Thanks, Vasili. The decision not to fight is often the more courageous one.
Sadly, instead of taking a deep breath and stepping back from the brink, both sides ramped up MAD to even more dangerous levels. 19 years after the Cuban crisis, it was another Russian officer, Colonel Stanislav Petrov, who kept a cool head when an early warning satellite told him that 5 ICBMs had been launched in the USA. It turned out to be reflected sunlight dazzling the satellite's camera, which the computers then identified as the flare of rocket engines.
