In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the atomic bombings killed between 150,000 and 220,000 people in the first four months.

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02
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The Russian Submarine
Dive!
Spotted!
Last Warning or Attack?
Doomsday Countdown
The Veto of the Commander
Homecoming

The World on the Brink of Nuclear War

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October 1962, Caribbean.
Climax of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Soviets smuggled nuclear missiles onto the Caribbean island.
President John F. Kennedy announces an embargo against Cuba.
October 22, 1962, 7 p.m.
Live TV speech.
October 27, 1962.
The U.S. Air Force monitors the Caribbean.

These are Ivans. Russians!!

On board the B-59, Fleet Commander Vasili Arkhipov and Pilot-in-Command Valentin Savitsky have a conversation.

Comrade Commander ...!!!

... We have been spotted!!!

Dive immediately!!

Yes, sir!

Dive immediately!

They‘re diving!

We lost them!

How much battery power do we have?

20 percent!

... only enough for 6 hours ...

... if they attack us ...

... we’ll strike back with our secret weapon!

October 27. B-59 surfaces to charge its batteries. Using radar, the Americans locate the submerged submarine again.

We've got them!

We’ll force the Soviets to surface ...

... with test bombs!!!

Internationally, three detonations are considered the final warning to surface.
At 60° Celsius, nerves are frayed inside the submarine because the Americans have deployed a lot more than three bombs.

Those are water bombs! We’re under attack!

We’ll strike back with the nuclear torpedo!

What nobody knows: the Soviets have newly developed nuclear torpedoes on board.
The secret nuclear torpedo is being armed.

Stop!

We have no orders from Moscow!

We don't need them. We’re being bombed! This means war!

Officer Maslenikov!

Get ready for the dual ignition!

The "two-man rule" applies to nuclear weapons: Two people must give the order to fire at the same time. Aboard B-59 with keys.

Quickly! We don't have much time!

The countdown to the end of the world begins.

On the count of three ...!

One ...

... two ...

Stop!

Fleet Commander Vasili Arkhipov intervenes.

The nuclear torpedo is a resort to arms!

I was at the accident on the K-19 two years ago ...

I have seen what radiation does ...

My best men ...

... died like dogs ...

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...

... Damn! There is no other way, we must act!

Maslenikov! Now or NEVER!

NO! I have an explicit veto right for the use of this weapon, Savitsky!

Let‘s ...

... surface!

Vasili Arkhipov prevails and thus prevents World War III.

There they are!

The submarine fleet returns to the Soviet Union.
The Americans enforced their embargo.
A nuclear inferno was averted.
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The US and the USSR agree on a solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis that will allow both sides to save face.

Comrades, aren't they ...!?

The commanders Savitsky, Maslenikov, and Arkhipov!

They’re back!

In the USSR, Vasili's story is being kept quiet.
Vasili Arkhipov takes his story to the grave.
He dies of kidney cancer in 1998, possibly as a resultof the nuclear accident on the K-19.
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