The Man Who Saved The World

 Vasilli Arkhipov

The man who saved the world... 50 years ago, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, second-in-command Vasilli Arkhipov of the Soviet submarine B-59 refused to agree with his Captain's order to launch nuclear torpedos against US warships and setting off what might well have been a terminal superpower nuclear war. His story is finally being told - the BBC is airing a documentary on it.
The Man Who Saved The World. 'This documentary explores the dramatic and little-known events that unfolded inside a nuclear-armed Russian submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. While both U.S. and Russian politicians sought a solution to the stand-off, Vasili Arkhipov, an officer aboard the submarine, refused to fire a nuclear torpedo, thus averting disaster. The program combines tense drama with eyewitness accounts and expert testimony about a critical event during the Cold War.'