Departures With Robert Amsterdam

Looking back almost 60 years ago when the United States and the Soviet Union came within an inch of destroying the world via all-out nuclear war, we continue to gain new insights into the dramatic events, the changing of thinking and decision-making that went on in both ExComm and the Presidium. This week we're proud to be joined Serhii Plokhy, a professor of history at Harvard University and the author of the excellent book, "Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis." Plokhy's book provides an international perspective on the crisis, featuring unprecedented access to Soviet archives and documentary materials showing how Nikita Khrushchev navigated the incredibly tense diplomatic showdown as well as the struggle for influence going on within the Presidium. Plokhy's findings reveal that CIA intelligence could have catastrophically misjudged Russia's ability to fight in Cuba and launch warheads, including how they appeared to miss the presence of nine short-range Luna missiles with nuclear warheads,