A lot of people talk shit on the nothing ever happens gang and forget they saved the world twice.

Lenin had a point when he said that there are decades where nothing happens; however, he took the wrong line into revisionism when he said there are weeks where decades happen.

In at least one of these cases I think what happened is the computer showed only a single missile and the officer recognized that there wasn't any case where the Americans would launch one missile. Doctrine said to retaliate but the guy was all "nah, this is a glitch or something, if it was the real thing there'd be hundreds or thousands of missiles, not one.

I wonder if the US had close calls like that but is too tight lipped to disclose them. The apparent lack of close calls on the part of the US would reflect badly on the USSR.

Good on those two men for their work though.

The other might be Vasily Arkhipov during the Cuban Missle Crisis (Caribbean or October Crisis).