‘After nearly annihilating our planet, the families are allies’: a thrilling audio series featuring JFK & Nikita Khrushchev’s relatives.

During October 1962, the planet edged nearer to destruction than at any other point during modern times. This transpired when a US surveillance plane discovered the fact that Soviet nuclear missile bases were being built on Cuba, a mere 100 miles from the US mainland. In response, President JFK commanded a naval task force to establish a maritime blockade encircling Cuba. The next phase was almost two weeks filled with extreme anxiety.

The Catastrophic Threat

The danger remained obvious. Should Kennedy, or else his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, had fired on the other side, a series of worldwide atomic attacks and retaliatory strikes might have followed, thrusting mankind toward total destruction.

The Cuban missile crisis has been examined repeatedly, in volumes, movies, and television programmes. However, for its third season, a prominent BBC World Service podcast The Bomb presents an unprecedented dimension to this historical narrative. The series is jointly hosted featuring Kennedy's relative and Nina Khrushcheva, family members of the men that, for two tense weeks, held the fate of the planet in their hands.

"What were the Kremlin thinking? What were Washington planning?" asks Khrushcheva, Khrushchev’s descendant who is also an academic of global relations.

In her view, the unique appeal of the podcast is its endeavor to objectively ask: "How can individuals hate one another and oppose one another?"

"It was not lost on me how spectacular the fact that individuals have the potential to be friends or else can become complete enemies," remarks Max Kennedy, son of Robert Kennedy, related to JFK and now an author as well as attorney. "We see this dynamic repeatedly in instances where countries enter into conflict, and it just illustrates the profound irrationality involved to engage in warfare."

The Precipice Towards Disaster

What’s striking about the Cuban missile crisis is that, since it unfolded so publicly, people worldwide could watch almost as it happened as it edged closer to catastrophe. Nonetheless, the threat of destruction was more imminent than what most people understood at the time.

"Virtually everyone in the White House were advocating for an airstrike and a ground invasion," explains Max Kennedy. "If we had struck the Cubans with the naval blockade, there is no question Soviet forces on the ground would have launched a tactical nuclear weapon at the US Sixth Fleet, which would've obliterated our aircraft carriers and destroyed America's primary fleet. In turn, we would have retaliated with an overwhelming counterattack that would have eradicated most life on the planet."

The reality this did not occur stands as credit to both leaders, who succeeded in remain calm while engaging in diplomacy at a time when everyone in their governments was pushing for military action. As a result, Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in the Caribbean island and President Kennedy (a fact not publicly disclosed then) removed his missiles based in Turkey. The sense of relief was palpable, as was the sense of hope.

A Divergent Perspective

Yet, for those two weeks in October, the fear was felt globally. The Bomb’s presenters came into the world in the years following these events, with Nina learned about it via the USSR's education system, which portrayed an alternative picture of events.

"As you mentioned your father remembers it, and it was a scary time," Khrushcheva notes. "However for Soviet citizens, people were largely unaware a great deal about it, since it was a crisis, and in the Soviet Union the official line was that everything was always wonderful or sunny."

Within the Khrushchev household, however, the perspective was distinct. "They told me that it was a triumphant occasion it was, because it was eyeball to eyeball. They were able to find a solution, thus didn’t start the war, which was a positive outcome," she continues. In the years to come, however, that interpretation was not held by all Russians. "For a long time within Russian historical analysis, the crisis was viewed as a defeat for the Soviet leader, because he refrained from destroying America."

An Unlikely Partnership

The Bomb is so balanced , expertly crafted so much so that Khrushcheva quips it almost made her forget she already knew the ending. This is, partly, due to the participation of renowned scholars. Yet, truly, the most significant thing is the participation of the hosts themselves. Even within living memory, it was unthinkable that descendants of the leaders of the United States and Soviet Union would appear side by side. The fact that these two individuals can do that, and exhibit such warmth with each other, has to be a sign of hope.

"We are not the pioneers," smiles Khrushcheva. "After 1991, a relative moved to America where he formed a close bond with the former president's family."

"But we were strangers prior to this project," clarifies Kennedy. "That is a shame since we connected immediately and now we’re friends, which is wonderful. Finally, following nearly six decades since nearly annihilating the world, our families are now friends, suggesting global relations is safer, a little bit."

Contemporary Parallels with Present Perils

Or is it? Part of the reason The Bomb feels so necessary is that we now find ourselves in dark times. The Doomsday Clock is closer to catastrophe than ever before, in part because today's statesmen don’t seem to have the capacity to learn