[Note—this is a draft. We might combine it with the “Broken Arrow” incidents, although those did
not pose the danger of starting a war]. Source links include the below. These are credible
sources. The New Yorker one is New Yorker magazine, by Eizabeth Kolbert, who is an
award-winning science writer. I’ve read a couple of her books. The last one is from a peace
organization I’ll look into more, later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls
https://futureoflife.org/resource/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/
https://www.businessinsider.com/when-nuclear-war-almost-happened-2018-4
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/12/the-day-nuclear-war-almost-broke-out
https://www.history.com/news/5-cold-war-close-calls
http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-c
aused-nuclear-war.htm
The United States and the Soviet Union Came Close to Nuclear War several times.
If you are an American or a Russian born before September 26, 1983, a Soviet officer
probably saved your life. You probably don’t remember what you were doing, but you came
rather close to becoming a radioactive cinder.
These flirtations with catastrophe were not from any intent to start a war. Both sides had—and
still have—an vast array of sensors focused on sensing a nuclear attack. These include radar
systems, surveillance satellites and other sensors. The problem is that accidents, malfunctions,
and human errors in interpreting information has led to situations in which nuclear war between
the two superpowers came very, very close. Twice, Russian officers intervened in situations that
probably would have led to war.
The most dangerous situation was the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 16-29 in 1962. Four of
the incidents in the list below relate to how close the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were to nuclear war
The situations described in the following list include some situations that sound like they are
from a comedy show script, but they came close to being dead serious, very serious. One
incident involved a black bear in Minnesota who was mistaken for a Soviet spetznaz raider, and
another involved a flock of swans over Turkey. Another involves a solar flare that blasted
American radar. Yet another, Soviet radar mistook sunlight reflected from a cloud bank for an
American missile attack. Still another involved an allegedly drunk American president overruled
by a Secretary of State otherwise known as belligerent. And twice Soviet officers bucked
protocol and stopped a nuclear war before it started.
1956: Swans Over Turkey Identified as a Soviet Attack
On November 5, 1956, the world was in crisis. Egypt’s strong man Nasser had
nationalized the Suez Canal. The British, French and Israelis attacked the Egyptian army
positions defending the now-nationalized Canal. The Soviets were facing a violent rebellion in
Hungary. Americans were uneasy over the Soviet response, although President Eisenhower
strongly criticized the three nations invading Egypt.
A Soviet plane was detected near Syria and radar detected a large flight of unknown
aircraft over Turkey. Americans for a few hours thought it was a Soviet attack on NATO. It turned
out that the Soviet military plane near Syria was escorting the President of Syria home from a
visit to Moscow. The unknown aircraft over Turkey turned out to be swans.
In the end, Britain, France and Israel pulled out of Egypt, and Egyptian president
Nasser’s popularity soared. 20,000 Hungarians were killed and 200,000 fled as their rebellion
was defeated.
1967: A Solar Flare Almost Causes Nuclear War
On May 23, 1967, there was a solar flare from the sun. Solar flares can drench the Earth with
energy that drives electronic systems crazy. It resulted in a massive disruption of NORAD
radars. NORAD stands for North American Aerospace Defense Command, a joint
U.S.-Canadian effort to detect Soviet attacks. The solar flare led to a near-panic in NORAD and
SAC.
It was expected that a Soviet attack would start with a Soviet effort to jam NORAD’s radar. The
shortest route for ICBMs and bombers to reach North America was over the Arctic, which allows
only minutes to decide whether to respond with a counterattack.
Several NORAD officials thought the radar problems were due to Soviet jamming of the radar,
which would have been an act of war, preparation for an attack so the radar could not track
incoming Soviet bombers or missiles.
1962: A Black Bear in Minnesota is Mistaken for Soviet Sabotage
On October 25, 1962 at Volk Field Air National Guard Base near Duluth, Minnesota, an Air
Force sentry spotted someone climbing a fence and getting into the perimeter of the base. He
shot at the intruder. The guard identified the intruder as one of the feared Soviet special forces
called spetznaz, and activated the sabotage alarm. At the Volk base, the klaxon sounded, telling
people that World War 3 had begun.
Two squadrons of F106As scrambled, thinking World War 3 had begun. They were on the
runway when an officer ran his car onto the runway, headlights on and horn blaring. The
squadrons were stopped on the runway.
The spetznaz agent that broke into the air base was found and identified as a hungry black
bear. There is no information about what happened to the bear.
1962: Soviet Submarine Patrolling Near Cuba Decides to Launch
On October 27, 1962, there was a group of four Soviet submarines patrolling the Gulf
and Caribbean waters near Cuba, awaiting orders during the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that time,
communications between military commanders and submerged submarines was poor, and a
submarine underwater was sometimes isolated from commanders elsewhere.
The U.S. Navy detected one of the submarines, the B59. The U.S. warships dropped
practice depth charges, but the sub’s commander, Valentin Savitsky, didn’t know that. The boat’s
commander thought a U.S. attack on the boat was imminent, decided to launch a torpedo—a
nuclear torpedo with a warhead the size of the bombs dropped on Japan. Each of the subs in
the group carried one tactical nuclear armed torpedo, apparently always guarded. Soviet rules
of war at the time required that two officers agree before an attack was mounted. The captain
consulted the other ranking officer on board.
That officer, Vasilii Arkhipov who was in command of the submarine flortilla,
countermanded the attack order. What a nuclear torpedo could have done to an American Navy
aircraft carrier combat group or to a U.S. port is not known, no nuclear torpedo has ever been
launched in war. It almost certainly would have caused tremendous damage and resulted in an
all-out U.S. attack. It probably would have begun with the destruction of the submarine by a
nuclear depth charge.
The submarine surfaced, met with a U.S. Navy destroyer, and there were no attempts by
the Americans to board or harm the sub. It headed for home, as did the others.
Eventually, cooler heads prevailed, with the U.S. and Soviets agreeing to compromise
and the crisis was averted. Officer Vasilli Arkhipov is to be thanked for that. He was a veteran of
World War 2, decorated for heroism and he knew what war was like. His action almost certainly
saved tens of millions of Soviet, Cuban and American lives.
1969: An Alert in Korea and a Maybe Drunk American President
On April 15, 1969, American F4 fighter bombers at Kunsan Air Force Base in South
Korea were loaded with B61 nuclear weapons to use against a feared invasion from North
Korea. There are unsubstantiated allegations that then-U.S. President Richard Nixon was drunk
and ordered at attack. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger advised a standdown, which the U.S.
military did.
1979: American Computer Errors Indicate a Soviet Attack
On November 9, 1979, errors on linked computer systems at several American bases
indicated a large-scale Soviet attack. During the next six minutes, Air Force bombers were
launched, as was the President’s National Emergency Airborne Command Post—but without
the President. No attempt was made to use the “Hot Line” to contact Moscow.
The President had somewhere between 3 and 7 minutes to order a counterstrike. That was a
crucial factor, because it meant that the U.S. could launch a counterstrike before a substantial
portion of its nuclear attack force was destroyed when the initial Soviet weapons struck and
detonated.
After six minutes, satellites and other systems recognized that there was no attack. The false
alarm was caused by a training tape malfunction. A tape designed to simulate an attack almost
caused a real one.
1983: A Soviet Colonel Prevents a Nuclear War
On September 26, 1983, a Soviet early warning satellite indicated the launch of a U.S.
Minuteman ICBM toward the Soviet Union. Soon after radar indicated five incoming Minuteman
missiles. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov of the Air Defense Force first was in a bunker, in
command of a response unit and refused to order a counterstrike. He could have informed his
superiors of the presumed attack, but he hesitated and then decided not to. His reasoning was
that if the U.S. attacked, it would be massive with hundreds of missiles, not five of them.
Petrov managed to convince his superiors that it was a false alarm. The Minuteman was
just a test. Later analysis proved that Soviet radar had mistaken sunlight reflected from a cloud
mass for a U.S. attack. The Cold War was intense, with the recently elected U.S. President,
Ronald Reagan, taking a hard line against the Soviets, so tensions had intensified. It was also
before some agreements that cut down the nuclear stockpile: in 1983, the Soviets had more
than 35,000 nuclear warheads and the U.S. had more than 23,000.
This makes Colonel Petrov one of the most significant unknown heroes in all of history.
Had he not intervened, there would probably have been a full-scale nuclear war between the
United States and the Soviet Union, a war caused by a false alarm.
1995: A Rocket Launched to Study the Northern Lights Mistaken for an Attack
On January 25, 1995, the old Soviet Union was gone, but Russia was still concerned
about rivalry with the United States. Russian early warning radar detected a rocket launch ifrom
Spitsbergen (an island group in the Arctic, where US missile subs sometimes prowl) and
suggested that an American and NATO attack was about to be launched.
The Russian leader at that time was Boris Yeltsin, and he was presented with the
evidence and apparently with the nuclear launch codes.
In what was probably the most momentous moment in his long political life. Yeltsin
decided not to launch a Russian missile strike at the U.S. and NATO.
There was in fact a rocket launch—of a rocket carrying sensors up into the atmosphere
to study the Northern Lights. Norwat had notified 35 countries to alert them to the launch,
including Russia. Apparently on-duty Russian personnel were never notified. After a few
minutes, radar showed that the missile’s impact point would be outside of Russia’s borders.
The danger was that a missile launched from a U.S. missile sub from the Spitsbergen
region would reach Moscow in 5 minutes. The Russians had that long to decide whether or not
to launch a retaliatory strike.
