Restraint Beneath the Flashing Red Light

On September 26, 1983, just after midnight, Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov sat at his post inside the Serpukhov-15 bunker south of Moscow. Suddenly, the early-warning system screamed to life. The screen flashed a single word: LAUNCH. An American intercontinental ballistic missile was supposedly headed toward the Soviet Union. Then the system detected a second. Then a third, fourth, and fifth.…