"Moscow had authorized the submarine commanders to fire without further authorization," The New York Review of Books writes, summarizing a passage from Perry. "When an American destroyer tried to force a submarine to surface, both its captain and the political officer decided to fire a nuclear torpedo at the destroyer."
"A nuclear confrontation was avoided only because Vasili Arkhipov, the overall commander of the fleet, was also present on the submarine," the review continued. "He countermanded the order to launch, thereby preventing what might have started a nuclear war."
