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Its not entirely clear that Petrov prevented a nuclear war. His job (which he choose not to do) was to report detected missiles up the chain of command. In theo
by gizmo686 12y ago
Its not entirely clear that Petrov prevented a nuclear war. His job (which he choose not to do) was to report detected missiles up the chain of command. In theory, the Soviet Union policy was to require multiple-source warnings before retaliating, in which case they still would not have launched anything. In practice, they very well might neglected to follow this procedure and proceed to retaliate.
- pacey 12y agoI remember an interview (will try to find a source) where they told an anecdotal story about Petrov. Some years after the incident, Petrov told he believed that the system at his station was showing a false alarm and wanted to wait for a confirmation from other stations. He is cited with not wanting to sting a bee-hive. After being introduced the information present at the other stations (most if not all were seeing the same false-alarm) he told the interviewer that if he would have had this "information" at the time of the incident he'd probably decided otherwise.