The Man who Saved the World?

Bloody hell! Thank the lord he was the one on duty!

What amazing instincts he had. Or an amazing ability to remain calm and think logically under pressure.

Pfffff... you know, this kinds of reports are very bad for my blood-pressure.

Lucky basterds we all are. Lucky, lucky, lucky basterds.

Teinz said:

Pfffff... you know, this kinds of reports are very bad for my blood-pressure.

Lucky basterds we all are. Lucky, lucky, lucky basterds.

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Amen, brother.

I guess most of us never know how close we are to world's end. To think the information about the nuclear bombs dropping and being one fail safe away from detonation in 1961 over North Carolina was jaw dropping. Now this. I wonder how many more stories are out there of mankind being one step away from annihilation?

I wish the governments would get together and stop the nuclear madness. Getting rid of all nuclear weapons is a dream. But it is a good dream.

Ambrosia said:

I guess most of us never know how close we are to world's end. To think the information about the nuclear bombs dropping and being one fail safe away from detonation in 1961 over North Carolina was jaw dropping. Now this. I wonder how many more stories are out there of mankind being one step away from annihilation?

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I was thinking about this the other day. There's another similar incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It seems amazing we haven't killed ourselves yet. I'm basically going to assume the Doctor was involved.

Torgo said:

...It seems amazing we haven't killed ourselves yet. I'm basically going to assume the Doctor was involved.

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Win.

I cannot stand this concept of the job being to report to others. I applaud Mr Petrov for his ability to think and to judge for himself. That matters.

*Especially* in this atrocious M.A.D. strategy where the only defense is to kill them more than they've killed us. A more apt abbreviation has never been created.

But, again, my undying gratitude to the logic and reasoning ability of Mr Petrov.

Wow. I had no idea, as I'm sure most people don't. Amazing how close we were.

I'm wondering how we might get in touch with him and thank him.

If he'd passed on the report, there's at least a possibility that someone further up the line might also have made the same decision but we can't know for sure.

What we do know for sure is that the death of civilization was avoided on this bloke's watch because he remained calm and thought logically.

Shall we start a thread, sign our names and send it to the BBC and ask them to forward it on to him?

Brings to mind the movie Fail Safe, starring Hank Fonda.

This guy is a hero and the article explains how he had to think for himself, but for the sake of humor I prefer to pretend that he was so lazy he saved the world. Something along the lines of "naaaah, I don't feel like reporting this."

I remember my history teacher in high school telling the class about this. It's good to know that there were people on both sides who thought rationally and didn't have itchy trigger fingers.

This was a breach of his instructions, a dereliction of duty. The safe thing to do would have been to pass the responsibility on, to refer up.

But his decision may have saved the world.

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Let us all remember this story the next time somebody uses "just following orders" or "zero tolerance" as an excuse for their actions.

I want a big poster with Uncle Sam pointing his finger and declaring at the top "Use Your Judgement" and at the bottom "You Too May Save the World."

Score one for pacifism-by-proxy