Kennedy and Khrushchev: 4. Almost caught

Kennedy and Khrushchev: 4. Almost caught

Author: BBC World Service December 22, 2025 Duration: 35:47

A covert convoy of ships carries Soviet missiles across the Atlantic, while American U-2 planes spy over Cuba and the sea routes. And as the ships arrive, Khrushchev writes to Kennedy about the divided city of Berlin. It’s a distraction tactic. But the American spy planes photograph an alarming development. Hosts Nina Khrushcheva and Max Kennedy, relatives of the superpower leaders, tell the personal and political history of the Cuban Missile Crisis.


From the BBC World Service, The Bomb is a history podcast that traces the profound and permanent shadow cast by atomic weapons. It goes beyond the familiar mushroom cloud to explore the human dramas that defined the nuclear age: the physicists in secret laboratories racing for a breakthrough, the clandestine networks of spies trading in ultimate secrets, and the world leaders who held the power of annihilation in their hands. The narrative builds across seasons, culminating in a gripping third season that places you inside the most dangerous confrontation in history. With the world on the brink during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the story is told through a remarkable personal lens by Nina Khrushcheva and Max Kennedy, relatives of the two men at the heart of the standoff. This podcast meticulously details how fear, ideology, and fragile diplomacy shaped our global reality, asking whether catastrophe can be averted when the stakes are the highest imaginable. Each episode is a layered examination of the decisions, both monumental and minute, that brought us to the edge and defined the precarious balance of power for decades to come.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 32

The Bomb
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