The Cuban Missile Crisis | Bay of Pigs | 1

American Scandal

Wondery

True Crime, Exhibit C, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, History Daily, American History Tellers, Lindsay Graham

4.6 • 18.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2022

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Fidel Castro seizes power in Cuba. President Kennedy authorizes a coup, but sets in motion an unexpected chain of events.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American Scandal add free on Amazon Music, download the app today.
0:07.0	To listen to American Scandal one week early and add free, join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app.
0:14.0	Download the Wondry app in your Apple or Google Play mobile app store today.
0:30.0	It's July 1960 in Washington, D.C.
0:34.0	On a street near the United States Capitol, a man wearing a three-piece suit steps into a building.
0:40.0	He adjusts the lapels of his jacket and straightens his tie, glancing at his own reflection in a window, the man smiles.
0:47.0	He looks put together, and with a press pass dangling from his neck, anyone who sees him is bound to believe he's just another journalist covering politics in the nation's Capitol.
0:57.0	But this appearance is all an elaborate ruse.
1:00.0	The man is not a journalist, he's an undercover agent with KGB, the intelligence agency for the Soviet Union.
1:07.0	And he's come to Washington not to work as a reporter, but to pull off a delicate operation.
1:12.0	He's going to try to sway the outcome of a presidential election.
1:18.0	Soon the agent steps into a busy office, and as he looks around, he spots dozens of people on the phone talking excitedly.
1:25.0	There's a group of volunteers huddled together, reviewing a campaign poster.
1:30.0	And at the end of the hall is a private room whose door is shut tight.
1:34.0	The Soviet agent narrows his eyes as he gazes at that private office.
1:38.0	It belongs to Robert Kennedy, the man leading this presidential campaign, and the brother of the Democratic candidate, John F. Kennedy.
1:46.0	The agent's handlers in Moscow want to see Kennedy win the election.
1:51.0	It's not that they have any special love for the Democrat, he is an American.
1:55.0	But Moscow believes that if Kennedy wins the election, his presidency could change the course of the Cold War, and give the Soviets an upper hand.
2:03.0	The geopolitical considerations are complicated.
2:07.0	But in a lot of ways it all comes down to just one issue, missiles.
2:12.0	Moscow has been publicly claiming to have more nuclear weapons than the United States, and more advanced technology.
	...

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