 On September 26, 1983, in the aptly named 'Petrov Incident', Stanislav Petrov was an on-duty officer in a Soviet nuclear warning center where there was a purported launch of American nuclear missiles.Petrov opted not to alert the Soviet high command because the system malfunctioned indicating that the Soviets narrowly avoided war.Ronald Reagan's speech on March 23, 1983, outlaid the plan for ‘Star Wars’ which served to infuriate the Soviet Union, with Andropov proclaiming that the United States was continuing their search for more ways to turn a nuclear war in their favor, instead of relying on Mutually assured destruction (MAD).