Kennedy and Khrushchev: 2. King of bombs
The Bomb
BBC
4.4 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Berlin Wall rises, splitting the city from east to west. Then a stand-off between American and Soviet tanks at the crossing point, Checkpoint Charlie, brings the two superpowers to the brink of military confrontation. And fearing that they are falling far behind in the missile race, the Soviets prepare to test the biggest bomb ever exploded. As relations between the two sides deteriorate, we explore the importance of diplomatic back channels with hosts Nina Khrushcheva and Max Kennedy, relatives of the superpower leaders. We meet Max's father, Senator Robert F Kennedy, and his Soviet contact, Georgy Bolshakov.
This is the personal and political history of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nina Khrushcheva is the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev and Max Kennedy is the nephew of President John F Kennedy, and the son of Robert F Kennedy.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.5 | If you can't wait for new episodes of this podcast and you're in the UK, more episodes are available now. |
| 0:12.4 | First on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:17.1 | Dr Louise Rice is opening envelopes in her three-story home in St. Louis, Missouri. |
| 0:23.6 | Inside are baby teeth. |
| 0:26.6 | She's convinced local parents to have their children send her their lost teeth, |
| 0:31.6 | and in return she'll send them a button reading, |
| 0:34.6 | I gave my tooth to science. |
| 0:36.6 | It's 1959. |
| 0:39.1 | The baby tooth survey will outgrow Dr. Rice's house to a collection, including hundreds of thousands |
| 0:45.5 | of children's teeth from around the United States. |
| 0:48.8 | And she'll discover something about the teeth of children born during the era of atmospheric nuclear testing that will make an impact around the world. |
| 0:58.0 | They all contain high levels of strontium-90, a radioactive isotope. |
| 1:05.0 | A remarkable film comes out that same year, on the beach, directed by Stanley Kramer and based on the novel by Neville Schute. |
| 1:16.6 | We fought. We expunge them. |
| 1:18.6 | Nuclear war has devastated the Earth. |
| 1:21.6 | A group of survivors wait for a vast cloud of radiation to reach them in the southern hemisphere, carried on air currents from the devastated north. |
| 1:31.3 | Interesting result, that the background level of radiation in this very room is nine times what it was a year ago. |
| 1:38.3 | Don't you know that? |
| 1:40.3 | Nine times. We're all doomed, you know. |
| 1:46.0 | The whole silly, drunken, pathetic lot of us. |
| 1:49.4 | Dumed by the air we're about to breathe. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.