It takes about half an hour for a nuclear missile to travel between the population centres of Russia and the US, its warheads freighted with the end of the civilised world. Cowell, experienced and crafty, decided that his agent had been arrested and did not pass the message on to his superiors. The other hero whose name is known to history was the Russian colonel Stanislav Petrov, the news of whose death has just reached the west. He decided on his own authority that these were false alarms: if there was to be a first strike, he reasoned, it would have more than five missiles. Judgment and well-timed insubordination have sometimes saved us, too.

Source: The Guardian September 18, 2017 18:22 UTC