Learning from Mutants
Most comic book movies end with the superheroes saving the world from imminent destruction. To add realism, X-Men: First Class takes place at the closet the world has come to actually being destroyed – the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The movie is great on its own. But its historical setting raises some under-appreciated points about the actual Cuban Missile Crisis. Joe Cirincione and I wrote a blog at Huffington highlighting the film’s nuclear angle: The X-Men Didn’t Save Us.
In the blog, we write about a terrifying episode form the actual crisis that was unknown to me until just this week:
Vasili Arkhipov: The Man Who Saved the World
There really was a submarine escorting the missile-carrying cargo ships to Cuba. But it was a Soviet sub, not a mutant one. On October 27, US destroyers dropped depth charges on the Soviet submarine, B-59 — unaware that the sub carried a nuclear-tipped torpedo.
Cut off from communications with Moscow and with charges exploding overhead, the exhausted Soviet captain ordered the torpedo readied for launch. “We’re going to blast them now!” he said, “We will die, but we will sink them all.” But firing the torpedo required the 3 top officers to all agree. They voted. It went 2-1with Second Captain Vasili Arkhipov voting against. The order was never given, the sub surfaced and nuclear war was averted.
As this story has been told since 2002, it turns out the world owes a debt of great gratitude to Vasili Arkhipov – in addition to the usual cast of Kennedys and advisors – for averting nuclear war on the world’s most dangerous day.
That’s my lasting takeaway from writing the blog. My lasting takeaway from the movie: Kevin Bacon can afford some really fancy naval reactors.
You can learn more about the Cuban Missile Crisis at GW’s archives.
