Vasili Arkhipov
Naval officerWikipedia
25
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15
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15
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Search complete. 25 mentions across 15 episodes found for "Vasili Arkhipov".
Oct 29, 2026
JC ColeGUEST
And then, I don't know, we talked about the...
JC ColeGUEST
there was a guy, the man that saved the world, his name was Vasily Arkhipov.
JC ColeGUEST
He was a rear admiral in a Soviet submarine.
JC ColeGUEST
And so the US Navy had detected that there was a submarine and they basically dropped some depth charges as a warning to surface And the captain of the submarine thought that the war had begun and was about to launch a nuclear weapon on our Navy.
Andrew MuellerHOST
And nobody fully understood until 2002 that Captain Savitsky and political officer Ivan Maslenikov had decided to fire the nuclear torpedo at their American pursuers.
Andrew MuellerHOST
They were stared down by Captain Vasily Arkhipov, chief of staff of the Soviet submarine contingent in the Caribbean, who happened to be aboard.
Andrew MuellerHOST
There were further potential escalations in the skies.
Andrew MuellerHOST
On the same day that Soviet submariners argued over initiating the apocalypse, their comrades on Cuba shot down a US Air Force U-2, killing the pilot, Major Rudolph Anderson Jr.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Here's a few clips from this week's free episode.
Cameron ReillyHOST
Welcome back to QAV America Tony episode 76 the 27th of October which means as I said in our last episode it's Vasily Arkhipov day the Soviet Navy commander who single-handedly prevented a nuclear war in October 1962 it's During the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. Navy dropped some depth charges on top of the submarine to force them to surface, but the submarine commanders thought a nuclear war had started, and they decided to launch a nuclear missile at the U.S. Navy, and they needed three commanders to approve it, and two did.
Cameron ReillyHOST
including the captain of the submarine, and Vasily Arkhipov refused to agree and said we should surface the submarine instead, which they did, and it turned out there was no nuclear war.
Cameron ReillyHOST
But if it hadn't been for Vasily Arkhipov, by the time I was born in 1970, and you were like, what, 64 or 66? 63.
Cameron ReillyHOST
63.
Cameron ReillyHOST
Yeah.
Mark BigneyHOST
First, the day of publication is the 27th of October.
Mark BigneyHOST
This is the anniversary of Vasily Arkhipov saving the entire human race.
Mark BigneyHOST
Happy Arkhipov Day, everybody.
Mark BigneyHOST
And this is an act of courage, of physical and of moral courage.
Mark BigneyHOST
We all have power.
Mark BigneyHOST
We all exercise it in our own ways.
Mark BigneyHOST
And I think Vasily Arkhipov deserves a day in his recognition.
Mark BigneyHOST
But additionally...
Kenny KatayamaHOST
Really appreciate it.
Kenny KatayamaHOST
I wanted to briefly talk about Arkhipov Day and Vasily Arkhipov.
Kenny KatayamaHOST
In 1962, October 27, Vasily Arkhipov, vice admiral on a nuclear submarine, refused orders to fire a nuclear missile during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Kenny KatayamaHOST
And many historians and folks at the time report that we very much would have gone into like a nuclear war at that time if that warhead had been fired, probably eradicating most of life on Earth.
Kenny KatayamaHOST
So first of all, I want to thank Arkhipov for refusing that order.
CameronHOST
Welcome back to QAVTK episode 953.
CameronHOST
It is the 27th of October and that means it is Vasily Arkhipov Day.
CameronHOST
Happy Vasily Arkhipov Day, Tony.
CameronHOST
Thank you.
CameronHOST
Did you pull one out for Vasily Arkhipov today? No.
Tony KynastonHOST
Well, no.
Tony KynastonHOST
I don't pour one out anymore, but anyway.
Tony KynastonHOST
On the ground?
Serhii PlokhyGUEST
One is Captain Savitsky, who is the captain and commander of the submarine itself.
Serhii PlokhyGUEST
And another is Captain Vasily Arkhipov, who is the commander of the entire PAS group of submarines, all four of them.
Serhii PlokhyGUEST
And when they resurfaced to recharge their batteries, both Sivitsky and Urhipov were on the, basically on the submarines at the top of it.
Serhii PlokhyGUEST
So they were above the surface together with the signal man.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Inside the submarine, officers who had been cut off from reliable communications struggled to determine whether war had begun.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Captain Valentin Savitsky came close to ordering the torpedoes used, but another senior officer aboard, Vasily Arkhipov, helped prevent that decision.
speaker_0NARRATOR
The episode was fully understood decades later, a reminder of how close the world came to the use of nuclear weapons through misperception, incomplete information, and compressed decision timelines under stress.
speaker_0NARRATOR
The incident, dramatized in The Man Who Saved the World, a 2012 television documentary in the PBS series Secrets of the Dead series, illustrates how nuclear escalation can begin without either belligerent choosing to go nuclear.
Peter KuznickGUEST
The Commander Savitsky couldn't reach the Kremlin, and he gave the order to launch the nuclear torpedo.
Peter KuznickGUEST
We were lucky that Vasili Arkhipov, who was number, uh, higher than Savitsky on land, but subordinate to him on the sub, he talked Savitsky down from that order.
Peter KuznickGUEST
Had Savitsky launched the nuclear torpedo, the world would have gone up in nuclear war in October of '62.
Mario NawfalHOST
How...
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