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In 1962, during the Caribbean crisis, the world found itself on the brink
of a nuclear war. By that time the “cold war” confrontation between the
Soviet-led socialist camp and the US-led NATO had reached a critical point
with two multi-million armies bristling up against each other with all
their tanks, warplanes and nuclear warheads. America’s military superiority
annoyed the then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev who snatched at the opportunity
offered by the socialist revolution on Cuba to deter a possible aggression.
After Fidel Castro gave his official consent to the deployment of Soviet
nuclear missiles on the Island of Freedom, Washington felt itself really
vulnerable to a nuclear strike. President John Kennedy staked his all and
sent warships to intimidate the Castro regime. But from the other hemisphere
a Soviet fleet equipped with nuclear warheads was cutting through the Atlantic.
The world was an inch from a nuclear conflict. It’s hard to tell where
we would all have been now, had not Kennedy and Khrushchev exchanged flash
telegrams and struck a compromise. Both agreed to call back their ships.
On October 28 Khrushchev’s message was broadcast by Radio Moscow even before
it reached the White House. Veteran broadcaster Anatoly Bolgarev, who has
been working on the radio and television for more than half a century,
recalls those days:
“On that day a messenger with a letter from the Kremlin arrived at the
Radio House on Pyatnitskaya Street,” Anatoly Bolgarev says. “The head of
the Radio Committee summoned translators and told them to translate the
text of the letter into English and Spanish immediately.
Our studios were in another district at the time. Today Red Square is open
only to pedestrians but back then transport vehicles were also allowed
to cross it at a limited speed. A senior radio official jumped into a Volga
car and ordered the driver to go at full speed with sound signals and switched
upper beams, ignoring traffic lights. The militiamen on Red Square were
taken aback. But minutes later their cars and motorcycles raced through
downtown Moscow in pursuit of the Volga. A cavalcade of cars rolled up
towards our studio premises on Putinki. The law-enforcers lashed out at
the poor driver, yet they failed to intercept the letter, which had already
been passed to the announcers and was soon read live on the air. By the
time Khrushchev’s official message had reached the White House but the
world already knew about the Soviet Union’s decision to call off its fleet.”
There were neither winners, nor losers in the Caribbean crisis that left
a deep trace in history. What’s important is that at the last moment common
sense prevailed. We must draw lessons from our past to make this world
a better place to live.
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