Vasily Arkhipov: the man who saved the world.

It was probably because he wasn't on Facebook.

Drawing of Arkhipov by Julie R. Neidlinger.

It was 1962, and the Cuban Missile Crisis had the world on edge.

Vasily Arkhipov was serving aboard a Soviet nuclear submarine, B-59, parked in international waters near Cuba; he was about to save the world by keeping his cool.

Arkhipov had experience in keeping his cool. A year earlier, he had been the deputy commander of K-19, a nuclear submarine patrolling southwest of Greenland, when it experienced a leak in its reactor coolant system that resulted in significant radiation poisoning of many of the crew.¹

But now here he was, just off Cuba.

Only a month earlier, a US U-2 spy plane had spotted the missile installations the Soviet Union was building in Cuba, the obvious threat being the ability to launch missiles at the U.S. with very little warning. When nefarious powers start parking themselves in the Western Hemisphere up near the equator, the U.S. has to sit up and take notice.²

Escalation was inevitable, it seemed, and when the US Navy spotted B-59, a cat-and-mouse game began. The Navy dropped depth charges to force the submarine to surface and be identified. The submarine captain was disinclined to do that. Unfortunately, the submarine was struggling with a malfunctioning ventilation system. Temperatures rose in the submarine, oxygen grew thin, and the captain, who was no longer receiving civilian broadcasts they’d picked up earlier, became convinced a nuclear war had begun.

On B-59, three signatures were required to launch a nuclear torpedo, and the captain and political officer were in agreement.

Arkhipov was not.

There was an argument, but the reputation Arkhipov had gained from the K-19 incident carried weight, and the severely disabled submarine, with worsening onboard conditions, surfaced and made contact with a US Navy ship.

As it turns out, a nuclear war had not begun, but the world came very close to one.

The 1960s were a crazy time.

I wasn’t born until the 1970s, so don’t blame me. While researching for the book about the Dakota Access Pipeline protest, I took a nice little dive into the cultural upheaval of that decade.

Image © Julie R. Neidlinger. All rights reserved.

Multiple social movements were surging all at once. There were anti-Vietnam War protests, the civil rights movement, second-wave feminism, the American Indian Movement and red power, environmental activism, far-right movements that would blossom in the next decade—it was sit-ins, marches, freedom rides, love and war and peace, campus protests, shootings, and bombings. We had the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of JFK, RFK, Malcolm X, and MLK Jr., and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s stroll across the moon. It must have felt like the end of days to live through it, to go from WW2 and the hazy 1950s into the explosive 1960s.

Thankfully, they did not have social media during any of it. Imagine how much hotter the times would have been if information had been instant and non-stop?

The technology and media of the time created a forced delay and a screen, and though it wasn’t by much, it was a buffer. It slowed down the information cycle a little, with gatekeepers further restricting information to what was manageable.³ It wasn’t truly instantaneous like today, nor did it include the ability to voice your opinion with a bunch of strangers as an attachment to that news reporting. Most stories happened, and people heard about them after-the-fact. They didn’t generally watch them unfold as they were happening.

I know what you’re probably thinking: we don’t have to imagine what it would have been like back in the 1960s if social media and the Internet were in place because we live in that now, a time period which also feels like the end of days.

We’re all reading, responding, and pontificating the moment something happens and breaks across the screens of our mobile devices and favorite networks. We watch a video about making sourdough bread and then, seconds later, a live video where a guy gets shot in some American city, and we’re supposed to process that? We aren’t capable of forming an understanding. Our brains surely are short-circuiting.

Perhaps that’s why we don’t value long-form, thoughtful content from experienced journalists or experts. It’s all hot-takes for overheated brains.

The burden to be first and get the clicks, the burden to “get out in front” of the inevitable negative response, the burden to bear the weight of 1000 trolls and partisan angry responses in the comments—today’s information war has to carry a lot of burden.

And it’s not just an information war. It’s a timing of information war.

But very few of us will patiently wait for all the available information to come out so we can carefully weigh it.

Most of us will consume only breaking news headlines, scrolling on without ever going back to see corrections, retractions, or modifications. The first information to hit us, from our algorithm-selected source programmed to fit our sensibility, will be what we understand going forward. We assume that if it’s important, the algorithm will make sure we see it.

Or—and it would be comical if it weren’t so unfortunate—we wonder why the systems of investigation and justice aren’t moving as fast and effectively as citizen social media journalists who can blast things out quickly, not considering how information protection is necessary when building a criminal case.

What would it be like today for Arkhipov?

I don’t know.

It’s not a judgment call on Arkhipov.

He, the man, might still be the same man if dropped into today’s instant-news, cowboy-headline, hot-take-for-the-win culture. But the same man in a different moment is often not the same man; his option for decision might not be quite the same, even if his will to decide is. This is especially true for someone who is not anchored in Truth but changes with situations. We grapple with this, unable to understand how otherwise smart or good people do something horrible, concluding they were an idiot or monster all along. The outcome of the situation blocks a real understanding of the complex man who existed outside of the situation.

Still, I can’t help but admire Arkhipov as someone whose pattern was to keep a cool head in life-threatening situations. There may be some natural tendency, but I believe it is also something we need to train ourselves for.⁴

Nothing about social media encourages this, of course; we are encouraged to be hot-headed, witty comeback fools.

So here we are.

Perhaps it was good, that October day in 1962, that the general public didn’t realize they were one signature away from nuclear annihilation, or that Don Lemon couldn’t pop up on a raft near Cuba shoving a mic in someone’s face, asking if they thought launching a missile was Trump’s idea. I suspect, though, in our “I have a right to know” and “we’re just asking questions” culture, it’s a hard idea to sell. Suggesting it’s better we don’t know some things is almost modern blasphemy.

But I’ll be honest: I’m not sure we have the right to know. I’m not sure we have any business asking questions if we’re gullible or not in a position to discern which answers are viable. And I’m not sure we’ve fully considered the responsibilities that come with knowing something. The act of pursuing information is really the smallest part; the heaviest lift comes once you have it and have to figure out what is valuable, true, or weaponized.

I want some takeaways from Arkhipov because in this hot-take, heated-up culture of constant news and information, I want to be someone with a cool head, instead of being generally low-key apathetic before bursting into apoplectic rage.

Unfortunately, I literally have nothing in common with a Cold War Soviet-Era submarine officer with a cool head.

I guess all I have is to remember that all hot takes are garbage, more information that changes the story will always follow, it’s okay to not weigh in, it’s even more okay to not process your emotions out loud or in writing for the world to read (uh, oops), and it’s a very good thing to wait for all the information to come out before coming to a decision of importance.

Or, you know, just because you heard a depth charge nearby doesn’t mean it’s time to launch the nuke and see how that goes.

Imperfect as it is, this is what I’m trying:

First, try to avoid situations that hem in my ability to make good decisions.

Don’t go on Facebook if another national story is blowing up; if you’re on that platform stalking meteorologists, stories about Secretariat, and cat videos, like I am, avoid comments and skim past posts the algorithm wants to trap you with. And for God’s sake, totally avoid X.

Remember that just because something is legal, lawful, possible, or allowed doesn’t mean it’s wise. As we learned in Jurassic Park, we get so busy wondering if we could, we don’t stop to think if we should.

This is the idea of the “error chain,” which I learned about during flight training. It’s the idea that a sequence of errors or mistakes that seem small can, when linked together, result in a terrible outcome. People break down an incident and argue about whether something was or wasn’t a mistake, if it matters—and they miss the big-picture error chain.

I want to correct if I’m on an error chain, before I get to the end of it. It’s hard, though; in for a penny, in for a pound. The further we go down an error chain, the fewer options we have for making good decisions that will get us out of it safely. Your exhausted guardian angel is not a way of life.

Second, find better inputs.

Sadly, there are fewer and fewer good inputs out there. Lots of information and noise, but fewer good inputs.

Sometimes I just turn on the Bible app and let Sir David Suchet read the NIV to me in the background as I work. It’s not about whether I hear every word he speaks, but rather, knowing that the words filling the space around me and in my head are God’s Word, and whatever words I happen to hear are unadulterated truth. Unless I try to force my own worldview or politics on those words, they consistently are a balm to the soul.

I don’t know that I’d ever call news a good input. A necessary evil at times, yes, but we don’t have to know everything going on all the time.

Lastly, avoid submarines and Cuba.

I think it bears mentioning.

1. K-19: The Widowmaker is a movie based on this story.

2. Perhaps the same can be said of Venezuela, too.

3. The battle between gatekeepers and wild-west freedom for user-generated content is ongoing. I’ve obviously enjoyed greater publishing access as gatekeepers were torn down in the Internet age, but I also appreciate the value of expert curation. The extremes of both—gatekeepers restricting voices and opinions we need to hear as opposed to mis and dis and plain stupid information—are both painful. The bigger question might be how we’ve allowed platforms to function as gatekeepers through algorithms that prioritize engagement and monetization over truth. Additionally, are we as humans and a culture better off with more information? I don’t think so. Keep in mind, information is not the same as knowledge and wisdom.

• You’re a fool if you speak before hearing all the facts (Proverbs 18:13).

• Whoever speaks up first seems right, until others start speaking up and everything is examined (Proverbs 18:17).

• Be careful about accusations and legal action; you might end up embarrassed when the whole story is told (Proverbs 25:8).

• The simple person believes everything, but a wise person is more thoughtful in how he proceeds (Proverbs 14:15).

• A wise person will turn away from things that are evil, but a fool runs about hotheaded and careless (Proverbs 14:16).

• The person who is slow to get angry is someone with great understanding, but the person who is quick to emotion is basically praising and serving foolishness (Proverbs 14:19).

• The person who can restrain their words shows they have great knowledge and are a person of understanding. Even a silent fool can seem wise. (Proverbs 17:27-28).

• A fool vents all of their feelings, but a wise person quietly holds back (Proverbs 29:11).

• Be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to getting angry (James 1:19-20).

• Don’t be easily made angry. Anger is what fools carry around (Ecclesiastes 7:9).

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