Joseph Stalin and the Bomb

[AK84]

@Schnitte

The Soviet officer in charge at the time was Stanislav Petrov who, correctly, assumed that this was an error and refrained from raising an alert to his superiors. The important thing to note here that Petrov’s job was not to launch counterstrikes; he had neither the authority nor the technical means to do so.

Yes that is true.

His job was to report the alert to superiors, who would then have brought it to the attention of top decision-makers in Moscow. The world was very fortunate that Petrov acted the way he did, because we don’t know what would have happened if he had made that report; but it’s still too much to say that he should have launched a strike.

As @LSLGuy pointed out (a decade plus ago ) what exactly Petrov did is not entirely clear and even whether he refused to tell his superior. As has been pointed out, the feed from the early warning satellites went to other places besides his command center.

Once the computer classifies the signal as an indicator of a launch, it generates an alarm that is automatically sent up the chain of command (especially if it is not a single launch). There were at least three assessment and decision-making layers above the command center of the army that operated the satellites - command centers of the early-warning army, the Air Defense Forces (which was a separate service back then), and, finally, the General Staff.