Transcript

8.28.26 · History Hour

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. This is Radio Eye's History Show, and
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Speaker 1: I'm your reader and host for today, Joseph Bolt. So
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Speaker 1: happy to be with you for this time, and before
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Speaker 1: we begin today's program, as always, we need to remind
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Speaker 1: you that Radio Eye is listener-driven. That means you, and
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Speaker 1: we welcome your comments, suggestions about anything we do or programming.
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Speaker 1: If you have any ideas about a history subject that
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Speaker 1: you would like researched and read about, then please let
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Speaker 1: me know and call us at 859-422-6390 and let us
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Speaker 1: know what you're thinking. Radio Eye, as you know, is
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Speaker 1: a reading service intended for people who are blind or
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Speaker 1: have other disabilities and make it difficult to read printed material. So,
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Speaker 1: sources for today's program I'll cite along the way. I
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Speaker 1: thought we'd talk today, read today, about a subject that's
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Speaker 1: happened in many of our lifetimes, maybe early on in
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Speaker 1: our lives as it was for me, and that is
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Speaker 1: the Cuban Missile Crisis, if you remember that back in
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Speaker 1: the early 60s. In the readings, there are a lot
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Speaker 1: of Russian names, so I will do my best to
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Speaker 1: pronounce these properly, or at least close to properly. And so,
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Speaker 1: let's get to reading about the Missile Crisis. With the
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Speaker 1: United States and the Soviet Union on the brink of
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Speaker 1: nuclear war, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was one of
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Speaker 1: the tensest moments in modern history. But at the peak
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Speaker 1: of the crisis, one Soviet naval officer managed to keep
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Speaker 1: a cool head and avert nuclear devastation. The greatest sea
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Speaker 1: story never heard lay submerged beneath the sea of bureaucratic
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Speaker 1: subterfuge labeled Top Secret. in the Soviet Union for 40 years.
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Speaker 1: As Thomas Blanton, director of George Washington University's National Security Archive,
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Speaker 1: said in 2002, quote, a guy called Vasily Arkhipov saved
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Speaker 1: the world, end quote. Most people today may not know
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Speaker 1: the name Vasily Arkhipov. But after learning his story, you
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Speaker 1: may be hard-pressed to say he didn't, in fact, save
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Speaker 1: the world. Vasily Alexandrovich Arkhipov was born into a peasant
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Speaker 1: family just outside of Russia's capital, Moscow, on January 30, 1926.
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Speaker 1: He started his naval career at the Pacific Higher Naval
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Speaker 1: School and went on to serve in the Soviet-Japanese War
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Speaker 1: in August of 1945 aboard a minesweeper. After the war,
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Speaker 1: he transferred to the Caspian Higher Naval School, graduating in
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Speaker 1: 1947 to serve in the submarine service aboard ships in
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Speaker 1: the Black Sea, Northern Pacific, and Baltic fleets. In 1961,
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Speaker 1: Arkhipov was made deputy commander of the new ballistic missile submarine,
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Speaker 1: the K-19. The K-19 was the first class of Soviet
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Speaker 1: submarine armed with nuclear weapons. During some training exercises off
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Speaker 1: the coast of Greenland, Archipel's new submarine reactor coolant system
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Speaker 1: started leaking, effectively stopping the nuclear cooling system. The radio
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Speaker 1: links with command in Moscow were also affected, preventing the
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Speaker 1: crew from calling for help. Captain Nikolai Zateyev ordered the
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Speaker 1: submarine's seven engineers to find a way to avoid a
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Speaker 1: nuclear meltdown. However, solving the problem meant exposing themselves to
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Speaker 1: high radiation levels for extended periods of time. The crew
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Speaker 1: managed to devise a secondary coolant system and prevent a
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Speaker 1: reactor meltdown. But everyone, including Arkhipov, had been significantly exposed
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Speaker 1: to radiation. The engineering crew died and their officer died
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Speaker 1: within the month. And over the next two years, 15
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Speaker 1: more sailors died from the aftereffects. The K-19 gained the
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Speaker 1: nickname Hiroshima in reference to her long-lasting destructive legacy. In 1962,
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Speaker 1: Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet
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Speaker 1: Union reached a fever pitch, placing the world on the
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Speaker 1: brink of nuclear war. Between October 16th and October 28th, 1962,
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Speaker 1: the Cuban Missile Crisis saw the United States and the
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Speaker 1: Soviet Union engaged in a potentially climaticismic standoff For thirteen
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Speaker 1: days the planet watched with bated breath, fearful of escalation
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Speaker 1: between the two superpowers. It was, many agree, the closest
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Speaker 1: the world has come to an all-out nuclear war. In
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Speaker 1: the words of John F. Kennedy, administration staffer, Arthur Schlesinger, quote,
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Speaker 1: it was the most dangerous moment in human history, end quote.
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Speaker 1: After weeks of U.S. intelligence gathering that pointed toward a
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Speaker 1: Soviet arms buildup in Cuba, the inciting incident came on
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Speaker 1: October the 14th when an American spy plane flying over
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Speaker 1: the island photographed missile sites under construction. A U-2 pilot, U.S.
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Speaker 1: Air Force Major Rudolph Anderson, Jr., flew at 70,500 feet
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Speaker 1: over Cuba, to photograph Soviet missiles near Guantanamo Bay. Two
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Speaker 1: Russian surface-to-air missiles, fired from Cuba, exploded. Shrapnel punctured Anderson's
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Speaker 1: cockpit and pressure suit. His lungs ruptured under violent decompression
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Speaker 1: and formed a pink cloud that shot through the windshield
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Speaker 1: of his disintegrating dragon lady at half the speed of sound.
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Speaker 1: The remains of his body strapped to the remnants of
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Speaker 1: his plane, crashed on Cuban soil. His mission was so secret,
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Speaker 1: he did not exist except as a lost radar contact.
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Speaker 1: With Cuba a mere 90 miles from the U.S. mainland,
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Speaker 1: missiles launched from there would be able to strike most
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Speaker 1: of the eastern United States within a matter of minutes.
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Speaker 1: The critical photographs snapped by the U-2 reconnaissance plane over
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Speaker 1: Cuba were shipped for analysis to a top-secret CIA facility
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Speaker 1: in a most unlikely location, a building above the Stuart
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Speaker 1: Ford car dealership in a run-down section of Washington, D.C.
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Speaker 1: While used car salesmen were wheeling and dealing downstairs on
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Speaker 1: October 15, 1962, Upstairs, CIA analysts in the state-of-the-art National
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Speaker 1: Photographic Interpretation Center were working around the clock to scour
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Speaker 1: hundreds of grainy photographs for evidence of a Soviet ballistic
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Speaker 1: missile site under construction. The Soviets and their fellow Communist
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Speaker 1: allies in Cuba had secretly reached a deal to place
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Speaker 1: those missiles on the island in July. The Soviets wanted
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Speaker 1: to shore up their nuclear strike capabilities against the U.S.,
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Speaker 1: which had recently placed missiles in Turkey, bordering the Soviet Union,
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Speaker 1: as well as in Italy. And the Cubans wanted to
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Speaker 1: prevent the Americans from attempting another invasion of the island,
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Speaker 1: like the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs disaster they'd launched in
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Speaker 1: April of 1961. A brief history behind the Bay of
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Speaker 1: Pigs was that in April of 61, about two years
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Speaker 1: after the Cuban Revolution, the United States launched a failed
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Speaker 1: invasion of Cuba. Relations had worsened. between the two nations
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Speaker 1: after the revolution, with U.S. sugar and oil companies falling
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Speaker 1: under Cuban control. John F. Kennedy's government had the CIA
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Speaker 1: arm and train a band of anti-Castro Cuban exiles. The U.S.-backed
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Speaker 1: force landed in the Bay of Pigs in southwest Cuba
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Speaker 1: on 17 April 1961. Castro's Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces swiftly
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Speaker 1: crushed the assault, but fearful of another U.S.-led attack, Castro
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Speaker 1: turned to the Soviet Union for support. At the height
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Speaker 1: of the Cold War, the Soviets were more than willing
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Speaker 1: to oblige. So, The following year, in 1962, the Americans
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Speaker 1: needed to deal with this tremendous perceived threat of missile
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Speaker 1: sites in Cuba, along with the shipping of Soviet missiles
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Speaker 1: to Cuba. Also, beginning in the summer of 1962, the
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Speaker 1: Soviets employed an elaborate ruse codenamed Operation Anadyr. to ship
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Speaker 1: thousands of combat troops to Cuba. A few thousand soldiers
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Speaker 1: donned checkered shirts to pose as civilian agricultural advisors. Many
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Speaker 1: more were issued Arctic equipment to throw off the scent,
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Speaker 1: sent aboard a fleet of 85 ships, and then told
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Speaker 1: to remain below the decks for a long voyage in
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Speaker 1: order to go undetected. When the CIA estimated on October 20, 1962,
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Speaker 1: that 6,000 to 8,000 Soviet troops were stationed in Cuba,
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Speaker 1: the true number was more like 40,000. President Kennedy decided
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Speaker 1: against a direct attack on Cuba, opting instead for a
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Speaker 1: blockade around the island to prevent Soviet ships from accessing it,
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Speaker 1: He announced in a primetime address on October 22, 1962,
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Speaker 1: Black Saturday, as it became to be known. The U.S.
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Speaker 1: government had declared a defense condition two, one step shy
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Speaker 1: of a war. The Strategic Air Command readied 5,500 bundles
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Speaker 1: of nuclear wrath for the enemy, with nearly 3,000 nuclear
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Speaker 1: warheads aimed at 1,000 targets in the Soviet Union. The
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Speaker 1: United States tested two nuclear weapons that day, a ground
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Speaker 1: explosion at the Nevada test site viewed by thousands of
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Speaker 1: dancing tourists quaffing atomic cocktails at blast parties along the
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Speaker 1: Las Vegas Strip, and a lesser-known atmospheric detonation over a
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Speaker 1: remote Johnston atoll in the Pacific west of Hawaii. The Soviets, meanwhile,
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Speaker 1: airdropped 262 kilotons on their Arctic test site at Novia Zemlya.
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Speaker 1: Kennedy then presented the Soviets with an ultimatum, demanding that
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Speaker 1: they remove the nuclear missiles from Cuba. What later came
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Speaker 1: to light was that President Kennedy had an alternative speech
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Speaker 1: with a much different message than had been drafted days
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Speaker 1: before in the event the President opted for a military
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Speaker 1: strike over a blockade. A quote reads like this, This morning,
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Speaker 1: I reluctantly ordered the armed forces to attack and destroy
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Speaker 1: the nuclear buildup in Cuba, end quote. This was the
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Speaker 1: beginning of the alternate address that JFK never had to deliver. So,
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Speaker 1: through a series of tense negotiations over the coming days,
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Speaker 1: the Americans and the Soviets worked out a deal to
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Speaker 1: end the conflict. U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk said
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Speaker 1: of the Cuban Missile Crisis, quote, were eyeball to eyeball,
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Speaker 1: and I think the other fellow just blinked, end quote.
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Speaker 1: That assessment was too one-sided. While on October 28, 1962,
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Speaker 1: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered the removal of Soviet nuclear
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Speaker 1: missiles from Cuba, it wasn't a unilateral move. The Americans
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Speaker 1: also secretly pledged to withdraw intermediate nuclear missiles from Turkey
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Speaker 1: and not to invade Cuba. But while the two countries'
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Speaker 1: leaders were handling the negotiations, they were largely unaware of
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Speaker 1: a much more precarious situation that was going on below
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Speaker 1: the surface in the Caribbean. Four Soviet submarines had been
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Speaker 1: sent on a secret mission to the waters around Cuba.
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Speaker 1: Soviet naval officer Vasily Arkhipov, now 34 years of age,
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Speaker 1: was one of the three commanders aboard the B-59 submarine
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Speaker 1: near Cuba on October 27th. They had received an order
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Speaker 1: from Soviet leadership to stop in the Caribbean short of
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Speaker 1: the American blockade around Cuba. The U.S. blockade was formed
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Speaker 1: of 11 destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph. The
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Speaker 1: Soviet sub B-59 then dove deep to conceal their presence
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Speaker 1: after being spotted by the Americans and were thus cut
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Speaker 1: off from communication with the surface. Despite being in international waters,
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Speaker 1: the submarine passed the U.S. naval blockade around Cuba. ordered
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Speaker 1: by Kennedy to threaten red ships with search or sinking.
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Speaker 1: In hopes of relocating the sub, the U.S. Navy began
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Speaker 1: dropping non-lethal depth charges in hopes of forcing the vessel
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Speaker 1: to surface. What the U.S. Navy didn't realize was that
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Speaker 1: the B-59 was armed with a nuclear torpedo. One they'd
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Speaker 1: been instructed to use without waiting for approval if their
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Speaker 1: submarine or their Soviet homeland was under fire. Remember that
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Speaker 1: the B-59 sub was now cut off from communication with
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Speaker 1: the outside world. The panicked Soviet sailors feared that they
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Speaker 1: were now under attack. From what little they knew of
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Speaker 1: what was happening above the surface, it seemed possible that
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Speaker 1: nuclear war had already broken out. Nothing about the Arctic-insulated
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Speaker 1: Soviet Foxtrot submarine was designed for operating in subtropical climates.
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Speaker 1: With tensions running high and the air conditioning out, the
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Speaker 1: conditions inside the sub had begun to deteriorate quickly. as
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Speaker 1: the crew grew ever more fearful. The compartments within the
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Speaker 1: boats began to swelter. Mission-critical equipment redlined. Operators couldn't service
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Speaker 1: the gear without burning their hands. The temperature rose to
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Speaker 1: 113 degrees forward and 149 degrees in the engineering compartments.
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Speaker 1: Refrigeration systems for the freezers, stocked with meat, not eaten
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Speaker 1: due to the storms, failed. The cooling side of the
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Speaker 1: desalinization plant faltered, and fresh water was in short supply.
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Speaker 1: The submarine-turned-steam bath gave everyone problems. Trench foot ran rampant,
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Speaker 1: inflaming the soles of feet, rendering them swollen and super-sensitive.
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Speaker 1: With no ability to wash off dirt and sweat, everyone's
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Speaker 1: skin was covered in a rash. As one man on board,
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Speaker 1: Anatoly Andreev, wrote in his journal, quote, The last four
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Speaker 1: days they didn't even let us come up to the
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Speaker 1: periscope depth. My head is bursting from the stuffy air.
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Speaker 1: Today three sailors fainted from overheating again. The regeneration of
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Speaker 1: air works poorly. The carbon dioxide content is rising, and
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Speaker 1: the electric power reserves are dropping. Those who are free
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Speaker 1: from their shifts are sitting immobile, staring at one spot.
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Speaker 1: Temperature in the sections is above 122 degrees Fahrenheit. end
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Speaker 1: quote as the B-59 shook with repeated depth charges on
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Speaker 1: either side one of the three captains Valentin Savitsky had
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Speaker 1: lost his composure in the asphyxiating madness and decided that
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Speaker 1: they had no choice but to launch the nuclear torpedo
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Speaker 1: Savitsky had his men ready the onboard missile, as strong
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Speaker 1: as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, planning to aim it
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Speaker 1: at one of the 11 ships in the blockade. We're
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Speaker 1: going to blast them now, Savitsky reported. We will die,
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Speaker 1: but we will sink them all, and we will not
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Speaker 1: become the shame of the fleet, end quote. At the
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Speaker 1: White House, President Kennedy's brother described how the president also
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Speaker 1: worried The depth charges would provoke the Soviets to a
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Speaker 1: nuclear strike. Roberts said, quote, those few minutes were the
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Speaker 1: time of greatest worry to the president, end quote. However,
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Speaker 1: Savitsky needed the approval of both of the sub's other
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Speaker 1: two captains before launching the weapon. The second captain, Ivan Maslennikov,
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Speaker 1: approved the strike, but Vasily Arkhipov said no. Somehow keeping
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Speaker 1: a level head in the midst of chaos, Arkhipov reportedly
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Speaker 1: managed to convince Savitsky. Arkhipov was right. The B-59 surfaced
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Speaker 1: and was greeted by 11 U.S. destroyers, but the Americans
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Speaker 1: did not board or search the sub. The submarine's commander,
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Speaker 1: satisfied that all-out war had not actually been taking place above,
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Speaker 1: turned around and went on its way. The Americans wouldn't
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Speaker 1: find out until decades later, after the Soviet archives were opened,
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Speaker 1: that the submarine had been carrying a nuclear missile. Had
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Speaker 1: Vasily Arkhipov not been there to prevent the torpedo launch,
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Speaker 1: historians agree that nuclear war would likely have begun. Had
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Speaker 1: it been launched, the Guardian wrote, the fate of the
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Speaker 1: world would have been very different. the attack would probably
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Speaker 1: have started a nuclear war which would have caused global
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Speaker 1: devastation with unimaginable numbers of civilian deaths, end quote. Nevertheless,
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Speaker 1: Arkhipov and his comrades faced criticism from Soviet leaders who
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Speaker 1: thought the B-59 should never have risen to the surface
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Speaker 1: and revealed itself after the Americans dropped the depth charges.
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Speaker 1: When he heard that the Soviet submarines had been located
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Speaker 1: by the U.S., the acting Soviet defense minister, Marshal Andrei Grechko,
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Speaker 1: smashed his glasses on the desk in front of him.
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Speaker 1: Grechko was enraged. The crew had confirmed their presence. Instead,
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Speaker 1: he said, it would have been better if you'd have
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Speaker 1: gone down with your ship, end quote. While the sailors
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Speaker 1: were met with disgrace from many of their superiors, Arkhipov
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Speaker 1: continued to command submarines in the Soviet Navy after 1962.
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Speaker 1: He was promoted to Vice Admiral in 1981 before retiring
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Speaker 1: several years later. In 1998, Vasily Arkhipov died at the
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Speaker 1: age of 72 of kidney cancer. thought to have been
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Speaker 1: the result of his radiation exposure during the K-19 accident.
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Speaker 1: Arkhipov's heroic moment during the Cuban Missile Crisis didn't become
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Speaker 1: knowledge until 2002. In a press conference that year, retired
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Speaker 1: commander Vadim Pavlovich Orlov, who had been on board the
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Speaker 1: B-59 in 1962, revealed, They had been carrying the dangerous weapons.
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Speaker 1: He credited Arkhipov as the reason they were not fired.
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Speaker 1: Arkhipov had stopped a nuclear war. In London, on 27
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Speaker 1: October 2017, the 55th anniversary of Black Saturday, the Future
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Speaker 1: of Life Institute honored Vasily Arkhipov with its inaugural Future
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Speaker 1: of Life Award. the first public appreciation of his contribution
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Speaker 1: to society. The posthumous recognition was accepted by his daughter,
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Speaker 1: Yelena Andrikova, and his grandson, Sergei Andrikova, on behalf of Arkhipov, who, quote,
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Speaker 1: never said a word to his family because it was
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Speaker 1: closed secret information. He wasn't allowed to talk about it,
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Speaker 1: end quote. Arkhipov seemed to have understood that nuclear warfare
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Speaker 1: is both instantaneous and everlasting. A postscript to this event.
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Speaker 1: President Kennedy, satisfied with Soviet assurances that all nuclear weapons
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Speaker 1: had been removed, lifted the Cuban blockade. Recently unearthed Soviet
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Speaker 1: documents have revealed, however, that while Soviet leader Khrushchev dismantled
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Speaker 1: the medium and intermediate range missiles known to the Kennedy administration,
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Speaker 1: He left approximately 100 tactical nuclear weapons, of which the
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Speaker 1: Americans were unaware for possible use in repelling any invading U.S. forces.
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Speaker 1: Khrushchev had intended to train the Cubans and transfer the
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Speaker 1: missiles to them, as long as they kept their presence
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Speaker 1: a secret. Soviet concerns mounted about whether Cuba's President Fidel
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Speaker 1: Castro could be trusted with the weapons. The Soviets finally
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Speaker 1: removed the last of the nuclear warheads from Cuba, on
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Speaker 1: December 1, 1962. Sources for today's reading came from History.com,
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Speaker 1: Ten Things You May Not Know About the Cuban Missile Crisis,
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Speaker 1: written by Christopher Klein, May of 2025, HistoryHit.com, Five Main
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Speaker 1: Causes of the Cuban Missile Crisis, by Harry Sheeran, in
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Speaker 1: October of 21, Vasily Arkhipov, The Soviet... Officer Who Reverted
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Speaker 1: Nuclear War, written by Peter Stamper in March of 22,
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Speaker 1: and AllThisInteresting.com, How Vasily Arkhipov Saved the World from Cold
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Speaker 1: War Nuclear Armageddon, John Karosky, November 23, and USA Naval Institute.org,
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Speaker 1: Black Saturday Declassified, written by Douglas Gilbert in June of 2021. Well,
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Speaker 1: that about does it for today's Radio Eye History. I
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Speaker 1: sure hope you enjoyed the reading as much as I
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Speaker 1: did reading it to you and researching. Thank you so
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Speaker 1: much for giving me your time today. I'm your host,
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Speaker 1: Joseph Bolt, and I'll be back next time with another
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Speaker 1: chapter of Radio Eye History. Until then, happy trails to you.