‘After almost destroying our planet, our families are allies’: a gripping podcast featuring JFK and Khrushchev’s descendants.

During October 1962, the world veered nearer toward destruction more so than ever in the contemporary era. This transpired following the discovery that an American surveillance plane identified that Soviet atomic missile installations were under construction on the island of Cuba, a mere 160 kilometers off the coast of American soil. Reacting to this, U.S. President John F Kennedy ordered the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet to impose a maritime quarantine encircling the island. What followed constituted nearly two weeks of impossible anxiety.

An Catastrophic Danger

The peril was obvious. Should Kennedy, or his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, had fired against their enemy, a chain reaction involving worldwide atomic strikes followed by retaliatory strikes would have followed, casting mankind into total oblivion.

The Cuban missile crisis has been documented endlessly, in books, movies, and TV documentaries. However, for its third season, a prominent audio documentary series The Bomb presents a completely new dimension to this historical narrative. The series is co-presented featuring Kennedy's relative and Nina Khrushcheva, family members of the figures who, for 13 days, held the destiny of the world in their hands.

"What was the Kremlin thinking? What was Washington thinking?" asks Khrushcheva, Khrushchev’s descendant and a professor of international affairs.

For her, the beauty of the show lies in its endeavor to objectively ask: "How can nations hate one another and go against one another?"

"It struck me how profound it is that individuals have the potential to be friends or else have the potential to be complete adversaries," states Max Kennedy, the son of RFK, related to the late president and currently a writer as well as attorney. "History shows this dynamic repeatedly when nations enter into conflict, and it just illustrates the profound irrationality it is to fight."

A Precipice of Disaster

What is striking about the Cuban missile crisis was that, since it unfolded in the global spotlight, citizens globally could watch nearly in real time while it moved towards armageddon. However, the risk of annihilation was more imminent than most people understood at the time.

"Virtually everyone among Kennedy's advisors were advocating for a military strike followed by an invasion," says Kennedy. "If we had attacked the Cubans using the Sixth Fleet, undoubtedly the Russians stationed there would've launched a tactical nuclear weapon against the US Sixth Fleet, and that would have obliterated our aircraft carriers and destroyed our largest and most important fleet. In turn, the U.S. would have retaliated with massive retaliation that would have eradicated most life on Earth."

The fact this did not occur highlights the composure of both leaders, who succeeded in remain calm and engaging in diplomacy when hawkish elements around them were advocating action. As a result, Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in Cuba while President Kennedy (although not reported at the time) removed American similar weapons based in Turkey. The relief was palpable, as was the sense of optimism.

A Different Viewpoint

Yet, for those two weeks of October 1962, the anxiety was palpable globally. The podcast's presenters came into the world in the years following these events, with Khrushcheva being taught about the crisis via the Soviet school curriculum, which painted a slightly different narrative of what happened.

"As you mentioned your father recalls it, and it was a scary day," Khrushcheva notes. "But in the Soviet Union, people really didn’t know a great deal about it, since it was a crisis, whereas in the Soviet Union the official line was that things are constantly fine or sunny."

Inside Khrushchev’s family, however, it was different. "They told me what a great occasion it was, because it represented eyeball to eyeball. The leaders managed to resolve it, thus avoided a global war, which was a positive thing," she adds. Later on, however, that perspective would not be held by everybody. "For a long time within Russian historical analysis, it was considered a setback for Khrushchev, because he refrained from destroying America."

An Unprecedented Collaboration

This podcast is so balanced , well produced so much so that Nina jokes she nearly forgot she already knew the ending. This is, in part, thanks to the participation of historians. Yet, really, the most momentous aspect is the participation of the descendants. Not so long ago, it would be inconceivable for descendants of the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union to appear side by side. That these two individuals can do that, and be so warm with each other, has to be a symbol of hope.

"Max and I are not the first," smiles Nina. "After 1991, a relative moved to America and formed a close bond with Dwight Eisenhower’s children."

"However we had never met before the podcast," clarifies Max. "That is a shame since we got along really well and we are friends, something that is wonderful. Ultimately, following almost 60 years of nearly annihilating the planet, our families are now allies, suggesting the world is safer, somewhat."

Contemporary Parallels with Current Perils

Is that truly the case? Part of why this series seems so urgent is because we once again are living living through a perilous era. The symbolic clock of doom is closer to midnight in its history, in part because world leaders appear not to have the capacity to comprehend