SECRETS OF THE DEAD

This intimate and intense film explores the dramatic and little-known events that unfolded inside a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis. While politicians desperately sought a solution to the stand-off, Vasili Arkhipov, an officer aboard the submarine, refused to fire a nuclear torpedo, thus averting disaster. The program combines tense drama with eyewitness accounts and expert testimony about a critical event during the Cold War.

Watch The Man Who Saved the World on PBS. See more from Secrets of the Dead.