This is John Batchel, continuing my conversation with Professor Serhi Poloki, his book Nuclear Folly,

A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The point here that the professor makes is that in confrontations with nuclear weapons or not,

escalations with nuclear weapons talked about, the contest is not well informed.

Each side does not have complete information, good information, sometimes never gets it,

sometimes gets it in completely. Making decisions with nuclear weapons being in the flow without

clarity. Therefore, what we are witnessing now in Ukraine, again, it doesn't have clarity. What is the

aim of firing missiles into Russia? What is the aim of firing missiles into Russia?

What is the aim of the President Zelensky saying we'll have a settlement to this war when Donald Trump is in office?

What is the aim of Mr. Putin firing an experimental ICBM, he says, into Ukraine?

We don't know.

We don't know what each side has in the ready in case

of a plan B coming up. Here, Sir, Professor Polki informs you what the U.S. didn't know

about what Russia had in Cuba and what Russia had in submarines to intercept the U.S. task force headed to Cuba.

What Russia was prepared to do in the event that the U.S. invaded Cuba, didn't know.

More of this later.

Washington doesn't know about the submarines.

They would learn about that later,

but Washington would never learn, at least during the crisis, that those submarines were equipped

with the nuclear-armed torpedoes. So that was one of things that Washington would never learn.

Another thing was the presence of the tactical

weapons. So really, both sides act to a degree in a darkness. They don't, they don't

...