Coordination

On October 27, 1962, Vasili Arkhipov sat in a Soviet submarine under the Atlantic while American destroyers dropped depth charges overhead. The captain wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. The political officer agreed. Soviet naval rules required three senior officers to consent. Arkhipov refused. He had no communication with Moscow. He had no data beyond what his body told him. His palms were sweating. His stomach had tightened. His brain ran an involuntary first-person simulation of what a nuclear torpedo does to a destroyer full of sailors, and that simulation produced suffering in him, and that suffering produced the word “no.” ...