The Cuban Missile Crisis: Thirteen Days the World Held Its Breath

Cold War History Uncovered · Nov 2, 2026 · 19m · transcript

In October 1962, American reconnaissance photographs showed Soviet missile installations under construction in Cuba, placing nuclear-capable weapons within range of much of the United States. For thirteen days, President John F. Kennedy, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, military commanders, diplomats, intelligence officers, and United Nations officials operated under the possibility that a regional confrontation could become nuclear war.

This episode follows the crisis from the discovery of the Cuban sites through Kennedy’s private Executive Committee meetings, the…