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Episode details

World Service,19 Jan 2026,40 mins

SeriesKennedy and Khrushchev

9. Black Saturday

The Bomb

Available for over a year

Soviet anti-aircraft fire takes down an American spy plane over Cuba, as the crisis spirals. The pilot is killed. With nuclear missiles almost ready for launch in Cuba, how can the two superpower leaders pull back from the brink of war? This is the personal and political history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, told by Nina Khrushcheva and Max Kennedy.

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