Original subtitles

[ Speaking Spanish ]

INTERPRETER: A war appeared imminent,

a first strike might take place at any time.

I said to myself,

"|f Cuba is in such an unfortunate war

we will disappear from the map.

[ Man speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: Robert Kennedy came to me and said,

"Mr. Ambassador, the situation is very tense.

Your missiles have just shot down our plane.

Our generals demand that we retaliate.

If we start bombing, you will fight back.

What can we do?

McNamara: It was a perfectly beautiful night,

as fall nights are in Washington.

I walked out of the President's oval office,

and as I walked out, I thought I might

never live to see another Saturday night.

D ♪

BRANAGH: Throughout the 1940s and 50s,

the Caribbean island of Cuba had been

Americafs playground --

beaches, booze, and casinos.

Havana had it all.

Cuba's land and industry were owned

almost entirely by American corporations.

We considered it part of the United States practically,

just a wonderful little country over there

that was of no danger to anybody,

as a matter of fact was a rather important

economic asset to the United States.

BRANAGH: Cuba's leader, Fulgencio Batista,

was a brutal dictator.

His people were turning against him.

After years of guerrilla fighting in the mountains,

a charismatic 33-year-old lawyer,

Fidel Castro,

entered Havana on the 8th of January, 1959.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

INTERPRETER: The triumph of the Revolution was an example of order --

there was no looting,

no one was dragged along the streets,

there were no murders, no crimes.

There was perfect order.

BRANAGH: In this perfect order,

over 500 members of the former regime

were accused of crimes against the people --

tried and executed.

Fearing the rise of a new dictator,

thousands fled to exile in the United States.

But to most people Castro was a hero.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

The Revolution promised to provide jobs for the people.

It promised honesty in the administration -

which had never existed in Cuba.

There were health programs which had never existed before,

education programs which had never existed before.

BRANAGH: Most important of all,

Castro nationalized millions of acres of land

held by American companies

and gave it to the people.

Eager to tell the world of his revolution,

Castro flew to New York to speak to the United Nations.

President Eisenhower was too busy to see him.

But Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader,

was delighted to embrace a new revolutionary,

and offered him economic assistance.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

Cuba decided to buy oil from the Soviet Union,

which would be cheaper.

The country could get also credit from the Soviet Union,

who were willing to help us.

But the American companies refused to refine the oil.

BRANAGH: With nowhere to refine the Soviet oil,

Castro was faced with economic disaster.

He sent in his militia

and took over the foreign refineries in Cuba.

America's retaliation was swift.

NARRATOR: At his White House press conference,

President Eisenhower announces that Cuba's assigned share

of the United States sugar market

has been out by 95“/.

In reply to what Ike called

Fidel Castro's deliberate policy of hostility.

BRANAGH: As tension mounted,

Castro nationalized a further billion dollars worth

of American investments.

An irate President Eisenhower declared

a complete trade embargo,

and ordered the CIA to recruit Cuban exiles.

They would be trained to destroy Castro's regime.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

Government agencies of the United States

began training people to bomb Cuba

and to burn the sugar-cane fields.

They used small planes with incendiary devices

to set fire to the fields.

It was very serious,

this was the only wealth we had.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

They carried out a dirty war against our country.

Guerrilla units were active in every province,

even in Havana.

BRANAGH: Over a hundred people died when "La Coubre,"

a freighter unloading arms and ammunition from Belgium

exploded in Havana harbor.

CIA sabotage was suspected, but never proved.

Castro turned to the Soviet Union for help.

MAN: Perhaps he might have taken a different line

had the Americans been more mild towards him

than they actually were.

The Cold War was in its full bloom.

So whatever was unpleasant to the Americans

was welcomed in this country,

and vice versa, I would say.

BRANAGH: At a secret base in the Guatemalan jungle,

American CIA agents had been training Cuban exiles

to invade Cuba.

This, they thought, would be the impetus

for the Cuban people to rise up and overthrow Castro.

The plan was presented to the new President

John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy felt that a plan that he inherited,

in which a band of Cuban exiles

were to liberate their own country,

was one he could hardly turn his back on.

Surely the United States should help get rid

of a communist dictatorship in our hemisphere.

BRANAGH: The CIA badly misled the new president,

promising him an easy victory

and an end to the Cuban problem.

Kennedy agreed to the invasion,

but demanded crucial changes

to hide America's involvement.

Just three days before the planned invasion,

Kennedy denied any possibility of American intervention.

There will not be, under any conditions,

an intervention in Cuba

by the United States armed forces,

and this government will do everything it possibly can

and I think it can meet its responsibilities,

to make sure that there are no Americans involved

in any actions inside Cuba.

BRANAGH: As Kennedy spoke,

the invasion force was gathering.

An advance wave of American bombers planned

to destroy Castro's air force on the ground.

The President, worried that this might

reveal Washington's role,

ordered the operation scaled down.

On April 15, 1961...

just six American bombers,

disguised in the colors of the Cuban Air force,

took off from Nicaragua

for a crucial attack on Cuban airfields.

But with so few bombers,

only three Cuban planes were destroyed.

Seven civilians were killed.

As they buried those who had died,

Castro, seeking Soviet support

finally declared that the revolution was socialist.

[ Castro speaking Spanish ]

INTERPRETER: We prepared ourselves to resist an invasion

against all the forces we knew the Americans had

at their disposal.

BRANAGH: The following day, just 1500 exiles,

equipped with American arms and ammunition,

arrived at the Bay of Pigs,

125 miles to the south of Havana.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

We were the happiest men in the world,

because we had the opportunity to return to Cuba,

our homeland,

to fight to rescue freedom and democracy

so that our country could be for all Cubans.

BRANAGH: American planes were to protect the invasion force

as they hit the beach.

But Kennedy, now faced with international condemnation

for the initial bombing,

cancel led the air support.

Castro's remaining air force quickly destroyed the ships

carrying vital ammunition supplies.

Mistakenly believing that this was

a full scale American invasion,

Cuba mobilized all its forces.

[man speaking Spanish]

INTERPRETER: The worse moments were at the beginning.

We didn't have much information about the enemy.

We didn't know if they were 1000, 3,000, or 10,000.

We didn't know what types of weapons they might have.

We didn't know if this was a total invasion.

BRANAGH: Without American air support or resupply,

the invasion force was outnumbered and outgunned.

Within 72 hours,

the invaders were either captured or dead.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

I did not realize that the mission was impossible

until the last day, almost at the end.

We trusted in our allies,

we never thought they would forsake us or abandon us.

We didn't think they could betray the commitment

they had with us.

Jack Kennedy was devastated

by the fiasco at the Bay of Pigs.

And he said it was a fiasco.

He was not accustomed to failure

in politics or life.

He was more distraught than I'd ever seen him.

"How could I have been so stupid?" he said.

BRANAGH: Castro had survived, and humiliated Kennedy.

The CIA was told to think again.

Our job was to start to come up with new plans,

not a Bay of Pigs type plan,

but new plans to,

"Get rid of Castro and the Castro regime."

BRANAGH: Everything was suggested -- from assassination

to spraying LSD into a television studio

to make it seem as if Fidel had gone mad.

Whatever they tried Castro took in his stride.

More secure within his own country,

he sought to export revolution

to the rest of Latin America.

Alarmed by this prospect,

America kept up the pressure on Castro.

In the spring of 1962,

a practice invasion of a Caribbean island

was mounted by 40,000 American marines.

MAN: We did that purposely

to make Castro pay more attention to that

than causing trouble in Latin and Central America.

But the Cubans and the Russians,

they told us later, believed that the United States

really did intend to attack Cuba

and therefore Castro kept saying, "I need some help."

BRANAGH: Castro's pleas inspired the Soviet leader Khrushchev

to make a daring offer.

He had boasted to the world of Russia's nuclear strength,

but in reality he knew just how limited

his long range missile force really was.

But he did have medium range nuclear missiles.

[speaking Russian ]

From the territory of the Soviet Union,

they couldn't possibly reach the territory of the USA,

but deployed on Cuba

they would become strategic nuclear weapons.

That meant in practical terms

we had a chance to narrow the differences

between our forces.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

I immediately appreciated the strategic importance

of the presence of those missiles in Cuba.

By that time,

the Americans had already transported

similar missiles to Turkey.

I thought, "|f we expected the Soviets

to fight on our behalf,

to run risks for us,

and even involve themselves in a war for our sake...

it would be immoral and cowardly on our part

to refuse to accept

the presence of those missiles here.

BRANAGH: In July, 1962,

under the nose of the Americans,

the first of 150 Soviet ships,

loaded with heavily disguised nuclear missiles

and over 40,000 troops,

sailed for Cuba.

[speaking Russian ]

The Americans just didn't notice

that we managed to deliver

not one but 43,000 people there,

plus the equipment, weapons,

and everything necessary for the installation work.

We put all the cars, trucks, and tractors on the top,

all the military equipment was hidden under the decks.

BRANAGH: CIA agents in Cuba reported

that Russian troops and missile trailers had been

seen in the streets of Havana.

Washington dismissed the reports as rumor.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

INTERPRETER: I saw those weird weapons,

and then I said to my friend Pablo,

"Pablo, how powerful are these weird weapons?"

And he answered, "These are nuclear missiles."

So I thought, "Oh, really powerful."

They just put them here, out in the open.

BRANAGH: But the CIA had noticed the increase

in Soviet ships heading for Cuba.

On October 14, a U2 spy plane

was ordered to fly across the island

to try to discover what was going on.

The next morning,

the Photographic Interpretation Center

in Washington started analyzing the pictures

that the U-2 had taken.

MAN: We're looking at the photography

and we spot objects that are foreign to the environment.

And we kept looking, and we said,

"Oh, oh, this is an 88-4 ballistic missile site."

So working with the photo interpreters

we became convinced that this was it.

The Soviets had never put any nuclear weapons

outside the Soviet borders,

and we didn't think they'd do it, you know.

The truth of the matter is that it never dawned on us

that they would take that kind of risk.

BRANAGH: At 8:45 AM on October 16,

the CIA informed Kennedy that without any doubt

there were Soviet missiles in Cuba.

The President called his advisers to the White House.

We didn't spend a great deal of time wondering

why the Soviets were doing this,

because why they had done it,

for whatever reason they had done it,

they had done it in a surreptitious way,

lying to the United States

through a variety of messages and messengers,

that they were only putting defensive weapons into Cuba

and those weapons constituted a clear and present danger

to our security.

BRANAGH: The missiles in Cuba made the Americans

more vulnerable than ever before.

The Russians were so close

they could strike without warning.

A first strike would have knocked out

all the American air bases, bomber bases,

all the American missile bases

and all American cities except Seattle,

which was out of their range.

But Washington, DC, New York City, Dallas

would all have gone under the hammer.

We talked about the possibility of an air strike,

which was at one time or another

almost everybody's first choice,

upon first thought,

to knock out the missiles.

We talked about an invasion of Cuba,

which was always the preferred choice

of the right wing,

go in and take Cuba away from Castro

and rid the island of communism,

while at the same time getting rid of these missiles

a diplomatic approach,

either bilaterally or through the United Nations --

a blockade, or a quarantine,

as it later came to be called.

No decision was made at that first meeting.

But if a vote had been taken there

air strike was probably number one on everybody's list.

BRANAGH: Robert Kennedy, the President's brother

and closest adviser,

became concerned that if America's might

was used without warning against a small island,

world opinion would turn against them.

Robert Kennedy -- rightfully in my opinion --

drew the analogy that it would be regarded by the world

as a bombing of Cuba, of bases in Cuba,

comparable to the bombing of Pearl Harbor

by the Japanese in 1941.

And he said, "I don't think I want

my brother to become another Tojo."

BRANAGH: As the arguments continued,

the Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko,

and the Soviet ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin,

kept a long standing engagement at the White House.

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: The President raised the question

of the increasing tension between our two countries

in connection with the Soviet deliveries of weapons.

The President said, "We are worried about it

because it's connected

with our own safety and security."

Gromyko told him -- just as I was told to say --

"A|| our deliveries, Mr. President,

are of a defensive nature.

If you don't intend to invade Cuba,

you shouldn't worry

because all the weapons are defensive."

McNamara: It was a clear intent to deceive.

If the US were not to respond to Soviet deception,

how would this influence the attitude

of our NATO allies,

how would they view

the US guarantee of their security,

and how would it influence the future behavior

of the Soviet Union?

If they got by with deception once,

couldn't they do it again?

BRANAGH: For the next two days, Kennedy stayed away,

keeping up with a congressional election campaign.

In Washington, his advisers tried

to come up with a solution.

There were no good solutions --

every solution was full of holes and risks.

It was the only time during my three years

in the White House that I would wake up

in the middle of the night agonizing over

what was the right approach, what would work,

what would not blow up the world.

BRANAGH: A conclusion was reached.

Not to bomb, but to blockade.

The Navy would stop and search all ships heading for Cuba.

They called it a quarantine.

McNamara: |t was believed that the quarantine

would convey to Khrushchev

the determination of the President to see

that those missiles were removed,

without stimulating a military response.

BRANAGH: But in case the quarantine didn't work,

preparations were made for air strikes,

and a massive American invasion force

was made ready.

President Kennedy was in Chicago.

Now he was needed in Washington.

The press were growing suspicious.

I was called by President Kennedy

at 8:00 in the morning

and he said, "Come to my room."

And he still had his bathrobe on

and he said, "Here's something I'm writing for you.

You're going to hold a press conference to announce it.

The assistant White House physician, Dr. George Berkeley,

noticed that the President's voice was very husky.

This morning when he examined the President,

he found that the President had developed a slight temperature,

and he was suffering from a minor

upper respiratory ailment.

The President will therefore cancel his schedule

for the rest of today and tomorrow

and return to Washington and the White House.

SALINGER: About halfway to Washington,

I suddenly found myself alone with Kennedy

in the front part of the airplane.

I said, "Mr. President, you're not sick.

What the hell's going on?"

He said to me, "You're going to find out

as soon as you land in Washington

and then grab your balls."

Good morning, everyone.

An unusual flurry of top secret military

and diplomatic activity over the weekend

has Washington guessing today that a major move

in American foreign policy may be imminent.

The speculation centers on the Caribbean

and possible action against Cuba.

BRANAGH: That afternoon, the Soviet ambassador

was called to an urgent meeting

with Secretary of State, Dean Rusk.

[speaking Russian ]

Rusk said, "You are delivering missiles to Cuba.

We have aerial reconnaissance photographs.

This is a threat to our security

and we cannot possibly allow it.

In one hour's time, at 7:00 pm,

the President will make a radio and television appeal

to the American people,

where he will describe the situation.

At the same time he wants you to pass the message

oh to Khrushchev."

BRANAGI-IZ At 7100,

Kennedy announced to the world for the first time

the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba,

and that a blockade was now in force.

The purpose of these bases can be none other

than to provide a nuclear strike capability

against the Western Hemisphere.

To halt this offensive build up,

a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment

under shipment to Cuba is being initiated.

All ships of any kind bound for Cuba

from whatever nation or port will,

if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons,

be turned back.

I call up oh Chairman Khrushchev to halt

and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative

threat to world peace,

and to stable relations between our two nations.

He has an opportunity now to move the world back

from the abyss of destruction.

BRANAGH: The first response from Moscow came the next morning.

Khrushchev was hot going to back down.

TROYANOVSKI: Kennedy spoke about quarantine,

and that sounded as something not very precise,

perhaps not at blockade, as it actually was.

So the first reactions were pretty tough

from the Soviet side.

Denouncing the United States arms quarantine against Cuba

as a step towards world thermonuclear war,

the Soviet Union today ordered its armed forces

into a state of combat readiness,

and forces of the Warsaw Pact, the communist counterpart

of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,

immediately followed suit.

BRANAGH: As the superpowers prepared for conflict,

Cuba announced a "combat alarm."

Over a quarter of a million people stood by

to repel an American invasion.

[ Dominguez speaking Spanish]

INTERPRETER: We felt the danger.

This was a war -- the country could be

invaded at any time by the Americans.

[ Castro speaking Spanish ]

INTERPRETER: if they invaded our country,

I was convinced it would create the grave risk

of the US taking the second step

of carrying out a nuclear air strike

against the Soviet Union.

BRANAGH: The American fleet now encircled Cuba.

The Soviet ships stayed on course.

With confrontation imminent,

Kennedy wanted direct contact with Moscow.

He sent his brother Robert to meet in secret

with the Soviet Ambassador.

[speaking Russian ]

He said, "Did your government instruct the captains

to turn the ships back home

because Kennedy introduced the quarantine?"

I said, "No, our captains had no such orders,

and as far as I am aware

they are instructed to go on to Cuba.

According to international law

you have no right to stop our ships in the open sea.

You cannot draw an imaginary line

which cannot be crossed.

It is against the |aw."

He replied,

"Well, then I don't know where we are heading."

The Pentagon says the United States is ready

to sink every communist bloc ship

headed for Cuba which refuses to stop

and be searched under the blockade.

Further, force will be used if necessary

to stop and search any ship, of any nation,

bound for Cuba.

I think that was the moment

that really was the heart-stopper.

The -- I recall...

I recall being in the newsroom

just waiting for that next bulletin,

and almost literally trying to type with my fingers crossed.

Let's check over at the Pentagon,

with Charles Von Fremd on that.

Chuck, is there any late information

about the position of those Soviet ships,

or what might be happening to them?

Walter, we haven't heard a word for several hours how,

as to when the confrontation

between US vessels and the Soviet ships

will come about.

BRANAGH: Nerves were being stretched to breaking point.

People tried to prepare for a possible nuclear holocaust.

A wave of panic buying swept across America.

We have a utility room where the furnaces are,

and we wondered whether we could make that

into a bomb shelter of some form.

We were learning for the first time

the time that we would have after the explosion,

before the fumes, the killing fumes,

killing heat and so forth, would reach us.

BRANAGH: The Soviet leaders had tried to keep crisis

from their people,

but the news was getting out.

[speaking Russian ]

The people felt the breath of war

and were tense.

I remember my parents felt doomed.

They understood that war would not be

like it was before,

that it would be a war with atomic bombs.

ANNOUNCER: This a special report from CBS news.

Well, at its beginning, this day looked

as if it might be one of armed conflict

between Soviet vessels and America warships

on the sea lanes leading to Cuba.

But there has been no confrontation as far as we know

and some hope has been generated by suggestions of negotiation.

BRANAGH: Almost at the last moment,

the missile ships appeared

to have slowed down, or altered course.

That evening, as Kennedy dined with friends at the White House

a toast was proposed to celebrate.

Kennedy declined.

"The game" he said, "was hardly over."

At 9124 PM,

the State Department received a letter

from Khrushchev for the President.

Khrushchev rejected all of Kennedy's demands.

The missiles already in Cuba were being prepared for action.

For the first time in its history,

America's Strategic Air Command moved to Defense Condition 2.

The next step -- Def con 1 --

would be war.

Just after dawn on the morning of the 25th,

Kennedy ordered the interception of the Bucharest,

a ship carrying Soviet oil.

He knew there was no possibility of an oil tanker

carrying missiles,

but it was a signal to Khrushchev

that he was deadly serious.

That afternoon, at the United Nations,

Adlai Stevenson confronted his Soviet counterpart,

Ambassador Zofln.

All right, sir,

let me ask you one simple question.

Do you, Ambassador Zorin,

deny that the USSR has placed

and is placing medium and intermediate-range missiles

and sites in Cuba?

Yes or no?

Don't wait for the translation.

Yes or no?

[ laughter ]

[speaking Russian ]

I am not in an American courtroom, sir,

and therefore I do not wish to answer a question

that is put to me in the fashion in which a prosecutor does.

In due course, sir, you will have your reply.

You're in the court of world opinion right now

and you can GHSWEF YES Of HO.

You have denied that they exist

and I want to know if I have understood you correctly.

BRANAGH: As the Soviet Ambassador prevaricated,

the U2 photographs were brought into the meeting

for the world to see.

With work continuing on the missile sites in Cuba,

the build up of US invasion forces in Florida increased.

The Americans prepared for conventional combat.

They were unaware that the Soviet forces were equipped

with short-range tactical missiles,

tipped with atomic warheads,

ready to annihilate any invader.

[speaking Russian ]

If they had started an invasion using the Marines

or the airborne forces,

the losses would have been enormous.

We would have fought to the last soldier,

the last bullet.

There was nowhere to retreat to.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

On the 26th of October

at a meeting with the Soviet Military commander...

I was informed about the state of the missiles.

He told me,

"The air regiment is ready.

The surface to air missiles are ready.

The tactical nuclear missile unit is ready.

Missiles ready.

BRANAGH: On October 26th, with tension increasing,

Kennedy received a telegram from Khrushchev.

The most important paragraph in it is,

"Mr. President, Mr. Kennedy, you and I are like two men

pulling on a rope with a knot in the middle,

the harder we pull, the tighter the knot

until it will have to be out with a sword.

Now why we don't both let up the pressure

and maybe we can untie the knot?"

BRANAGH: Khrushchev went oh to offer that if the United States

declared that they wouldn't invade Cuba.

"The necessity of the presence

of our military specialists in Cuba will disappear."

At last, it looked as if cooler heads were prevailing.

The next morning, everything changed.

Khrushchev tried to push for a better deal.

He demanded a trade.

His missiles in Cuba for US missiles in Turkey.

Khrushchev thought that if he --

if the withdrawal from Turkey

could be incorporated

in a general agreement between the two sides,

that would look very good for the Soviet Union.

Much -- even better than a simple decision

by the United States not to attack Cuba.

BRANAGH: President Kennedy was prepared to take

the American missiles out of Turkey.

But they were part of America's contribution to NATO

and he could offer Khrushchev ho promises.

As Kennedy considered the options,

he received news that the crisis had escalated again.

In continued American reconnaissance,

a U2 spy plane overflew a Soviet Anti-Aircraft site

in the east of Cuba.

This time, the Soviet commander gave the order

to launch a surface-to-air missile against it.

[speaking Russian ]

The division commander Lieutenant Colonel Grechkove

was given the order to liquidate the target.

If we hadn't shot down the plane

which had photographed all of our bases,

it would have enabled the enemy to destroy us.

That would have meant we had not fulfilled our mission.

We would have betrayed our Motherland.

The standby plan was that if a U2 was shot down,

we would immediate bomb that SAM site out of existence.

President Kennedy cancel led that order,

he said, "Don't bomb that anti-aircraft site.

I want time to exchange with Khrushchev."

[ Speaking Spanish ]

A war appeared imminent,

a first strike might take place at any time.

I said to myself, "|f Cuba is in such an unfortunate war,

we will disappear from the map."

BRANAGH: Castro sent a message to Khrushchev.

He said a US attack was just hours away,

and once launched, the Soviet Union should retaliate

immediately with "an annihilating strike."

In Washington, Kennedy was still trying

to avoid a World War.

Bobby Kennedy had this brilliant idea.

He said, "Let's pick out of the Khrushchev cable

the things we like and pretend the rest isn't there."

Jack Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy,

they crafted this answer to Khrushchev that did just that.

It ignored the shoot down of the U2,

it ignored the broadcast from Moscow

that was very hawkish, you know.

And just...

we said, "We understand what you're proposing

and we listen to things we like."

BRANAGH: There was little confidence that this ploy would work.

Plans for the invasion continued.

SALINGER: The tension on Saturday night was extraordinary,

because there was going to be the meeting

where we were going to decide what time the next day

we were gonna invade Cuba

or was it gonna be later,

were we going to be bombing those areas,

and Kennedy started the meeting by saying,

"Listen, all of you have not been home

for at least six, seven days.

I want all of you to go home tonight,

come back tomorrow morning, Sunday morning,

and we'll make the decision Sunday morning.

BRANAGH: They left the White House fearful

that America could soon be engulfed in a nuclear war,

a war that once started, might be impossible to stop.

McNamara: It was a perfectly beautiful night,

as fall nights are in Washington.

I walked out of the President's oval office,

and as I walked out, I thought I might

never live to see another Saturday night.

BRANAGH: Kennedy sent his brother to another meeting

with the Soviet Ambassador.

[speaking Russian ]

He came to me and said, "The situation is very tense.

Your missiles have just shot down our plane.

Our generals demand that we fight back.

If we start bombing, you will start to fight back.

What can we do?"

I said, "What about Turkey?"

He thought for a while and said,

"You know, if that's the only condition

which prevents us from striking a deal,

then I'm authorized by the President to say

that we agree to it."

We could not take them out under threat,

we could not take them out unilaterally,

because they were NATO bases,

but he had our assurance that they would be gone

provided it was not done on a quid pro quo basis.

Therefore the Russians could not talk about it.

That was, I would say,

the last...

the last thing that led to the decision

to accept Kennedy's terms

that he would be willing to guarantee

that there would be no attack on Cuba,

but that the Soviet Union should withdraw

all offensive weapons from Cuba.

BRANAGH: Khrushchev, fearing that this might be

the last chance to escape war,

rushed a message accepting Kennedy's terms,

to Radio Moscow.

It was broadcast to the world.

Radio Moscow at 9:00 this morning.

Mr. Khrushchev crating up his missiles

and shipping them home.

SORENSEN: The first news I heard on Sunday morning

when I woke up was this broadcast from Khrushchev

over the open air,

that Soviet missiles were to be withdrawn

under inspection,

and the crisis was over.

I could hardly believe my ears.

This is the day we have every reason to believe

when the world came out from under the most

terrible threat of a nuclear holocaust

since the end of World War ll.

We were irate.

How did we learn about this?

Through the radio, oh the morning of the 28th.

They broadcast that ah agreement had been reached

between the Soviet Union and the United States,

that Kennedy was offering Khrushchev a guarantee.

It really was a disgraceful agreement.

It never crossed my mind

they would do anything like this.

[speaking Russian ]

The whole world was under the impression

that Khrushchev had lost because he had given in

to the pressure of a strong President.

That he'd taken everything out of Cuba

but got nothing in return.

No one knew about the agreement

regarding the missiles in Turkey.

If you ask who won or who lost,

I'd say neither Kennedy nor Khrushchev.

BRANAGH: Under close American surveillance,

Soviet ships took the missiles back home.

SALINGER: There is no question that if it hadn't been solved,

and we had invaded Cuba,

we would have been in a nuclear war

and the number of people who would have been killed

around the world in that nuclear war

would have been absolutely disastrous.

That was the biggest crisis of the 20th century

and the fact that Kennedy solved it with Khrushchev

is absolutely important,

because then we were moving into a totally different world.