Following almost destroying the planet, our relatives have become friends’: the thrilling podcast featuring JFK and Nikita Khrushchev’s descendants.

During October 1962, humanity came nearer toward annihilation than at any other point during recent history. This happened after a US reconnaissance aircraft found that Soviet atomic weapon installations were being assembled in the island of Cuba, a mere 160 kilometers off the coast of American soil. In response, President JFK commanded the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet to impose a maritime quarantine encircling the island. What followed was almost a fortnight of unbearable tension.

An Unthinkable Danger

The peril remained obvious. If President Kennedy, or his Russian opposite, Premier Khrushchev, had fired against their enemy, a series of worldwide nuclear strikes followed by retaliatory strikes could have ensued, plunging humanity toward total destruction.

The Cuban missile crisis has been covered extensively, in volumes, movies, as well as TV documentaries. But, for its third season, the BBC World Service podcast The Bomb has brought a novel element to this historical narrative. It is co-presented featuring Kennedy's relative alongside Khrushchev's descendant, relatives of the leaders that, for 13 days, grasped the fate of humanity within their grasp.

"What were the Soviet side planning? What was the American side thinking?" asks Khrushcheva, Khrushchev’s great-granddaughter and a professor of global relations.

In her view, the beauty of the podcast lies in its attempt to question: "Why do individuals detest each other and oppose one another?"

"I am acutely aware how profound the fact that humans have the potential to be allies or else can become total adversaries," adds Max Kennedy, the son of Robert Kennedy, related to the late president and now a writer and attorney. "We see this repeatedly when nations have gone to war, demonstrating the sheer folly involved to fight."

The Precipice Towards Catastrophe

What is remarkable regarding this event was that, because it unfolded in the global spotlight, people around the world could watch almost as it happened while it moved closer to disaster. Even so, the risk of annihilation was more imminent than what anybody understood at the time.

"The overwhelming majority among Kennedy's advisors were advocating for a military strike followed by an invasion," notes Max Kennedy. "If we had attacked the Cubans with the Sixth Fleet, undoubtedly the Russians stationed there would have launched a nuclear warhead at the American ships, and that would've sunk the aircraft carriers as well as destroyed America's largest and most important naval force. And, we would have responded with an overwhelming counterattack that would have ended most life on Earth."

The fact it didn’t stands as credit to Kennedy and Khrushchev, who managed to keep their heads and engaging in diplomacy when many advisors around them was pushing for military action. Consequently, Khrushchev removed the nuclear weapons from the Caribbean island while President Kennedy (a fact not publicly disclosed at the time) withdrew his similar weapons based in NATO ally Turkey. The sense of relief was immense, matched by the sense of hope.

A Different Perspective

Still, during those 13 days in October, the tension was felt globally. The Bomb’s presenters came into the world in the years following these events, with Nina being taught about the crisis through the USSR's school curriculum, which portrayed an alternative narrative of what happened.

"You said your parent remembers it, and it was a frightening time," Khrushcheva notes. "However for Soviet citizens, the public were largely unaware a great deal about it, because it was a tense situation, and in the Soviet Union the official line was that things are constantly fine or sunny."

Inside the Khrushchev household, however, it was different. "I was informed that it was a triumphant moment it was, as it represented eyeball to eyeball. They were able to find a solution, thus didn’t start the war, seen as a positive outcome," she continues. In the years to come, though, that view was not held by all Russians. "For a long time within Russian historical analysis, it was considered a failure for Khrushchev, because he didn’t blow up the United States."

A Unlikely Partnership

The Bomb is so even-handed , well produced that Nina quips it almost made her forget she already knew the ending. This is, partly, due to the participation of renowned scholars. Yet, truly, the most momentous thing is the involvement of the descendants. Even within living memory, it would be unthinkable that relatives of the heads of state of America and Soviet Union to appear together publicly. That Max Kennedy and Nina Khrushcheva are able to do so, and exhibit such warmth with each other, has to be a sign of optimism.

"We are not the pioneers," notes Khrushcheva. "Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, a relative moved to America where he became great friends with the former president's family."

"But we had never met prior to this project," clarifies Kennedy. "That is unfortunate because we connected immediately and now we’re friends, which is wonderful. Finally, following nearly six decades of almost destroying the planet, our families have become friends, suggesting global relations is safer, somewhat."

Contemporary Parallels with Current Perils

Is that truly the case? One reason the reason this series feels so necessary is that we once again find ourselves in dark times. The Doomsday Clock stands nearer to midnight than ever before, in part because world leaders don’t seem to be able to comprehend