New Take on the Cuban Missile Crisis

Guest: Martin Sherwin, University Professor of History at George Mason University, and author of "Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis"

How close did we come to nuclear disaster when the Soviets and the US went toe to toe over Cuba in 1962? Much closer than most people think. During the Cuban missile crisis, leaders on both sides felt and fumbled and bumbled their way out of a mess that could have ended very differently.

 

Was the Murder of JFK Castro’s Payback?

Guest: Jim Johnston, lawyer, lecturer, and author of "Murder, Inc.: The CIA Under John F. Kennedy" 

The Bay of Pigs invasion was just one of the many ways John F. Kennedy tried to destabilize Fidel Castro’s regime, though the President’s other methods were more cloak-and-dagger, such as hiring mobsters to poison Castro, deploying saboteurs, and secretly organizing a coup. Despite Kennedy’s actions, and Lyndon Johnson’s reversal of these plots, the Warren Commission concluded that JFK’s assassination had nothing to do with his Cuba policy.