Kennedy and Khrushchev: 7. Eyeball to eyeball

The Bomb

BBC

History

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

President Kennedy sends shockwaves around the world with a televised speech to the nation. He imposes a blockade on all ships bound for Cuba - Premier Khrushchev brands it “an act of piracy”. But he knows that hidden in a tiny Cuban port, there’s a Soviet ship laden with unimaginable destructive power. Hosts Nina Khrushcheva and Max Kennedy, relatives of the superpower leaders, tell the personal and political history of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:10.0	Moscow, evening, Tuesday, 23rd, October, 1962.
0:16.7	In a box at the Bolshoi theatre, Nikita Khrushchev and his colleagues sit in a row.
0:22.0	It's grand.
0:23.5	All crimson, velvet, and gold.
0:26.8	The audience waits for the show to begin.
0:30.3	It's the Russian opera, Boris Godinoff.
0:48.3	Khrushchev has invited everyone to the opera for the optics to have a calming effect on the people to show that all is well. There is no danger, nothing to worry about, He is in control.
1:01.8	But he later recalls. We ourselves were very anxious at the time.
1:10.6	On stage the opera unfolds.
1:13.6	The Tsar, Boris Godinof, fears that there is a plot against him.
1:19.6	All that he does for his people seems to go wrong,
1:23.6	and his reign unravels as he struggles to maintain control.
1:28.9	He dies, leaving Russia in a state of chaos and civil war.
1:41.6	From the BBC World Service, this is the bomb.
1:44.8	Season 3, Kennedy and Cruce.
1:47.7	With me, Nina Crusher.
1:50.2	And me, Max Kennedy.
1:55.1	Episode 7, Eyeball to Eyeball.
2:16.0	24 hours earlier, Monday evening, my great-grandfather Nikita Khrushchev is at his home in the Lening Hills, in a leafy part of Moscow.
2:19.7	Then he hears the news.
2:24.1	Kennedy is preparing to make an address on TV.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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.