It isn’t Alexei Navalny whose body Russian authorities still aren’t serving up, even though they announced his death on Feb. 16. It’s another Russian.
He was not a prisoner or a leader of the opposition, but a 36-year-old second-in-command of a Soviet submarine parked below international waters off Cuba on October 27, 1962.
VasilyArkhipov was one of three officers onboard the “B-59” who knew the sub not only carried a 10-kiloton nuclear torpedo, but that it could be fired without direct permission from Moscow. This was the height of the Cuban missile crisis, and on that day the B-59 was cornered by 11 US destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph. They started dropping depth charges. Their goal wasn’t to sink the sub but to force it to surface, as US officials had already told Moscow. But what the White House didn’t know was that the B-59 was out of contact with Moscow. So of course they thought the Americans were trying to sink them. Cut off from contact, blasted by depth charges, its air conditioning broken, and temperatures and CO2 levels rising, the officers concluded that global war had begun.
A Vox report picks up the story: “Two of the sub’s senior officers wanted to launch the nuclear torpedo. That included its captain, Valentin Savitsky, who according to a report from the US National Security Archive, exclaimed: “We’re gonna blast them now! We will die, but we will sink them all – we will not become the shame of the fleet.”
But Soviet naval tactics decreed that before anything nuclear could be launched, the Captain alone could not decide. All three senior officers had to agree….and Arkhipov wouldn’t consent. That confrontation has been dramatized in a PBS film, The Man Who Saved the World, about how one man with a single act calmed the captain down and stopped the destruction of life as we know it.
In 2017, 55 years after he averted nuclear war and 19 years after his death, Arkhipov was honoured, with his family the first recipients of The Future of Life Award.
Let’s hope there are more Arkhipovs and Navalnys in Russia’s future. And thanks to Richard Rosenthal for reminding me of this story and its importance.
Meanwhile…
1. No Hamlet like this Hamlet. Robert Lepage directs Guillaume Côté in their world premiere of Hamlet. Six performances only at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto, April 3 to 7. You can save 14% on any and all tickets. Just key in this promo code: RAMSAY14.
2. God takes many shapes. One is as mother nature, for whom this is “MN 2.0“. Another comes from the Christian Right whose foot-washing spots flooded the Superbowl. On the subject of foot-washing, here’s a third. And finally, how to see God.
3. The Russians are coming. We need more Russian immigrants like this, and Russia needs fewer like Tucker Carlson, whose rationale for Putin’s role in Alexei Navalny’s death is that “Every leader kills people.”
4. Judges and mental health. It’s no surprise that judges are more prone than most to alcoholism and addiction. It’s a stressful job and no points for opening up if you feel depressed. But things are changing. In 2021, before he retired as Chief Justice of Ontario, George Strathy spoke to a Law Society Mental Health conference on his own family’s experience and then wrote about the challenges all lawyers, and especially litigators, face around their own mental health. Keep writing…
5. Letitia lays it out. So who brought the case that resulted in Donald Trump having to disgorge $364 million (plus $100 million in interest) for fraud, even though that f-word barely covers the staggering scope of the family’s depredations? New York State Attorney General Letitia James. Wow.
6. Do you need an iphone? Here are lots of reasons why not. Same with a digital watch. This one’s better and likely cheaper. There’s lots more at the Unemployed Philosopher’s Guild store.
7. How to…get rich personally and get poor politically. Plus how to add six new lines to the London Underground – and Overground.
Speaking of London, Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton finally got his due last week when a stone was placed in Westminster Abbey commemorating the 150th anniversary of his birth.
What was surprising about the Irishman turned Englishman is that Shackleton wanted to move to Canada and become a Canadian. He bought an investment property near Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) and got the Eaton family to back an expedition to the Arctic, which didn’t happen because Ottawa pulled its support.
8. The Polanyi Prizes. Named for Nobel Prize winning U of T professor John Polanyi, and shepherded by then Premier David Peterson, they’ve awarded $20,000 each year for the past 36 years to early-stage researchers in the five categories of Nobel winners: Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Economics. (The Nobel Peace Prize is a separate thing). The 2023 Prizes were awarded earlier this month. Here are John Polanyi’s remarks.
9. Feminist narratives promoted and co-opted. First and finally, a university is not just being accused of being WOKE, and not even just offering a course on it, but a PhD in it…Next, how companies co-opt feminist narratives to sell women better health. And how many Americans believe Taylor Swift and Joe Biden are in cahoots in the upcoming Presidential election? One in five. Then again, 7 in 10 American adults believe in angels.
10. The food of love. Bradley Cooper gets made up as Leonard Bernstein …. Plus I just got fired, now what? ….. Speaking of getting fired, Norman Lebrecht also reveals that a number of musicians and singers of the English National Opera (ENO) were fired in the throes of performing an opera. The ENO’s apology was, if possible, even worse …. Plus Harry and Meaghan go all-toff with www.sussex.com.
11. What I’m liking. Is there any better feeling than stumbling across a Britbox series that’s run for 8 seasons? It’s important we unpack the layers of ecstasy, because it’s one thing to have episodes of Slow Horses doled out once a week like methadone…only to learn that a second and third season are coming. It’s a completely different and all-embracing sense of ecstasy to be given access to 8 seasons (times 8 episodes each) of a series you used to watch a lifetime ago, and now because you’re older and on firmer ground with matters of taste, can just wallow in the popcorn bowl of something like Foyle’s War. Michael Kitchen is one of Britain’s best actors, while his sidekick Honeysuckle Weeks has the best name ever of any actor anywhere.
_________________
FIND YOURSELF IN THE GREAT BEAR RAINFOREST THIS SEPTEMBER
There’s no more gorgeous place in Canada than BC’s West Coast, and no more immersive way to explore it than aboard the National Geographic Venture on a Lindblad Expedition.
This isn’t an end-of-the-earth trip; it’s a week in the Great Bear Rainforest from September 2 to 9 — the perfect way to bookend your summer.
Thirty of our friends have already signed up to join us. They share a curiosity about the world, a desire to see parts of our home and native land few others get to, and a taste for immersive Indigenous travel.
If you’d like to be part of our growing band of gentle adventurers, please join us for an information reception on March 25. You’ll hear from Jean and me over wine and nibblies, and the expedition’s leader, Oren Frey, and Lindblad executive Karen Kuttner-Dimitry will beam in via Zoom to detail the itinerary and answer your questions.
So exercise your right to great adventure and by guaranteeing you’ll be having one this summer.
Join us on Monday, March 25 from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. at a friend’s gorgeous downtown Toronto home. We’ll send you the address when you RSVP, which you can do right now to bob@ramsayinc.com.
Onward,
Bob Ramsay