Thirteen Days on the Brink

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With each passing day and with each passing hour, preparations for war are becoming increasingly intense in the world.

SPEAKER_5 (0:47)

Ever since communism moved into Cuba in 1958, Soviet technical and military personnel have moved steadily onto the island in increasing numbers at the invitation of the Cuban government.

SPEAKER_4 (1:00)

You cannot settle differences half by peace and half by war. There is no half war and half peace, nor can there be.

Jane Perlez (1:16)

It's October 1962 In the Atlantic, north of Cuba, just 600 miles from the US., the crew of Soviet submarine B-59 are nearing their limit. Weeks of cramped conditions, temperatures now exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit, dwindling water supplies, and they cannot surface, and Moscow is unreachable. This Soviet sub is one of four patrolling the waters. Their mission? To defend Cuba against a US invasion. On board this Soviet sub is a nuclear-tipped torpedo, with roughly the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. And the orders from Moscow about when to use it are dangerously ambiguous. There were three instructions. One, fire if there's a breach in the hull underwater. Two, fire if the sub surfaces and US forces blow a hole in the hull. And three, fire on order from Moscow.

The world has never been closer to nuclear war.

I'm Jane Perlez, and this is Face Off, Nuclear Anarchy, a series about the dangers of a world with growing nuclear arsenals. Today on the show, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 13 most dangerous days in history and why they still matter. Plus, we'll hear from Matthew Bunn of the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard's Belfer Center.

On the 22nd of October, President Kennedy had addressed the nation on television, revealing what he had learned a week earlier. Soviet medium-range missiles on Cuba can reach Washington, DC or New York within minutes.

SPEAKER_5 (3:26)

This secret, swift, extraordinary buildup is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo, which cannot be accepted by this country.

We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the course of worldwide nuclear war, but neither will we shrink from that risk. I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to haul and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace.

Jane Perlez (3:57)

Just three days after Kennedy's address, Soviet submarines are detected by the US. Navy.

Under the sea, conditions on the Soviet subs continue to deteriorate. Engine rooms have reached 140 degrees Fahrenheit. CO2 levels are rising. Crew members are collapsing at their posts. And American ships are circling above the subs, pinging them with sonar, a relentless, reverberating, pounding noise that fills the hull.

Moscow is still unreachable. The only intelligence a Soviet crew has about what's unfolding on the surface is what they can pick up on American radio broadcasts. And what they're hearing is not reassuring.

SPEAKER_7 (4:49)

We now know that the Soviet Union has decided to transform Cuba into a base for communist aggression, into a base for putting all of the Americas under the nuclear gun.

SPEAKER_8 (5:04)

The most critical threat of global war since the surrender of Germany 17 years ago.

Jane Perlez (5:10)

October 27th, 1962 The day that went down in history as Black Saturday. It all comes to a head. The captain of the B-59, Valentin Savitsky, has tried everything to shake the Americans. But nothing has worked. His nerves are shot. He's yelling at the crew. And he's jittery in the extreme heat. It's also dark. Only the emergency lighting pierces the gloom.

It feels close. Too close. Above the B-59, the US destroyer Beale is firing practice-depth charges, non-lethal devices, to try and force the sub to surface. Back on land, Washington has tried to warn Moscow that the charges are not an attack. But to the men inside that sub, it sounds anything but. One sub-mariner describes it like being beaten with a sledgehammer.

Finally at 8:52 p.m., the B-59 surfaces, batteries critically low.

Captain Savitsky is first out, gasping for air. The sub is completely surrounded by the Americans. Searchlights blind him. A low-flying aircraft fires incendiary flares. Savitsky, incensed, wants to launch the nuclear torpedo. But another senior commander aboard, Brigade Chief of Staff Vasily Ahipov, talks him down. He persuades the captain that the Americans are trying to communicate, not attack. Ahipov was successful, but if he had failed, you wouldn't be listening to this.