None of these incidents prompted a presidential crisis, in part because the international climate was calm; few believed that the Soviets had really launched an attack. But the Soviet Union’s false warning on September 26 came at a time of intense nervousness. As it happened, the chief air defense officer on duty, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, figured that the radars had to be mistaken and decided, entirely on his own judgment, not to notify his superiors. If Petrov had been less sure of himself and sent an emergency message alert to the next level—in other words, if he’d been more like
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