This is CBS I On The World. I'm John Bachelors, and Sarah Heplokey's new book is Nuclear

Folly, a history of the Cuban Missile Crisis. We come to a moment, a pause, in the crisis

at hand in the White House, to ask Nikita Khrushchev, who was he at this moment? Professor,

I growing up in our growing up, Khrushchev was emphasized as something of a large clownish

character, banging issue at the United Nations. But he was bloody minded, he was successful,

he was a peasant, and he was a powerful actor, often telling crude proverbs, and overwhelming

the better educated and the more ideological prosidium. However, what was he to Jack Kennedy?

What was their history together that comes to this crisis in 62?

First of all, about Nikita Khrushchev, he was really mistook to be a clown by many people

who dealt with him. But the most important thing about Nikita Khrushchev is that he became

successor to Joseph Stalin. He's not only survived on the Joseph Stalin for decades, but

he also was able to outsmart and then eventually to kill the chief cigarette policeman of

Joseph Stalin, his name was Valentin Bieder. So it was a very, very shrewd and experienced

and kind politician and political leader. And he believed that Jack Kennedy actually owed

him his presidential election, because he was sending the KGB officers to the headquarters

of President Kennedy, headed by that time by Robert Kennedy, offering help and assistance.

So in today's language, probably what's called this collusion. But if Khrushchev was misunderstood

by many people, he certainly misunderstood Jack Kennedy. He thought that he was a young

unexperienced as he was young and inexperienced, but that he could actually manipulate him and push him.

And this missile sput in the missiles on the Cuban soil was the moment when actually

Kennedy refused to back off, refused to compromise. And that took Kennedy by surprise.

So when the news arrived in Moscow, the President Kennedy was about to deliver his speech

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