Cuban boxing and the brink of nuclear war

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A collection of the latest Witness History programmes which are all about Cuba. Presented by Max Pearson, who speaks to boxing journalist Steve Bunce about the nation's great boxers.

Earlier this year, Cuba lifted the ban on professional boxing, which Fidel Castro imposed in 1962. Rachel Naylor speaks to Mike ‘The Rebel’ Perez, who escaped in 2007 after being rewarded with a fizzy drink and two snapper fish after winning a world amateur title for his country. His defection needed the assistance of Mexican gangsters, an Irish promoter with an eye for a winning fighter and a fishing boat.

We also hear about a campaign aimed at eradicating illiteracy, a baseball match between Cuba and the US that was an act of diplomacy and the Cuban Missile Crisis which saw the world brought to the brink of nuclear war.

(Photo: Cuban boxer Teofilo Stevenson at the 1980 Olympics. Credit: Jerry Cooke via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Jean Lee and I'm Jeff White and we're back with a brand new episode of our
0:04.4	podcast the Lazarus heist recorded in front of a live audience in New York City.
0:09.9	That's our new special live episode of the Lazarus
0:12.6	Heist, the podcast about hacking and North Korea.
0:15.4	And we're returning soon with a second season.
0:18.0	So what better moment to listen to the whole of season one?
0:20.9	Or if you've heard it already, listen again, remind yourself with a whole story.
0:24.7	For the new episode and for the whole of the first season, search for the Lazarus
0:29.2	Heist wherever you found this podcast.
0:31.6	Hello and wherever you found this podcast.
0:39.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson, the past brought to life by those who were there.
0:42.0	This week we mark 60 years since the Cuban missile crisis,
0:45.0	the moment when the world stood on the brink of nuclear conflict.
0:49.0	What should you do if the attack comes when you're at the grocery store, visiting a friend or in your automobile or a church, each of us must be prepared.
0:58.8	The Soviet Union put missiles on Cuba threatening the US. We've got first-hand accounts from Moscow and Washington.
1:06.0	There was highly classified what I was doing. I had 12 security clearances at the time.
1:11.0	Oh no, you couldn't talk about anything. We'll be hearing
1:14.4	how disaster was narrowly averted as the world held its breath and how
1:18.6	baseball diplomacy helped ease subsequent tensions. We knew it was of great political significance
1:24.5	because it was about relations between Cuba and the US
1:27.2	at that moment.
1:28.7	But when the umpire said play, all the tension disappeared
	...

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