Comment by Jtsummers

> would you say that the singular choice of vasili arkhipov did not prevent annihilation?

He prevented a catastrophe, but not annihilation. We were not at risk of that in 1962 and even if he had decided to go with the others, more decisions would have been needed (not just his) to fully escalate to full scale nuclear war. I will reiterate: We have never been one decision away from full scale nuclear war.

But in case you don't understand why, it's because no one person can actually launch all the missiles. And considering the two major arsenals (US and USSR), there has never been a time when two people could make the same decision (launch) and actually launch all the missiles. The orders still have to go out and acted on, many decisions have to be made in order to have full scale nuclear war and come close to annihilation.