B is correct, but the orders did not come from Khrushchev or anyone in a position of high Soviiet authority. Here's what the Wikiopedia says:
Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov (Russian: Василий Александрович Архипов) was a Soviet naval officer. On October 27, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a group of 11 United States Navy destroyers headed by the aircraft carrier USS Randolph entrapped a nuclear-armed Soviet Foxtrot class submarine B-59 near Cuba and started dropping depth charges. Allegedly, the captain of the submarine, Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky, believing that a war might already have started, prepared to launch a retaliatory nuclear-tipped torpedo.
Three officers on board the submarine - Savitsky, Political Officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and Commander Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov - were entitled to launch the torpedo if they agreed unanimously in favour of doing so. An argument broke out between the three, in which only Arkhipov was against making the attack, eventually persuading Savitsky to surface the submarine and await orders from Moscow. The nuclear war which presumably would have ensued was thus averted.
Khrushchev knew nothing of this (it only emerged in the last decade), and was willing to deal:
Khrushchev sent letters to Kennedy on October 23 and 24 claiming the deterrent nature of the missiles in Cuba and the peaceful intentions of the Soviet Union; however, the Soviets had delivered two different deals to the United States government. On October 26, they offered to withdraw the missiles in return for a U.S. guarantee not to invade Cuba or support any invasion. The second deal was broadcast on public radio on October 27, calling for the withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey in addition to the demands of the 26th. The crisis peaked on October 27, when a U-2 (piloted by Rudolph Anderson) was shot down over Cuba and another U-2 flight over Russia was almost intercepted when it strayed over Siberia, after Curtis LeMay (U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff) had neglected to enforce Presidential orders to suspend all overflights. At the same time, Soviet merchant ships were nearing the quarantine zone. Kennedy responded by publicly accepting the first deal and sending Robert Kennedy to the Soviet embassy to accept the second in private that the fifteen Jupiter missiles near İzmir, Turkey would be removed six months later. The Soviet ships turned back and on October 28, Khrushchev announced that he had ordered the removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba. The decision prompted then Secretary of State Dean Rusk to comment, "We are eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked."
Also from the Wikipedia,
so he gets credit for saving the world (maybe twice) too.
--- "B." <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I don't know if it was Kruschev in the Cuban Missile
> Crisis: According to Thomas Blanton of the National
> Security Archive and John Ikenberry in the
> Sept.-Oct. 2002 _Foreign_Affarirs_:
>
> "A guy named Arkhipov saved the world." Vasili
> Arkhopov was the Russian submarine commander in the
> Atlantic who on October 27, 1962, personally blocked
> orders to fire nuclear weapons at either the US
> mainland or at US ships. What I'm reading doesn't
> specify which of the two -- but the was ordered to
> fire nukes during the crisis, and he refused the
> order. The attack would have ignited nuclear
> armageddon.
>
> So thanks Arkhipov. =)))))))))))))
>
> -B.
>
>
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> "(If so Khrushchev may have saved the world twice
> -- he definitely did in Oct 63 by acting like the
> grownup in Cuban Missile Crises and "blinking first"
> -- probably at the cost of his position as GenSec --
> while JFK was apparently willing to blow up the
> world to show he had balls (couldn't he just have
> gotten a written testimonial from Marylin Monroe or
> something?)."
>
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