On the edge of the apocalypse

Sixty years ago, in October 1962, the USA and the USSR confronted each other in a way that could lead to nuclear war, thus the end of modern civilization. Fortunately for us, that didn't happen, but the questions of how we got there and how we got out remain relevant to this day. In addition, there are dominant narratives, myths about certain actors, generally accepted "facts", factors that could lead to a nuclear apocalypse, of which even the main actors (Kennedy, Khrushchev and their collaborators) were not aware.

There have been other situations where we could have experienced a nuclear disaster (probably the most dangerous in September 1983 when Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet lieutenant colonel, saved us), but the Cuban Missile Crisis is the only situation in which the leaders of the two superpowers consciously considered a direct military confrontation that could escalate to general nuclear war.

In general, the description of the crisis and its resolution is quite well known thanks to memoirs, historians, published documentation, documentaries and feature films. From all this, the long-dominant interpretation crystallized, according to which Kennedy initially took the position that the Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba were an unacceptable change to the previous status of the nuclear balance between the USA and the USSR, and that he took careful steps which, through a combination of firmness and restraint , led to a diplomatic compromise and the elimination of nuclear missiles from Cuba. At the same time, in the dominant American interpretation, this was a triumph for Kennedy, because he forced the USSR to retreat with bold and wise decisions.

This narrative, however, does not contain the full truth of what happened…

Read on full text by Ivan Vujačić in the weekly "Vreme" from Thursday (October 27)