Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a daily column that runs on Page 1 of The Asahi Shimbun.
October 21, 2022 at 13:19 JST
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a Security Council meeting via videoconference at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow on Oct. 19. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the captain of a Soviet submarine assumed that war had broken out.
After the Soviet Union secretly placed nuclear missiles in Cuba--at the throat of the United States, so to speak--the Americans reacted by blockading the waters off Cuba and dropping dummy depth charges to force all Soviet submarines to surface.
Amid the deafening roar, the Soviet submarine captain panicked. With the enemy fleet above and communications with Moscow dead, he ordered his crew to prepare to launch a nuclear torpedo.
He shouted to the effect, “We are going to die, but not before sinking all our enemies,” according to the book “Gambling with Armageddon” by U.S. historian Martin Sherwin (1937-2021).
To exaggerate a bit, human history continues today thanks to deputy commander Vasily Arkhipov (1926-1998), who happened to be aboard that submarine. He opposed the torpedo launch and talked the captain into surfacing.
The time span of these events took place exactly 60 years ago. For 13 days from Oct. 16, 1962, when the United States confirmed the presence of Soviet missiles, the world was said to be on the brink of a nuclear war.
And for the first time in six decades, the world today is said to be in a similar predicament with Russian President Vladimir Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons.
I want to believe he simply wouldn’t dare, but the events of 60 years ago remind us of how terrifying it is when a man, who holds the nuclear button in his hand, becomes desperate.
Russian forces are reportedly having difficulties in Ukraine.
How is Putin, faced with such unexpected developments, feeling about this?
Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), who oversaw the Cuban Missile Crisis, was said to have noted that any people with access to nuclear weapons can lose their cool and when that happens, they can drag us all into war.
I can only pray that Putin won’t be one of those people.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 21
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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
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