PBS - Secrets of the Dead S12E01: The Man Who Saved the World (2012) 720p HDTV x264-QCF

In October 1962, the world held its breath. On the edge of the Caribbean Sea, just a few miles from the Florida coast, the two great superpowers were at a stand-off. Surrounded by twelve US destroyers, which were depth-charging his submarine to drive it to the surface, Captain Vitali Grigorievitch Savitsky panicked. Unable to contact Moscow and fearing war had begun, he ordered the launch of his submarine's nuclear torpedoes. As the two sides inched perilously close to nuclear war-far closer than we ever knew before--just one man stood between Captain Savitsky's order and mutually assured destruction.Set over four hours on October 27, 1962, when the Cuban Missile Crisis was at its height, this program tells the powerful but forgotten story of Vasili Arkhipov and Soviet submarine B-59. With most of the action set in a claustrophobic submarine running out of air, THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD combines tense drama with eyewitness accounts and expert testimony about some of the most critical events in the Cold War.