The Yes, yes, or

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or us, Welcome to the Russian rulers history podcast.

Episode 101.

We will bury you, Nikita Sergeiovich.

Back in episode 99, we saw how close the world came to an all-out nuclear war caused by Khrushchev's decision

to place missiles on the island nation of Cuba close to American soil. The fallout from

this was to accelerate the downfall of the Soviet leader.

Note how I said accelerate and not begin the downfall.

The reason is, Khrushchev had already begun to lose prestige in the eyes of the fellow Central Committee members.

They were growing tired of his tie raids, and few knew the entirety of the concessions the Soviets received by pulling out of Cuba,

like the removal of the Jupiter missiles out of Turkey by the United States.

As Dubrinen put it, the compromise was to the Soviet Union, quote,

a blow to its prestige bordering on humiliation.

This is how many of the members of the Central Committee and the Presidium were feeling, although not publicly.

Following the crisis, Khrushchev had to tell the Soviet people what had happened, and then he had to

mollify his own party members.

In their newspaper, Pravda, the people were told that Khrushchev's calm and wisdom was able to save humanity from nuclear catastrophe.

To the Supreme Soviet Assembly of December 12, 1962, he gave an impassioned speech in which he told the assembled members that the

crisis showed that his actions had helped to prevent the invasion, and that they had

overcome a crisis that threatened general

thermonuclear war.

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