Following nearly annihilating our world, the families are friends’: a thrilling audio series from JFK and Nikita Khrushchev’s relatives.

During the month of October 1962, the planet came closer toward annihilation than at any other point in modern times. This transpired after an American surveillance aircraft found the fact that Soviet nuclear missile bases were being assembled in the island of Cuba, a mere 100 miles off the coast of the US mainland. In response, U.S. President JFK directed a naval task force to enact a maritime blockade around the island. What followed constituted nearly a fortnight filled with unbearable stress.

The Catastrophic Danger

The peril remained palpable. If President Kennedy, or else his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, were to fire against their enemy, a chain reaction involving worldwide atomic attacks and counterstrikes could have followed, plunging mankind into all-out destruction.

The Cuban missile crisis has been documented endlessly, through books, films, and TV documentaries. However, in its latest installment, the BBC World Service podcast titled "The Bomb" has brought a completely new element to this historical narrative. The series is co-presented featuring Kennedy's relative alongside Nina Khrushcheva, family members belonging to the figures that, for two tense weeks, held the destiny of the world within their grasp.

"What were the Soviet side thinking? What were the American side considering?" questions Nina Khrushcheva, Khrushchev’s great-granddaughter who is also a professor of global relations.

In her view, the unique appeal of the podcast lies in its endeavor to objectively ask: "How can people hate one another to the point they go against each other?"

"It was not lost on me how profound the fact that humans can be allies or else have the potential to be total adversaries," remarks Kennedy, the son of RFK, related to the late president and now an author and lawyer. "We see this dynamic repeatedly when nations have gone to war, demonstrating the profound irrationality it is to engage in warfare."

The Brink Towards Catastrophe

What is notable about this event is that, since it transpired so publicly, individuals worldwide were able to observe nearly as it happened as it moved closer to armageddon. Even so, the threat of annihilation came closer than what anybody understood at the time.

"The overwhelming majority in the White House were advocating for a military strike followed by an invasion," says Kennedy. "If we had attacked Cuba with the Sixth Fleet, undoubtedly Soviet forces stationed there would have launched a nuclear warhead against the US Sixth Fleet, which would have obliterated our aircraft carriers as well as sunk America's largest and most important fleet. And, we would have responded with an overwhelming counterattack that would have eradicated all life on Earth."

The reality it didn’t is a testament to Kennedy and Khrushchev, they managed to keep their heads and engaging in diplomacy at a time when hawkish elements around them were advocating military action. Consequently, The Soviet premier agreed to withdraw the missiles from Cuba while Kennedy (a fact not publicly disclosed then) removed his missiles from Turkey. The sense of relief was worldwide, matched by a feeling of optimism.

The Different Viewpoint

Yet, during those two weeks of October 1962, the tension was palpable by everyone. The podcast's co-hosts came into the world shortly after these events, with Khrushcheva being taught about the crisis via the Soviet education system, which portrayed an alternative picture of what happened.

"You said your parent remembers it, and it was a frightening time," she says. "But for Soviet citizens, the public really didn’t know a great deal about it, because it was a crisis, whereas under the Soviet system the official line was that everything was always fine and sunny."

Inside Khrushchev’s family, though, it was different. "They told me that it was a triumphant moment it was, because it was a direct confrontation. The leaders managed to resolve it, thus didn’t start the war, which was a wonderful thing," she adds. Subsequently, however, that view would not be shared by everybody. "For a long time in Russian politics, the crisis was viewed as a setback for the Soviet leader, because he didn’t blow up America."

A Unlikely Collaboration

The Bomb is remarkably balanced , well produced so much so that Nina quips she nearly forgot the known outcome. This is, in part, due to the participation of historians. Yet, really, the most groundbreaking aspect remains the involvement of the hosts themselves. Not so long ago, it was inconceivable for relatives of the heads of state of America and Soviet Union would appear side by side. That Max Kennedy and Nina Khrushcheva are able to do so, and be so warm toward one another, must be seen as a symbol of progress.

"We are not the first," notes Khrushcheva. "After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, my uncle Sergey Khrushchev’s son and formed a close bond with Dwight Eisenhower’s children."

"But we had never met prior to this project," adds Kennedy. "That is unfortunate because we connected really well and we are friends, something that is wonderful. Finally, after nearly six decades since almost destroying the world, our families are now friends, so I think the world is safer, a little bit."

Contemporary Parallels and Current Dangers

Is that truly the case? Part of the reason this series feels so necessary is that we now find ourselves in a perilous era. The symbolic clock of doom is closer to catastrophe than ever before, in part because world leaders appear not to be able to learn