The submarine officer who said no to nuclear war

On 27 October 1962, Soviet submarine B-59 was cornered by US depth charges near Cuba and lost contact with Moscow. Believing war had begun, its captain and political officer moved to launch a nuclear torpedo, but the sub's command structure required all three senior officers to agree. Executive officer Vasili Arkhipov refused and argued to surface instead, a single dissent that may have averted a nuclear exchange.

— Michael Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War — Knopf, 2008
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