When Vasili Arkhipov Saved the World

Everyone knows that during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis we were perilously close to WWIII and nuclear Armageddon. Most people don’t know HOW close we were. Or how much we owe to Vasili Arkhipov.

Arkhipov was second-in-command of the Soviet diesel-electric submarine B-59 during the Cuban Missile Crisis — one of four such subs sent into the waters near Cuba in 1962. He was a distinguished officer, having acquitted himself with great courage during the 1961 nuclear accident aboard the nuclear submarine K-19.

It’s hard to imagine the stress the crew was under. Submerged deep in the…