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The Line in the Water: How the Crisis Almost Slipped Beyond Control
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
U-2 photographs, ExComm's secret debates, Khrushchev's two letters, and the intelligence gaps that nearly made nuclear war inevitable — this is the full story of how the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded from the inside. Discover how many times the world almost came apart despite Kennedy and Khrushchev's best efforts.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Most people picture the Cuban Missile Crisis as a confrontation between two men. Kennedy in the White House.
The photographs arrived on October fifteenth. A U-2 reconnaissance aircraft had flown over western Cuba the day before, and when the film came back from the lab, analysts identified what they were looking at immediately.
On October twenty-second, Kennedy went public. He addressed the nation and announced what the administration called a naval quarantine, a word chosen carefully because a blockade in international law is technically an act of war.
On October twenty-sixth, a long message arrived from Khrushchev. It was personal in tone, almost rambling.
If the crisis had a single worst day, it was October twenty-seventh. The day history would later call Black Saturday.
The U.S. Navy had been hunting Soviet submarines in the waters around Cuba. They had located four of them.
The public resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis followed familiar lines. Kennedy stood firm.
There's a version of the Cuban Missile Crisis that functions as a confidence-builder. The adults in the room kept the peace.
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