason those devices had not been fired. Orlov presented the events less dramatically, saying that Captain Savitsky lost his temper but eventually calmed down.
When discussing the Cuban Missile Crisis in 2002, Robert McNamara, who had been U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time, stated "We came very close" to nuclear war, "closer than we knew at the time." Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., an advisor for the John F. Kennedy administration and renowned historian, continued this thought by stating "'This was not only the most dangerous moment of the Cold War. It was the most dangerous moment in human history.
