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Some moments don't just change history — they freeze it. Join us as we examine the decisions, missteps, and acts of extraordinary restraint that brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis! From the Bay of Pigs to Black Saturday, from submarine B-59 to the secret back-channel deal that ended it all — what would YOU have chosen? Let us know in the comments!
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00:00We are asking tonight that an emergency meeting of the Security Council be convoked
00:05without delay to take action against this latest Soviet threat to world peace.
00:11In October 1962, the world came closer to nuclear war than at any other moment in human history.
00:18For 13 days, two superpowers stood on the edge of global annihilation.
00:23In Washington and Moscow, leaders weighed options that could kill millions.
00:28The public knew something was wrong, but it was only later that we would learn just how close we came
00:34to war.
00:35This is WatchMojo, and today we examine the Cuban Missile Crisis and the decisions that made the world stand still.
00:42Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right.
00:47Not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom here in this hemisphere.
00:54And we hope around the world, God willing, that goal will be achieved.
01:13If World War I was called the war to end all wars, World War II was the nightmare that put
01:19that peaceful dream to bed.
01:20Suspicion between the surviving victors hardened almost immediately.
01:25Out of the bubble emerged two superpowers with opposing ideologies and global ambitions.
01:30The United States and the Soviet Union.
01:33With both America and the Soviet Union having suffered devastating surprise attacks in the war,
01:39they were both determined it would never happen again.
01:42Europe was divided into rival spheres of influence.
01:46Alliances quickly solidified into armed camps.
01:49By 1949, both nations possessed nuclear weapons, transforming a political rivalry into an existential
01:56danger for everyone.
01:58The Cold War was built on a simple, terrifying premise.
02:02If either side miscalculated, the next war would end all wars, end humanity.
02:07The launching of Sputnik had an important place in the ongoing Cold War because it demonstrated how
02:14advanced Soviet technology was, affording them greater leverage in negotiations.
02:19It was also a matter of pride.
02:22In 1959, the R7 became operational and the Soviets now had a way of threatening U.S.
02:28bomber bases with destruction just minutes after the start of hostilities.
02:33And before the majority of U.S. air forces could even mobilize.
02:38The delicate web of alliances and influence suffered a severe shakeup in 1959.
02:43Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution toppled the U.S.-backed regime of Felgencio Batista.
02:49What began as a nationalist uprising soon tilted toward Marxism.
02:53American businesses were nationalized and political opponents were jailed.
02:57Relations between the neighbors deteriorated rapidly.
03:00By 1960, trade agreements and military cooperation drew Havana firmly under Moscow's wing.
03:07We have fought for the democracy here and for the freedom of our people.
03:14We don't want to stop and to put any difficulty to anybody.
03:19We believe in democracy.
03:21Thousands of Cubans fled the island to the United States, where many were received as political refugees.
03:27Their exile communities became a loud voice demanding action against Castro.
03:32Just 90 miles from Florida, a newly hostile government had entered the Cold War.
03:38Now your leaders are no longer Cuban leaders, inspired by Cuban ideals.
03:43They are puppets and agents of an international conspiracy which has turned Cuba against your friends and neighbors in the
03:51Americas and turned it into the first Latin American country to become a target for nuclear war.
03:58Cuba had become a significant political and strategic problem for the United States just as one administration gave way to
04:05another.
04:05For Washington, the presence of a Soviet-aligned government in the Caribbean disrupted generations of hemispheric dominance.
04:13For Moscow, the island presented a rare strategic opening in the Western Hemisphere.
04:17Castro turns to the Soviets for help, and in 1962 they nearly start World War III when the U.S.
04:23blocks Soviet efforts to put nuclear missiles in Cuba.
04:26The incident scares everyone enough that things settle into a tense but basically peaceful status quo.
04:32The United States already maintained military alliances along the Soviet periphery, including bases and nuclear missiles in Europe and Turkey.
04:40Now the threat of proximity ran in both directions. The Cold War's invisible front line had shifted west, and both
04:47sides began looking for ways to alter the balance.
05:08Many interests on both sides of the Cold War were spurred into action.
05:12Many interests on both sides of the Cold War were spurred into action.
05:34Under Eisenhower, the CIA set up training camps for the pilots in Guatemala, and by November, the operation had trained
05:41a small army for an assault, landing, and guerrilla warfare.
05:45Despite the best efforts of the government to keep the invasion plans covert, it became common knowledge among Cuban exiles
05:52in Miami.
05:53John F. Kennedy inherited that plan just weeks into his presidency, along with assurances it would spark a popular uprising.
06:01Instead, Kennedy courted disaster. The invasion force landed at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961 and was quickly overwhelmed
06:09after expected air support and rebellion failed to materialize.
06:13U.S. moves on Cuba. Now it's the big blockade.
06:21On Monday, October the 22nd, President Kennedy went on television to announce his decision.
06:27The humiliation hardened Castro's resolve, convincing him that another American attempt was inevitable.
06:33After the Bay of Pigs, Cuba's leadership could no longer treat an American invasion as hypothetical.
06:39Castro tightened internal security, suppressed opposition, and formally declared the revolution socialist.
06:45Alignment with the Soviet Union became a matter of survival.
06:48Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was happy to comply by secretly deploying nuclear missiles to Cuba, not only to protect the
06:57island, but to counteract the threat from U.S. missiles in Italy and Turkey.
07:02The United States had already demonstrated its willingness to remove him.
07:06Few in Havana believed that the Bay of Pigs would be the end of it.
07:09If Cuba was to endure, it would need a shield strong enough to deter its powerful neighbor.
07:14That fear intensified the standoff, sharpening the island's strategic importance.
07:19From this point forward, existential security would drive decisions on all sides.
07:24As Castro suspected, Washington did not abandon efforts to remove him.
07:29It only changed tactics.
07:30The CIA stepped in with a number of covert plans and programs.
07:34Under Operation Mongoose, the United States intensified sabotage, economic pressure, and intelligence operations aimed at destabilizing the Cuban regime.
07:44Assassination plots were explored, and Cuban infrastructure became a ripe target.
07:48Their remit was clear.
07:50Make Cuba ungovernable and Castro vulnerable.
07:53When Castro came to power during the revolution, he shut down Havana's glitzy hotels and casinos that were owned and
08:00operated by the American mafia.
08:03Believing that organized crime still had the networks and resources to operate effectively in Cuba,
08:07the agency approached mobsters like Sam Giancana, Santo Traficante Jr., and Johnny Roselli with offers of significant rewards for their
08:16help.
08:16In Havana, these covert actions were considered preludes to a potential war.
08:21The physical invasion may have failed, but the pressure had only ramped up.
08:25In Moscow, Cuba represented an opportunity to even the scales.
08:29While the logic of nuclear deterrence ruled the era, the strategic balance favored the United States.
08:35Washington possessed a larger arsenal of strategic bombers and deployable missiles, including nuclear weapons stationed in Europe and Turkey along
08:43the Soviet periphery.
08:45American rhetoric about a missile gap masked the reality.
08:48The Kremlin knew it lagged behind in deliverable nuclear forces.
08:52Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev believed a bold move could shift leverage without firing a shot.
08:57There would be other outbursts in the weeks to follow, including one where Khrushchev allegedly took off his shoe and
09:05banged it against his desk.
09:07These theatrics pointed to a deepening divide between the East and West, something that would play out in a series
09:15of dramatic events in 1961 and 62.
09:22Pushing the world closer to all-out nuclear war than it's ever been before.
09:27Missiles in Cuba would both protect Castro and narrow the imbalance.
09:32The gamble was enormous.
09:34To much of the world, the Soviets would appear the aggressors.
09:37But to Khrushchev, it looked like a shortcut to parity.
09:40The Soviet deployment to Cuba was executed under strict secrecy and deliberate deception under the codename Operation Anadir.
09:49Disguised as routine aid, Moscow secretly moved troops, missile components, and launch equipment across the Atlantic.
09:56Many Soviet soldiers were not told their true destination until they were already en route or had landed.
10:02Anadir had one goal, transport and assemble medium and intermediate range ballistic missile systems before Washington was any the wiser.
10:11Secrecy was strict.
10:13Soldiers did not know their destination, and even the captains of the 85 cargo ships opened their sealed orders only
10:21after setting sail.
10:23If the sites became operational, the United States would face a far more difficult choice about how to respond.
10:29It became, in essence, a race between Soviet construction crews working in the Caribbean heat and American reconnaissance cameras scanning
10:37from the sky.
10:38It was not until October 14th that a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft from Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida took
10:45off,
10:45equipped with high-resolution cameras to capture as much intelligence as possible over the island.
10:51The images it returned left no doubt.
10:54The Lockheed U-2 carried powerful cameras capable of photographing objects only a few feet across from more than 70
11:00,000 feet.
11:01Two years earlier, the Soviets had shot down a U-2 piloted by Francis Gary Powers, proving they understood the
11:09aircraft's capabilities.
11:10What they did not know was if overflights of Cuba were underway.
11:13On October 14th, U-2 captured images of long cylindrical shapes and launch scaffolding hidden among Cuban fields.
11:21Analysts studied the shadows, measurements, and site layouts again and again, until the conclusion was unavoidable.
11:28These were Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles.
11:31The crisis had begun.
11:33The President vented his anger, calling the Soviet leader a gangster and a liar.
11:38After two days of analysis and confirmation, President John F. Kennedy was shown the photographs on the morning of October
11:4516th.
11:46The briefing was blunt and chilling.
11:47Once operational, the missiles could strike much of the continental United States with little warning.
11:53The window for action was narrow, and the options were grim.
11:56An airstrike or an invasion might eliminate the threat, but at the risk of Soviet retaliation and a wider war.
12:03Doing nothing meant accepting a hostile nuclear presence 90 miles from Florida.
12:08Kennedy immediately convened a small circle of advisors in secret.
12:12The world now knew of the nuclear threat to the United States.
12:16He demanded an immediate halt to the Soviet operation, warning that failure to comply would result in sweeping retaliatory measures.
12:26Kennedy announced a naval quarantine of Cuba.
12:30Every vessel, regardless of its flag, would be stopped and turned back if found carrying offensive weapons.
12:38The select group of advisors were known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or EXCOMM.
12:44It quickly became the nerve center of the crisis.
12:46For days, the group met repeatedly in the cabinet room, dissecting intelligence and gaming out worst-case scenarios.
12:53An airstrike might eliminate the missiles, then invite Soviet retaliation in Berlin.
12:58An invasion could topple Castro, then ignite a broader war.
13:02Every option seemed to carry the risk of escalation.
13:05Inside that closed room, heated arguments shaped by caution, pride, ambition, and fear would help determine the fate of the
13:13world.
13:13Each of these missiles, in short, is capable of striking Washington, D.C., the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral, Mexico City,
13:23or any other city in the southeastern part of the United States.
13:27Inside EXCOMM, the debate quickly narrowed to a menu of dangerous options.
13:32A surprise airstrike might destroy the missile sites before they became operational, but there was no guarantee every launcher or
13:38warhead would be located.
13:40An invasion offered a greater chance of eliminating the threat, yet risked immediate Soviet retaliation, possibly in Berlin.
13:47Others, including U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, urged diplomacy, warning that military action could spiral beyond control.
13:55The president himself said that he thought there was upwards of a one-third risk of nuclear war.
14:01Yet he also believed, because he had gotten himself stuck in a credibility trap, if he did not get the
14:06missiles out of Cuba, the Soviets would push harder elsewhere.
14:10Including Berlin, leading to even greater dangers over time.
14:14Yet the fear of appeasement, of repeating JFK's father Joseph Kennedy's mistake in 1938, of tolerating aggression, made restraint politically
14:24perilous.
14:25The threat had been exposed, but no option came without potentially devastating consequences.
14:30There is a strike without a preliminary discussion with Khrushchev.
14:35How many Soviet citizens would kill?
14:39I don't know.
14:39There would be several hundred.
14:41Absolutely never.
14:42Kill is a few casualties.
14:44Kill.
14:46Absolutely.
14:47We're using napalm.
14:48750-pound bombs.
14:50This is an extensive strike we're talking about.
14:54The military pushed hard for decisive action.
14:56Many of the Joint Chiefs favored an immediate airstrike, followed by invasion if necessary.
15:02But inside the Cabinet Room, another calculation was taking shape.
15:06Attorney General Robert Kennedy remained a steady presence, wary of options that could trigger a spiral neither side could control.
15:13After days of debate, XCOM and President Kennedy formed a fragile consensus in favor of a naval quarantine.
15:20A blockade in practice, but not in name.
15:23The distinction mattered.
15:24Under international law, a blockade was considered an act of war.
15:29Each one of us was being asked to make a recommendation which would affect the future of all mankind.
15:33A recommendation which, if wrong and if accepted, could mean the destruction of the human race.
15:39A quarantine would intercept offensive military shipments to Cuba while preserving space to negotiate.
15:45It was a middle path, though it still meant sending U.S. warships towards Soviet vessels.
15:50This clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace and the stable relations between our two nations.
15:58I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination and to join in a historic effort to
16:05end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man.
16:09On the evening of October 22, 1962, President Kennedy addressed the nation.
16:15He revealed Soviet actions in Cuba to the world, announcing a naval quarantine to prevent further deliveries of offensive weapons.
16:22His warning was unmistakable.
16:24Any nuclear missile launched from Cuba would be treated as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States,
16:30requiring a full retaliatory response.
16:33Across America, millions watched in stunned silence.
16:37Around the world, governments scrambled to prepare for a possible war between the two great powers.
16:42With a nearly 20-minute broadcast, the Cold War's most dangerous confrontation took center stage.
16:48Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right.
16:54Not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom here in this hemisphere.
17:01And we hope around the world, God willing, that goal will be achieved.
17:07After the address, Americans were understandably anxious.
17:10Newspapers ran banner headlines.
17:12Radio broadcast repeated updates, as families tried to understand what quarantine and retaliation
17:18might mean.
17:19In some communities, grocery stores saw increased buying of staples as uncertainty spread.
17:25Schools reviewed civil defense procedures.
17:27Across the country, conversations turned toward fallout shelters and evacuation plans.
17:33Well, it seems to me he's sort of taking a bit of a chance.
17:36I think it's very likely that it could result in possibly even drawing this country into some sort of war.
17:45Do you think he was right when he said that some action had to be taken?
17:50This was less dangerous than taking no action at all?
17:53No, I'm not so sure that he shouldn't have gone to the United Nations first.
17:57It felt like a countdown on the future of the nation, even if no one knew the timetable.
18:02For the first time, the possibility of nuclear war felt immediate and personal.
18:07Meanwhile, the Cuban Missile Crisis transformed abstract Cold War fears into a kitchen-table concern.
18:14Meanwhile, the countries of the Organization of American States unanimously endorsed and associated themselves with the United States action.
18:22The Security Council met an emergency session, and Adlai Stevenson warned that the United States was in deadly earnest.
18:29As the quarantine took hold, U.S. military alert levels rose sharply.
18:34Strategic Air Command, responsible for America's nuclear bombers and missiles, was placed at DEFCON 2, one step below nuclear war.
18:43It remains the only time in U.S. history that U.S. nuclear forces reached that threshold.
18:48During the 25th and 26th of October, the Strategic Air Command remains at DEFCON 2.
18:55In the event of war, the Strategic Air Command has but one nuclear scenario.
19:01Total nuclear commitment.
19:03Known as the Single Integrated Operational Plan, or PSIOF, it envisions sending every American nuclear missile, aircraft, and submarine to
19:13launch against not only the Soviet Union, but the entire communist world.
19:17Bombers were armed and dispersed, and missiles were readied.
19:21Invasion plans were refined with unsettling speed.
19:25Inside XCOM, President Kennedy had preferred a calibrated response, but many senior military leaders continued to press for decisive force.
19:34When SAC broadcast its DEFCON 2 status in the clear, the escalatory signal was unmistakable.
19:40The escalation was done in plain view of Moscow.
19:43The lack of a single, tightly controlled voice managing the crisis would prove dangerous for both sides.
19:49Kennedy gives the Soviets 24 hours to respond.
19:53With U.S. attacks on Cuba just hours away, the nuclear battlefield is as close as it has ever been.
20:01U.S. naval forces fanned out across the Caribbean and Atlantic, establishing a quarantine line roughly 500 miles from Cuba.
20:09Aircraft carriers, destroyers, and patrol planes prepared to intercept Soviet vessels suspected of carrying offensive weapons.
20:15The rules of engagement were clear.
20:17Ships would be hailed, stopped, and inspected.
20:20If a captain refused, force might follow.
20:23But any force could trigger retaliation far beyond the Caribbean.
20:27On October 24th, the world watched with bated breath as Soviet ships approached the line.
20:33Very well. Load your guns.
20:34Guns are loaded, sir.
20:37What was that, Admiral?
20:38We've been hailing the Grozny for the last hour, Mr. Secretary.
20:42Grozny refuses to stop.
20:44What are you doing?
20:46We're carrying out our mission, Mr. Secretary.
20:48Now, if you don't mind, we're very busy right now. We need to be able to do our job.
20:51Admiral, I asked you a question.
20:54We're going to follow the rules of engagement.
20:58The rules of engagement which the President has approved and signed in his order of 23 October.
21:05For hours, tension built.
21:07Then, several vessels slowed, stopped, or reversed course before reaching the quarantine zone.
21:12The immediate confrontation eased, but the crisis was far from over.
21:16Beneath the surface, and in the skies above, the danger was only intensifying.
21:22Even as warships maneuvered at sea, quieter efforts unfolded in private rooms.
21:27Both Washington and Moscow searched for an off-ramp that would also save face.
21:32Formal diplomatic exchanges continued, but informal channels moved faster.
21:37In Washington, KGB officer Alexander Feklusov began passing messages to the White House
21:43through journalist John Scali.
21:45Feklusov was no ordinary official.
21:47During the 1940s, he handled atomic espionage sources, including Julius Rosenberg.
21:53Now he found himself helping to transmit possible paths toward de-escalation.
21:58But while diplomats tested language in back rooms,
22:01missile sites in Cuba edged closer to operational readiness.
22:04The White House was on the point of being evacuated.
22:07They thought that this was the early stages of World War III.
22:12The confrontation moved to the United Nations,
22:15where global perception could translate into diplomatic leverage.
22:19U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, considered too soft by hardliners,
22:24entered the Security Council chamber with the credibility of the United States at stake.
22:29Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin refused to answer whether Moscow had placed offensive missiles in Cuba
22:35and challenged the United States to present proof.
22:38Stevenson pressed him directly, yes or no.
22:41Some delegates in the Council, possibly, I suspect very few,
22:47who say that they don't know whether the Soviet Union has in fact
22:51built-in Cuba installations capable of firing nuclear missiles
22:55over ranges from 1,000 to 2,000 miles.
23:00As I say, Chairman Khrushchev did not deny these facts in his letter to Earl Russell,
23:07nor did Ambassador Zorin on Tuesday evening.
23:10And if further doubt remains on this score,
23:13we shall gladly exhibit photographic evidence to the doubtful.
23:17I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, he declared,
23:23before unveiling aerial photographs of missile sites under construction.
23:27The images were unmistakable.
23:29In that moment, Washington's claims were validated,
23:32and the public relations battle tilted in America's favor.
23:35On October 26th, a long and emotional message came in through the White House teletype.
23:41It appeared to have been written by Nikita Khrushchev himself,
23:44its tone almost personal.
23:46He proposed a simple bargain.
23:48The Soviet Union would remove its missiles from Cuba
23:51if the United States pledged not to invade the island.
23:54For two days, we met in sober, intensive conversation.
23:58Mr. Khrushchev and I had a very full and frank exchange of views
24:03on the major issues that now divide our two countries.
24:07For a brief moment, it seemed that a path to peace had emerged.
24:11Those hopes dimmed the next morning when a second letter arrived.
24:14This one was sharper and more formal in tone.
24:17It added a new demand.
24:19The United States must remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
24:23Inside XCOM, confusion spread.
24:26Which letter reflected Khrushchev's true position?
24:57I will tell you now that it was a very sober two days.
24:58On July 7th, tension had already reached a breaking point.
25:01By day's end, it would be remembered as Black Sunday.
25:04In a span of hours, multiple flashpoints erupted across sea and sky.
25:09American forces were tightening the quarantine,
25:12and Soviet commanders in Cuba expected an invasion.
25:15By 1960, over 20,000 nuclear weapons had been developed.
25:23More weapons meant more power, and with more power came more influence.
25:31The world could only watch on as the two superpowers gained the power to annihilate thousands,
25:38if not millions of lives, in the blink of an eye.
25:42Missile sites were nearing operational readiness.
25:45Inside the White House, leaders struggled to keep pace with rapidly changing events.
25:49Intelligence updates arrived in succession.
25:52Military commanders pressed for action.
25:55Diplomatic signals remained uncertain.
25:57Historians widely regard October 27th as the most dangerous day of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
26:03The first spark that day came from the sky.
26:06Late that morning, an American U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over eastern Cuba.
26:12The pilot, Major Rudolph Anderson Jr., was killed when a Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile,
26:18fired by Soviet forces on the island, struck his aircraft.
26:22It was the first direct loss of American life in the crisis.
26:25Inside the White House, pressure surged.
26:28Military leaders wanted to respond with force.
26:31Retaliatory airstrikes against the missile sites were already planned.
26:35And Air Force Chief of Staff, General Curtis LeMay, pushed for an attack.
26:39But President Kennedy hesitated.
26:41Intelligence suggested the launch may have been ordered by a local Soviet commander,
26:45rather than Moscow itself.
26:47A strike now could trigger an uncontrollable chain reaction.
26:51By choosing restraint, Kennedy kept the crisis from tipping into open war.
26:55While Washington absorbed the shock of the shootdown over Cuba, another crisis was unfolding
27:01thousands of miles away.
27:02A U-2 piloted by Captain Charles Maltzby was flying a routine atmospheric sampling mission near the Arctic.
27:09When intense auroral activity disrupted his navigation, disoriented, Maltzby strayed into Soviet airspace over Siberia.
27:17Soviet Meag fighters scrambled to intercept.
27:20In response, American F-102 interceptors launched from Alaska to escort the spy plane home.
27:26Those aircraft carried tipped air-to-air missiles, a fact not widely known outside of military channels.
27:34Misdirected by the Aurora Borealis, the expert pilot was headed in the worst direction possible.
27:40By the time he should have been arriving at Eilson Air Force Base, he was instead entering Soviet airspace.
27:45For tense minutes, a navigation error risked triggering a nuclear confrontation over the polar ice.
27:51No one had ordered escalation, but the crisis had activated military systems built for rapid response.
27:58The world was on the brink of nuclear war.
28:01The Soviet government would have every reason to see the entry of an American plane into their territory as a
28:06provocative act, or even worse, an act of war.
28:11The lost pilot, unknowingly, was risking setting off the spark that could end the world.
28:18The U-2 over Siberia was eventually guided home.
28:22The confrontation thankfully wound down without a shot.
28:25But beneath the Atlantic, another crisis was unfolding.
28:29Four Soviet submarines lurked near the quarantine line, each carrying a nuclear-tipped torpedo.
28:35Their crews were cut off from reliable communication with Moscow, left with little sense of the global situation.
28:41Temperatures soared, batteries ran low, and CO2 levels steadily rose.
28:47In October 1962, American intelligence knows the Soviet submarines pose a real threat.
28:54But there is one critical fact the Americans do not know.
28:58Just before they left port, a special weapon was added to the arsenal of the Soviet submarines.
29:04Commanders had been authorized to defend themselves if attacked.
29:07So, when U.S. Navy ships dropped small signaling depth charges to force them to surface, the concussions could easily
29:14be mistaken for an assault.
29:15In the darkness below, Soviet officers faced decisions with almost no information and no margin of error.
29:22One of those submarines, B-59, would soon become one of the crisis's most dangerous flashpoints.
29:29Inside the steel hull of B-59, conditions were unbearable.
29:33The submarine had been submerged for days, with temperatures spiking well over 100 degrees.
29:39The depth charges were the last straw for Captain Valentin Savitsky, who believed war might have already begun.
29:46When Savitsky ordered that torpedo to be armed, regulations designed to prevent a single man from starting a war required
29:53him to get approval from three senior officials on board.
29:56While the second in command agreed, flotilla commander Vasily Aleksandrovich Archipov, who was equal to Savitsky in rank, did not.
30:05B-59 carried a single nuclear-tipped torpedo with destructive power comparable to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
30:13Savitsky ordered it readied.
30:15Under Soviet protocol, launch required the consent of three senior officers, the captain, the political officer, and the flotilla commander
30:23aboard.
30:23Two agreed, but flotilla commander Vasily Archipov refused authorization.
30:29In that suffocating compartment, amid noise and fear, a single man's restraint likely saved the world from nuclear annihilation.
30:39The torpedo remained unfired, and the crisis continued.
30:42How do you turn to diplomacy when submarines are nearly firing nuclear torpedoes and U-2 pilots are dying in
30:49the sky?
30:50President Kennedy turned to his most trusted emissary, his brother.
30:54At the end of Black Saturday, Attorney General Robert Kennedy went alone to the Soviet Embassy to meet Ambassador Anatoly
31:01Dobrynin.
31:02It was a last-ditch effort to prevent catastrophe.
31:05You don't place, basically, the lesson is that you don't place a major power in a position where their national
31:15security, their national prestige is involved.
31:22You put them in a corner without any ability to extract them.
31:27The conversation was blunt.
31:29RFK made clear that pressure from the U.S. military was intensifying, and that time was running out.
31:36Publicly, Washington would respond to Khrushchev's first letter, the one offering missile withdrawal in exchange for a non-invasion pledge.
31:44Privately, RFK signaled that the United States was preparing to remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey, but only quietly and
31:52on its own timetable.
31:53The Soviets agreed. On October 28th, Radio Moscow carried Nikita Khrushchev's announcement to the world.
32:01There's no shame in backing away from danger when the alternative is death.
32:05The brave miner is not the one who ignores warning signs and gets himself killed.
32:10The brave miner is the one who recognizes danger and finds a way to survive.
32:14The Soviet Union would dismantle and remove its missiles from Cuba.
32:19The immediate crisis eased.
32:21Conditionally, verification would follow, with inspections proposed under U.N. auspices.
32:27In truth, the United States relied more on continued aerial surveillance.
32:32Both sides claimed victory.
32:34In Washington, the decision was framed as firmness rewarded.
32:37The military and CIA saw the Russians in retreat.
32:41In Moscow, it was spun as a responsible step toward peace.
32:45Neither side acknowledged the private understanding over Turkey, nor did either admit how close the world had come to disaster.
32:52The agreement meant nothing until the missiles actually came out.
32:56In the days that followed, U.S. reconnaissance flights photographed Soviet crews dismantling launch sites and loading missiles onto ships
33:04bound for home.
33:05Each image confirmed that the cliff edge was inch by inch moving farther away.
33:10Only when the ships sailed and the launch sites were cleared did the immediate nuclear threat truly recede.
33:16But mistrust lingered.
33:18Fidel Castro, sidelined in negotiations over his own island, objected to inspections, and bristled at the superpower's deal.
33:26Both governments watched carefully for betrayal.
33:29Months later, the United States quietly dismantled its Jupiter missiles in Turkey, fulfilling the private understanding that it helped seal
33:36the peace.
33:37The Soviet missile bases in Cuba are being dismantled.
33:42Their missiles and related equipment are being crated.
33:45And the fixed installations at these sites are being destroyed.
33:49The Cuban Missile Crisis didn't end the Cold War.
33:52But it was a stark reminder that the great powers needed better guardrails.
33:56In 1963, Washington and Moscow established a direct communication link, the Hotline, to prevent deadly delays.
34:04That same year, the Limited Test Ban Treaty limited nuclear testing.
34:08Leaders had watched events slip toward catastrophe through confusion, miscommunication, and rigid procedures, and didn't want a repeat.
34:16But in the decades that followed, false alarms, computer errors, and military exercises would again bring the superpowers to the
34:24brink.
34:25From NORAD warning glitches in 1979, to Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov's refusal to trust a faulty launch alert in 1983,
34:34the world was brought to the brink time and again.
34:36Most of those were classified incidents kept secret for years.
34:40To the rest of the world, those 13 days in October 1962 was where we learned just how easily it
34:48could all end.
34:50The United States cannot agree to such terms under threat.
34:54Any belief to the contrary was in error.
34:59You want war?
35:02For 13 days, the fate of the world hung on judgment calls, miscommunications, and a handful of human decisions.
35:10If you had been in that cabinet room, what would you have chosen?
35:14Airstrike, invasion, or quarantine?
35:17I have therefore chosen this time and place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds,
35:25and the truth too rarely perceived.
35:27And that is the most important topic on earth, peace.
35:36Do you think the world learned the right lessons from October 1962?
35:40Let us know in the comments below.
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