Kennedy and Khrushchev: 10. Fallout
The Bomb
BBC
4.4 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2026
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Can Khrushchev and Kennedy stop a spiral into nuclear devastation? Khrushchev realises he has lost control of the crisis, as an American plane is shot down over Cuba. With the Americans preparing for war, can the two leaders communicate quickly enough to avoid it? Nina Khrushcheva and Max Kennedy, relatives of the superpower leaders, reflect on what might have been, in this extraordinary chapter in 20th Century history.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.7 | It's late afternoon, 27th October, 1962 in the United States. |
| 0:15.3 | The light is fading on Black Saturday. |
| 0:19.3 | In Moscow, the clock has ticked past midnight. |
| 0:23.8 | My great-grandfather, Nikita Khrushchev, has returned home late |
| 0:27.5 | and is sitting down with his nighttime drink of tea and lemon. |
| 0:33.0 | His day is not done. |
| 0:35.6 | Just after 1 a.m., Khrushchev gets a phone call. |
| 0:39.3 | Castro's message, the one written and rewritten the day before where the Soviet ambassador in Cuba, has arrived. |
| 0:48.3 | The Cuban leader tries to warn Khrushchev of the impending American attack and pleads for a preemptive nuclear |
| 0:56.2 | strike on the United States. Another telephone call comes soon afterwards. An American U-2 plane |
| 1:06.7 | has been shot down. |
| 1:14.6 | In his memoirs, Khrushchev will write, Even a fool can start a war. |
| 1:16.6 | And a wise man would find it difficult |
| 1:19.6 | to bring that war to its end. |
| 1:35.0 | From the BBC World Service, this is the bomb, season three, Kennedy and Khrushchev. |
| 1:37.5 | With me, Nina Khrushcheva. |
| 1:39.8 | And me, Max Kennedy. |
| 1:43.3 | Episode 10, fallout. The Oval Office, around 7 p.m., President Kennedy has gathered his closest advisors. |
| 2:19.0 | McGeorge Bundy, Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, and his brother, Robert Kennedy. |
| 2:25.3 | What they're talking about will remain secret for 25 years. |
| 2:29.6 | The President has approved a response to Khrushchev's most recent message. |
... |
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