Not everyone who managed to change the world is famous…it is possible to do something absolutely, monumentally world-shaking and not receive any recognition for it…

I’ll give you a name: Vasyli Arkipov…it’s possible that this guy is the only reason any of us are still alive…seriously…

October 27, 1962…it’s the height of the Cuban missile crisis…the soviets had nukes in Cuba aimed at the u.s. and more were on the way…John Kennedy responded by setting up a blockade around the island…

The USS Randolph was one of the ships in charge of enforcing the blockade…they spotted a Soviet sub that was sent to protect the flotilla of Russian ships approaching the island with more missiles on board…this one particular sub—a Foxtrot class b-59—was armed with nuclear missiles…Arkhipov was the second in command…

The Randolph began dropping depth charges in an effort to get the sub to surface…b-59 suffered damage…the crew couldn’t breathe…they wanted to fight back…the sub commander tried to raise soviet command for permission to fire—but he couldn’t reach them…

Because they’d been cruising submerged for days, they hadn’t heard anything from Soviet high command…but they had been monitoring American civil broadcasts which offered non-stop coverage of the crisis…and now they were under attack…maybe the war had finally begun…if that was the case, shouldn’t they launch their missiles?...

Captain Valentín Savitsky was in favour of an attack…so was political officer Ivan Maslennikov…but in order to launch the nukes, Stavisky and Maslennikov also needed agreement from Arkhipov…“what do you say, Vasyli?...do we engage the Americans with our special weapon?”…

Vasyli took a breath and replied “nyet…we do not fire…we have no proof that we are at war…what if we’re wrong?...if we launch, we risk starting an all-our nuclear war and wipe out all life on the planet”…

The commander wasn’t happy with that, but rules were rules and he ordered that the crew stand down…no nuke would be fired that day…and when the sub did surface, it was confirmed that hostilities had not broken out…this is why Vasyli Arkipov is widely regarded as the man who single-handedly prevented a global nuclear war on October 27, 1962…yet how many people know his name?...

Now let’s take a big pivot into music…what kind of unsung heroes might we find there?...

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Saskia Goldschmidt (16 april 2021)