What if the Cuban Missile Crisis Sparked WW3?

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On October 22 1962, President John F. Kennedy announced that Soviet missiles has been discovered in Cuba. Over the following days, the fate of the Americas was on the line.

In this episode, Don is joined once again by Renata Keller to explore the causes and events of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and to discuss what might have happened had the situation not been resolved.

Renata's new book 'The Fate of the Americas: The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Hemispheric Cold War' shows how this was not just a Soviet-US event. She explores how leaders and citizens throughout South America, the area at most risk from nuclear missiles, impacted on the events of October 1962.

Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Sophie Gee. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.

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All music from Epidemic Sounds.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The weather. Tomorrow, expect a biting cold front. Hmm, how naughty. I wonder what I'll be
0:06.8	wearing or taking off. The night will be wild and untamed. Expect heavy, lashing rain
0:13.0	that'll soak you to the skin. By Monday, temperatures will rise slowly but surely reaching
0:18.7	their peak in the afternoon.
0:23.0	Not in the mood for miserable weather?
0:25.8	Fly cheaply to Turkey with Sun Express.
0:28.7	Sun Express, non-stop sunshine.
0:31.4	Hello, it's Ray Winston.
0:35.4	I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4.
0:37.7	History's toughestest Heroes.
0:44.1	I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough.
0:49.0	And that was the first time anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on.
0:52.2	It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head.
0:53.5	Tough enough for you?
0:59.4	Subscribe to history's toughest heroes wherever you get your podcast.
1:09.7	15 meters below the surface, diffuse rays of sunlight dance in the water.
1:14.8	In the far distance, a shape approaches. It glides forth,
1:23.5	emerging, vast, dark, imposing, a silhouetted mammoth in the dim mineral blue. Moments later,
1:31.0	we see. It's a massive craft with a towering sail of a submarine. Nearly 300 feet long, this is one of four Soviet Foxtrot-class subs deployed to these waters in support of Fidel Castro's
1:37.9	Cuba and Soviet operations against its Cold War adversary, the United States. Each vessel, the B4, B36, B-130, and B-59, carries in its
1:50.3	arsenal a single nuclear-tipped torpedo. Designed for stealth, these subs can remain submerged
1:56.8	and unseen for up to five days. In October 1962, this flotilla of four submarines will become one of history's most infamous patrols,
	...

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