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The U-2 Film, the Missing Warheads, and the Deal Nobody Told You About
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
In October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded in secret while the world went about its business — and the U.S. didn't even know 140 nuclear warheads were already armed on the island. This episode traces the U-2 discovery, Kennedy's ExComm deliberations, the naval quarantine, and the secret Jupiter missile deal that ended the crisis but stayed hidden for decades.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
It's October fourteenth, nineteen sixty-two. A U-2 reconnaissance aircraft passes over western Cuba at high altitude, cameras running.
Here's where the title of this episode earns its name. Kennedy was on a campaign trip in Chicago when he got the photographs.
While ExComm debated options, they were working with incomplete intelligence. Severely incomplete.
On October twenty-second, Kennedy went public. In a televised address, he told the country what the U-2 photographs had found.
On October twenty-sixth, Khrushchev sent Kennedy a message. Long, emotional, direct.
October twenty-seventh, nineteen sixty-two. The same day as RFK's meeting with Dobrynin.
Arkhipov refused. He didn't have a dramatic reason.
When the crisis resolved, the public story was relatively clean. Kennedy had stood firm.
The mythology around the Cuban Missile Crisis tends to settle on two things: Kennedy's resolve and Khrushchev's retreat. That version is incomplete.
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