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Thirteen Days From Annihilation: How the Crisis Unfolded
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
In October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the edge of nuclear war — and most people still don't know how close it really got. This opening chapter sets the stage: the U-2 photographs, ExComm's secret deliberations, and the hidden architecture of a standoff that nearly ended civilisation.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
On October twenty-seventh, nineteen sixty-two, a Soviet submarine officer sat in a vessel that had lost its ventilation system. The temperature inside had climbed above forty-five degrees Celsius.
To understand what happened in those thirteen days, you need to understand what had been built in the years before them. By nineteen sixty-two, the United States and the Soviet Union had both accumulated enough nuclear weapons to destroy the other side many times over.
On October fourteenth, nineteen sixty-two, a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft flew over western Cuba. The photographs it returned showed construction activity near San Cristóbal.
Kennedy announced the crisis publicly on October twenty-second. His televised address told the American people what the photographs had revealed and what his administration intended to do about it.
On October twenty-sixth, Khrushchev sent Kennedy a long, emotional letter. It was unusual in its tone, almost personal.
October twenty-seventh was the most dangerous day. Several things happened nearly simultaneously, and any one of them could have triggered a war.
Below the surface of the Atlantic, off the coast of Cuba, the Soviet submarine B-59 had been out of radio contact with Moscow for days. The crew didn't know the current state of the crisis.
There's a version of the Cuban Missile Crisis that gets told as a triumph of American resolve. Kennedy stood firm, the Soviets backed down, and the free world was saved.
The Cuban Missile Crisis ended officially on October twenty-eighth, when Khrushchev announced the Soviet missiles would be withdrawn. The public celebration in the United States was real.
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