The world remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis as a 13-day war of nerves between the White House and the Kremlin. But the most critical moment of the conflict didn't happen in a war room; it happened deep beneath the waves on a Soviet submarine, where the launch of a nuclear weapon came down to the vote of a single, level-headed officer. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.